The Red Book of Heroes Part 19

If left to himself, Henry might perhaps have allowed sir Thomas, whom he undoubtedly liked, to remain in peace, but his absence from her coronation rankled deep in Anne Boleyn's heart. The late chancellor was a man of mark in the sight of Europe, and could count famous men of all nations among his friends. If he could not be gained over, he must be punished, for the eyes of England were upon him, and he had but to hold up his hand for many to follow. So he was one of the first bidden to take the oath, swearing to put aside the claims of the princess Mary, daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and to settle the crown on the children of the new queen.

It was in April 1534 that More was summoned before the royal commissioners, consisting of Audley, who had succeeded him in the chancellorship, the abbot of Westminster, Thomas Cromwell as secretary of state, and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. At More's own request, the Act of Succession, as it was called, was given into his hand, and he read it through. When he had finished, he informed the commissioners that he had nothing to say as to the Act itself or to the people that took the oath, but that he himself must refuse.

It was probably no more than they expected; but Audley replied that he was very sorry for it, as no man before had declined to swear, and that sir Thomas might see for himself the names of those who had already signed, whose consciences were perhaps as tender as his own. More glanced down the long roll unfolded before him, but only repeated his answer, nor could any persuasions induce him to give a different one. He was willing, it seems, to take an oath of obedience to the sovereign and his successors, but what he would _not_ do was to swear that the king was the head of the church, and some words declaring this had been introduced--whether carelessly or wilfully we do not know--into the Act of Succession, with which they had nothing to do. It was his refusal to take this part of the oath which caused the downfall of More.

For four days sir Thomas remained a prisoner in the care of the abbot of Westminster; then he was sent to the Tower. Sir Richard Southwell conveyed him there and placed him under the custody of the lieutenant of the Tower, sir Edmund Walsingham, an old friend of the More family. As appears to have been the custom, his cap and outside gown were taken from him and kept by the porter, and a man set to spy upon his actions.

This was sorely against the wishes of his gaoler, who would fain have made More's captivity in the Beauchamp Tower as light as might be; but at first it was needful to be very strict, lest inquiries should be made. Later, he was for a while allowed writing materials; he went to church in St. Peter ad Vincula, where so many famous captives lie buried, and occasionally walked in the garden, or took exercise in the narrow walk outside his cell. By-and-by, too, occasional visits from his family were permitted; his stepdaughter, lady Alington, came to see him, and so did her mother, dame Alice, More's daughter-in-law Anne, and most frequently of all his daughter Margaret.

With these indulgences he might have been content, for all his life he had made the best of things, but the expenses of his captivity weighed on his soul. The barest food for himself and his servant cost him fifteen shillings a week (over 5 l. now), and some months later, when he was convicted of high treason and the lands granted him by the king were taken from him, his wife was forced to sell her own clothes so that the money might be paid. But this, we may hope, she kept from sir Thomas, whose body was bent and broken by painful diseases, though his spirit was as cheerful as ever. He could even 'inwardly' laugh at dame Alice when she came to see him for complaining that she would die for want of air if she was left all night in a locked cell, when 'he knew full well that every night she shut her own chamber, both doors and windows, and what was the difference if the doors were locked or not?'

But he durst not laugh aloud nor say anything to her, for, indeed, he stood somewhat in awe of her.

Most of the hours were pa.s.sed during the first months of his captivity in writing books in English or Latin; but when pen and paper were taken from him, and he could only scribble a few words with the end of a charred stick, he had plenty of time to think over his life and to recall the years that had been so happy. The harsh words that he had written about men whose religion was different from his own did not trouble him, nor the thought of the imprisonment to which he had sentenced many of them. In those days everyone held his own religion to be right, and any that differed from it to be wrong, and though sir Thomas never would, and never did, send any man to the block for his faith, yet he would have considered that he had failed in his duty had he left them at liberty to teach their 'wicked opinions.' So his mind did not dwell upon those things, but rather upon his coming death, which he well foresaw, and upon the old days in Bishopsgate and Chelsea, when he would examine his children in the lessons they had learned, or set all the girls to write letters in Latin to his friend Erasmus, that he might see which of them proved to have the most skill. From time to time during this year efforts were made to gain him over to the side of the king, who would have given him almost anything he asked as the price of his conscience. Even Margaret Roper joined with the rest, and begged him to consider whether it was not his duty to obey the Parliament, and to remember that it was possible that he might be mistaken in his refusal, as so many good men and true had taken the oath. But nothing would move sir Thomas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered.]

