King's highness should heap upon me, by such a perpetual stream of affection, these so high honours? I am far less than any the meanest of his benefits bestowed on me; how can I then think myself worthy or fit for this so peerless dignity? I have been drawn by force, as the King's majesty often professeth, to his Highness's service, to be a courtier; but to take this dignity upon me, is most of all against my will; yet such is his Highness's benignity, such is his bounty, that he highly esteemeth the small dutifulness of his meanest subjects, and seeketh still magnificently to recompense his servants; not only such as deserve well, but even such as have but a desire to deserve well at his hands. In which number I have always wished myself to be reckoned, because I cannot challenge myself to be one of the former; which being so, you may all preceive with me, how great a burden is laid upon my back, in that I must strive in some sort with my diligence and duty to correspond with his royal benevolence, and to be answerable to that great expectation which he and you seem to have of me; wherefore those high praises are by so much the more grievous unto me, by how much I know the greater charge I have to render myself worthy of, and the fewer means I have to make them good. This weight is hardly suitable to my weak shoulders; this honour is not correspondent to my poor deserts; it is a burthen, not glory; a care, not a dignity; the one therefore I must bear as manfully as I can, and discharge the other with as much dexterity as I shall be able. The earnest desire which I have always had, and do now acknowledge myself to have, to satisfy by all means I can possible the most ample benefits of his Highness, will greatly excite and aid me to the diligent performance of all; which I trust also I shall be more able to do, if I find all your good wills and wishes both favourable unto me, and conformable to his royal munificence; because my serious endeavours to do well, joined with your favourable acceptance, will easily procure that whatsoever is performed by me, though it be in itself but small, yet will it seem great and praiseworthy, for those things are always achieved happily which are accepted willingly; and those succeed fortunately which are received by others courteously. As you therefore do hope for great matters, and the best at my hands, so though I dare not promise any such, yet do I promise truly and affectionately to perform the best I shall be able." When Sir Thomas had spoken these words, turning his face to the high judgment-seat of the Chancery, he proceeded in this manner: "But when I look upon this seat, when I think how great and what kind of personages have possessed this place before me, when I call to mind who he was that sat in it last of all; a man of what singular wisdom, of what notable experience, what a prosperous and favourable fortune he had for a great space, and how, at last dejected with a heavy downfall, he hath died inglorious; I have cause enough, by my predecessor's example, to think honour but slippery, and this dignity not so greatful to me as it may seem to others; for both it is a hard matter to follow with like paces or praises a man of such admirable wit, prudence, authority, and splendour, to whom I may seem but as the lighting of a candle when the sun is down; and also the sudden and unexpected fall of so great a man as he was doth terribly put me in mind that this honour ought not to please me too much, nor the lustre of this glistering seat dazzle mine eyes. Wherefore I ascend this seat as a place full of labour and danger, void of all solid and true honour; the which by how much the higher it is, by so much greater fall I am to fear, as well in respect of the very nature of the thing itself, as because I am warned by this late fearful example. And truly I might even now at this very first entrance stumble, yea faint, but that his Majesty's most singular favour towards me, and all your good wills, which your joyful countenance doth testify in this most honourable assembly, doth somewhat recreate and refresh me; otherwise, this seat would be no more pleasing to me than that sword was to Damocles, which hung over his head, and tied only by a hair of a horse's tail, seated him in the chair of state of Denis, the tyrant of Sicily: this, therefore, shall be always fresh in my mind; this will I have still before mine eyes- that this seat will be honourable, famous, and full of glory unto me, if I shall with care and diligence, fidelity and wisdom, endeavour to do my duty, and shall persuade myself that the enjoying thereof may change to be but short and uncertain; the one whereof my labour ought to perform, the other, my predecessor's example may easily teach me. All which being so, you may easily perceive what pleasure I take in this high dignity, or in this noble Duke's praising of me."