At the extremity of this hall, upon an elevated platform all covered with carpet and fringe, were seated the new lord chancellor, Thomas Audley; near him, Sir John Fitz-James, Lord Chief-Justice; and beyond, Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury; the Duke of Norfolk, several lords of the Privy Council, among them the Duke of Suffolk, the Abbot of Westminster, and Cromwell, who on this occasion acted as secretary. To the left of the court, and near the jury, was seated Richard Rich, the creature of Cromwell, and his worthy associate, newly appointed, on account of his efficient services, solicitor-general.
“Sir Thomas Palmer, knight?” said the clerk. “Sir Thomas Peint, knight? George Lowell, esquire? Thomas Burbage, esquire? Geoffrey Chamber, gentleman? Edward Stockmore, gentleman? Joseph Leake, gentleman? William Brown, gentleman? Thomas Bellington, gentleman? John Parnell, gentleman? Richard Bellam, gentleman? George Stokes, gentleman?”
All responded to their names.
“Sir Thomas More,” said the lord chancellor, in a slow and hard tone, “do you challenge any one of these gentlemen of the jury?”
“No, my lord,” replied Sir Thomas, who was standing up before the court, leaning upon a cane he held in his hand, and which had been of great assistance to him during the long sessions he had already been obliged to endure in that fatiguing and inconvenient position. Meanwhile, he anxiously watched the door through which the accused entered, and was uneasy at not seeing the Bishop of Rochester; for they met only in court, and it was a moment of relief when he beheld his friend near him, although he every day remarked with sadness that Rochester was failing in a lamentable manner.
“The accused challenges none of the members of the jury,” proclaimed the lord chief-justice. He then arose, and began to recite the formula of the oath to be taken by each member of the jury.
“Now, Sir Thomas,” said the chancellor, “I desire to address you yet a last observation, and I wish with all my heart that you may yield to it; because the king, not having forgotten your long services, is deeply grieved at the perilous position in which your obstinacy, too evidently the result of malice, has placed you. He has
ordered us to unbend again, and for the last time, so far as to implore you, in his own name and for the love of him, to take the oath of obedience which you owe to the statute of Parliament, and of fidelity to his royal person—an oath he has a right to exact of you according to all laws, divine and human.”
“In fidelity, my lord,” replied Sir Thomas, “in respect, in attachment, I have never been wanting to the king. It has been a long time, a very long time, an entire lifetime, since I took the oath. It cannot be changed; therefore it can never be necessary to have it renewed.”
“You persist, then, in your culpable obstinacy?” said the lord chancellor.