Thomas More

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The Right Honourable
Sir Thomas More
Lord Chancellor
In office
October 1529 – May 1532
Monarch Henry VIII
Preceded by Thomas Wolsey
Succeeded by Thomas Audley
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office
31 December 1525 – 3 November 1529
Monarch Henry VIII
Preceded by Richard Wingfield
Succeeded by William FitzWilliam
Speaker of the House of Commons
In office
16 April 1523 – 13 August 1523
Monarch Henry VIII
Preceded by Thomas Neville
Succeeded by Thomas Audley
Personal details
Born 7 February 1478
City of London, London
Kingdom of England
Died 6 July 1535 (aged 57)
Tower Hill,
Liberties of the Tower of London, Tower Hamlets
Kingdom of England
Resting place Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London, London, United Kingdom
51.508611°N 0.076944°W
Spouse(s) Jane Colt (m. 1505)
Alice Middleton (m. 1511)
Children Margaret
Elizabeth
Cicely
John
Alma mater University of Oxford
Lincoln’s Inn
Religion Roman Catholicism
Signature

Sir Thomas More (/ˈmɔr/; 7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), known to Roman Catholics as Saint Thomas More,[1][2] was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII and Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to 16 May 1532.[3] More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. More also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More later opposed the King’s separation from the Catholic Church and refused to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church of England because it disparaged papal authority and he also opposed Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Tried for treason, More was convicted likely due to perjured testimony and beheaded.

Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr of the schism that separated the Church of England from Rome; Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared More the “heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians”.[4] Since 1980, the Church of England has remembered More liturgically as a Reformation martyr.[5] In 2002, he was placed at number 37 in the BBC’s poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.[6]

Early life

Saint Thomas More, T.O.S.F.

Thomas More Signature.svg
Medallion of Thomas More
Martyr
Honored in
 Catholic Church; Anglican Communion
Beatified 29 December 1886, Florence, Kingdom of Italy, by Pope Leo XIII
Canonized 19 May 1935, Vatican City, by Pope Pius XI
Feast 22 June (Catholic Church)
6 July (Church of England)
Attributes dressed in the robe of the Chancellor and wearing the Collar of Esses; axe
Patronage Adopted children; civil servants; court clerks; difficult marriages; large families; lawyers, politicians, and statesmen; stepparents; widowers; Ateneo de Manila Law School; Diocese of Arlington; Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee; Kerala Catholic Youth Movement; University of Malta; University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Arts and Letters

I die the king’s faithful servant, but God‘s first.

WikiQuote

  • Now there was a young gentleman which had married a merchant’s wife. And having a little wanton money, which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding took his wife with him and went over sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France and ride out one summer in those countries.
    • Works (c. 1530)
    • Sometimes paraphrased “A little wanton money, which burned out the bottom of his purse.”
  • For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble: and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.
    • Richard III and His Miserable End (1543)
  • And when the devil hath seen that they have set so little by him, after certain essays, made in such times as he thought most fitting, he hath given that temptation quite over. And this he doth not only because the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked, but also lest, with much tempting the man to the sin to which he could not in conclusion bring him, he should much increase his merit.
    • Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1553), Book Two, Section XVI
  • The increasing influence of the Bible is marvelously great, penetrating everywhere. It carries with it a tremendous power of freedom and justice guided by a combined force of wisdom and goodness.
    • Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 34.
  • See me safe up: for in my coming down, I can shift for myself.
    • On ascending the platform to his execution, as quoted in History of England (1856-1870) by James Anthony Froude
  • I die the king’s faithful servant, but God‘s first.
    • 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
  • This hath not offended the king.
    • As he drew his beard aside upon placing his head on the block, as quoted in Apothegms by Francis Bacon, no. 22
  • If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.
    • Attributed in Lives That Made a Difference: An RSME Book for Schools (2011) by P. J. Clarke

Utopia (1516)

The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent.

Full text at Wikisource

Other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives; so that if any stranger should enter into the bay without one of their pilots he would run great danger of shipwreck.

