Thomas More

English statesman, scholar, and author

• Born: February 7, 1478
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: July 6, 1535
• Place of death: London, England

Devoted to his faith and to Renaissance learning, More was the first layman to serve as Lord Chancellor of England. He opposed Henry VIII’s break with Rome and forfeited his exalted position and his life rather than swear allegiance to the king as the supreme head of the Church of England.

Early Life

Thomas More was born in the Cripplegate neighborhood of London. He was the second of five children born to John More and Agnes Granger. Three siblings apparently died in childhood, and Thomas was the only surviving son. An ambitious and talented man, John More had succeeded his father as butler of Lincoln’s Inn but aspired to be a barrister. The benchers of Lincoln’s Inn liked the young fellow who managed their meals and approved him for membership; he subsequently was admitted to the bar. His marriage to Agnes Granger advanced his career, for she was the daughter of a prosperous merchant and sheriff of London. John More was appointed judge in the Court of Common Pleas, then promoted to the Court of King’s Bench, and was even knighted by the king. Having risen from the working class himself, he had great expectations for his son.

Young More learned Latin at St. Anthony’s School in London. He was much influenced by headmaster Nicholas Holt, who had taught John Colet and William Lattimer, both of whom became English Humanists and friends of More. At thirteen, More was placed in the household of Thomas Morton, archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, who immediately took a liking to the intelligent boy. In 1492, at Morton’s urging, More entered Canterbury Hall (later absorbed by Christ College), Oxford University, where he met and began lasting friendships with Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn, two scholars who had studied in Italy and drunk deeply of the Renaissance literature. Along with the classics, More studied mathematics and history and learned to play the flute and viol. His lifelong love of Humanistic learning had been kindled.

Convinced that his son should pursue a legal career, John More recalled Thomas to London in 1494 and enrolled him as a law student at New Inn. Thomas moved to Lincoln’s Inn in 1496, began lecturing on the law, and came to be known as an eloquent and insightful student of law. He did not, however, forsake literature. He wrote Latin and English verse, immersed himself in the Humanistic writings of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and joined the intellectual circle that included Grocyn, Linacre, William Lily, and John Colet. He especially looked to Colet for direction in both life and learning. He and Lily published epigrams rendered from the Greek anthology into Latin prose. More met and began an enduring friendship with the remarkable Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, undoubtedly the leading Christian Humanist. As Erasmus later recounted, More seriously considered devoting his life to the Church. For almost four years, he lived near the Charterhouse in London and followed the discipline of the Carthusian order. Spending much of his time in prayer and fasting, he regularly scourged himself and began a lifelong habit of wearing a hair shirt. He came near to joining the Franciscan order. During this time, he also lectured, at the request of his friend Grocyn, on Saint Augustine’s De civitate Dei (413-427; The City of God, 1610).

After four years of living much like a monk, More apparently resolved his doubts about what he should do. Although he remained a pious Catholic, he threw himself into the practice of law. Various reasons have been suggested for this abrupt shift to the secular. The corruption of the Church, his own intellectual and material ambitions, and his unwillingness to remain celibate may all have contributed to his decision; he soon gained a reputation as a just and knowledgeable barrister. He also studied politics, adding to what he had learned from his father and Archbishop Morton. At twenty-six, he was elected to Parliament (apparently from the City of London) and quickly emerged as a primary critic of government inefficiency and heavy taxation.

More played a major role in frustrating Henry VII’s efforts to extract one hundred thousand pounds from Parliament on the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the king of Scotland. Henry was so angry with young More that he trumped up charges against his father, John More, had him imprisoned in the Tower of London, and released him only after he had paid a large fine. This lesson on sovereign power was not lost on Thomas, whose thoughts were concerned with much more than politics. In 1505, More married Jane Colte, the eldest daughter of a landed gentleman, and together they had four children. On her death in 1511, More wasted little time in marrying Alice Middleton, an affable but rather unattractive and unlettered woman who proved to be a fine mother for his children.

Life’s Work

By the time of his second marriage, More was emerging as a leading London barrister. In 1509, the same year that Henry VIII ascended the throne, More was elected to Lincoln’s Inn, where he became a reader in 1511. The year before, he was appointed undersheriff of London, a position of considerable responsibility in the sheriff’s court. Especially well liked by London merchants, More was chosen by King Henry as a member of an English delegation sent to Flanders in 1514 to negotiate a commercial treaty. His contribution was minor, but during those six months abroad, he delighted in the company of Peter Giles, a renowned Humanist and friend of Erasmus, and began work on his De optimo reipublicae statu, deque nova insula utopia (1516; better known as Utopia ; English translation, 1551).