* More's elevation was not only very popular in England, but was heard with great satisfaction by the learned in foreign countries. To prove this it will be enough to copy a single sentence addres * These inaugural speeches, as here given, are taken from More's Life by his great-grandson, and are adopted without suspicion by his subsequent biographers,— among others by the acute Sir James Mackintosh; - but there is reason to question their genuineness. Unless the expression, " dejected with a heavy downfall, he hath died inglorious," means, by way of figure, his political death, it betrays fabrication and a gross anachronism, for Wolsey was now alive (if not merry) at Esher, and he did not meet his natural death at Leicester Abbey till late in the following year. The Chancellor's great grandson is exceedingly inaccurate about dates, and ignorant of history. He really does suppose that Sir Thomas More was not made Chancellor till after Wolsey's death (edition 1828, by Hunter, p. 169.), which may afford a fair inference that the speeches are of his manufacture. Roper gives a very brief sketch of the Duke of Norfolk's speech, being charged by the King to make declaration "how much all England was beholden to ir Thomas More for his good service, and how worthy he was to have the highest room (office) in the realm, and low dearly his Grace loved and trusted him." In return, Sir Thomas "disabled himself to be unmeet for that room, wherein considering how wise and honorable a Prelate had lately before taken so great a fall, he had no cause thereof to rejoice." More, the great-grandson, had so much degenerated in historical lore as to assert that his ancestor was the first layman who ever held the Great Seal, forgetting not only the Scropes and the Arundels, but the Parynges and the Knyvets, celebrated by Lord Coke, his own contemporary. sed by Erasmus to John Fabius, Bishop of Vienna. Concerning the new increase of honour experienced by Thomas More, I should easily make you believe it, were I to show you the letters of many famous men, rejoicing with much alacrity, and congratulating the King, the realm, himself, and also me, on his promotion to be Lord Chancellor of England."* When the fleeting flutter of pleasurable excitement from the first entrance into high office had passed away, More himself must have looked back with regret to the period of his life when he was first making way in his profession as an advocate, or when he was quietly engaged in his literary pursuits; and as nothing happened which might not easily have been foreseen, we may rather feel surprise that, with a delicate conscience, and a strong sense of duty, he should accept this dangerous office, and associate himself with such unscrupulous colleagues. He well knew the violent and reckless character of the King; he must have expected very painful work in the pending proceedings against his predecessor; he was sure that the divorce would be prosecuted; and other subjects of dispute were springing up with the See of Rome. to cause a conflict between his interest and his duty. He probably hoped, either that the divorce would be finally sanctioned and decreed by the Pope, or that Henry, tired of Anne Boleyn, would abandon the project of making her his wife; and that all minor difficulties might disappear or be overcome. During the two years and a half he held the Great Seal, he must have enjoyed the most solid satisfaction in the assiduous honest, admirable discharge of his duties as a Judge; but, except when sitting in the Court of Chancery, his mind must have been filled with doubts, scruples, apprehensions, and antagonist wishes - sometimes overborne by an inclination to support the plans of the King, and sometimes struck with the conviction that they were inconsistent with his allegiance to the Head of the Church; - sometimes thinking that he should add to the splendour of his reputation, by directing, in high office, the government of a great empire, and sometimes dreading lest the fame he had already acquired should be tarnished by his acquiescence in measures which would be condemned by posterity;-sometimes regarding only the good he did by the improved administration of justice, and sometimes shocked by the consideration that this might be greatly overbalanced by the sanction he might be supposed to give to tyrannical acts in other departments of the government over which he had no control;- sometimes carried away by the desire to advance his family and his fiends, and at last seeing that he could only continue to have the Leans of serving them by sacrificing his country. 6. * Eras. Epist More. 177. In a letter to another correspondent, written at the same time, Erasmus, after stating that on Wolsey's disgrace the office of Chancellor was declined by Warham, says, Itaque provincia delegata est Thomæ Moro magno omnium applausu, nec minore bonorum omnium lætitiâ subvectus, quam dejectaus Crdinalis."