five of the clock, he came to him in his chamber, in the Bell-tower, finding him yet asleep in his bed, and waking him, told him, he was come to him on a message from the king, to signify unto him, that his pleasure was he should suffer death that forenoon. "Well," quoth the bishop, "if this be your errand, you bring me no great news; for I have looked a long time for this message, and I must humbly thank his majesty, that it pleaseth him to rid me from all this worldly business. Yet, let me by your patience sleep an hour or two; for I have slept very ill this night, not for any fear of death, I thank God, but by reason of my great infirmity and weakness."

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"The king's pleasure is farther," said the lieutenant, "that you shall use as little speech as may be, especially of any thing touching his majesty, whereby the people should have any cause to think of him, or his proceedings, otherwise than well." "For that," said he, you shall see me order myself, as, by God's grace, neither the king, nor any man else, shall have occasion to mislike of my words." With which answer the lieutenant departed from him, and so the prisoner, falling again to rest, slept soundly two hours and more; and, after he was awaked, called to his man to help him up; but first commanded him to take away his shirt-of-hair, which customably he wore, and to convey it privily out of the house; and, instead thereof, to lay him forth a clean white shirt, and all the best apparel he had, as cleanly brushed as might be. And, as he was arraying himself, his man, seeing in him more curiosity and care for the fine and cleanly wearing of his apparel that day, than was wont, demanded of him, what this sudden change meant, saying, that his lordship knew well enough, that he must put off all again within two hours, and lose it. "What of that ?" said he: "Dost not thou mark, that this is our marriage-day? and that it behoveth us therefore to use more cleanliness for solemnity thereof ?"

About nine of the clock the lieutenant came again, and, finding him almost ready, said, he was now come for him. Then said he to his man, "Reach me my furred tippet to put about my neck." "O, my lord!" said the lieutenant, "what need ye be so careful for your health for this little time, being, as yourself knows, not much above an hour ?” "I think no otherwise," said he, "but yet in the mean time, I will keep myself as well as I can. For I tell you truth; though I have, I thank our Lord, a very good desire and willing mind to die at this present, and so trust of his infinite mercy and goodness he will continue it, yet will I not willingly hinder my health in the mean time one minute of an hour, but still prolong the same, as long as I can, by such reasonable ways and means as Almighty God hath provided for me." And, with that, taking a

little book in his hand, which was a New Testament lying by him, he made a cross on his forehead, and went out of his prison-door with the lieutenant, being so weak as that he was scant able to go down the stairs; wherefore, at the stairs' foot he was taken up in a chair between two of the lieutenant's men, and carried to the Towergate, with a great number of weapons about him, to be delivered to the sheriff of London for execution.

9-13. He advanceth to the Place of his Execution; the Manner of his mounting the Scaffold; his Speech to the People; his Execution; his Age and Stature.

And, as they were come to the uttermost precinct of the liberties of the Tower, they rested there with him a space, till such time as one was sent before to know in what readiness the sheriffs were to receive him; during which space he rose out of his chair, and standing on his feet, leaned his shoulder to the wall, and lifting his eyes towards heaven, he opened a little book in his hand, and said, "O Lord! this is the last time that ever I shall open this book; let some comfortable place now chance unto me, whereby I thy poor servant may glorify thee in this my last hour." And, with that, looking into the book, the first thing that came to his sight were these words, Hæc est autem vita æterna, ut cognoscant te solum verum Deum, et quem misisti Jesum Christum. Ego te glorificavi super terram, opus consummavi quod dedisti mihi, etc. John xvii. 3, &c. and with that he shut the book together, and said, "Here is even learning enough for me to my life's end." And so, the sheriff being ready for him, he was taken up again among certain of the sheriff's men, with a new and much greater company of weapons than was before, and carried to the scaffold on the Tower-hill, otherwise called East Smithfield, himself praying all the way, and recording upon the words which he before had read.

When he was come to the foot of the scaffold, they that carried him offered to help him up the stairs; but, said he, "Nay, masters, seeing I am come so far, let me alone and ye shall see me shift for myself well enough!" and so went up the stairs without any help, so lively that it was a marvel to them that before knew his debility and weakness. But as he was mounting the stairs, the south-east sun shined very bright in his face; whereupon he said to himself these words, lifting up his hands, Accedite ad eum et illuminamini, et facies vestræ non confundentur. By that time he was upon the scaffold it was about ten o'clock; where the executioner, being ready to do his office, kneeled down to him, as the fashion is, and asked him forgiveness. "I forgive thee," said he, "with all my heart, and I trust thou shalt see me overcome this storm lustily."

Then was his gown and tippet taken from him, and he stood in his doublet and hose in sight of all the people, whereof there was no small number assembled to see the execution.

Being upon the scaffold, he spake to the people in effect as followeth :- "Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's holy catholic church; and, I thank God, hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that, at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the catholic faith, free from any fear. And I beseech Almighty God of his infinite goodness to save the king and this realm, and that it may please him to hold his holy hand over it, and send the king a good council." These words he spake with such a cheerful countenance, such a stout and constant courage, and such a reverend gravity, that he appeared to all men, not only void of fear, but also glad of death.

After these few words by him uttered, he kneeled down on both his knees, and said certain prayers. Among which, as some reported, one was the hymn of Te Deum laudamus to the end; and the psalm, In te, Domine, speravi. Then came the executioner and bound an handkerchief about his eyes; and so the bishop, lifting up his hands and heart to heaven, said a few prayers, which were not long, but fervent and devout: which being ended, he laid his head down over the midst of a little block, where the executioner, being ready with a sharp and heavy axe, cut asunder his slender neck at one blow; which bled so abundantly, that many, saith my author, wondered to see so much blood issue out of so lean and slender a body though in my judgment, that might rather have translated the wonder from his leanness to his age, it being otherwise a received tradition that lean folk have the most blood in them.