The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments, or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the high priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light.
  • The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between its horns the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbour, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce. But the entry into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one hand and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may, therefore, easily be avoided; and on the top of it there is a tower, in which a garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives; so that if any stranger should enter into the bay without one of their pilots he would run great danger of shipwreck.
    • Ch. 1 : Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth
  • Plato by a goodly similitude declareth, why wise men refrain to meddle in the commonwealth. For when they see the people swarm into the streets, and daily wet to the skin with rain, and yet cannot persuade them to go out of the rain, they do keep themselves within their houses, seeing they cannot remedy the folly of the people.
    • Ch. 1 : Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth
    • Modern phrase: Not sense enough to come in out of the rain.
  • I must say, extreme justice is an extreme injury: For we ought not to approve of those terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes all crimes equal; as if there were no difference to be made between the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money?
    • Ch. 1 : Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth
  • I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd and of ill consequence to the commonwealth that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much provokes them to cruelty.
    • Ch. 1 : Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth
  • One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their motions.
    • Ch. 3 : Of Their Magistrates
  • They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.
    • Ch. 6 : Of the Travelling of the Utopians
  • The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments, or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the high priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light.
    • Ch. 7 : Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages
  • leges habent perquam paucas. sufficiunt enim sic institutis paucissimae. quin hoc in primis apud alios improbant populos, quod legum interpretumque uolumina, non infinita sufficiunt. ipsi uero censent iniquissimum; ullos homines his obligari legibus; quae aut numerosiores sint, quam ut perlegi queant; aut obscuriores quam ut a quouis possint intelligi.
    • They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects.
    • Ch. 7 : Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages
  • They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws. Every one of them is skilled in their law; for, as it is a very short study, so the plainest meaning of which words are capable is always the sense of their laws; and they argue thus: all laws are promulgated for this end, that every man may know his duty; and, therefore, the plainest and most obvious sense of the words is that which ought to be put upon them, since a more refined exposition cannot be easily comprehended, and would only serve to make the laws become useless to the greater part of mankind, and especially to those who need most the direction of them; for it is all one not to make a law at all or to couch it in such terms that, without a quick apprehension and much study, a man cannot find out the true meaning of it, since the generality of mankind are both so dull, and so much employed in their several trades, that they have neither the leisure nor the capacity requisite for such an inquiry.
    • Ch. 7 : Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages

In no victory do they glory so much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed.

  • In no victory do they glory so much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed. In such cases they appoint public triumphs, and erect trophies to the honour of those who have succeeded; for then do they reckon that a man acts suitably to his nature, when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable of, and that is by the strength of his understanding. Bears, lions, boars, wolves, and dogs, and all other animals, employ their bodily force one against another, in which, as many of them are superior to men, both in strength and fierceness, so they are all subdued by his reason and understanding.
    • Ch. 8 : Of Their Military Discipline
  • There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent in former times for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme god. Yet the greater and wiser sort of them worship none of these, but adore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity; as a Being that is far above all our apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe, not by His bulk, but by His power and virtue; Him they call the Father of All, and acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the vicissitudes, and the end of all things come only from Him; nor do they offer divine honours to any but to Him alone. And, indeed, though they differ concerning other things, yet all agree in this: that they think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world, whom they call, in the language of their country, Mithras. They differ in this: that one thinks the god whom he worships is this Supreme Being, and another thinks that his idol is that god; but they all agree in one principle, that whoever is this Supreme Being, He is also that great essence to whose glory and majesty all honours are ascribed by the consent of all nations.
    • Ch. 9 : Of the Religions of the Utopians
  • Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion. He being newly baptised did, notwithstanding all that we could say to the contrary, dispute publicly concerning the Christian religion, with more zeal than discretion, and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried out against all that adhered to them as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but for his inflaming the people to sedition; for this is one of their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion.
    • Ch. 9 : Of the Religions of the Utopians

A man of an angel‘s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. … A man for all seasons. ~ Robert Whittington

  • Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves. After he had subdued them he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavour to draw others to it by the force of argument and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery.
    This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause.

    • Ch. 9 : Of the Religions of the Utopians
  • Haec non suis commodis prosperitatem, sed ex alienis metitur incommodis.[1]
    • Translation: This vice [Pride] does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the miseries of others.
    • Alternate translation: [Pride] measures her prosperity not by her own goods but by others’ wants.
    • Ch. 9 : Of the Religions of the Utopians

Quotes about More

  • A man of an angel‘s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.
    • Robert Whittington, in Vulgaria (1520), as quoted in Thomas More and Erasmus (1965) by Ernest Edwin Reynolds, p. 22

Misattributed

  • As for rosemarie, I lett it run alle over my garden walls,
    not onlie because my bees love it,
    but because ’tis the herb sacred to remembrance and therefore to friendship,
    whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language that maketh ye chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and in our buriall grounds.