- Ep. 1115. A few days after his installation he was called upon, as Chancellor, to open the parliament, which had been sum[Nov. 1529.] moned for the impeachment of Wolsey. The King being on the throne, and the Commons attending at the bar, the new Chancellor spoke to this effect*: That, like as a good shepherd, who not only tendeth and keepeth well his sheep, but also foreseeth and provideth against every thing which either may be hurtful or noisome to his flock, or may preserve and defend the same against all chances to come; so the King, who was the shepherd, ruler, and governor of this realm, vigilantly foreseeing things to come, considered how divers laws, by long continuance of time and mutation of things, were now grown insufficient and imperfect; and also that, by the frail condition of man, divers new enormities were sprung up amongst the people for the which no law was made to reform the same, he said, was the very cause why, at this time, the King had summoned his High Court of Parliament. He resembled the King to a shepherd or herdsman also for this cause; if a King is esteemed only for his riches, he is but a rich man; if for his honour, he is but an honourable man; but compare him to the multitude of his people and the number of his flock, then he is a ruler, a governor of might and power; so that his people maketh him a prince, as of the multitude of sheep cometh the name of a shepherd. And as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep some be rotten and faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the sound sheep, so the great WETHER which is late fallen, as you all know, juggled with the King so craftily, scabbedly, and untruly, that all men must think that he imagined himself that the King had no sense to perceive his crafty doings, or presumed that he would not see or understand his fraudulent juggling and attempts. But he was deceived; for his Grace's sight was so quick and penetrable, that he not only saw him but saw through him, both within and without; so that he was entirely open to him. According to his desert, he hath had a gentle correction; which small punishment the King would not should be an example to other offenders; but openly declareth that whosoever hereafter shall make the like attempt, or commit the like offences shall not escape with the like punishment."+ It must be confessed that he does not here mention his predecessor with the same generosity and good taste as in his inaugural discourse in the Court of Chancery, but he might feel obliged to consult the feelings of those whom he addressed, particularly the members of the Upper House, to whom the Ex-chancellor's name was most odious, and who were impatient to see a severe sentence pronounced upon him. Sir Thomas Audley, the future Lord Chancellor, being elected Speaker, the business of the session began by the appointment of *1 Parl. Hist. 491. † 1 Parl. Hist. 490. a committee, of which Lord Chancellor More was chairman, to prepare articles of charge against Wolsey. It is a curious fact, that the two Chief Justices, Fitzherbert and Fitzjames, were called in to serve on this committee, and signed the articles. These, to the number of forty-four, were immediately agreed to by the House of Lords, and sent down to the Commons. I have already observed that, considering how many of these articles were frivolous or were unfounded in fact, and that Wolsey's violations of the law and constitution by raising taxes without the authority of parliament, and other excesses of the prerogative, were entirely passed over, the proceeding is not very creditable to the memory of Sir Thomas More; and seeing the subsequent fate of the accusation in the other House, we cannot help suspecting that he was privy to a scheme for withdrawing Wolsey from the judgment of parliament, and leaving him entirely at the mercy of his arbitrary mas ter. We must give praise to the Chancellor, however, for having suggested several statutes, which were now pass[1529-1532.] ed, to put down extortion on the probate of wills*, and in the demands for mortuariest, and to prevent clerical persons from engaging in trade.‡ Other ecclesiastical reforms were loudly called for, but he did not venture to countenance them; and, to his great relief, on the 17th of December, the session was closed. Not being a member of the House, he did not openly take any part in the debates, but he was named on committees, and the proceedings of the Lords were entirely governed by him. He had now leisure to attend to the business of Chancery. Notwithstanding the great abilities of Wolsey as a judge, abuses had multiplied and strengthened during his administration, and a very loud cry arose for equity reform. To the intolerable vexation of the subject, writs of subpoena had been granted on payment of the fees, without any examination as to whether there were any probable cause for involving innocent individuals in a Chancery suit; a heavy arrear of causes stood for adjudication, some of which were said to have been depending for twenty years; and the general saying went, that "no one could hope for a favourable judgment unless his fingers were tipt with gold;"which probably arose, not from the bribes received directly by the Chancellor himself, but from the excessive fees and gratuities demanded by his officers and servants. The new Chancellor began by an order that "no subpoena should issue till a bill had been filed, signed by the attorney; and, he himself having perused it, had granted a fiat for the commencement of the suit." It is related that, acting under this order, he showed his characteristic love of justice and jesting. When he had perused a very * 21 Hen. 8. c. 5. † Ibid. c. 6. Ibid. c. 13. |