Thus died John Fisher, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, on the two-and-twentieth of June, being St. Alban's day, the proto-martyr of England, and therefore with my author most remarkable. But, surely, no day in the Romish Calendar is such a skeleton, or so bare of sanctity, but (had his death happened thereon) a priest would pick a mystery out of it. He had a lank, long body, full six foot high, toward the end of his life very infirm, insomuch that he used to sit in a chair when he taught the people in his diocess. 14, 15. His mean, not to say (if true) barbarous Burial, an impudent, improbable Lie.

His corpse (if our author speaketh truth) was barbarously abused, no winding-sheet being allowed it, which will hardly enter into my

belief. For, suppose his friends durst, his foes would, not afford him a shroud; yet some neuters betwixt both (no doubt) would have done it out of common civility. Besides, seeing the king vouchsafed him the Tower, a noble prison; and beheading, an honourable death; it is improbable he would deny him a necessary equipage for a plain and private burial. Wherefore, when Hall tells us, that the soldiers attending his execution could not get spades to make his grave therewith, but were fain with halberds, in the north side of the church-yard of All-Hallows Barking, to dig a hole wherein they cast his naked corpse; I listen to the relation as inflamed by the reporter's passion. Be it here remembered, that Fisher in his life-time made himself a tomb on the north side of the chapel in St. John's college, intending there to be buried, but therein disappointed. This Fisher was he who had a cardinal's hat sent him, which, stopped at Calais, never came on his head; and a monument made for him, wherein his body was never deposited.

Our author reporteth also, how queen Anna Boleyn gave order his head should be brought unto her, before it was set up on Londonbridge, that she might please herself at the sight thereof, and, like another Herodias, insult over the head of this John her professed enemy. Nor was she content alone to revile his ghost with taunting terms, but out of spite or sport, or both, struck her hand against the mouth of this dead head brought unto her; and it happened, that one of Fisher's teeth, more prominent than the rest, struck into her hand, and not only pained her for the present, but made so deep an impression therein that she carried the mark thereof to her grave. It seems, this was contrary to the proverb, Mortui non mordent. But enough, yea, too much of such damnable falsehoods. Pass we from Fisher to More, his fellow-prisoner, whom Fisher's execution had not mollified into conformity to the king's pleasure, as was expected.

16-18. Sir Thomas More's Extraction and Education: charged for his over-much Jesting: a great Anti-Pro

testant.

Son he was to Sir John More, one of the judges of the King's Bench, who lived to see his son preferred above himself. Bred a Common Lawyer, but withal, a general scholar as well in polite as solid learning; a terse poet, neat orator, pure Latinist, able Grecian, he was chosen Speaker in the House of Commons, made Chancellor first of Lancaster-duchy, then of all England, performing the place with great integrity and discretion. Some ground we have in England, neither so light and loose as sand, nor so stiff and binding as clay, but a mixture of both, conceived the surest soil for profit and plea

sure to grow together on such the soil of this Sir Thomas More, in which facetiousness and judiciousness were excellently tempered together.

Yet some have taxed him, that he wore a feather in his сар, and wagged it too often; meaning, he was over-free in his fancies and conceits; insomuch, that, on the scaffold, (a place not to break jests, but to break off all jesting,) he could not hold, but bestowed his scoffs on the executioner and standers by. Now, though innocency may smile at death, surely it is unfit to flout thereat.

But the greatest fault we find justly charged on his memory, is his cruelty in persecuting poor Protestants, to whom he bare an implacable hatred; insomuch that in his life-time he caused to be inscribed, as parcel of his epitaph on his monument at Chelsea, that he ever was furibus, homicidis, hæreticisque molestus: a passing good praise, save after the way which he there calleth "heresy," pious people worship the God of their fathers. He suffered the next month after Fisher's execution, in the same place, for the same cause, July 6th, and was buried at Chelsea, under his tomb aforesaid; which, being become ruinous, and the epitaph scarce legible, hath few years since been decently repaired at the cost, as I am informed, of one of his near kinsmen.

19. The Death and Character of Queen Catherine Dowager.

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At this time, January 8th, Catherine dowager, whom we will be bold still in courtesy to call "a queen," notwithstanding king Henry's proclamation to the contrary, ended her woful life at Kimbolton. A pious woman toward God, (according to her devotion,) frequent in prayer, which she always performed on her bare knees, nothing else between her and the earth interposed; little curious in her clothes, being wont to say, she accounted no time lost but what was laid out in dressing of her; though art might be more excusable in her, to whom nature had not been over bountiful. She was rather staid, than stately; reserved, than proud; grave from her cradle, insomuch that she was a matron before she was a mother. This her natural gravity increased with her apprehended injuries, settled in her reduced age into a habit of melancholy, and that terminated into a consumption of the spirits. She was buried in the abbey-church of Peterborough, under a hearse of black say; probably by her own appointment, that she might be plain when dead, who neglected bravery of clothes when living. A noble pen† tells us, that in intuition to her corpse here interred, king Henry, at the destruction of abbeys, not only spared the church in Peterborough, but also advanced it into a cathedral. If so, it was civilly done of LORD HERBERT in his Henry VIII.

SANDERS De Schismate Anglicano. VOL. II.

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