Who met More on his first step in heaven? Why, who else but William Tyndale, time being nothing in that Kingdom! (Eternity makes nonsense of anachronism.) More carried Utopia under his arm, when Tyndale presented him with his own New Testament, richly printed on vellum, just like the one he sent to Anne Boleyn – over whom More had lost his head or, rather, over not submitting to the King as Head of the English Church. But not before he'd instigated the vindictive bid to have Tyndale killed by treachery. Who was befriended, betrayed the next year by the dead More's fanatic, faithful spy, garrotted and burnt on a Flemish bonfire. Men of their time, in their integrity they both died martyrs, whatever they had done. More took the book, found sturdy clarity in the plain style, not unlike his own, such that ploughboys might understand, might learn first-hand God's freedom. And did he, in that new freedom, doubt whether he'd been right? 'Wherever and whoever we may be,'
More thought, 'all equal in the love of God, our righteousnesses testify the most against us.' He took a small step forward, his first in heaven. The two men embraced.