take care that affairs shall continue in their actual condition until the questions in dispute be determined. A considerable outcry against this necessary, though invidious authority, was raised at the commencement of More's chancellorship. He silenced this clamour with his wonted prudence and meekness. Having caused one of the six clerks to make out a list of the injunctions issued by him, or pending before him, he invited all the judges to dinner. He laid the list before them; and explained the circumstances of each case so satisfactorily, that they all confessed that in the like case they would have done no less. Nay, he offered to desist from the jurisdiction, if they would undertake to contain the law within the boundaries of righteousness, which he thought they ought in conscience to do. The judges declined to make the attempt; on which he observed privately to Roper, that he saw they trusted to their influence for obtaining verdicts which would shift the responsibility from them to the juries. "Wherefore," said he, "I am constrained to abide the adventure of their blame."

Dauncey, one of his sons-in-law, alleged that under Wolsey "even the door-keepers got great gains," and was so perverted by the venality there practised that he expostulated with More for his churlish integrity. The chancellor said, that if "his father, whom he reverenced dearly, were on the one side, and the devil, whom he hated with all his might, on the other, the devil should have his right." He is represented by his descendant, as softening his answer by promising minor advantages, such as priority of hearing, and recommendation of arbitration, where the case of a friend was bad. The biographer, however, not being a lawyer, might have misunderstood the conversation, which had to pass through more than one generation before the tradition reached him; or the words may have been a hasty effusion of good nature, uttered only to qualify the roughness of his honesty. If he had been called to perform these promises, his head and heart would have recoiled alike from breaches of equality which he would have felt to be altogether dishonest. When Heron, another of his sons-in-law, relied on the bad practices of the times, so far as to entreat a favourable judgment in a cause of his own, More, though the most affectionate of fathers, immediately undeceived him by an adverse decree. This act of common justice is made an object of panegyric by the biographer, as if it were then deemed an extraordinary instance of virtue; a deplorable symptom of that corrupt state of general opinion, which, half a century later, contributed to betray into ignominious vices the wisest of men, and the most illustrious of chancellors,-if the latter distinction be not rather due to the virtue of a More or a Somers.

He is said to have despatched the causes before him so speedily, that, on asking for the next, he was told that none remained; which is boastfully

contrasted by Mr. More, his descendant, wi arrear of a thousand in the time of that gentleman, who lived in the reign of Charles I.; though we have already seen that this difference may be referred to other causes; and therefore that the fact, if true, proves no more than his exemplary diligence and merited reputation.

The scrupulous and delicate integrity of More (for so it must be called in speaking of that age) was more clearly shown after his resignation, than it could have been during his continuance in office. One Parnell complained of him for a decree obtained by his adversary Vaughan, whose wife had bribed the chancellor by a gilt cup. He sur prised the counsel at first, by owning that he received the cup as a new year's gift. Lord Wiltshire, a zealous protestant, indecently, but prematurely, exulted. "Did I not tell you, my lords," said he, "that you would find this matter true?"— But, my lords," replied More, "hear the other part of my tale. After having drank to her of wine with which my butler had filled the cup, and when she had pledged him, he restored it to her, and would listen to no refusal." When Mrs. Croker, for whom he had made a decree against lord Arundel, came to him to request his acceptance of a pair of gloves, in which were contained 401. in angels, he told her, with a smile, that it were ill manners to refuse a lady's present; but though he should keep the gloves, he must return the gold, which he enforced her to receive. Gresham, a suitor, sent him a present of a gilt cup, of which the fashion pleased him. More accepted it; but would not do so till Gresham received from him another cup of greater value, but of which the form and workmanship were less suitable to the chancellor. It would be an indignity to the memory of such a man to quote these facts as proofs of his probity; but they may be mentioned as specimens of the simple and unforced honesty of one who rejected improper offers with all the ease and pleasantry of common courtsey.

Henry, in bestowing the great seal on More, hoped to dispose his chancellor to lend his authority to the projects of divorce and second marriage, which now agitated the king's mind, and were the main objects of his policy.* Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VII., had married Catharine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of Castile and Aragon. As the young prince died very shortly after his nuptials, Henry obtained a dispensation from pope Julius II. to enable the princess to marry her brother-in-law, afterwards Henry VIII. That monarch solemnised his marriage with her after his accession, and lived sixteen years in apparent harmony with her. Mary was the only child of this marriage who survived infancy; but in the year 1527 a concurrence of events

"Thomas Morus, doctrinâ et probitate spectabilis vir, cancellarius in Wolsæi locum constituitur. Neutiquam Regis causæ æquior."-Thuani Hist, sui Temporis, lib. ii. c. 16. edit. Lond. 1733. i. 31.

