ANNE THE QUENE.

By the Quene.

TRUSTIE and right welbiloued we grete you well. And where as we be crediblie enformed that the berer hereof Richard Herman marchaunte and citizen of Antwerpe in Brabant was in the tyme of the late lorde Cardynall put and expelled frome his fredome and felowshipe of and in the Englishe house there, for nothing ells (as he affermethe) but oonly for that that he a dyd bothe with his gooddis and pollicie, to his greate hurte and hynderans in this Worlde, helpe to the settyng forthe of the Newe Testamente in Englisshe. We therefore desire and instantly praye you that with all spede and favoure convenient ye woll cause this good and honeste marchaunt, being my Lordis true faithfull and loving subjecte, restored to his pristine fredome, libertie, and felowshipe aforesaid, and the soner at this oure requeste, and at your good leyser to here hym in suche thinges as he hathe to make further relacion unto you in this behalf. Yeven undir our Signete at my Lordis manoure of Grenewiche the xiiijth daye of May.

To our trustie and right welbeloved

Thomas Crumwell squyer Chief Secretary

unto my Lorde the Kings Highnes.

a The words "still like a good crysten man" are here obliterated: the pen having been drawn across them.

LETTER CXVII.

Sir Thomas More to King Henry the Eighth; a Letter of submission and excuse.

[FROM THE CHAPTER HOUSE AT WESTMINSTER.]

This Letter, which is one of the best specimens of Sir Thomas More's style, has been published before, but with a different spelling, with one or two small variations, and with the omission of the last sentence. Under these circumstances, the original having occurred in a Collection of detached Papers in the Chapter House at Westminster, it has been thought that the republication of it in the present Volume would not be unacceptable.

There are one or two passages in this Letter from which it may be gathered that King Henry the Eighth had condescended to use great familiarity with Sir Thomas More. Erasmus has said much upon this subject in his Letters. Of Sir Thomas More's embassies abroad, he says, "Semel atque iterum extrusus est in legationem, in qua cum se cordatissime gessisset, non conquievit serenissimus Rex Henricus, ejus nominis octavus, donec hominem in aulam suam pertraheret. Cur enim non dicam pertraheret? Nullus unquam vehementius ambiit in aulam admitti, quam hic studuit effugere. Verum, cum esset optimo Regi in animo, familiam suam eruditis, gravibus, cordatis, et integris viris differtam reddere, cum alios permultos, tum MORUM in primis accivit, QUEM SIC IN INTIMIS HABET, UT A SE NUNQUAM PATIATUR DISCEDERE. SIVE SERIIS UTENDUM EST, NIHIL ILLO CONSULTIUS, SIVE VISUM EST REGI FABULIS AMNIORIBUS LAXARE ANIMUM, NULLUS COMES FESTIVIOR. Sæpe res arduæ judicem gravem et cordatum postulant, has sic Morus discutit, ut utraque pars habeat gratiam. Nec tamen ab eo quisquam impetravit, ut munus à quoquam acciperet. Felices res publicas, si Mori similes magistratus ubique præficeret Princeps."

Another circumstance connected with the subject of this Letter, also occurs in Erasmus's Epistles and does not seem to have been known to our historians. It is that upon Wolsey's fall, Henry pressed Cranmer to take the Chancellorship more than once, before he offered it to Sir THOMAS MORE. The whole passage which contains this fact is curious: for it also contains abuse of Wolsey whom Erasmus had so often and so courtingly praised. It is as follows:

a Desid. Erasmi Epist. CCCXLVII. Edit. Lugd. Bat. 1706. tom. i. col. 476.

