es of most of us. In
their deaths they assisted to pay the purchase-money for England's
freedom.

[Sidenote: Fisher and More.]

[Sidenote: Fisher's dangerous imprudence.]

[Sidenote: Treatment and conduct of Fisher and of More in the Tower.]

[Sidenote: Cromwell's charges against them.]

After the execution of the Carthusians, it became a question what should
be done with the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More. They had
remained for a year in the Tower, undisturbed; and there is no reason to
think that they would have been further troubled, except for the fault
of one, if not of both. It appeared, however, on the trial of Father
Reynolds, that Fisher's imprudence or zeal had tempted him again to
meddle with dangerous matters. A correspondence had passed between the
bishop and the king,[442] on the Act of Supremacy, or on some subject
connected with it. The king had taken no public notice of Fisher's
words, but he had required a promise that the letter should not be
shown to any other person. The unwise old man gave his word, but he did
not observe it; he sent copies both of what he had himself written and
of the king's answer to the Sion monks,[443] furnishing them at the same
time with a copy of the book which he had written against the divorce,
and two other books, written by Abel, the queen's confessor, and the
Spanish ambassador. Whether he was discovered to have held any other
correspondence, or whether anything of an analogous kind was proved
against More, I am unable to discover. Both he and Fisher had been
treated with greater indulgence than was usual with prisoners.[444]
Their own attendants had waited on them; they were allowed to receive
visits from their relatives within the Tower walls, and to correspond
with their families and friends.[445] As a matter of course, under such
circumstances, they must have expressed their opinions on the great
subject of the day; and those opinions were made known throughout
England, and, indeed, throughout Europe. Whether they did more than
this, or whether they had only indirectly allowed their influence to be
used against the government, must be left to conjecture. But the
language of a document under the king's hand speaks of their having
given some cause of provocation, of no common kind; and this is
confirmed by Cromwell, who was once deeply attached to More. "When they
were in strait keeping," say the instructions to the Bishop of Hereford,
"having neverthe