Cassalis himself was afterwards disposed to believe that the appointment was made in thoughtlessness, and that the pope at the moment had really forgotten Fisher's position.[452] But this could gain no credit in England. The news reached the government in the middle of June, and determined the fate of the unfortunate bishop; and with it the fate, also, of his nobler The appointment seals Fisher's fate. companion. To the king, the pope's conduct appeared a defiance; and as a defiance he accepted it. In vain Fisher declared that he had not sought his ill-timed honours, and would not accept them. Neither his ignorance nor his refusal could avail him. Once more he was called upon to submit, with the intimation, that if he refused he must bear the consequences. His reply June 17. He is tried at Westminster, remained what it had been; and on the 17th of June he was taken[453] down in a boat to Westminster Hall, where the special commission was sitting. The proceedings at his trial are thus briefly summed up in the official record:—"Thursday after the feast of St. Barnabas, John Fisher was brought to the bar by Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower. Pleads not And is condemned. guilty. Venire awarded. Verdict—guilty. Judgment as usual in cases of treason."[454]
It was a swift sentence, and swiftly to be executed. Five days were allowed him to prepare himself; and the more austere features of the penalty were remitted with some show of pity. He was to die by the axe.
Mercy was not to be hoped for. It does not seem to have been sought. He was past eighty. The earth on the edge of the grave was already crumbling under his feet; and death had little to make it fearful. When the last morning dawned, he dressed himself carefully—as he said, for his marriage-day. The June 22. He is beheaded on Tower Hill. distance to Tower Hill was short. He was able to walk; and he tottered out of the prison-gates, holding in his hand a closed volume of the New Testament. The crowd flocked about him, and he was heard to pray that, as this book had been his best comfort and companion, so in that hour it might give him some special strength, and speak to him as from his Lord. Then opening it at a venture, he read: "This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." It was the answer to his prayer; and he continued to repeat the words as he was led forward. On the scaffold he chanted the Te Deum, and then, after a few prayers, knelt down, and meekly laid his head upon a pillow where neither care nor fear nor sickness would ever vex it more. Many a spectacle of sorrow had been witnessed on that tragic spot, but never one more sad than this; never one more painful to think or speak of. When a nation is in the throes of revolution, wild spirits are abroad in the storm; and poor human nature presses blindly forward with the burden which is laid upon it, tossing aside the obstacles in its path with a recklessness which, in calmer hours, it would fear to contemplate.
Sir Thomas More followed, his fortunes linked in death as in life to those of his friend. He was left to the last—in the hope, perhaps, that the example might produce an effect which persuasion could not. But the example, if that was the object, worked to far other purpose. From More's high-tempered nature, such terrors fell harmless, as from enchanted armour. Death to him was but a passing from one country to another; and he had all along anticipated that his prison was the antechamber of the scaffold. He had, indeed, taken no pains to avoid it. The king, according to the unsuspicious evidence of his daughter, Margaret Roper, had not accused him without cause of exciting a spirit of resistance. He had spent his time in encouraging Catholics to persevere to martyrdom for their faith. In his many conversations with herself, he had expressed himself with all freedom, and to others he had doubtless spoken as plainly as to her.[455]
On the 7th of May he was examined by the same persons who examined Fisher; and he was interrogated again and again in subsequent interviews. His humour did not allow him to answer questions directly: he played with his catechists, and did not readily furnish them with materials for a charge. He had corresponded with Fisher in prison, on the conduct which he meant to pursue. Some of these letters had been burnt; but others were in the hands of the government, and would have been sufficient to sustain the June 26. A true bill found against Sir Thomas More.
July 1. He is brought to the bar. prosecution, but they preferred his own words from his own lips. At length sufficient evidence was obtained. On the 26th of June, a true bill was found against him by the Grand Jury of Middlesex; and on the 1st of July the High Commission sat again in Westminster Hall, to try the most illustrious prisoner who ever listened to his sentence there.[456] He walked from the Tower—feebly, however, and with a stick, for he was weak from long confinement. On appearing at the bar, a chair was brought for him, and he was allowed to sit. The indictment was then read by the attorney-general. It set forth that Sir Thomas More, traitorously imagining and attempting to deprive the king of his title as supreme Head of the Church, did, on the 7th of May, when examined before Thomas Cromwell, the king's principal secretary, and divers other persons, whether he would accept the king as Head on earth of the Church of England, pursuant to the statute, refuse to give a direct answer, but replied, "I will not meddle with any such matters, for I am fully determined to serve God and to think upon His passion, and my passage out of this world."[457] Substance of the indictment. He was then charged with having written to Fisher that "The act of parliament was like a sword with two edges; for if a man answered one way it would confound his soul, and if the other way it would confound his body."[458] Finally and chiefly, he had spoken treasonable words in the Tower to Rich, the solicitor-general. Rich had endeavoured to persuade him, as Cranmer had endeavoured in his previous difficulty at Lambeth, that it was his duty as a subject to obey the law of the land. "Supposing it was enacted by act of parliament," the solicitor-general had said, "that I, Richard Rich, should be king, and that it should be treason to deny it, what would be the offence if you, Sir Thomas More, were to say that I was king?" More had answered that, in his conscience, he would be bound by the act of parliament, and would be obliged to accept Rich as king. He would put another case, however. "Suppose it should be enacted by parliament, quod Deus non esset Deus, and that opposing the act should be treason, if it were asked of him, Richard Rich, whether he would say Quod Deus non erat Deus, according to this statute, and if he were to say No, would he not offend?" Rich had replied, "Certainly, because it is impossible, quod Deus non esset Deus; but why, Master More, can you not accept the king as chief Head of the Church of England, just as you would that I should be made king, in which case you agree that you would be obliged to acknowledge me as king?" "To which More, persevering in his treasons, had answered to Rich, that the cases were not similar, because the king could be made by parliament and deprived by parliament;[459] but in the first case the subject could not be obliged, because his consent could not be given for that in parliament."
The chancellor urges him to submit.
This was the substance of the indictment. As soon as it was read, the lord chancellor rose, and told the prisoner that he saw how grievously he had offended the king; it was not too late to ask for mercy, however, which his Majesty desired to show.
He trusts, however, to remain in his opinion till death.
"My lord," More replied, "I have great cause to thank your honour for your courtesy, but I beseech Almighty God that I may continue in the mind that I am in through His grace unto death." To the charges against him he pleaded "not guilty," and answered them at length. He could not say indeed that the facts were not true; for although he denied that he had "practised" against the supremacy, he could not say that he had consented to it, or that he ever would consent; but like the Prior of the Charterhouse, he could not The jury find a verdict of guilty. admit himself guilty when he had only obeyed his conscience. The jury retired to consider, and in a quarter of an hour returned with their verdict. The chancellor, after receiving it, put the usual question, what the prisoner could say in arrest of judgment. More replied, but replied with a plea which it was impossible to recognise, by denouncing the statute under which he was tried, and insisting on the obligation of obedience to the see of Rome. Thus the sentence was inevitable. It was pronounced in the ordinary form; but the usual punishment for treason was commuted, as it had been with Fisher, to death upon the scaffold; and this last favour was communicated as a special instance of the royal clemency. More's wit was always ready. "God forbid," he answered, "that the king should show any more such mercy unto any of my friends; and God bless all my posterity from such pardons."[460]
The pageant was over, for such a trial was little more. As the procession formed to lead back the "condemned traitor" to the Tower, the commissioners once more adjured him to have pity on himself, and offered to reopen the court if he would reconsider his resolution. More smiled, and replied only a few words of graceful farewell.