highness had most graciously declared that on this matter More should be molested no more. {829} When in the end they saw that no persuasion could move him, they then said, 'that the king's highness had given them in commandment, if they could by no gentleness win him, in the king's name with ingratitude to charge him, that never was servant to his master so villainous, nor subject to his prince so traitorous as he.'. . . By a tyrannical edict, mis-called a law, in the same session of 1533-4, it was made high treason, after the 1st of May, 1534, by writing, print, deed, or act, to do or to procure, or cause to be done or procured, anything to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, or derogation of the king's lawful matrimony with queen Anne. If the same offences were committed by words, they were only misprision. The same act enjoined all persons to take an oath to maintain the whole contents of the statute, and an obstinate refusal to make such oath was subjected to the penalties of misprision. ... Sir T. More was summoned to appear before these commissioners at Lambeth, on Monday the 13th of April, 1534. ... After having read the statute and the form of the oath, he declared his readiness to swear that he would maintain and defend the order of succession to the crown as established by parliament. He disclaimed all censure of those who had imposed, or on those who had taken, the oath, but declared it to be impossible that he should swear to the whole contents of it, without offending against his own conscience. ... He never more returned to his house, being committed to the custody of the abbot of Westminster, in which he continued four days; and at the end of that time he was conveyed to the Tower on Friday the 17th of April, 1534. ... On the 6th of May, 1535, almost immediately after the defeat of every attempt to practise on his firmness, More was brought to trial at Westminster, and it will scarcely be doubted, that no such culprit stood at any European bar for a thousand years. ... It is lamentable that the records of the proceedings against such a man should be scanty. We do not certainly know the specific offence of which he was convicted. ... On Tuesday, the 6th of July (St. Thomas's eve), 1535, sir Thomas Pope, 'his singular good friend,' came to him early with a message from the king and council, to say that he should die before nine o'clock of the same morning. ... The lieutenant brought him to the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall, on which he said, merrily, 'Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.' When he laid his head on the block he desired the executioner to wait till he had removed his beard, for that had never offended his highness."