“What feelings were mine, dear friend, on learning that you are imprisoned here so near me, you may imagine. What a consolation it would be to clasp you in my arms! But that is denied me; God so wills it. During the first doleful night I spent in this prison my eyes never once closed in sleep. I heard your footsteps; I listened, I counted them most anxiously. I asked myself who this unfortunate creature could be who, like myself, groaned in this place; if it were long since he had seen the light of heaven, and why he was imprisoned in this den of stone. Alas! and it was you. Now I see you, I follow you everywhere. What anguish is mine to be so near you, yet not be able to see or speak to you! Rap from time to time on the floor in such a manner that I may know you are speaking to me; my heart will understand thine. It seems to me the voice of the stones will communicate your words. I shall listen night and day for your signals, and this will be a great consolation to me.”
“Hasten, Sir Thomas,” said Kingston. “I hear a noise in the yard; they are searching for me.”
“Yes, yes,” replied Sir Thomas.
“My friend, they hurry me. Do you remember all you said to me at Chelsea the night you urged me not to accept the chancellorship? O my friend! how often I have thought of it. And you—you also will be a victim, I fear. They hurry me, and I have so many things to say to you since the time I saw you last! I fear you suffer from cold in your cell. Ask Kingston for covering; for my sake he will give it you. Implore him to bring me your reply. A letter
from you—what happiness in my abandoned condition; for they will not permit Margaret to visit me. I am in solitary confinement. They will probably let me die slowly of misery, immured within these four walls. They fear the publicity of a trial; and men so quickly forget those who disappear from before their eyes. God, however, will not forget us, and we are ever in his keeping; for he says in holy Scripture: ‘I carry you written in my hand, and a mother shall forget her child before I forget the soul that seeks me in sincerity of heart.’ Farewell, dear friend; let us pray for each other. I love and cherish you in our Lord Jesus Christ, our precious Saviour and our only Redeemer.
“Thomas More.”
Meanwhile, Rumor, on her airy wing, in her indefatigable and rapid course, had very soon circulated throughout the country reports of Henry’s enormities. The great multitudes of people who prostrated themselves before the cross, carried it with reverence in their hands, and elevated it proudly above their heads, were astonished and indignant at these recitals of crime. Princes trembled on their thrones, and those who surrounded them lived in constant dread.
Thomas More, the model among men, the Bishop of Rochester, that among the angels—these men cast into a gloomy prison, separated from all that was most dear to them, scarcely clothed, and fed on the coarse fare of criminals—such outrages men discussed among themselves, and reported to the compassionate and generous hearts of their mothers and sisters.
Will, then, no voice be raised in their defence? Will no one endeavor to snatch them from the tortures to which they are about to be delivered up? Are the English people dead and their intellects stultified? Do relatives, friends, law, and honor no longer exist
among this people? Have they become but a race of bloodthirsty executioners, a crowd of brutal slaves, who live on the grain the earth produces, and drink from the rivers that water it? Such were the thoughts which occupied them, circulating from mouth to mouth among the tumultuous children of men.