arose, which tried and established the virtue of More, and revealed to the world the depravity of his master. Henry was touched by the charms of Anne Boleyn, a beautiful lady, in her twentysecond year, the daughter of sir Thomas Boleyn, earl of Wiltshire, who had lately returned from the court of France, where her youth had been spent. At the same moment it became the policy of Francis I. to loosen all the ties which joined the king of England to the emperor. When the bishop of Tarbes, his ambassador in England, found, on his arrival in London, the growing distate of Henry for his inoffensive and exemplary wife, he promoted the king's inclination towards divorce, and suggested a marriage with Margaret duchess of Alençon, the beautiful and graceful sister of Francis 1.*

At this period Henry for the first time professed to harbour conscientious doubts whether the dispensation of Julius II. could suspend the obligation of the divine prohibition pronounced against such a marriage in the Levitical law. The court of Rome did not dare to contend that the dispensation could reach the case if the prohibition were part of the universal law of God. Henry, on the other side, could not consistently question its validity, if he considered the precept as belonging to merely positive law. To this question, therefore, the dispute was confined, though both parties shrunk from an explicit and precise avowal of their main ground. The most reasonable solution that it was a local and temporary law, forming a part of the Hebrew code, might seem at first sight to destroy its authority altogether. But if either party had been candid, this prohibition, adopted by all Christendom, might be justified by that general usage, in a case where it was not remarkably at variance with reason or the public welfare. But such a doctrine would have lowered the ground of this papal authority too much to be acceptable to Rome, and yet, on the other hand, rested it on too unexceptionable a foundation to suit the case of Henry. False allegations of facts in the preamble of the bull were alleged on the same side; but they were inconclusive. The principal arguments in the king's favour

age

"Margarita Francisci soror, spectatæ formæ et venustatis fœmina, Carolo Alenconio duce marito paulo ante mortuo, vidua permanserat. Ea destinata uxor Henrico: missique Wolsaus et Bigerronum Præsul qui de dissolvendo matrimonio cum Gallo Ut caletum appulit Wolsæus mandatum a rege contrarium accipit, rescivitque per amicos Henricum non tam Galli adfinitatem quam insanum amorem quo Annam Bolenam prosequebatur, explere vele." Thuan. ubi suprà.

rent.

No trace of the latter part appears in the state papers just published.

Leviticus, xv. 3. xx. 22. But see Deuteronomy, XXV. 5. The latter text, which allows an exception in the case of a brother's wife being left childless, may be thought to strengthen the prohibition in all cases not excepted. It may seem applicable to the precise case of Henry. But the application, of that text is impossible; for it contains an injunction, of which the breach is chastised by a disgraceful punishment.

were, that no precedents of such a dispensation seem to have been produced; and that if the Levitical prohibitions do not continue in force under the Gospel, there is no prohibition against incestuous marriages in the system of the New Testament. It was a disadvantage to the church of Rome in controversy, that being driven from the low ground by its supposed tendency to degrade the subject, and deterred from the high ground by the fear of the reproach of daring usurpation, the inevitable consequence was confusion and fluctuation respecting the first principles on which the question was to be determined.

To pursue this subject through the long negotiations and discussions which it occasioned during six years, would be to lead us far from the life of sir Thomas More, even if the writer of these pages had not very recently attempted a summary account of them.* Suffice it here to say, that Clement VII. (Medici), though originally inclined to favour the suit of Henry, according to the usual policy of the Roman court, which sought plausible pre texts for facilitating the divorce of kings, whose matrimonial connections might be represented as involving the quiet of nations; an allegation whica was often enough true to be always specious. The sack of Rome and the captivity of the pontiff left Clement full of fear of the emperor's power and displeasure; it is even said that Charles V., who had discovered the secret designs of the English court, had extorted from the pope, before his release, a promise that no attempt would be made to dishonour an Austrian princess by acceding to the divorce. The pope, unwilling to provoke Henry, his powerful and generous protector, instructed Campeggio to attempt, first, a reconciliation between the king and queen; secondly, it that failed, to endeavour to persuade her that she ought to acquiesce in her husband's desires, by entering into a cloister; a proposition which seems to show a readiness in the Roman court to wave their theological difficulties; and, thirdly, if neither of these attempts were successful, to spin out the negotiation to the greatest length, in order to profit by the favourable incidents which time might bring forth. The impatience of the king and the honest indignation of the queen defeated these arts of Italian policy. The resistance of Anne Boleyn to the irregular gratification of the king's desires, without the belief of which it is impossible to conceive the motives for his perseverance in the pursuit of an unequal marriage, opposed another impediment to the counsels and contrivances of Clement, which must have surprised and perplexed a Florentine pontiff. All these proceedings terminated in the sentence of nullity in the case of Henry's marriage with Catherine, pronounced by Cranmer, the espousal of Anne

Boleyn by the king, and the rejection of the papal jurisdiction by the kingdom, which still, however, adhered to the doctrines of the Roman catholic church.