His most significant work, Utopia was a skillful satire that condemned the poverty, intolerance, ignorance, and brutality of English society by juxtaposing it to the economic communism and political democracy that prevailed among the tolerant and peace-loving Utopians. Although surely attracted by the idealism of Utopia, More was always the realist, as his History of King Richard III , written about the same time, makes clear. Disturbed by the ineptitude and avarice in both church and state, he wanted change for the better, but not revolutionary change.

Over the next few years, More became a favorite of Henry VIII and his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey . They sent him on several diplomatic missions dealing with commercial matters critical to the interests of London merchants. More’s skill in arguing the law convinced Henry that he should be an officer of the Crown. In 1517, he was appointed master of requests, the official through whom all petitions were passed to the king, and he was elevated to the Privy Council the next year. King Henry appreciated Humanist learning and found in More a delightful intellectual companion. He encouraged More to defend Greek studies against the obscurantist attacks of conservative critics. In his turn, More joined Henry in denouncing the Lutheran heresy. On Wolsey’s recommendation, More was appointed speaker of the House of Commons in 1532 and generally worked smoothly with the powerful cardinal. More surely learned from Wolsey, as he had from Archbishop Morton, and proved to be a fair and effective official, respected by the people as well as his peers. Henry rewarded him with both sinecures and landed estates.

More bought more land in Chelsea in 1523 and built a mansion there with an orchard and spacious garden. It was a happy place, where More delighted in entertaining his many friends and relatives. Illuminati such as Erasmus were frequent guests, and the king himself regularly visited More at Chelsea. As Erasmus portrayed him, More was the epitome of Christian Humanism, a wonderfully enlightened public official who nurtured intellectual and scholarly pursuits. More’s idyllic existence, however, was not to last. The king’s “Great Matter” his desire to divorce Queen Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn threatened the kind of revolutionary change that was repugnant to More’s conservative temperament. When Pope Clement VII denied Henry’s request for an annulment, Wolsey was the first to feel his sovereign’s wrath, being deprived of his position as Lord Chancellor, dismissed from the court, and accused of treason. Although Henry knew that More disapproved of his plans for divorce, he nevertheless made him Lord Chancellor, the first layman to hold that august office. Yet the real power in the Privy Council was exercised not by More but by the duke of Norfolk, Anne Boleyn’s uncle.

If Henry thought that in the role of Lord Chancellor More would be more pliable, the king was mistaken. More performed his duties admirably enough, but he was increasingly on the fringes of the religious revolution that Henry and Parliament were undertaking. Even as Henry made overtures to leading English Protestants, More was trying his best to root out heresy. He even approved of torture for those who defied Catholic orthodoxy. Ironically, his own day of reckoning was coming. Between 1530 and 1532, Henry gradually extended royal authority over the Church of England , and More was at last compelled to resign as Lord Chancellor when Henry suggested relaxing the laws against heresy. More wanted to withdraw to his Chelsea estate and be left alone, but Henry demanded his assent to the laws taking England out of the Church of Rome. More resisted. He was motivated not by love for the Papacy but by reverence for the unity of the Church. Stripped of his office and stipends, he was confined to the Tower of London in 1534. After more than a year of increasingly harsh treatment, he still refused to yield. In July, 1535, More was convicted of defying the Supremacy Act of November, 1534, and executed. Instantly proclaimed a martyr to the cause of Catholicism, More was beatified in 1886 and canonized in 1935.

Significance

Sir Thomas More was pulled in several directions at once. He was a talented royal official, a learned and intelligent Humanist, and a devout Catholic. As a lawyer and a judge, he gained a reputation for fairness. As the first lay Lord Chancellor, he personified the growing secularization of both society and government in the sixteenth century. Yet like the prelates who had preceded him, More understood the practical limitations of politics, and as Lord Chancellor, he was not about to embrace the religious and political toleration so idealized in Utopia. Indeed, More was basically conservative when it came to religion and politics. He did not hesitate to prosecute religious heretics, regarding them as a threat to both the church and the state.