    • Actually written in 1852 by Anne Manning in her fictional novel The Household of St Thomas More, as if a diary entry was made by his daughter Margaret; and so, although written as said by the character Thomas More in the novel by Anne Manning, it was not actually said by Thomas More. This quote on Rosemary is often quoted in gardening books – the name of the herb in the quote is usually updated to the modern spelling of Rosemary (also known as Rosmary, Rosmarie, Rosemarie, Rosmarinus, Rosmarine, Romero), and a number of other words may also be modernised. The misattribution was first noted in Garden Guild at lochac.sca.org/herb/, where the alternate spellings of Rosemary are also sourced.

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Scholarly and literary work

History of King Richard III

Between 1512 and 1519, Thomas More worked on a History of King Richard III, which he never finished but which was published after his death. The History of King Richard III is a Renaissance history, remarkable more for its literary skill and adherence to classical precepts than for its historical accuracy.[citation needed] Some consider it an attack on royal tyranny, rather than on Richard III himself or the House of York.[citation needed] More and his contemporary Polydore Vergil both use a more dramatic writing style than most medieval chronicles; for example, the shadowy King Richard is an outstanding, archetypal tyrant more like the Romans portrayed by Sallust.[clarification needed]

The History of King Richard III was written and published in both English and Latin, each written separately, and with information deleted from the Latin edition to suit a European readership.[citation needed] It greatly influenced William Shakespeare‘s play Richard III. Contemporary historians attribute the unflattering portraits of King Richard III in both works to both authors’ allegiance to the reigning Tudor dynasty that wrested the throne from Richard III in the Wars of the Roses.[citation needed] More’s version also barely mentions King Henry VII, the first Tudor king, perhaps for having persecuted his father, Sir John More.[citation needed] Clements Markham suggests that the actual author of the work was Archbishop Morton and that More was simply copying or perhaps translating the work.[37]

Utopia

Main article: Utopia (book)

More’s best known and most controversial work, Utopia is a novel written in Latin. More completed and Erasmus published the book in Leuven in 1516, but it was only translated into English and published in his native land in 1551 (long after More’s execution), and the 1684 translation became the most commonly cited. More (also a character in the book) and the narrator/traveller, Raphael Hythlodeaus (whose name alludes both to the healer archangel Raphael, and ‘speaker of nonsense’, the surname’s Greek meaning), discuss modern ills in Antwerp, as well as describe the political arrangements of the imaginary island country of Utopia (Greek pun on ‘ou-topos’ [no place], ‘eu-topos’ [good place]) among themselves as well as to Pieter Gillis and Jerome de Busleyden. Utopia’s original edition included a symmetrical “Utopian alphabet” omitted by later editions, but which may have been an early attempt at cryptography or precursor of shorthand.

Utopia contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the perfectly orderly, reasonable social arrangements of Utopia and its environs (Tallstoria, Nolandia, and Aircastle). In Utopia, there are no lawyers because of the laws’ simplicity and because social gatherings are in public view (encouraging participants to behave well), communal ownership supplants private property, men and women are educated alike, and there is almost complete religious toleration (except for atheists, who are allowed but despised). More may have used monastic communalism (rather than the biblical communalism in the Acts of the Apostles) as his model, although other concepts such as legalizing euthanasia remain far outside Church doctrine. Hythlodeaus asserts that a man who refuses to believe in a god or an afterlife could never be trusted, because he would not acknowledge any authority or principle outside himself. Some take the novel’s principal message to be the social need for order and discipline rather than liberty. Ironically, Hythlodeaus, who believes philosophers should not get involved in politics, addresses More’s ultimate conflict between his humanistic beliefs and courtly duties as the King’s servant, pointing out that one day those morals will come into conflict with the political reality.

Utopia gave rise to a literary genre, Utopian and dystopian fiction, which features ideal societies or perfect cities, or their opposite. Early works influenced by Utopia included New Atlantis by Francis Bacon, Erewhon by Samuel Butler, and Candide by Voltaire. Although Utopianism combined classical concepts of perfect societies (Plato and Aristotle) with Roman rhetorical finesse (cf. Cicero, Quintilian, epideictic oratory), the Renaissance genre continued into the Age of Enlightenment and survives in modern science fiction.

