17 April 1534 - Sir Thomas More is sent to the Tower - The Anne Boleyn Files

On April 17, 1534, Sir Thomas More was confined in the Tower of London. A man of principle, he was later executed for refusing to swear the oath to the Act of Succession. He is quoted as saying:

“After which read secretly by myself, and the oath considered with the act, I showed unto them that my purpose was not to put any fault either in the act or any man that made it, or in the oath or any man that sware it, nor to condemn the conscience of any other man. But as for myself in good faith my conscience so moved me in the matter that though I would not deny to swear to the succession, yet unto the oath that there was offered me I could not swear, without the iubarding [jeoparding] of my soul to perpetual damnation.”

He was canonized by the Catholic Church.