"Cardinalis Eboracensis sic offendit animum regium, ut spoliatus bonis et omni dignitate, tueatur, non in carcere, sed in quodam ipsius prædio, adhibitis triginta duntaxat seu famulis seu custodibus. Proferuntur in ilJum querelæ innumeræ, ut vix existiment effugere posse capitis supplicium. Hic est fortunæ ludus, ex ludimagistro subvectus est ad regnum; nam plane regnabat verius quam ipse Rex. Metuebatur ab omnibus, amabatur a paucis, ne dicam a nemine. Paucis ante diebus quam caperetur, curaverat Richardum Pacæum conjiciendum in carcerem, ac minitabatur etiam meo archiepiscopo Cantuariensi. Ante ruinam exaltuntur spiritus ait Salomon. Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis vocatus, imo revocatus est AD CANCELLARII MUNUS, quo non aliud in Anglia majus: sed is excusavit ætatem, jam imparem tanto negotio. Itaque provincia delegata est THOмÆ MORO, magno omnium applausu, nec minore bonorum omnium lætitia subvectus, quam dejectus Cardinalis."

HIT may lyke your Highnes to call to your graciouse remembraunce, that at such tyme as of that great weighty rome and office of your Chauncellor, with which, so far above my merits or qualitees able and mete, therefore your Highnes had of your incomparable goodnes honored and exalted me, ye were so good and graciouse unto me as at my pore humble suit to discharge and disburden me; gevyng me lycence with your graciouse favor to bestow the resydew of my lyfe to come about the provysion for my soule in the servyce of God, and to be your bedisman and pray for you. It pleased your Highnes ferther to say unto me, that for the service which byfore I had done yow (which it than lyked your goodnes far above my deserving to commend) that in eny suit that I shold after have to your Grace, that either shold concerne myn honor (that word it lyked your Highnes to use unto me) or that

a Erasmi Epist. MCLI. Joanni. Vergara. ut supr. tom ii. col. 1348.

shold perteyne unto my profit, I shold fynde your Highnes good and graciouse lord unto me. So is it now graciouse Soverayne that worldely honor is the thing wherof I have resigned both the possession and the desyre, in the resignation of your moost honorable office; and worldely profit I trust experience proveth, and dayly more and more shall prove, that I never was very gredy thereon. But now is my moost humble suit unto your excellent Highnes, partely to byseche the same some what to tendre my pore honestie, how beit, pryncipally that of your accustomed goodnes no synistre information move your noble Grace to have eny more distrust of my trowth and devotion toward you than I have or shall during my lyfe geve the cause. For in this mater of the wykked woman of Canterbery, I have unto your trusty Counsailor Mr Thomas Cromwell, by my writing, as playnely declared the trowth as I possibly can, which my declaration, of his dewty toward your grace and his goodnes toward me, he hath, I understand, declared unto your grace; in eny parte of all which my dealing, whither eny other man may peradventure put eny dowt, or move eny scruple of suspition, that can I neither tell nor lyeth in my hand to lett; but unto my selfe it is not possible eny parte of my sayed demeanure to seme evyll: the very clerenes of myn awne conscience knoweth in all the mater my minde an entent so good. Wherfore moost graciouse

VOL. II.

E

Soverayne I neither will, nor it can bycome me, with your Highnes to reason or argue the mater; but in my moost humble maner prostrate at your graciouse feete I ownely besech your Majestie with your awne high prudence, and your accustomed goodnes, consydre and way the mater: and thatt if, in your so doing, your awne vertuouse mynde shall geve yow that notwithstanding the manifold excellent goodnes that your graciouse Highnes hath by so many maner wayes used unto me, I be a wreche of such a monstruouse ingratitude as could with eny of theym all or eny other person lyvinge digresse from my bounden dewtie of allegeaunce toward your good Grace, than desyre I no ferther favor at your graciouse hands than the losse of all that ever I may lese, goods, lands, libertie, and my life with all, whereof the keping of eny parte unto my selfe could never do me penyworth of pleasure. But onely shold my cumforte be, that after my short lyfe and your long (which with continuall prosperitie to Godds pleasure our Lord for his mercy send yow) I shold onys mete your Grace and be mery agayne with yow in hevyn, where among myn other pleasures this shold yit be one, that your Grace shold surely se there than, that howsoever yow take me, I am your trew bedisman now, and ever have bene, and will be till I dye, how so ever your pleasure be to do by me. How be it, if in the considering of my cause, your high wisedom and gra