Religious polemics

In 1520 the reformer Martin Luther published three works in quick succession: An Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (Aug.), Concerning the Babylonish Captivity of the Church (Oct.), and On the Liberty of a Christian Man (Nov.).[10]:225 In these books, Luther set out his doctrine of salvation through grace alone, rejected certain Catholic practices, and attacked abuses and excesses within the Catholic Church.[10]:225–6 In 1521, Henry VIII formally responded to Luther’s criticisms with the Assertio, written with More’s assistance. Pope Leo X rewarded the English king with the title ‘Fidei defensor’ (“Defender of the Faith”) for his work combating Luther’s heresies.[10]:226–7

Martin Luther then attacked Henry VIII in print, calling him a “pig, dolt, and liar”.[10]:227 At the king’s request, More composed a rebuttal: the Responsio ad Lutherum was published at the end of 1523. In the Responsio, More defended papal supremacy, the sacraments, and other Church traditions. More’s language, like Luther’s, was virulent: he branded Luther an “ape”, a “drunkard”, and a “lousy little friar” amongst other insults.[10]:230 Writing as Rosseus, More offers to “throw back into your paternity’s shitty mouth, truly the shit-pool of all shit, all the muck and shit which your damnable rottenness has vomited up”.[20]

Confronting Luther confirmed More’s theological conservatism. He thereafter avoided any hint of criticism of Church authority.[10]:230 In 1528, More published another religious polemic, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, that asserted the Catholic Church was the one true church, established by Christ and the Apostles, and affirmed the validity of its authority, traditions and practices.[10]:279–81 In 1529, the circulation of Simon Fish’s Supplication for the Beggars prompted More to respond with The Supplication of Souls.

In 1531, a year after More’s father died, William Tyndale published An Answer unto Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue in response to More’s Dialogue Concerning Heresies. More responded with a half million words: the Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer. The Confutation is an imaginary dialogue between More and Tyndale, with More addressing each of Tyndale’s criticisms of Catholic rites and doctrines.[10]:307–9 More, who valued structure, tradition and order in society as safeguards against tyranny and error, vehemently believed that Lutheranism and the Protestant Reformation in general were dangerous, not only to the Catholic faith but to the stability of society as a whole.[10]:307–9

Correspondence

Most major humanists were prolific letter writers, and Thomas More was no exception. However, as in the case of his friend Erasmus of Rotterdam, only a small portion of his correspondence (about 280 letters), survived. These include everything from personal letters to official government correspondence (mostly in English), letters to fellow humanist scholars (in Latin), several epistolary tracts, verse epistles, prefatory letters (some fictional) to several of More’s own works, letters to More’s children and their tutors (in Latin), and the so-called “prison-letters” (in English) which he exchanged with his oldest daughter, Margaret Roper while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London awaiting execution.[21] More also engaged in controversies, most notably with the French poet Germain de Brie, which culminated in the publication of de Brie’s Antimorus (1519). Erasmus intervened, however, and ended the dispute.[22]

More also wrote about more spiritual matters. They include: A Treatise on the Passion (a/k/a Treatise on the Passion of Christ), A Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body (a/k/a Holy Body Treaty), and De Tristitia Christi (a/k/a The Agony of Christ). More handwrote the last which reads in the Tower of London while awaiting his execution. This last manuscript, saved from the confiscation decreed by Henry VIII, passed by the will of his daughter Margaret to Spanish hands through Fray Pedro de Soto, confessor of Emperor Charles V. More’s friend Luis Vives received it in Valencia, where it remains in the collection of Real Colegio Seminario del Corpus Christi Museum.

Canonisation

Statue of Thomas More at the Ateneo Law School chapel.

