He resigned the great seal rather than sign the marriage articles of Anne Boleyn, and would not take the oath as to the lawfulness of that marriage.

Henry's kindness turned to fury, and More was a doomed man.

A devout Romanist, he would not violate his conscience by submitting to the act of supremacy which made Henry the head of the Church, and so he was tried for high treason, and executed on the 6th of July, 1535.

There are few scenes more pathetic than his last interview with his daughter Margaret, in the Tower, and no death more calmly and beautifully grand than his.

He kissed the executioner and forgave him.
"Thou art," said he, "to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive: pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thine office." UTOPIA .-- His great work, and that which best illustrates the history of the age, is his Utopia, ([Greek: ou topos], not a place.) Upon an island discovered by a companion of Vespuccius, he established an imaginary commonwealth, in which everybody was good and everybody happy.