On the other hand, More found great satisfaction in intellectual and scholarly pursuits. Christian Humanism shaped his writings and his relationships with friends and family alike. Utopia at once established his international reputation as a leading literary figure. Among his early works were poems, Latin epigrams, and an English translation and adaptation of the biography in Latin of Pico della Mirandola, the brilliant young Italian Humanist whose writings More deeply admired. Like Pico, More prized the life of the mind. He carried on a prolific correspondence with fellow intellectuals, performed numerous tasks for friends such as Erasmus, and defended Humanist literatures from obscurantist criticism.

More was happiest when his family and friends were with him. The children of his household, whether male or female, were educated under More’s personal supervision. Friends such as Erasmus celebrated the intellectual exchange and hospitality that they always enjoyed with More. He had a modern devotion to intellectual curiosity.

Yet for all his reaching toward modernity, More remained tied to the religious faith of the Middle Ages. A part of him always yearned for the monastery. He was a pious man, and his piety was grounded in a fundamental distrust of the human animal. The spiritual realm was very real to him, and very difficult to reach, and in that quest for spiritual understanding, the Church was crucial. It was not the pope, but the Church its saints, its sacraments, and its history that More loved and revered. Despite the sordidness of individual priests or even popes, he believed that the Church was pure and spiritual and must not be corrupted by either Martin Luther or Henry VIII. In the end, it was his spiritual side that prevailed. He defied his sovereign and paid for that defiance with his life. He cared more for his king than for any pope, but he truly loved his Church best of all.

More’s Major Works

1510

• The Life of John Picus, Earl of Myrandula (translation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola)

1516

• De optimo Reipublicae Statu, deque nova insula utopia (Utopia, 1551)

1529

• A Dyaloge of Sir Thomas More

1533

• An Apologye of Syr Thomas More, Knight

1543

• History of King Richard III

1553

• A Dialoge of Comfort Against Tribulacion

Bibliography

Baker-Smith, Dominic. More’s “Utopia.” Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Places More’s Utopia in its cultural context, explaining its connections to Humanism and Christian political theory. Argues for its treatment as a literary reflection on the nature of political idealism, rather than as an example of such idealism. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Chambers, Raymond Wilson. Thomas More. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935. Reprint. London: J. Cape, 1962. A Pulitzer Prize-winning biography published in the same year that More was canonized, this scholarly and thoroughly sympathetic study presents More as truly the one for all seasons the Christian Humanist and statesman who opposed the tyrannical Henry VIII.

Fox, Alistair. Thomas More: History and Providence. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983. An intellectual biography of More, this work details the evolution of More’s thought, delving deep into his views of God and humankind. Emphasizes More’s contradictions and makes him more of a tragic figure.

Guy, John. Thomas More. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This is both a biography of More and a survey of the various other biographical portrayals that have emerged over the centuries. Attempts to adjudicate between the different versions of More, and uses newly discovered evidence to explain what he really believed and the real reasons for his execution. Includes genealogical table, bibliographic references, and index.

Marius, Richard. Thomas More. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. A comprehensive study of More’s life and thought. It is distinguished by its felicitous prose and its brilliant analysis of a man, torn between the medieval world of faith and the modern world of reason, who ultimately chooses the spirit over the flesh.

More, Thomas. Saint Thomas More: Selected Letters. Edited by Elizabeth Frances Rogers. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961. Contains sixty-six letters revealing the many sides of More his literary friendships, his concern with politics, his religious views, and especially his concern for his children.

Moynahan, Brian. God’s Bestseller: William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003. Chronicles Tyndale’s struggle to translate the Bible into vernacular English and More’s efforts to stop Tyndale and to try him as a heretic. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Reynolds, E. E. Thomas More and Erasmus. New York: Fordham University Press, 1965. A careful study of the relationship between these two dynamic men, so similar in many ways and yet so very different. Besides explaining the influence that Erasmus had on More, Reynolds illuminates the nature of northern European Humanism.

Routh, Enid M. Sir Thomas More and His Friends. New York: Russell and Russell, 1963. An interesting study that portrays More as a transitional figure between the Renaissance and the Reformation. Gives insight into the intellectual life of More and other English Humanists as well as political and religious figures. Demonstrates the connections between English and Continental Humanism.

Wilson, Derek. In the Lion’s Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Vivid study of the perils of Henry VIII’s court details the fates of six members of the court, including More and five other men named Thomas. Details More’s background and education, as well as thoroughly surveying his activities in the court and the events leading up to his execution. Includes illustrations, maps, sixteen pages of plates, bibliographic references, and index.