Pope Leo XIII beatified Thomas More, John Fisher and 52 other English Martyrs on 29 December 1886. Pope Pius XI canonised More and Fisher on 19 May 1935, and More’s feast day was established as 9 July. Since 1970 the General Roman Calendar has celebrated More with St John Fisher on 22 June (the date of Fisher’s execution). In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared More “the heavenly Patron of Statesmen and Politicians”.[4] In 1980, despite their opposing the English Reformation that created the Church of England, More and Fisher were jointly added as martyrs of the reformation to the Church of England‘s calendar of Saints and Heroes of the Christian Church, to be commemorated every 6 July (the date of More’s execution) as “Thomas More, Scholar, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Reformation Martyrs, 1535”.[5]

Legacy

The steadfastness and courage with which More maintained his religious convictions, and his dignity during his imprisonment, trial, and execution, contributed much to More’s posthumous reputation, particularly among Catholics. However, his zealous persecution of Protestants while Lord Chancellor contravenes modern notions of religious liberty as discussed below. Many historians consider More’s treason conviction unjust, or at least his execution heavy-handed.[citation needed] His friend Erasmus defended More’s character as “more pure than any snow” and described his genius as “such as England never had and never again will have.”[38] Upon learning of More’s execution, Emperor Charles V said: “Had we been master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy councillor.”[39] G. K. Chesterton, a Catholic convert from the Church of England, predicted More “may come to be counted the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history.”[40] Hugh Trevor-Roper called More “the first great Englishman whom we feel that we know, the most saintly of humanists, the most human of saints, the universal man of our cool northern renaissance.”[41]

Jonathan Swift, an Anglican, wrote that More was “a person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced”.[42][43][44] Some consider Samuel Johnson that quote’s author, although neither his writings nor Boswell contain such.[45][46] The metaphysical poet John Donne, also honored as a saint by Anglicans, was More’s great-great-nephew.[47]

While Catholic scholars maintain that More used irony in Utopia, and that he remained an orthodox Christian, Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky considered the book a shrewd critique of economic and social exploitation in pre-modern Europe; More thus influenced the early development of socialist ideas.[48] Others thought Utopia mythologised Indian cultures in the New World at a time when the Catholic Church was still debating internally its view toward those decidedly non-Christian cultures.[citation needed]

Several authors criticised More for his war against Protestantism. Brian Moynahan, in his book God’s Messenger: William Tyndale, Thomas More and the Writing of the English Bible, criticised More’s intolerance, as does Michael Farris[citation needed] Richard Marius also criticised More for Anti-Protestantism and intolerance.[citation needed] Jasper Ridley, who wrote biographies of Henry VIII and Mary Tudor, goes much further in his dual biography of More and Cardinal Wolsey, The Statesman and the Fanatic, describing More as “a particularly nasty sadomasochistic pervert.”[citation needed] Joanna Denny in her 2004 biography of Anne Boleyn also criticised More.[citation needed]

Literature and popular culture

William Roper‘s biography of More was one of the first biographies in Modern English.

More was portrayed as a wise and honest statesman in the 1592 play Sir Thomas More, which was probably written in collaboration by Henry Chettle, Anthony Munday, William Shakespeare, and others, and which survives only in fragmentary form after being censored by Edmund Tylney, Master of the Revels in the government of Queen Elizabeth I (any direct reference to the Act of Supremacy was censored out).

The 20th-century agnostic playwright Robert Bolt portrayed Thomas More as the tragic hero of his 1960 play A Man for All Seasons. The title is drawn from what Robert Whittington in 1520 wrote of More:

More is a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.[41]

In 1966, the play was made into the successful film A Man for All Seasons directed by Fred Zinnemann, adapted for the screen by the playwright himself, and starring Paul Scofield in an Oscar-winning performance. Scofield, an actor known many acclaimed performances in Classical theater, later called Sir Thomas More, “The most difficult part I played.”[49]

The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture for that year. In 1988, Charlton Heston starred in and directed a made-for-television film that followed Bolt’s original play almost verbatim, restoring for example the commentaries of “the common man”.

Catholic science fiction writer R. A. Lafferty wrote his novel Past Master as a modern equivalent to More’s Utopia, which he saw as a satire. In this novel, Thomas More travels through time to the year 2535, where he is made king of the world “Astrobe”, only to be beheaded after ruling for a mere nine days. One character compares More favourably to almost every other major historical figure: “He had one completely honest moment right at the end. I cannot think of anyone else who ever had one.”

Karl Zuchardt‘s novel, Stirb du Narr! (“Die you fool!”), about More’s struggle with King Henry, portrays More as an idealist bound to fail in the power struggle with a ruthless ruler and an unjust world.

