268
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 9.
his many conversations with herself, he had expressed himself with all freedom, and to others he had doubtless spoken as plainly as to her.[1]
On the 7th of May he was examined by the same persons who examined Fisher; and he was interrogated again and again in subsequent interviews. His humour did not allow him to answer questions directly: he played with his catechists, and did not readily furnish them with materials for a charge. He had corresponded with Fisher in prison, on the conduct which he meant to pursue. Some of these letters had heen burnt; but others were in the hands of the Government, and would have been sufficient to sustain the prosecution, but they preferred his own words from his own lips. June 26.At length sufficient evidence was obtained. On the 26th of June, a true bill was found against him by the grand jury of Middlesex; and on the 1st of July the High Commission sat again in Westminster Hall, to try the most illustrious prisoner who ever listened to his sentence there.[2] July 1.He walked from the Tower—feebly, however, and with a stick,- ↑ If his opinions had been insufficient for his destruction, there was an influence at Court which left no hope to him; the influence of one whose ways and doings were better known then than they have been known to her modern admirers. 'On a time,' writes his grandson, 'when he had questioned my aunt Roper of his wife and children, and the state of his house in his absence, he asked her at last how Queen Anne did. 'In faith, father,' said she, 'never better. There is nothing else at the Court but dancing and sporting.' 'Never better?' said he; 'alas, Meg, alas, it pitieth me to remember unto what misery she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance.''—More's Life of More, p. 244.
- ↑ The composition of the commission is remarkable. When Fisher