The situation of More during a great part of these memorable events was embarrassing. The great offices to which he was raised by the king, the personal favour hitherto constantly shown to him, and the natural tendency of his gentle and quiet disposition, combined to disincline him to resistance against the wishes of his friendly master. On the other hand, his growing dread and horror of heresy, with its train of disorders; his belief that universal anarchy would be the inevitable result of religious dissension, and the operation of seven years' controversy for the Catholic church, in heating his mind on all subjects involving the extent of her authority, made him recoil from designs which were visibly tending towards disunion with the Roman pontiff, the centre of Catholic union, and the supreme magistrate of the ecclesiastical commonwealth. Though his opinions relating to the papal authority were of a moderate and liberal nature, he at least respected it as an ancient and venerable control on licentious opinions, of which the prevailing heresies attested the value and the necessity.

Though he might have been better pleased with another determination by the supreme pontiff, it did not follow that he should contribute to weaken the holy see, assailed as it was on every side, by taking an active part in resistance to the final decision of a lawful authority. Obedience to the supreme head of the church in a case which ultimately related only to discipline, appeared peculiarly incumbent on all professed catholics. But however sincere the zeal of More for the catholic religion and his support of the legitimate supremacy of the Roman see undoubtedly were, he was surely influenced at the same time by the humane feelings of his just and generous nature, which engaged his heart to espouse the cause of a blameless and wronged princess, driven from the throne and the bed of a tyrannical husband. Though he reasoned the case as a divine and a canonist, he must have felt it as a man. That honest feeling must have glowed beneath the subtleties and formalities of doubtful and sometimes frivolous disputations. It was probably often the chief cause of conduct for which other reasons might be sincerely alleged.

In steering his course through the intrigues and passions of the court, it is very observable that More most warily retired from every opposition but that which conscience absolutely required: he shunned unnecessary disobedience as much as unconscientious compliance. If he had been influenced solely by prudential considerations, he could not have more cautiously shunned every needless opposition; but in that case he would not have gone so far. He displayed, at the time of which we now speak, that very peculiar excellence of

his character, which, as it showed his submission to be the fruit of sense of duty, gave dignity to that which in others is apt to seem and to be slavish.

The anxieties of More increased with the ap proach towards the execution of the king's pro jects of divorce and second marriage. Some anecdotes of this period are preserved by the affec tionate and descriptive pen of Margaret Roper's husband, which, as he evidently reports in the chancellor's language, it would be unpardonable to relate in any other words than those of the venerable man himself. Roper, indeed, like another Plutarch, consults the unrestrained freedom of his story by a disregard of dates, which, however agreeable to a general reader, is sometimes unsatisfactory to a searcher after accuracy. Yet his office in a court of law, where there is the strongest inducement to ascertain truth, and the largest experience of the means most effectual for that purpose, might have taught him the extreme importance of time as well as place in estimating the bearing and weight of testimony.

"On a time walking with me along the Thames' side at Chelsea, he said unto me, 'Now would to our Lord, son Roper, upon condition that three things were well established in Christ endom, I were put into a sack, and were presently cast into the Thames.'-'What great things be those, sir?' quoth I, 'that should move you so to wish.'-'In faith, son, they be these,' said he. The first is, that whereas the most part of Christian princes be at mortal war, they were all at universal peace. The second, that where the church of Christ is at present sore afflicted with many errors and heresies, it were well settled in perfect uniformity of religion. The third, that as the matter of the king's marriage is now come in question, it were, to the glory of God and quietness of all parties, brought to a good conclusion.'"*

On another occasion f, "before the matrimony was brought in question, when I, in talk with sir Thomas More (of a certain joy), commended unto him the happy estate of this realm, that had so catholic a prince, so grave and sound a nobility, and so loving, obedient subjects, agreeing in one faith.

Truth it is, indeed, son Roper; and yet I pray God, as high as we sit upon the mountains, treading heretics under our feet like ants, live not the day that we gladly would wish to be at league and composition with them, to let them have their churches, so that they would be contented to let us have ours quietly.' I answered,' By my troth, it is very desperately spoken.' He, perceiving me to be in a fume, said merrily,- Well, well, son

The description of the period appears to suit the year 1529, before the peace of Cambray and the recall of the legate Campeggio.

