affections, and by a weak clergy, lacking grace constantly to stand to their learning, with flattery be so shamefully abused." * Lest it be suspected that Margaret may not have exactly reported her father's words, or that Sir Thomas may have spoken hastily, I will add that the best legal authorities of modern times entirely accept More's view, as related by Roper; and that the government virtually acknowledged its error, by causing parliament to ratify their past arbitrary proceedings. A new session began on the 3rd of November, 1534. Roper says: "At length, the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Secretary, espying their own oversight, were fain to find the means that another statute should be made for the confirmation of the oath so amplified with their additions".

Sir James Mackintosh writes: "An Act was passed + which ratifies and professes to recite the form of oath promulgated on the day of prorogation; and enacts that the oath above recited shall be reputed to be the very oath intended by the former Act of Succession, though there were, in fact, some substantial and important interpolations in the latter Act".‡ And Lord Chancellor Campbell, writing of the attainder of More in this same session, "for refusal to take the oath of supremacy," says it was "an offence created by no law"; since (as he explains elsewhere) the commissioners had no right to foist the question of the Pope's supremacy, or the king's supremacy, into an oath which should have been limited to the succession. An oath to the succession had never been refused by either More or Fisher, yet in the winter session they were both attainted of misprision of treason. In the Act which relates to More,§ the king's grants of land to him in 1523 and 1525 are resumed; it is alleged that he refused the oath since 1st May of 1534, with an intent to sow sedition, and he is reproached for having demeaned himself in other respects ungratefully and unkindly to the king, his benefactor. + 26 Hen. viii. cap. 2. § 26 Hen. viii. cap. 23.

* From a conversation reported by Roper. Life of More, p. 176.

CHAPTER XX.

THE TOWER.

W

HEN Sir Thomas was going to the Tower," says Roper, "wearing as he commonly did a chain of gold about his neck, Sir Richard Southwell, that had the charge of his conveyance thither, advised him to send home his chain to his wife or to some of his children. 'Nay, sir,' quoth he, 'that I will not; for if I were taken in the field (of battle) by my enemies, I would they should somewhat fare the better for me.' At whose landing Mr. Lieutenant* was ready at the Tower gate to receive him, where the porter demanded of him his upper garment. 'Mr. Porter,' quoth he, 'here it is,' and took off his cap and delivered to him, saying: 'I am very sorry it is no better for thee'. 'No, sir,' quoth the porter, 'I must have your gown.' And so was he by Mr. Lieutenant conveyed to his lodging, where he called unto him John à Wood, his own servant, there appointed to attend him, who could neither write nor read, and sware him before the lieutenant, that if he should hear or see him at any time speak or write any matter against the king, Council, or the state of the realm, he should open it to the lieutenant, that the lieutenant might incontinent reveal it to the Council."

Most of the buildings of the great fortified enclosure, then and now called the Tower of London, still stand as in the days of Henry VIII. Of these, none is more generally known than

* Sir Edmund Walsingham.

the Beauchamp Tower in the western ward, which is traditionally said to have been the place of confinement of Sir Thomas More. According to the fixed scale of charges of the lieutenant, Sir Thomas as a knight paid fees of ten shillings a week for himself and five shillings for his servant. A bill of charges drawn up a few years after his death contains the following

entry: "Sir Thomas More for 3 m. [months] unpaid, after 40s. and his servant after 5s. [a week] . . . £9".* This heavy charge of about £6 a week in modern value ought to have purchased a generous diet, yet from details to be mentioned presently it would seem that even the smallest comforts had to be supplied by friends from outside. Yet, in August, 1534,

*Cotton MSS. (B.M.); Titus, Bk. i.

Margaret Roper told her sister-in-law that "besides his old disease of his breast, he was now grieved in the reins by reason of gravel and stone, and with the cramp that divers nights griped his legs".*

This did not satisfy his spirit of mortification and penance. It had long been a practice with him on certain days to wear a rough hair shirt, and he continued this in the prison cell till his death. Roper relates that one summer evening when he sat at supper with his family and had laid aside his gown, his young daughter-in-law, Anne Cresacre, chanced to espy the hair shirt, and began to laugh at it. His daughter Margaret, perceiving this, acquainted her father, who was sorry that his austerities were detected. This beloved child entered into the secrets of her father's heart. She had been accustomed to wash the hair shirt for him, and to her the day before his death he had it secretly conveyed.t A part of this precious relic lies before me as I write. If the holy prisoner sought by penitential exercises to communicate more closely with the Passion of Our Lord, he kept up his sympathy with the Church during his isolation, by celebrating all her feasts, at least in spirit, within the walls of his dungeon. Stapleton learnt from one of those who cherished every detail of his martyrdom, that he was accustomed to dress more carefully, as far as his slender wardrobe allowed, when the great feasts came round.+

The rigour of confinement varied much in English prisons of that date, according to the quality of the offender, the nature of his offence, or his means of purchasing the indulgence or connivance of his jailor. The lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edmund Walsingham, had been a friend of Sir Thomas.

+ It was from her that Roper learnt these details, and also that he was wont on certain days to punish his body with whips and knotted cords.

That he had at least two "gowns" is clear from his own words in a letter, that, when summoned before the Council, "he changed his gown," and from the fact that, when about to go to the scaffold, he wished to put on his best apparel.

Roper tells us that soon after his illustrious prisoner's committal to his charge, he visited him, and declared that from old affection and from gratitude for favours he had himself received, he would gladly "make him good cheer," but that this he could not do without incurring the anger of the king. Sir Thomas replied: "Mr. Lieutenant, I verily believe as you say, and heartily thank you; and assure yourself, I do not mislike my cheer; but whensoever I so do, then thrust me out of your doors". Doubtless Sir Edward Walsingham in later days would often relate this merry saying of the martyr.

In a book written in the Tower, that will be described presently, Sir Thomas gives us a glimpse of his prison cell, if (as it seems certain) he is writing of himself and his wife, "I wist a woman once that came into a prison to visit of her charity a poor prisoner there, whom she found in a chamber (to say the truth) meetly fair, and at the leastwise it was strong enough. But with mats of straw the prisoner had made it so warm, both under the feet and round about the walls, that in these things, for the keeping of his health, she was on his behalf glad and very well comforted. But among many other displeasures that for his sake she was sorry for, one she lamented much in her mind, that he should have the chamber door shut upon him by night, and made fast by the jailor that should shut him in. 'For, by my troth,' quoth she, 'if the door should be shut upon me, I would ween it would stop up my breath.' At that word of hers the prisoner laughed in his mind; but he durst not laugh aloud, nor say nothing to her, for somewhat indeed he stood in awe of her, and had his finding there much part of her charity for alms; but he could not but laugh inwardly, while he wist well enough that she used on the inside to shut every night full surely her own chamber to her, both doors and windows too, and used not to open them of all the long night. And what difference, then, as to the stopping of the breath, whether they were shut up within or without ? "*

Dialogue of Comfort, Bk. iii. ch. 20.