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Transcriber's Notes.

Where no illustration caption appeared below the image, the
corresponding wording from the list of illustrations has been included
as a caption.

Italics are surrounded with _ _. The oe ligature has been replaced
in this version by the letters oe. Some words have been represented
in the print version as the first three letters of the word followed
by the last letter as a superscript and with a dot underneath. The
superscripted letters have been represented in this version as ^[.x].

On p. 59 of the original book, a presumed printer's error has been
corrected:

  "She seems 'em now!" (as printed in the original) has been changed to
  "She sees 'em now!" (in this version)

On p. 201, the date 1543 has been changed to 1534. This can be fairly
presumed to be the intended date based on historical occurrences
referred to and based on the continuity of entries.




  THE
  HOUSEHOLD OF
  SIR THO^[.S] MORE


  By the same Author

  _In crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 6s._

  Illustrated by JOHN JELLICOE and HERBERT RAILTON

  The Old Chelsea Bun-Shop:
  A Tale of the Last Century

  Cherry & Violet:
  A Tale of the Great Plague

  The Maiden and Married Life of Mary
  Powell, afterwards Mrs. Milton

_The many other interesting works of this author will be published from
time to time uniformly with the above._




  [Illustration:

  The Household of
  SIR THO^[.S] MORE

  _Illvstrations by_ John Jellicoe &
  Herbert Railton

  _Introdvction by_ The Rev^[.d] W. H. Hutton

  LONDON
  John C. NIMMO
  MDCCCXCIX
  ]

  [Illustration: LIBELLUS A MARGARETA MORE QVINDECIM ANNOS NATA CHELSELAE
  INCEPTVS

  _Nvlla dies sine linea_ ]

  [Illustration: "Anon we sit down to rest and talk"]




  THE
  HOUSEHOLD OF
  SIR THO^[.S] MORE


  WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
  THE REV. W. H. HUTTON, B.D.
  FELLOW OF S. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD


  AND TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
  BY JOHN JELLICOE AND
  HERBERT RAILTON


  LONDON
  JOHN C. NIMMO
  NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
  MDCCCXCIX


  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
  At the Ballantyne Press




  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  _From Drawings by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON.


  "ANON WE SIT DOWN TO REST AND TALK."
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON        _Frontispiece_

                                                              PAGE

  TITLE-PAGE.
    _Designed by_ HERBERT RAILTON                                iii

  MOTTO OF MARGARET MORE.
    _Designed by_ HERBERT RAILTON                                 iv

  SIR THOMAS MORE'S HOUSE.
    _Drawn by_ HERBERT RAILTON                                     1

  ERASMUS AND THE PEACOCKS.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                               _To face_ 6

  JACK AND CECY.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                                      26

  MORE IN THE BARROW.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                                      38

  MARGARET IN THE TREE.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                              _To face_ 44

  "I NOTICED ARGUS PEARCHT."
    _Drawn by_ HERBERT RAILTON                            _To face_ 52

  GAMMER GURNEY.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                                      58

  MORE READING WYNKYN DE WORDE.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON          _To face_ 70

  THE JEW.
    _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                                      76

  THE CARDINAL'S PROCESSION.
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                                    87

  "I FELL INTO DISGRACE FOR HOLDING SPEECH
    WITH MERCY OVER THE PALES."
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON      _To face_ 110

  "LORD SANDS SANG US A NEW BALLAD."
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE      120

  "THE KING WAS HERE YESTERDAY."
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON      _To face_ 142

  "SHE COMETH HITHER FROM HEVER CASTLE."
      _Drawn by_ HERBERT RAILTON      _To face_ 148

  THE BEGGAR-WOMAN'S DOG.
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE      161

  IN THE GARDEN.
      _Drawn by_ HERBERT RAILTON      165

  "AND SAYTH, LOW BOWING AS HE SPOKE, 'MADAM,
    MY LORD IS GONE.'"
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON      _To face_ 172

  "IN COMETH A PURSUIVANT."
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE      203

  THE STAIRS.
      _Drawn by_ HERBERT RAILTON      210

  "HIS FEARLESSE PASSAGE THROUGH THE TRAITOR'S
    GATE."
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE _and_ HERBERT RAILTON      _To face_ 220

  GILLIAN AND THE FLOUR SACKS.
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                                237

  MORE RETURNING FROM HIS TRIAL.
      _Drawn by_ JOHN JELLICOE                            _To face_ 258

  "NOR LOOKT I UP TILL ANEATH THE BRIDGE-GATE."
      _Drawn by_ HERBERT RAILTON                           _To face_ 262




Introduction


It is not always from the closest and most accurate historian that
we receive the truest picture of an age or of a character. The
artist gives a more real picture than the photographer; and it needs
imagination and sympathy, as well as labour and research, to make a
hero of old time live again to-day. The minutest investigation will
hardly better the vivid reality of Scott's James I. or Charles II.,
or portray more truly than Mr. Shorthouse has done the fragile yet
fascinating personality of Charles I. Yet to say this is not to
undervalue history or to contemn the labour of true students. Rather,
without their aid we cannot rightly see the past at all: it comes to us
only with the distortions of our own prejudice and our narrow modern
outlook. We need both the work of the scholar and the imagination of
the artist. Without the first we could not behold the past, without the
second we could not understand it.

In religion, in politics, in art, in all that makes life beautiful and
men true, we must know the past if we would use the present or provide
for the future. And our knowledge is barren indeed if it does not touch
the intimacies of human existence. What we must know is how men lived
and thought, not merely how they acted. We must see them in the home,
and not only in the senate or the field. It is thus that the Letters
of Erasmus, or Luther's Table Talk, are worth a ton of Sleidan's
dreary commentaries or Calvin's systematic theology. And yet we cannot
dispense with either. We must study past ages as a whole, and then
bring the imagination of the artist and the poet to show us the truth
and the passion that lies nearest to their heart. It is thus, then, in
history that the imaginary portrait has its valued place.

Saturated with contemporary literature, yet alive to the influences
of a wider life, the student who is also an artist turns to a great
movement, and with the touch of genius fixes the true impression of its
soul in poetry, on canvas, or in prose. Such was the work of Walter
Pater. He taught us, through the delicate study of a secondary but most
alluring painter, to "understand to how great a place in human culture
the art of Italy had been called." In his picture of a great scholar
and a beautiful, pathetic, childlike soul, he showed the fascination
of that priceless truth--that what men have thought and done, that what
has interested and charmed them, can never wholly die--"no language
they have spoken, nor oracle beside which they have hushed their
voices, no dream which has once been entertained by actual human minds,
nothing about which they have ever been passionate or expended time and
zeal."

And more. He taught us not only how to understand the past,
but he showed us how it understood itself. "A Prince of Court
Painters"--Watteau, as he was seen by one who loved him