More was at his house at Chelsea when the summons called him to Lambeth, to the house where he had bandied fun with Warham and Erasmus or bent over the easel of Holbein.

For a moment there may have been some passing impulse to yield.

But it was soon over.
Triumphant in all else, the monarchy was to find its power stop short at the conscience of man.

The great battle of spiritual freedom, the battle of the Protestant against Mary, of the Catholic against Elizabeth, of the Puritan against Charles, of the Independent against the Presbyterian, began at the moment when More refused to bend or to deny his convictions at a king's bidding.
[Sidenote: More sent to the Tower] "I thank the Lord," More said with a sudden start as the boat dropped silently down the river from his garden steps in the early morning, "I thank the Lord that the field is won." At Lambeth Cranmer and his fellow-commissioners tendered to him the new oath of allegiance; but, as they expected, it was refused.

They bade him walk in the garden that he might reconsider his reply.