Sir Thomas More | Page 7

my word. I'll save thy life.
RECORDER. Lifter, stand to the bar: The jury have returned the guilty;
thou must die, According to the custom.--Look to it, Master Shreeve.
LORD MAYOR. Then, gentlemen, as you are wont to do, Because as
yet we have no burial place, What charity your meaning's to bestow
Toward burial of the prisoners now condemned, Let it be given. There
is first for me.
RECORDER. And there for me.
ANOTHER. And me.
SURESBY. Body of me, my purse is gone!
MORE. Gone, sir! what, here! how can that be?
LORD MAYOR. Against all reason, sitting on the bench.
SURESBY. Lifter, I talked with you; you have not lifted me? ha!
LIFTER. Suspect ye me, sir? Oh, what a world is this!
MORE. But hear ye, master Suresby; are ye sure Ye had a purse about
ye?
SURESBY. Sure, Master Shrieve! as sure as you are there, And in it
seven pounds, odd money, on my faith.
MORE. Seven pounds, odd money! what, were you so mad, Being a
wise man and a magistrate, To trust your purse with such a liberal sum?
Seven pounds, odd money! fore God, it is a shame, With such a sum to
tempt necessity: I promise ye, a man that goes abroad With an intent of
truth, meeting such a booty, May be wrought to that he never thought.
What makes so many pilferers and felons, But these fond baits that
foolish people lay To tempt the needy miserable wretch? Should he be
taken now that has your purse, I'd stand to't, you are guilty of his death;
For, questionless, he would be cast by law. Twere a good deed to fine
ye as much more, To the relief of the poor prisoners, To teach ye lock
your money up at home.
SURESBY. Well, Master More, you are a merry man; I find ye, sir, I
find ye well enough.
MORE. Nay, ye shall see, sir, trusting thus your money, And Lifter

here in trial for like case, But that the poor man is a prisoner, It would
be now suspected that he had it. Thus may ye see what mischief often
comes By the fond carriage of such needless sums.
LORD MAYOR. Believe me, Master Suresby, this is strange, You,
being a man so settled in assurance, Will fall in that which you
condemned in other.
MORE. Well, Master Suresby, there's your purse again, And all your
money: fear nothing of More; Wisdom still keeps the mean and locks
the door.
SCENE III. London. A state apartment.
[Enter the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir
Roger Cholmley.]
SHREWSBURY. My lord of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Palmer Might I
with patience tempt your grave advise, I tell ye true, that in these
dangerous times I do not like this frowning vulgar brow: My searching
eye did never entertain A more distracted countenance of grief Than I
have late observed In the displeased commons of the city.
SURREY. Tis strange that from his princely clemency, So well a
tempered mercy and a grace, To all the aliens in this fruitful land, That
this high-crested insolence should spring From them that breathe from
his majestic bounty, That, fattened with the traffic of our country,
Already leaps into his subject's face.
PALMER. Yet Sherwin, hindered to commence his suit Against De
Barde by the ambassador, By supplication made unto the king, Who
having first enticed away his wife, And got his plate, near worth four
hundred pound, To grieve some wronged citizens that found This vile
disgrace oft cast into their teeth, Of late sues Sherwin, and arrested him
For money for the boarding of his wife.
SURREY. The more knave Barde, that, using Sherwin's goods, Doth
ask him interest for the occupation. I like not that, my lord of
Shrewsbury: He's ill bested that lends a well paced horse Unto a man
that will not find him meet. CHOLMLEY. My lord of Surrey will be
pleasant still.
PALMER. Aye, being then employed by your honors To stay the broil
that fell about the same, Where by persuasion I enforced the wrongs,
And urged the grief of the displeased city, He answered me, and with a
solemn oath, That, if he had the Mayor of London's wife, He would

keep her in despite of any English.
SURREY. Tis good, Sir Thomas, then, for you and me; Your wife is
dead, and I a bachelor: If no man can possess his wife alone, I am glad,
Sir Thomas Palmer, I have none.
CHOLMLEY. If a take a wife, a shall find her meet.
SURREY. And reason good, Sir Roger Cholmley, too. If these hot
Frenchmen needsly will have sport, They should in kindness yet defray
the charge: Tis hard when men possess