Thomas More
1478-1535
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 - 6 July 1535), posthumously known also as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, writer, and politician. During his lifetime, he earned a reputation as a leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be the supreme head of the Church of England, a decision that ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. More was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1935 and was later declared the patron saint of statesmen, lawyers, and politicians.
Early Life
Born in Milk Street, London, Thomas More was the eldest son of Sir John More, a successful lawyer who served as a judge in the King's Bench court. Thomas was educated at St Anthony's School and was later a page in the service of John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who declared that young Thomas would become a "marvelous man". Thomas attended the University of Oxford for two years, where he studied Latin and logic. He then returned to London, where he studied law with his father and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1496. In 1501, More became a barrister.
To his father's great displeasure, More seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career in order to become a monk. For about four years, he lodged at a Carthusian monastery next to Lincoln's Inn while he considered joining the Franciscan order. Perhaps because he judged himself incapable of celibacy, More finally decided to marry in 1505, but for the rest of his life he continued to observe many monastic practices, including self-punishment in the form of wearing a hair shirt and occasional flagellation.
More had four children by his first wife, Jane Colt, who died in 1511. He remarried almost immediately, to a rich widow named Alice Middleton who was several years his senior. More and Alice Middleton did not have children together, though More raised Alice's daughter from her previous husband as his own. More provided his daughters with an excellent classical education at a time when such learning was usually reserved for men.
Early Political Career
From 1510 to 1518, More served as one of the two under sheriffs of the city of London, a position of considerable responsibility in which he earned a reputation as an honest and effective public servant. In 1517, More entered the king's service as councilor and "master of requests". After undertaking a diplomatic mission to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, More was knighted and made undertreasurer in 1521. As secretary and personal advisor to King Henry VIII, More became increasingly influential in the government, welcoming foreign diplomats, drafting official documents, and serving as a liaison between the king and his Lord Chancellor: Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York.
In 1523, More became the Speaker of the House of Commons. He later served as high steward for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1525, he became chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position that entailed administrative and judicial control of much of northern England.
Henry VIII's Divorce
On the death in 1502 of Henry's elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry became heir apparent to the English throne and married his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the Spanish king, as a means of preserving the English alliance with Spain. At the time, Pope Julius II had issued a formal dispensation from the biblical injunction against a man marrying his brother's widow. This dispensation was based partly on Catherine's testimony that the marriage between her and Arthur had not been consummated.
For nearly 20 years, the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine was smooth, but Catherine failed to provide a male heir and Henry eventually became enamored of Anne Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine's ladies in the court. In 1527, Henry instructed Cardinal Wolsey to petition Pope Clement VII for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, on the grounds that the pope had no authority to override a biblical injunction, and that therefore Julius's dispensation had been invalid, rendering his marriage to Catherine void. After the pope steadfastly refused such an annulment, Henry forced Wolsey to resign as Lord Chancellor and appointed Thomas More in his place in 1529. Henry then began to embrace the Protestant teaching that the Pope was only the Bishop of Rome and therefore had no authority over the Christian church as a whole.
Chancellorship
More, until then fully devoted to Henry and to the cause of royal prerogative, initially cooperated with the king's new policy, denouncing Wolsey in parliament and proclaiming the opinion of the theologians at Oxford and Cambridge that the marriage of Henry to Catherine had been unlawful. However, as Henry began to deny the authority of the Pope, More's qualms grew.
More, despite the tolerant and humane attitude suggested by his earlier works, had come to believe that the rise of Protestantism represented a grave threat to social and political order in Christian Europe. During his tenure as Lord Chancellor, he wrote several books in which he attacked Protestantism and defended the existing anti-heresy laws, which he vigorously enforced. More had six Protestants burned at the stake and ordered the imprisonment of as many as forty others. His chief concern in this matter was to root out collaborators of William Tyndale, the exiled Lutheran scholar who in 1525 had published an English translation of the Bible, which was circulating clandestinely among English Protestants.
In 1530 More refused to sign a letter by the leading English churchmen and aristocrats asking the Pope to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine. In 1531, he attempted to resign after being forced to take an oath declaring the king the supreme head of the English church "as far the law of Christ allows". In 1532, he asked the king again to relieve him of his office, claiming that he was ill and suffering from sharp chest pains. This time Henry granted his request.
Trial and Execution
The last straw for Henry came in 1533, when More refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as the queen of England. Shortly thereafter, More was charged with accepting bribes, but the charges had to be dismissed for lack of any evidence. In 1534, he was accused of conspiring with Elizabeth Barton, a nun who had prophesized against the king's divorce, but More was able to produce a letter in which he had instructed Barton not to interfere with state matters.
On 13 April of that year, More was asked to appear before a commission and swear his allegiance to the parliamentary Act of Succession. More accepted Parliament's right to declare Anne the legitimate queen of England, but he refused to take the oath because it would have required him to recognize Parliament's authority to legislate in matters of religion by denying the authority of the Pope. Four days later, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. There he wrote his devotional Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation.
On 1 July 1535, More was tried before a panel of judges that included the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, as well as Anne Boleyn's father, brother, and uncle. He was charged with high treason for denying the validity of the Act of Succession. More believed he could not be convicted as long as he did not explicitly deny that the king was the head of the church, and he therefore refused to answer all questions regarding his opinions on the subject. Thomas Cromwell, at the time the most powerful of the king's advisors, brought forth the Solicitor General, Richard Rich, to testify that More, in his presence, had denied that the king was the legitimate head of the church. This testimony was almost certainly perjured (witnesses Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer both denied having heard the details of the reported conversation), but on the strength of it, the jury voted for More's conviction.
Before his sentencing, More spoke freely of his belief that "no temporal man may be head of the spirituality". He was sentenced to be drawn and quartered, but the king commuted this to execution by beheading. On the scaffold he declared that he died "the king's good servant and God's first." The execution took place on 6 July. More's body was buried at the Tower of London, in the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula. His head was placed over London Bridge for a month and was rescued by his daughter, Margaret Roper, before it could be thrown in the River Thames. The skull is believed to rest in the Roper Vault of St. Dunstan's Church, in Canterbury.
Influence and Reputation
The steadfastness with which More held on to his religious convictions in the face of ruin and death, and the dignity with which he conducted himself during his imprisonment, trial, and execution, contributed much to More's posthumous reputation, particularly among Catholics. More was beatified by the Pope in 1886 and canonized in 1935. His feast day is 22 June. In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared Saint Thomas More "heavenly patron of statesmen and politicians".
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