† Probably in the beginning of 1527, after the promotion of More to be chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.

Roper, it shall not be so.' Whom," concludes Roper, "in sixteen years and more, being in his house, conversant with him, I never could perceive him as much as once in a fume."

Doubtless he was somewhat disquieted by the reflection, that some of those who now appealed to the freedom of his youthful philosophy against himself would speedily begin to abuse such doctrines by turning them against the peace which he loved, that some of the spoilers of Rome might exhibit the like scenes of rapine and blood in the city which was his birth-place and his dwellingplace. Yet, even then, the placid mien, which had stood the test of every petty annoyance for sixteen years, was unruffled by alarms for the impending fate of his country and of his religion.

Henry used every means of procuring an opinion favourable to his wishes from his chancellor, who excused himself as unmeet for such matters, having never professed the study of divinity. But the king" sorely" pressed him, and never ceased urging him until he had promised to give his consent, at least, to examine the question, conjunctly with his friend Tunstall and other learned divines. After the examination, More, with his wonted ingenuity and gentleness, conveyed the result to his master. "To be plain with your grace, neither your bishops, wise and virtuous though they be, nor myself, nor any other of your council, by reason of your manifold benefits bestowed on us, are meet counsellors for your grace herein. If you mind to understand the truth, consult St. Jerome, St. Augustin, and other holy doctors of the Greek and Latin churches, who will not be inclined to deceive you by respect of their own worldly commodity, or by fear of your princely displeasure." Though the king did not like what "was disagreeable to his desires, yet the language of More was so wisely tempered, that for the present he took it in good part, and oftentimes had conferences with the chancellor thereon." The native meekness of More was probably more effectual than all the arts by which courtiers ingratiate themselves, or insinuate unpalatable counsel.

Shortly after, the king again moved him to weigh and consider the great matter. The chancellor fell down on his knees, and reminding Henry of his own words on delivering the great seal, which were,-"First look upon God, and after God upon me," added, that nothing had ever so pained him as that he was not able to serve his grace in that matter, without a breach of that original injunction which he had received on the acceptance of his office. The king said he was content to accept his service otherwise, and would continue his favour; never with that matter mo-lesting his conscience afterwards. But when the progress towards the marriage was so far advanced that he saw how soon the active co-operation of † Id. 48. ‡ Id.

* Roper, p. 32.

a chancellor must be required, he made suit to "his singular dear friend," the duke of Norfolk, to procure his discharge from this office. The duke, often solicited by More, then obtained, by importunate suit, a clear discharge for the chancellor. When he repaired to the king, to resign the great seal into his majesty's hands, Henry received him with thanks and praise for his worthy service, and assured him, that in any suit that should either concern his honour or appertain unto his profit, the king would show himself a good and gracious master to his faithful servant. The king directed Norfolk, when he installed his successor, to declare publicly, that his majesty had with pain yielded to the prayers of sir Thomas More, by the removal of such a magistrate.*

At the time of his resignation he asserted, and circumstances, without reference to his character, demonstrate the truth of his assertion, that his whole income, independent of grants from the crown, did not amount to more than 501. yearly. This was not more than an eighth part of his gains at the bar and his judicial salary from the city of London taken together,-so great was the proportion in which his fortune had declined during eighteen years of employment in offices of such trust, advantage, and honour. In this situation the clergy voted, as a testimonial of their gratitude to him, the sum of 50001. pounds, which was a hundred times the amount of his income; and, according to the rate of interest at that time, would have yielded him 500l. a year, being ten times the yearly sum which he could then call his own. But good and honourable as he knew their messengers to be, of whom Tunstall was one, he declared that he would rather cast his money into the sea than take it not speaking from a boastful pride, most foreign from his nature, but shrinking with a sort of instinctive delicacy from the touch of money, even before he considered how much the accept ance of the gift might impair his usefulness.

The

His resources were of a nobler nature. simplicity of his tastes and the moderation of his indulgences rendered retrenchment a task so easy to himself, as to be scarcely perceptible in his personal habits. His fool or jester, then a necessary part of a great man's establishment, he gave to the lord mayor for the time being. His first care was to provide for his attendants, by placing his gentlemen and yeomen with peers and prelates, and his eight watermen in the service of his successor sir T. Audley, to whom he gave his great barge, one of the most indispensable appendages of his office in an age when carriages were unknown. His sorrows were for separation from those whom he loved. He called together his children and grandchildren, who had hitherto lived in peace and love under his patriarchal roof, and, lamenting

"Honorifice jussit rex de me testatum reddere quod ægre ad preces meas me demiserit."-Mori Ep. ad Erasm.

