SIR THOMAS MORE
Page: 50

Before you enter through the Towergate,
Your upper garment, sir, belongs to me.

MORE.
Sir, you shall have it; there it is.

[He gives him his cap.]

GENTLEMAN PORTER.
The upmost on your back, sir; you mistake me.

MORE.
Sir, now I understand ye very well:
But that you name my back,
Sure else my cap had been the uppermost.

SHREWSBURY.
Farewell, kind lord; God send us merry meeting!

MORE.
Amen, my lord.

SURREY.
Farewell, dear friend; I hope your safe return.

MORE.
My lord, and my dear fellow in the Muses,
Farewell; farewell, most noble poet.

LIEUTENANT.
Adieu, most honored lords.

[Exeunt Lords.]

MORE.
Fair prison, welcome; yet, methinks,
For thy fair building tis too foul a name.
Many a guilty soul, and many an innocent,
Have breathed their farewell to thy hollow rooms.
I oft have entered into thee this way;
Yet, I thank God, ne'er with a clear conscience
Than at this hour:
This is my comfort yet, how hard sore
My lodging prove, the cry of the poor suitor,
Fatherless orphan, or distressed widow,
Shall not disturb me in my quiet sleep.
On, then, a God's name, to our close abode!
God is as strong here as he is abroad.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE II. More's House.

[Enter Butler, Porter, and Horsekeeper several ways.]

BUTLER.
Robin brewer, how now, man! what cheer, what cheer?

BREWER.
Faith, Ned butler, sick of thy disease; and these our other fellows
here, Rafe horsekeeper and Giles porter, sad, sad; they say my lord
goes to his trial today.

HORSEKEEPER.
To it, man! why, he is now at it, God send him well to speed!

PORTER.
Amen; even as i wish to mine own soul, so speed it with my
honorable lord and master, Sir Thomas More.

BUTLER.
I cannot tell, I have nothing to do with matters above my capacity;
but, as God judge me, if I might speak my mind, I think there lives
not a more harmless gentleman in the universal world.

BREWER.
Nor a wiser, nor a merrier, nor an honester; go to, I'll put that in
upon mine own knowledge.

PORTER.
Nay, and ye bait him his due of his housekeeping, hang ye all! ye
have many Lord Chancellor's comes in debt at the year's end, and