The novelist Hilary Mantel portrays More as a religious and masochistic fanatic in her 2009 novel Wolf Hall. Wolf Hall is told through the eyes of a sympathetic Thomas Cromwell. Literary critic James Wood calls him “cruel in punishment, evasive in argument, lusty for power, and repressive in politics”.[46]

Aaron Zelman‘s non-fiction book The State Versus the People includes a comparison of Utopia with Plato’s Republic. Zelman is undecided as to whether More was being ironic in his book or was genuinely advocating a police state. Zelman comments, “More is the only Christian saint to be honoured with a statue at the Kremlin.”[citation needed] By this Zelman implies that Utopia influenced Vladimir Lenin‘s Bolsheviks, despite their brutal repression of organised religion.

Other biographers, such as Peter Ackroyd, have offered a more sympathetic picture of More as both a sophisticated philosopher and man of letters, as well as a zealous Catholic who believed in the authority of the Holy See over Christendom.

The protagonist of Walker Percy‘s novels, Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome, is “Dr Thomas More”, a reluctant Catholic and descendant of More.

More is the focus of the Al Stewart song “A Man For All Seasons” from the 1978 album Time Passages, and of the Far song “Sir”, featured on the limited editions and 2008 re-release of their 1994 album Quick. In addition, the song “So Says I” by indie rock outfit The Shins alludes to the socialist interpretation of More’s Utopia.

Jeremy Northam depicts More in the television series The Tudors as a peaceful man, as well as a devout Roman Catholic and loving family patriarch. He also shows More loathing Protestantism, burning both Martin Luther’s books and English Protestants who have been convicted of heresy. The portrayal has unhistorical aspects, such as that More neither personally caused nor attended Simon Fish‘s execution (since Fish actually died of bubonic plague in 1531 before he could stand trial), although More’s The Supplycatyon of Soulys, published in October 1529, addressed Fish’s Supplication for the Beggars.[50][51] Indeed there is no evidence that More ever attended or personally caused the execution of any heretic (as distinct from helping to create a climate of opinion that encouraged such death sentences by the courts). The series also neglected to show More’s avowed insistence that Richard Rich’s testimony about More disputing the King’s title as Supreme Head of the Church of England was perjured.

The cultus of More has been satirised. In The Simpsons, an episode, “Margical History Tour“, contains a parody of both Henry VIII and More. King Henry (Homer Simpson) is depicted as a gluttonous slob who stuffs his face while singing “I’m Henery the Eighth, I am“. He then wipes his mouth with the Magna Carta and sets out to dump Queen Catherine (Marge Simpson). Sir Thomas (Ned Flanders) objects, “Divorce! Well, there’s no such thing in the Cath-diddly-atholic Church! But it’s the only Church we got, so what are you gonna do?” King Henry retorts, “I’ll start my own Church… Where divorce will be so easy, more than half of all marriages will end in it!” When a horrified Sir Thomas refuses to go along, King Henry has him shot out of a cannon.

Works

NOTE: The reference “CW” is to the relevant volume of the Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More (New Haven and London 1963–1997)

Published during More’s life (with dates of publication)

  • A Merry Jest (c. 1516) (CW 1)
  • Utopia (1516) (CW 4)
  • Latin Poems (1518, 1520) (CW 3, Pt.2)
  • Letter to Brixius (1520) (CW 3, Pt. 2, App C)
  • Responsio ad Lutherum (1523) (CW 5)
  • A Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1529, 1530) (CW 6)
  • Supplication of Souls (1529) (CW 7)
  • Letter Against Frith (1532) (CW 7)
  • The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer (1532, 1533) (CW 8)
  • Apology (1533) (CW 9)
  • Debellation of Salem and Bizance (1533) (CW 10)
  • The Answer to a Poisoned Book (1533) (CW 11)

Published after More’s death (with likely dates of composition)

  • The History of King Richard III (c. 1513–1518) (CW 2 & 15)
  • The Four Last Things (c. 1522) (CW 1)
  • A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534) (CW 12)
  • Treatise Upon the Passion (1534) (CW 13)
  • Treatise on the Blessed Body (1535) (CW 13)
  • Instructions and Prayers (1535) (CW 13)
  • De Tristitia Christi (1535) (CW 14)

Translations

  • Translations of Lucian (many dates 1506–1534) (CW 3, Pt.1)
  • The Life of Pico della Mirandola (c. 1510) (CW 1)

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