advice about leaving a few convents for those who took care of the strangers and sick people, but, like a cruel and passionate man as he was, he turned them all out: many of them actually died of hunger and distress, and many more ended their lives as beggars.

Yet, although Henry was so cruel to the monks and priests, he would not allow the people to change many of the things that the followers of the Pope were most to blame for. He was glad enough to be master, or, as he called it, SUPREME HEAD of the English church and clergy, and to take the lands and money from the convents and abbeys. But he would not let everybody read the Bible, and would insist upon their worshipping God as he pleased, not in the way they believed to be right.

I have already told you that many very good men wished a great many changes to be made in the manner of worship, in teaching the people, and letting them read; besides taking some of the lands and money of the convents, and forcing the clergymen to use the rest of their riches properly. Besides, they wished the clergymen to be allowed to marry.

The chief persons who wished for these changes were-Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury; Latimer, Bishop of Worcester; Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury; all very learned men; and they had most of the gentlemen and the people with them.

Those who followed after these wise men were called Protestants.

But there were many great and good men who thought that the clergymen might alter some small things for the better, but they would not consent to pulling down the convents, nor taking their lands and money, nor to change the way of worshipping

God, nor to the king being at the head of the church of England, instead of the Pope. These men were

called Papists.

At the head of them were-Sir Thomas More; Tonstall, Bishop of Durham; Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury; and most of the lords in the kingdom.

Now King Henry, although he chose to change the way of worship a little, and liked very well, as I said before, to get all the lands and money into his hands, still wanted to go on with some of the worst customs of the old clergymen, and, according to his cruel temper, he made some very hard laws, and threatened to burn people alive who would not believe what he believed, and worship God in the way he chose.

Many people, who could hardly understand what the king meant, were really burnt alive, according to that wicked law: but the thing that showed Henry's badness more than any other, was his ordering Sir Thomas More's head to be cut off, because he would not do as the king wished, nor say what he did not think was true. But I will write a chapter about that good man on purpose, after we have done with this wicked King Henry.

Besides putting Sir Thomas More to death, the king cut off the heads of Bishop Fisher, the Marquis of Exeter, Lord Montague, Sir Edward Nevil, and, most shocking of all, the head of an old lady with grey hairs, named Margaret Plantagenet, only because her son, Reginald Pole, afterwards called Cardinal Pole, would not come to England when Henry invited him.

I dare say you are tired of reading of so much wickedness. I am sure I am tired of writing it, and I will only mention one thing more. A few days

before Henry died he ordered the Earl of Surrey's head to be cut off.

This Earl of Surrey was the most polite and pleasant, and learned young gentleman in England. And Henry hated him only because he was good; and he was going to cut off the head of Surrey's father, the old Duke of Norfolk, but he died the night before that was to have been done, and so the Duke was saved. I do not believe that there was one person in England who could be sorry when Henry died, and most of the people were very glad.

Even now, whenever his name is mentioned, we think of everything that is wicked.

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CHAPTER XL.

How Sir Thomas More studied law, and became an orator; the wise and good men who visited him; how he was for some time in the King's favour, but afterwards imprisoned and put to death, because he would not do everything the King wished.

WELL, my dear little Arthur, we have done with the cruel King Henry VIII., and I am going to keep my promise, and write a little chapter about Sir Thomas More.

We read in the chapter about Henry VII., that in his reign the young gentlemen of England began to study and read, and even to write books, instead of spending all their time in fighting or hunting. And I told you that Thomas Linacre, the great physician, taught a great many gentlemen at Oxford to read and write Greek, and that Sir Thomas More was one of his scholars.

Sir Thomas More's father wished him to be a lawyer, and, though he did not like it himself, he left his other learning and studied law to please his father, and became a great lawyer.

He was handsome and good-natured, very cheerful, and fond of laughing. He had a pleasant voice, and it is said that he was the first Englishman who could be called an ORATOR, that is, a man who can speak well before a great number of others (as a clergyman does when he preaches in a large church), and either teach them or persuade them to think or do as he wishes.

But what you will like best to hear is, how good he was to his little son and his daughters: he used to laugh with them and talk with them, and as he had a pretty garden round his house at Chelsea, he used to walk and play with them there.

Besides this, he was so kind to them, that he had the best masters in England to teach them different languages, and music, and they used to have very pleasant concerts, when his wife and daughters used to play on different instruments, and sing to him. He was very fond of painting, and had the famous painter, Hans Holbein, in his house a long time.

Sometimes he and his children read pleasant books together, and he was particularly careful to instruct his little girls, and they read and wrote Latin very well, besides being very good workwomen with their needles, and understanding how to take care of a house.

You may think what a happy family this was, and how much all the children and the parents loved one another. All the best men that were then alive used to come now and then and see Sir Thomas More and his family. There was the famous Erasmus, whom I

mentioned before; and Bishop Tonstall, who often contrived to save people from the cruel Henry, when he had ordered them to be burnt; and Bishop Latimer, who dared to speak the truth to Henry, even when he threatened to cut his head off; and Dean Colet, who began that good school at St. Paul's, in London, for boys whose parents were too poor to have them properly taught. You may think how happy Sir Thomas More was at Chelsea, loving his wife and children, who were all good, and most of them clever, seeing his good and wise friends every day!

But you know that God gives men duties to do for the country they live in, as well as for themselves; and as Sir Thomas More was a lawyer, he was obliged to attend to his business, and when he became a judge, it took up so much of his time that he could not be so much at his house at Chelsea as he wished. It was still worse when Henry VIII. made him Lord Chancellor of England, and required most of his spare time to talk with him, instead of letting him go home.

For some time King Henry liked him very much, and everybody was in hopes that he might make the king a better man.

But Henry was too bad and too cruel to take advice. The first dislike he showed to Sir Thomas More was because that honest man told him it was a great sin to send away his good wife, Catherine of Arragon, and marry another woman while she was alive. Afterwards he was angry with him because he would not leave off his own way of worshipping God, and do as Henry pleased, though he tried every means to persuade him to do so.

At last the king sent him to prison on that account, and kept him there a whole year, and sent all sorts of