A nobler victim followed. In the lists of those who were prepared to take arms against the King there is no mention of the name of Sir Thomas More; but he had been Fisher’s intimate friend and companion, and he could hardly have been ignorant of a conspiracy with which Fisher had been so closely concerned; while malice might be inferred without injustice from an acquaintance with dangerous purposes which he had not revealed. He paid the penalty of the society to which he had attached himself. He, even more than the Bishop of Rochester, was the chief of the party most opposed to the Reformation. He had distinguished himself as Chancellor by his zeal against the Lutherans, and, if that party had won the day, they would have gone to work as they did afterwards when Mary became Queen. No one knew better than More the need in which the Church stood of the surgeon’s hand; no one saw clearer the fox’s face under the monk’s cowl: but, like other moderate reformers, he detested impatient enthusiasts who spoilt their cause by extravagance. He felt towards the Protestantism which was spreading in England as Burke felt towards the Convention and the Jacobin Club, and while More lived and defied the statute the vast middle party in the nation which was yet undecided found encouragement in opposition from his example. His execution has been uniformly condemned by historians as an act of wanton tyranny. It was not wanton, and it was not an act of tyranny. It was an inevitable and painful incident of an infinitely blessed revolution.
The received accounts of his trial are confirmed with slight additions by a paper of news from England which was sent to the Imperial Court.
More was charged with having deprived the King of the title of “Supreme Head of the Church,” which had been granted to him by the last Parliament. He replied that, when questioned by the King’s Secretary what he thought of the statute, he had answered that, being a dead man to the world, he cared nothing for such things, and he could not be condemned for silence. The King’s Attorney said that all good subjects were bound to answer without dissimulation or reserve, and silence was the same as speech. Silence, More objected, was generally taken to mean consent. Whatever his thoughts might be, he had never uttered them.
He was charged with having exchanged letters with the Bishop of Rochester in the Tower on the replies which they were to give on their examination. Each had said that the statute was a sword with two edges, one of which slew the body, the other the soul. As they had used the same words it was clear that they were confederated.
More replied that he had answered as his conscience dictated, and had advised the Bishop to do the same. He did not believe that he had ever said or done anything maliciously against the statute.
The jury consulted only for a quarter of an hour and returned a verdict of “guilty.” Sentence passed as a matter of course, and then More spoke out. As he was condemned, he said he would now declare his opinion. He had studied the question for seven years, and was satisfied that no temporal lord could be head of the spiritualty. For each bishop on the side of the Royal Supremacy he could produce a hundred saints. For their Parliament he had the Councils of a thousand years. For one kingdom he had all the other Christian Powers. The Bishops had broken their vows; the Parliament had no authority to make laws against the unity of Christendom, and had capitally sinned in making them. His crime had been his opposition to the second marriage of the King. He had faith, however, that, as St. Paul persecuted St. Stephen, yet both were now in Paradise, so he and his judges, although at variance in this world, would meet in charity hereafter.[334]
The end came quickly. The trial was on the 1st of July; on the 6th the head fell of one of the most interesting men that England ever produced. Had the supremacy been a question of opinion, had there been no conspiracy to restore by arms the Papal tyranny, no clergy and nobles entreating the landing of an army like that which wasted Flanders at the command of the Duke of Alva, no Irish nobles murdering Archbishops and receiving Papal absolution for it, to have sent Sir Thomas More to the scaffold for believing the Pope to be master of England would have been a barbarous murder, deserving the execration which has been poured upon it. An age which has no such perils to alarm its slumbers forgets the enemies which threatened to waste the country with fire and sword, and admires only the virtues which remain fresh for all time; we, too, if exposed to similar possibilities might be no more merciful than our forefathers.
The execution of Fisher and More was the King’s answer to Papal thunders and domestic conspirators, and the effect was electric. Darcy again appealed to Chapuys, praying that the final sentence should be instantly issued. He did not wish to wait any longer for Imperial aid. The Pope having spoken, the country would now rise of itself. The clergy would furnish all the money needed for a beginning, and a way might be found to seize the gold in the treasury. Time pressed. They must get to work at once. If they loitered longer the modern preachers and prelates would corrupt the people, and all would be lost.[335] Cifuentes wrote from Rome to the Emperor that the Bishop of Paris was on his way there with proposals from Francis for an arrangement with England which would be fatal to the Queen, the Church, and the morals of Christendom. He begged to be allowed to press the Pope to hold in readiness a brief deposing Henry; a brief which, if once issued, could not be recalled.[336]