king's true, faithful subject, and pray for his highness, and
all his, and all the realm,' said sir Thomas. 'I do nobody 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 assembly 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 passed. 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 w