Anonymous
A man of supreme conscience, Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England, refused to support Henry VIII’s shady schemes to jettison one wife in favour of another, Anne Boleyn for Catherine of Aragon. And so More found a sure route to the executioner. Many have trodden there, before and since, but rarely has anyone left the world with such elan.
The bitter question of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon soon came to disturb More’s peace of mind. At first he was silent on the point, but when Henry taxed him he could not agree to the king’s views. In March, 1531, the decisions of the universities were read out to the House of Lords by More, who, when asked his own opinion, cautiously said that he had already told it to the king. But the chancellor saw the trend of events, and in 1532 he resigned. He went home and informed his wife with light-hearted indifference, and at once made plans for a new life in straitened circumstances.
A year later he was named as one of the disciples of the Holy Maid of Kent, and was charged as guilty of treason. He was called before four privy councillors, and in spite of his danger, treated them with cool disdain. Only his great popularity saved him then, and Henry grudgingly struck his name out of the Bill of Attainder.
But in April, 1534, Sir Thomas More refused to take the oath of adherence to the new Act of Succession, by which Anne Boleyn’s issue became heirs to the throne. He was willing to take an oath of loyalty to the king, but he could not swear one which abrogated the authority of the Pope. So he was committed to the Tower.
He was a sick man. Congested lungs, gravel, stone and cramp made his body a torment, but his spirits were as cheerful as ever. His wife asked him to take the oath and regain his liberty, but More answered: “Is not this house as nigh heaven as mine own?”
In 1535, Henry was declared supreme head of the Church of England, and in April, Thomas Cromwell went to the Tower to ask More whether this were lawful in his eyes. More replied that he was a faithful subject of the king. In May and June, Cromwell repeated the visits, and then sent the solicitor-general to interview More.
Meanwhile, More was still cheerful, believing that: “A man may live for the next world and yet be merry.” He wrote to his wife and daughters, but when it was discovered that he had exchanged notes with his friend and fellow-prisoner, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, his writing materials were taken from him. From that time More closed the shutters of his cell.
On June 25, Fisher was executed. More knew what to expect. He was charged with high treason at Westminster Hall on July I. The evidence was based on the solicitor-general’s reports of his conversations and on the notes to Fisher. More, seated as a sick man, denied the charges with great dignity. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn, but five days later Henry commuted the method to decapitation.
His behaviour at the final scene on Tower Hill on the morning of July 7, 1535, was as magnificent as it was moving. As he reached the steps of the scaffold, he said to the lieutenant there: “I pray thee see me safely up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.” With a joke he told the executioner to do his job fearlessly, and then he moved the beard, which he had grown during his imprisonment, away from the block, saying: “It has never committed treason.”