and shook beneath
his tread, 'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up; and, for my
coming down, I can shift for myself.' Also he said to the executioner,
after he had laid his head upon the block, 'Let me put my beard out of
the way; for that, at least, has never committed any treason.' Then his
head was struck off at a blow. These two executions were worthy of King
Henry the Eighth. Sir Thomas More was one of the most virtuous men in
his dominions, and the Bishop was one of his oldest and truest friends.
But to be a friend of that fellow was almost as dangerous as to be his
wife.

When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the Pope raged against
the murderer more than ever Pope raged since the world began, and
prepared a Bull, ordering his subjects to take arms against him and
dethrone him. The King took all possible precautions to keep that
document out of his dominions, and set to work in return to suppress a
great number of the English monasteries and abbeys.

This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of whom Cromwell
(whom the King had taken into great favour) was the head; and was carried
on through some few years to its entire completion. There is no doubt
that many of these religious establishments were religious in nothing but
in name, and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. There
is no doubt that they imposed upon the people in every possible way; that
they had images moved by wires, which they pretended were miraculously
moved by Heaven; that they had among them a whole tun measure full of
teeth, all purporting to have come out of the head of one saint, who must
indeed have been a very extraordinary person with that enormous allowance
of grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said had fried Saint
Lawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said belonged to other famous
saints; penknives, and boots, and girdles, which they said belonged to
others; and that all these bits of rubbish were called Relics, and adored
by the ignorant people. But, on the other hand, there is no doubt
either, that the King's officers and men punished the good monks with the
bad; did great injustice; demolished many beautiful things and many
valuable libraries; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained glass
windows, fine pavements, and carvings; and that the whole court were
ravenously greedy and rapacious for the division of this great spoil
among them. The King seems to have