The King’s good servant.

[The following is in regards to the execution of Sir Thomas More, during the first days of the Protestant Reformation in England.**] >[Sir Thomas More](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Hans_Holbein%2C_the_Younger_-_Sir_Thomas_More_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) had been in the Tower [**of London**] for fifteen months, constantly examined and re-examined by agents of a government not less eager to trip him into treason than to publish his submission to the world. [Henry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Workshop_of_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_Portrait_of_Henry_VIII_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) [**VIII*] had loved the man; Europe reverenced his genius. For both reasons Henry had to have either his explicit approval or his death. >”I know well,” More told Norfolk when sentence was pronounced, “that the reason why you have condemned me is because I have never been willing to consent to the king’s second marriage.” But if More had never been willing to consent, he had been reluctant to condemn, and if the King’s marriage had caused his death, it was because More’s trained legal mind appreciated the issue at stake better, perhaps, than any other mind in England. >Wittily, patiently, ironically he had explained to Rich, to Audeley, to Norfolk, over and over again. He did not set himself up against the statutes of the King in Parliament; he knew as well as any man that often the edicts of the state must override the subject’s right of private judgement. But the moral authority of the state was delegated to it by the community of all Christian souls, and was limited by the great unwritten constitution of the whole community of Christendom – of which no state was more than a part. A state which put itself beyond the pale of the community, which recognized no authority above its own, and based its power on fear and naked force, was no better than the rule of a tyrant or a gang of robbers. >There were laws no Parliament could pass; and for that point of constitutional law, Henry’s loyal subject and England’s greatest Chancellor was willing to die. He put the same point more simply to the crowd around his scaffold. He had been told not to use many words. He did not need many. >”I die,” he told them, “the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” ________________________ **Source:** Mattingly, Garrett. “Part III: The Divorce of Henry VIII; Chapter Five, Section iv” *Catherine of Aragon*. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 418-19. Print. ________________________ **Further Reading:** [Sir Thomas More / Saint Thomas More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More) [Henry VIII of England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England)