† Apology, c. x. English Works, p. 867.

that he could not as he was wont, and as he gladly would, bear out the whole charges of them all himself, continue living together as they were wont, he prayed them to give him their counsel on this trying occasion. When he saw them silent, and unwilling to risk an opinion, he gave them his, seasoned with his natural gaiety, and containing some strokes illustrative of the state of society at that time.-"I have been brought up," quoth he, "at Oxford, at an inn of Chancery, at Lincoln's Inn, and a'30 in the king's court, from the lowest degree to the highest, and yet I have at present left me little above 100l. a year" (including the king's grants); "so that now if we like to live together we must be content to be contributaries together; but we must not fall to the lowest fare first:-we will begin with Lincoln's Inn diet, where many right worshipful and of good years do live full well; which, if we find not ourselves the first year able to maintain, then will we the next year go one step to New Inn fare: if that year exceed our ability, we will the next year descend to Oxford fare, where many grave, learned, and ancient fathers are continually conversant. If our ability stretch not to maintain either, then may we yet with bags and wallets go a begging together, and hoping for charity at every man's door, to sing Salve regina; and so still keep company and be merry together."*

On the Sunday following his resignation, he stood at the door of his wife's pew in the church, where one of his dismissed gentlemen had been used to stand, and making a low obeisance to Alice as she entered, said to her with perfect gravity,——“ Madam, my lord is gone." He who for seventeen years had not raised his voice in displeasure, would not be expected to sacrifice the gratification of his innocent merriment to the heaviest blows of fortune. Nor did he at fit times fail to prepare his beloved children for those more cruel strokes which he began to foresee. Discoursing with them, he enlarged on the happiness of suffering, for the love of God, the loss of goods, of liberty, of lands, of life. He would further say unto them, that if he might perceive his wife and children would encourage him to die in a good cause, it should so comfort him, that for very joy it would make him run merrily to death.

It must be owned that Henry felt the weight of this great man's opinion, and tried every possible means to obtain at least the appearance of his spontaneous approbation. After the marriage with queen Anne, the king commanded Tunstall and other prelates to desire his attendance at the coronation at Westminster. They wrote a letter to persuade him to comply, and accompanied it with the needful present of 20l. to buy a court dress. Such overtures he had foreseen; for he said some time before to Roper, when he first heard of that marriage, "God grant, son Roper, that *Roper, pp. 51, 52.

these matters within a while be not confirmed with oaths!" He accordingly answered his friends the bishops well:-"Take heed, my lords: by procuring your lordships to be present at the coronation, they will next ask you to preach for the setting forth thereof; and finally to write books to all the world in defence thereof."

This warning letter was not likely to be ac ceptable to Henry. An opportunity presented itself for trying another, in which it is very probable that he, in the first instance, limited his plan to menace, which he thought would be sufficient to subdue the obstinacy of More, whom a man of violent nature might believe to be fearful, because he was peaceful. Elizabeth Barton, called the holy maid of Kent, who had been, for a considerable number of years, afflicted by convulsive mala. dies, felt her morbid susceptibility so excited by Henry's profane defiance of the catholic church, and his cruel desertion of Catharine, his faithful wife, that her pious and humane feelings led her to represent, and probably to believe herself to be visited by a divine revelation of those punishments which the king was about to draw down on himself and on the kingdom. In the universal opinion of the sixteenth century, such interpositions were considered as still occurring. The neighbours and visiters of the unfortunate young woman believed her ravings to be prophecies, and the contortions of her body to be those of a frame heaving and struggling under the awful agitations of divine inspiration, and confirmed that conviction of a mission from God, for which she was predisposed by her own pious benevolence, combined with the general error of the age. Both Fisher and More appear not to have altogether disbelieved her pretensions. More expressly declared, that he durst not and would not be bold in judging her miracles.* In the beginning of her prophecies, he had been commanded by the king to enquire into her case; and he made a report to Henry, who agreed with More in considering the whole of her miraculous pretensions as frivolous, and deserving no farther regard. But in 1532, several monks so magnified her performances to him that he was prevailed on to see her; but refused to hear her speak about the king, saying to her, in general terms, that he had no desire to pry into the concerns of others. Pursuant, as it is said, to a sentence by or in the Star Chamber, she stood in the pillory at Paul's Cross, acknowledg ing herself to be guilty of the imposture of claiming inspiration, and saying that she was tempted to this fraud by the instigation of the devil. Considering the circumstances of the case, and the character of the parties, it is far more probable that the ministers should have obtained a false confession from her hopes of saving her life, than that a simple woman should have contrived and carried

*More's letter to Cromwell, probably written in the end of 1532.

† Of whom some were afterwards executed.