ad
consented to it, or that he ever would consent; but like the Prior of
the Charterhouse, he could not admit himself guilty when he had only
obeyed his conscience. The jury retired to consider, and in a quarter of
an hour returned with their verdict. The chancellor, after receiving it,
put the usual question, what the prisoner could say in arrest of
judgment. More replied, but replied with a plea which it was impossible
to recognise, by denouncing the statute under which he was tried, and
insisting on the obligation of obedience to the see of Rome. Thus the
sentence was inevitable. It was pronounced in the ordinary form; but the
usual punishment for treason was commuted, as it had been with Fisher,
to death upon the scaffold; and this last favour was communicated as a
special instance of the royal clemency. More's wit was always ready.
"God forbid," he answered, "that the king should show any more such
mercy unto any of my friends; and God bless all my posterity from such
pardons."[460]

The pageant was over, for such a trial was little more. As the
procession formed to lead back the "condemned traitor" to the Tower, the
commissioners once more adjured him to have pity on himself, and offered
to reopen the court if he would reconsider his resolution. More smiled,
and replied only a few words of graceful farewell.

[Sidenote: His last words to the commission.]

"My lords," he said, "I have but to say that, like as the blessed
Apostle St. Paul was present at the death of the martyr Stephen, keeping
their clothes that stoned him, and yet they be now both saints in
heaven, and there shall continue friends for ever, so I trust, and shall
therefore pray, that though your lordships have been on earth my
judges, yet we may hereafter meet in heaven together to our everlasting
salvation; and God preserve you all, especially my sovereign lord the
king, and grant him faithful councillors."

[Sidenote: He returns to the Tower.]

[Sidenote: Margaret Roper.]

He then left the hall, and to spare him the exertion of the walk he was
allowed to return by water. At the Tower stairs one of those scenes
occurred which have cast so rich a pathos round the closing story of
this illustrious man. "When Sir Thomas," writes the grandson, "was now
come to the Tower wharf, his best beloved child, my aunt Roper, desirous
to see her father, whom she feared she should never see in this world
after, to have his last blessing, gave there attendan