other case, I will put you this case: suppose the parliament would make a law that God should not be God, would you then, Master Rich, say that God were not God?" "No, Sir," quoth he, "that would I not; sith no parliament may make any such law." "No more," said Sir Thomas More (as Master Rich reported of him), "could the parliament make the king supreme head of the church." Upon whose only report was Sir Thomas More indicted of high treason on the [1]Statute to deny the King to be Supreme Head of the Church, into which indictment were put these heinous words, maliciously, traitorously, and diabolically.
When Sir Thomas More was brought from the Tower to Westminster Hall to answer to the indictment, and at the King's Bench bar there before the judges arraigned, he openly told them that he would upon that indictment have abiden in law, but that he thereby should have been driven to confess of himself the matter indeed, that was the denial of the king's supremacy, which he protested was untrue. Wherefore he thereunto pleaded not guilty, and so reserved unto himself advantage to be taken of the body of the matter after verdict to avoid that indictment: and moreover added, that if those only
- ↑ 26 Hen. VIII. c. 13. An act whereby offenses be made high treason, and taking away all the sanctuaries for all manner of high treasons.
