Audley immediately began to interrogate him.
“Your name?”
“Richard Southwell.”
“Your age?”
“Twenty-four years.”
“Your profession?”
“The king’s clerk.”
“You swear,” said the chancellor to the witness, “that the testimony you are about to render before the court, and before the jury interposed between our sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar, will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.”
“I have no testimony to offer,” said Richard.
“What!” exclaimed Audley. “Here is Master Rich, who cites you as having been present at a conversation he had in the Tower prison with Sir Thomas More.”