Thus one of the closest and holiest affections, that of a father for his daughter, and of a daughter for her father, softened the last moments of this distinguished man. Sir Thomas sent Margaret his hair-shirt and scourge, which he desired to conceal from the eyes of the indifferent. What an inheritance!
That night he slept quietly, and the next morning early (6th of July, 1535), a fortnight after the death of the bishop, Sir Thomas Pope, one of his familiar friends, came to inform him that he must hold himself in readiness. 'I thank the king,' said More, 'for shutting me up in this prison, whereby he has put me in a condition to make suitable preparation for death. The only favor I beg of him is, that my daughter may be present at my burial.' Pope left the cell in tears. Then the prisoner put on a fine silk robe which his wealthy friend Bonvisi, the merchant of Lucca, had given him. 'Leave that dress here,' said Kingston, 'for the man to whom it falls by custom is only a jailer.'—'I cannot look upon that man as a jailer,' answered More, 'who opens the gates of heaven for me.'
=EXECUTION OF SIR THOMAS MORE.=
At nine o'clock the procession quitted the Tower. More was calm, his face pale, his beard long and curly; he carried a crucifix in his hand, and his eyes were often turned towards heaven. A numerous and sympathizing crowd watched him pass along—a man one time so honored, lord chancellor, lord chief-justice, president of the house of Lords—whom armed men were now leading to the scaffold. Just as he was passing in front of a house of mean appearance, a poor woman standing at the door, went up to him and offered him a cup of wine to strengthen him: 'Thank you,' he said gently, 'thank you; Christ drank vinegar only.' On arriving at the place of execution: 'Give me your hand to help me up,' he said to Kingston, adding: 'As for my coming down, you may let me shift for myself.'[150] He mounted the scaffold. Sir Thomas Pope, at the king's request, had begged him to make no speech, fearing the effect this illustrious man might produce upon the people. More desired however to say a few words, but the sheriff stopped him. 'I die,' he was content to say, 'in the faith of the catholic Church, and a faithful servant of God and the king.' He then knelt down and repeated the fifty-first Psalm:[151] Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. When he rose up, the executioner begged his forgiveness: 'Why do you talk of forgiveness?' replied More; 'you are doing me the greatest kindness I ever received from man.' He desired the man not to be afraid to do his office, and remarked that his neck was very short. With his own hands he fastened a bandage over his eyes, and then laid his head on the block. The executioner, holding the axe, was preparing to strike, when More stopped him, and putting his beard carefully on one side, said: 'This at least has not committed treason.' Such words, almost jesting, no doubt, startle us at such a moment; but strong men have often been observed to manifest the calmness of their souls in such a manner. More probably feared that his long beard would embarrass the executioner, and deaden the blow. At length that head fell, through which so many noble thoughts had passed; that keen clear eye was closed; those eloquent lips were the lips of a corpse. The head was exposed on London bridge, and Margaret discharged the painful duty her father had bequeathed her, by piously burying his body.
=HENRY'S VICTIMS.=
Thus, at the cost of his life, this eminent man protested against the aberrations of a cruel prince, who usurped the title given by the Bible to Jesus Christ alone. The many evangelical martyrs who had been sacrificed in different countries and who were to be sacrificed, showed in general, to a greater extent than Fisher and More, an ardent love for the Saviour, a lively hope of eternal life; but none showed greater calmness than they. These two good men wanted discernment as to what constitutes the pure Gospel; their piety bound them too much, as we have said, to monastic practices; they had (and More especially) in the days of their power persecuted the disciples of the Lord, and though they rejected the usurpations of the king, had acted as fanatical defenders of those of the pope. But at a time when there were so many cringing bishops and servile nobles—when almost every one bent the head timidly before the mad popery of Henry VIII., these two firmly held up theirs. More and Fisher were companions in misfortune with Bilney and Fryth: the same royal hand struck them all. Our sympathies are for the victims, our aversion for the executioner.
The death of these two celebrated men caused an immense sensation. In England, the people and even the nobility were struck with astonishment. Could it be true, men asked, that Thomas More, whom Henry had known since he was nine years old, with whom he used to hold friendly conversations by night on the terrace of his country-house, at whose table he used to love to sit down familiarly, whom he had chosen, although a layman and a knight only, to succeed the powerful Wolsey:—could it be true that by the king's orders he had perished by the axe? Could it be true that Fisher had met with the same fate—that venerable old man of fourscore years, who had been his preceptor, the trusty friend of his grandmother, and to whose teaching he owed the progress he had made in learning? Men began to see that resistance to a Tudor was the scaffold. Every one trembled, and even those who had not known the two victims could not restrain their tears.[152]
The horror which these executions caused among the enlightened men of the continent was displayed with more liberty and energy. 'I am dead,' exclaimed Erasmus, 'since More is dead: for, as Pythagoras says, we had but one soul between us.'[153]—'O England! O dearly beloved country,' said Reginald Pole; 'he was not only Margaret's father, but thine also!'—'This year is fatal to our order,' said Melanchthon the reformer; 'I hear that More has been killed and others also. You know how such things wring my heart.'[154]—'We banish such criminals,' said Francis I. sharply to the English ambassador, 'but we do not put them to death.'—'If I had two such lights in my kingdom,' said Charles V., 'I would sooner give two of my strongest cities than suffer them to be extinguished.' At Rome in particular the anger was terrible. They were still flattering themselves that Henry VIII. would return to his old sympathies; but now there was no more hope! The king had put to death a prince of the Church, and as he had sworn, the cardinal's hat could find no head to wear it. A consistory was immediately summoned: Cardinal de Tournon's touching letter was read, and all who heard it were moved even to tears. The embarrassed and speechless agents of England knew not what to do; and as they reported, there was everything to be feared.
Perhaps nobody was so confounded as the pontiff. Paul III. was circumspect, prudent, deliberative, and temporizing; but when he thought the moment arrived, when he believed further manœuvring was not required, he no longer hesitated, but struck forcibly. It is known that he had two young relations whom, in his blind tenderness, he had created cardinals, notwithstanding their youth and the emperor's representations. 'Alas!' he exclaimed, 'I feel as mortally injured, as if my two nephews had been killed before my eyes.'[155] His most devoted partisans, and above all a cardinal of his creation put to death! There was a violent movement in his heart; he worked himself into a fury; he desired to strike the prince whose cruel deeds had wounded him so deeply. His anger burst out in a thunder-clap. On the 30th of August he issued a bull worthy of Gregory VII., which the more zealous partisans of the papacy would like to remove from the papal records.[156] 'Let King Henry repent of his crimes,' said the pontiff; 'we give him ninety days and his accomplices sixty to appear at Rome. In case of default, we strike him with the sword of anathema, of malediction, and of eternal damnation;[157] we take away his kingdom from him; we declare that his body shall be deprived of ecclesiastical burial; we launch an interdict against his States; we release his subjects from their oath of fidelity; we call upon all dukes, marquises and earls to expel him and his accomplices from England; we unbind all Christian princes from their oaths towards him, command them to march against him and constrain him to return to the obedience due to the Holy Apostolic See, giving them all his goods for their reward, and he and his to be their slaves.'[158]
Anger had the same effect upon the pontiff as inebriety; he had lost the use of his reason, and allowed himself to be carried away to threats and excesses of which he would have been ashamed, had he been sober. Accordingly the drunkenness was hardly over, before the unfortunate Paul hastened to hide his bull, and carefully laid aside his thunderbolts in the arsenal, free to bring them out later.