placed Philips in Stokesley's hands; who took part in the illegal private
examinations, and who could not have been ignorant of the prisoner's
ultimate fate. If, however, it be thought unjust to charge a good man's
memory with an offence in which his part was only secondary, the following
iniquity was wholly and exclusively his own. I relate the story without
comment in the address of the injured person to More's successor.[545]

"_To the Right Hon. the Lord Chancellor of England. (Sir T. Audeley) and
other of the King's Council._

"In most humble wise showeth unto your goodness your poor bedeman John
Field, how that the next morrow upon twelfth day,[546] in the twenty-first
year of our sovereign lord the King's Highness, Sir Thomas More, Knight,
then being Lord Chancellor of England, did send certain of his servants,
and caused your said bedeman, with certain others, to be brought to his
place at Chelsea, and there kept him (after what manner and fashion it were
now long to tell), by the space of eighteen days;[547] and then set him at
liberty, binding him to appear before him again the eighth day following in
the Star Chamber, which was Candlemas eve; at which day your said bedeman
appeared, and was then sent to the Fleet, where he continued until Palm
Sunday two years after [in violation of both the statutes], kept so close
the first quarter that his keeper only might visit him; and always after
closed up with those that were handled most straitly; often searched,
sometimes even at midnight; besides snares and traps laid to take him in.
Betwixt Michaelmas and Allhalloween tide next after his coming to prison
there was taken from your bedeman a Greek vocabulary, price five shillings;
Saint Cyprian's works, with a book of the same Sir Thomas More's making,
named the _Supplication of Souls_. For what cause it was done he committeth
to the judgment of God, that seeth the souls of all persons. The said Palm
Sunday, which was also our Lady's day, towards night there came two
officers of the Fleet, named George Porter and John Butler, and took your
bedeman into a ward alone, and there, after long searching, found his purse
hanging at his girdle; which they took, and shook out the money to the sum
of ten shillings, which was sent him to buy such necessaries as he lacked,
and delivered him again his purse, well and truly keeping the money to
themselves, as they said for their fees; and forthwith carried him from the
Fleet (whe