Gradually he came prominently before his contemporaries. His books made him known to scholars. Wolsey may have known him at Oxford, and now found him useful on embassies and at Court. The King sought him out and made a friend of him, would talk with him of theological matters, obtained his help for that book against Luther which won him the title of "Defender of the Faith," and often at night "would have him up to the leads, there to consider with him the courses, motions, and operations of the stars and planets." So, when Wolsey fell, More, who had already been Speaker of the House of Commons, and won great praise alike from King and Cardinal, became Lord Chancellor--the first great layman and lawyer who held that high office. As judge men spoke of him with admiration for centuries. He was a statesman, too, as well as a lawyer, and his aid was sought in all Henry's foreign negotiations. He might have been the greatest man in England after the King if he would have strained his conscience. But this he would not do. He never approved the Divorce; he was known to be a champion of the injured Queen Katherine, and a friend to her nephew, the Emperor Charles. As Church questions, too, came in dispute, he took more and more the conservative side. He would not repudiate the Pope's supremacy, or separate himself from the imposing unity of Christendom, which it seemed to him was threatened by the nationalism of Henry VIII., as well as by the heresy of Luther. And so at last it came that the lion felt his strength: it was More's own prophecy, and he was one of the first victims. On Monday, April 13, 1534, he was required to take oath to the succession of the issue of Anne Boleyn, and in repudiation of the validity of the first marriage of the King. He at once refused. He would not deny to swear to the succession, but the oath put before him he could not reconcile with his conscience. In this he persisted. Imprisonment, trial, death, came naturally and inevitably; and of these Miss Manning, with the letters and memoirs before her, has made the faithful Margaret write as from a full heart. On Tuesday, July 6, 1535, he was executed on Tower Hill. "He bore in his hands a red cross, and was often seen to cast his eyes towards heaven." He died as he had lived, with saintly calm, and still playing with a gentle humour. "That at least," he said, as he drew aside his beard from the block, "has committed no treason."