'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered. 'Sit not musing with some serpent in your breast, or some new persuasion to offer Father Adam the apple yet once again.'

'I have sworn myself,' said she, and at this More laughed and replied:

'That was like Eve, too, for she offered Adam no worse fruit than she had eaten herself.'

Finding that his daughter's persuasions were useless, the king and council sent Cromwell to see if by fair words or threats he could induce More to declare that the king was head of the church. But, try as he might, nothing either treasonable or submissive could be wrung from the prisoner.

'I am the king's true, faithful subject, and pray for his highness, and all his, and all the realm,' said sir Thomas. 'I do n.o.body none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good, and if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live. And I am dying already, and have since I came here been many times in the case that I thought to die within one hour. And therefore my poor body is at the king's pleasure.' Then Cromwell took his leave 'full gently,'

promising to make report to the king.

Lord Cromwell having failed also, the whole council next came and put forth all their skill, with no better result; and it was then determined to bring sir Thomas out of the Tower, and to try him at Westminster on the charge of treason. Neither the prisoner nor the judges had any doubt as to what the verdict would be; but whatever his thoughts as to the future, More must have rejoiced to be rowing once more on the Thames, with the air and sunlight all around him, and after a year's confinement even the sight of Westminster Hall and the a.s.sembly met together, as he knew, to doom him would have been full of interest. He was allowed a chair, for his legs were so swollen that he could hardly have stood; and then began the trial which a late lord chancellor has called 'the blackest crime under the name of the law ever committed in England.' At the close, sentence was pa.s.sed. More had been proved guilty of treason, and was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn.

The constable of the Tower, sir William Kingston, sir Thomas's 'very dear friend,' conducted the condemned man back to prison, and so sorrowful was the constable's face that any man would have thought that it was he who was condemned to death. Margaret Roper was waiting on the wharf, and as her father landed from the barge she flung herself into his arms, 'having neither respect to herself, nor to the press of people that were about him.' He whispered some words of comfort and gave her his blessing, and 'the beholding thereof was to many present so lamentable that it made them to weep.'

The last shame of hanging was after all not inflicted on him, and the King decreed that his faithful servant and merry companion should be executed on Tower Hill, like the rest of the men whose bodies lie in the church of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. The day before his beheading sir Thomas wrote with a charred stick to Margaret, leaving her the hair shirt he had always worn under his clothes, and messages and little remembrances to the rest of the old household. Oddly enough, his wife is never mentioned.

Very early in the morning of July 6 the king sent sir Thomas Pope to tell More he was to die before the clock struck nine, and to say that 'he was not to use many words' on the scaffold, evidently fearing lest the minds of the crowd might be stirred up to avenge his murder.

More answered that he had never meant to say anything at which the king could be offended, and begged that his daughter Margaret might be present at his burial. Pope replied that the king had given permission for his wife and children and any other of his friends to be there, and sir Thomas thanked him, and then put on a handsome dress of silk which had been provided on purpose by the Italian Bonvisi.

But sir Thomas was not allowed to be at peace during the short walk between the Beauchamp Tower and the block, for he was beset first by a woman who wished to know where he had put some papers of hers when he was sent to prison, and then by a second, upbraiding him with a judgment he had given against her when he was chancellor.

'I remember you well, and should give judgment against you still,' said he; but at length the crowd was kept back, and a path was kept to the scaffold.

Roper was there, watching, and he noticed that the ladder leading to the platform was very unsteady. Sir Thomas noticed it too, and with his foot on the first step turned and said to the lieutenant of the Tower:

'I pray thee see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.'

When he reached the top, he knelt down and prayed; then rising, kissed the executioner, and said:

'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry.' As he spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid his head on the block.

