His lips moved in a short prayer as he kneeled on the scaffold: the Miserere. Then with the lips which had said the prayer and which then had kissed the executioner, he to the executioner made merry. “Pluck up thy spirit, man and be not afraid to do thy office; my neck is very short; take heed therefore that thou strike not awry, for saving of thy honesty.”
Then he covered his own eyes, saying to the executioner who had tried to do it for him: “Nay, I will cover them myself.” His eyes, which were so much his, would be blinded by no other.
He stretched himself full length on the scaffold, for it was necessary to do so, the execution-block being no more than a low log. Measured thus at full humility he made but a second’s delay in order to shove the beard, which he was nor used to, out over the block, at the same time remarking that it was not to be cut: “it had never committed treason.”
Then the axe descended severing so appropriately that part of him which was so guilty in a great confusion and perplexity of having thought straight: his head.
He stretched himself full length on the scaffold, for it was necessary to do so, the execution-block being no more than a low log. Measured thus at full humility he made but a second’s delay in order to shove the beard, which he was nor used to, out over the block, at the same time remarking that it was not to be cut: “it had never committed treason.”
Then the axe descended severing so appropriately that part of him which was so guilty in a great confusion and perplexity of having thought straight: his head.
(Daniel Sargent, "Thomas More", Unicorn Books, p 279)
