“I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.”

—  Thomas More

Words on the scaffold, attributed in The Essentials of Freedom : The Idea and Practice of Ordered Liberty in the Twentieth Century as explored at Kenyon College (1960) by Paul Gray Hoffman, p. 43
First reported in indirect speech in the Paris Newsletter (1535): « Apres les exhorta, et supplia tres instamment qu'ils priassent Dieu pour le Roy, affin qu'il luy voulsist donner bon conseil, protestant qu'il mouroit son bon serviteur et de Dieu premierement. » ("Afterward he exhorted them, and besought them very earnestly to pray to God for the King, that He should give him good counsel, protesting that he died his good servant, and God's first.")

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English Renaissance humanist 1478–1535

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