Thus died sir Thomas More, because he would not tie his conscience to another man's back, for he had no enemies save those who felt that this courage put them to shame, and he had striven all his life to do harm to no one. After his death, his head, as was the custom, was placed on a stake, and shown as the head of a traitor on London Bridge for a month, till Margaret Roper bribed a man to steal it for her, and, wrapping it round with spices, she hid it in a safe place. It is possible that she laid it in a vault belonging to the Roper family, in St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury, but she herself lies with her mother, in the old church of Chelsea, where sir Thomas 'did mind to be buried.'

What the king's feelings were when he heard that the act of vengeance had been accomplished we know not, but the emperor Charles V. spoke his mind plainly to the English amba.s.sador, sir Thomas Eliott.

'My Lord amba.s.sador, we understand that the king your master hath put his faithful servant sir Thomas More to death.'

Whereupon sir Thomas Eliott answered 'that he understood nothing thereof.'

'Well,' said the emperor, 'it is too true; and this we will say, that had we been master of such a servant, of whose doings ourselves have had these many years no small experience, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy counsellor.'

THE LITTLE ABBESS

A nun!

As one reads the word, two pictures flash into the mind. One is that of sisters of mercy going quickly through the streets, with black dresses and flappy white caps, to visit their poor people. If you look at their faces, you will notice how curiously smooth and unlined they are, even when they are not young any more, and their expression is generally quiet and contented, while the women of their own age who live in the world appear tired and anxious.

The other picture is one that most of us have to make for ourselves, as few have had a chance of seeing it. This nun is also dressed in black robes, and has a flowing black veil, and a white band across her forehead, under which her hair, cut short when she takes her vows, is hidden away. She never leaves her convent, except for a walk in the garden, but she often has children to teach, for many convents are great Roman Catholic schools, and the nuns have to take care that they can tell their scholars about the discoveries of the present day: about wireless telegraphy, about radium, about the late wars and the changes in the boundaries of kingdoms, and many other things.

Of course, nuns are divided into various orders, each with its own rules, and some, the strictest, do not admit anyone inside the convent at all, even into a parlour. After a girl has taken the veil, she is allowed to receive one visit from her friends and relations, and then she says good-bye to them for ever.

But if you had been living in Paris towards the end of the sixteenth century, when Catherine de Medicis was queen-mother, and into the days when Henry IV. was king, and his son Louis succeeded him, you would have found this picture of a convent very far from the truth. Convents were comfortable and even luxurious houses, richly endowed, where poor n.o.blemen and gentlemen sent their daughters for life, paying on their entrance what money they could spare, but keeping enough to portion one or two girls--generally the prettiest of the family--or to help the son to live in state. If, as often happened, the father did not offer enough, the abbess would try to get more from him, or else refuse his daughter altogether. If she was accepted, he bade her farewell for the time, knowing that he could see her whenever he chose, and that she would lead quite as pleasant and as amusing an existence as her married sister. Perhaps, too, she might even be allowed to wear coloured clothes, for there was one order in which the habit of the nuns was white and scarlet; but even if the archbishop, or the abbot, or the king, or whoever had supreme power over the convent, insisted on black and white being worn, why, it would be easy to model the cap and sleeves near enough to the fashion to look picturesque; and could not the dress be of satin and velvet and lace, and yet be black and white still?

As to food, no one was more particular about it than the abbess of a large convent, or else the fine gentlemen and elegant ladies would not come from Paris or the country round to her suppers and private theatricals, where the nuns acted the chief parts, or to the b.a.l.l.s for which she was famous. How pleasant it was in the summer evenings to sit with their friends and listen to music from hidden performers; and could anything be so amusing as to walk a little way along the road to Paris till the nuns reached a stretch of smooth green turf, where the monks from a neighbouring monastery were waiting to dance with them in the moonlight?

No, decidedly, nuns were not to be pitied when Henry IV. was king.

Yet soon all these joys were to be things of the past, and it was a girl of sixteen who set her hand to the work.

The family of the Arnaulds were well known in French history as soldiers or lawyers--sometimes as both, for the grandfather of the child whose story I am going to tell you commanded a troop of light horse in time of war, and in time of peace was, in spite of his being a Huguenot--that is, a Protestant--Catherine's trusted lawyer and adviser. This Antoine Arnauld, or M. de la Mothe, as he was called, was once publicly insulted by a n.o.ble whose claim to some money Arnauld had been obliged to refuse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'You are mistaking me for somebody else.']