d he gave a great
shriek, and thrust himself through the guards and flung himself at
More's feet. This was his son-in-law, William Roper, Margaret's husband.

More was allowed to go back to the Tower by boat, and a sorrowful voyage
it must have been, not for himself, but for thinking of all those dear
ones he must leave.

When he arrived at the Tower he saw standing on the quay two
figures--his son John, then a man of twenty-five, and a tall, slight
woman in deepest black, his dear Meg. Even the soldiers made way for her
as she flung her arms round her father's neck and cried out of her
breaking heart, 'My father! oh, my father!'--a cry which so touched some
of those rough guards that they turned aside to hide the tears in their
own eyes. More tried to comfort her, and presently gently drew himself
away. He felt it was almost too much for him; but as she turned away she
could not bear to let him go, and once more threw her arms round him
with that pitiful cry, and only gave way when at last she sank fainting
on the ground.

More then went on and left her so, and when she came to herself she knew
it was all over, and that she had no more hope. Six days later, at nine
o'clock in the morning, More was led out to suffer beheading, as Bishop
Fisher had already suffered. When he had first gone to the Tower he had
been a man of middle age with a brown beard and brown hair; now after a
year of confinement and anxiety his hair was quite gray. When he was
told to make ready for his execution, he put on a silk robe, which when
the gaoler saw he asked him to change for a common woollen one. More
asked why, and was told that the clothes he was killed in became the
property of the executioner, and the clothes he left behind in the Tower
were taken by his gaolers, and that this gaoler thought the silk robe
too good for the executioner. So More quietly changed to a commoner
dress, for it mattered little to him. When he reached the scaffold, he
found he was too feeble to climb up the steps without help, and he asked
one of the men to give him an arm, adding: 'I pray you see me safe up;
as for my coming down, I may shift for myself.' The executioner asked
his forgiveness, which was granted; and then More knelt before the
block, and carefully put his beard aside, saying: '_That_ at least has
committed no treason.' Then with one stroke his head was cut off. His
body was buried near the chapel in the Tower; but, according to the
custom o