A Life in History: Sir Thomas More

Born: 7th February 1478          

Died: 6th July 1535

Thomas More was born in Cheapside in London, a stone’s throw from the place where Thomas Becket had been born three centuries earlier. His father, Sir John More, was a lawyer and politician who rose through the ranks of local government, and who devoted his life to public service.

Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger

Thomas had two older sisters, and their home in Milk Street was not lavish compared to many, ad while he rose to be one of the most well known of Henry VIII’s advisors, he came from relatively modest means. He attended school in the city and received a good classical education, enabling him to attend university and then enter law school, completing his training at Lincoln’s Inn as his father had done before him.

Thomas was sociable, and appeared to be able to make friends wherever he went, and that included some high places. His education, profession, natural scholarly talents and humanist beliefs meant that he could name amongst his acquaintances people such as Sir Thomas Wolsey, Desiderius Erasmus and even eventually King Henry VIII himself. He worked hard on his career as a politician, becoming a member of parliament, then speaker of the house, before taking on positions of responsibility on the King’s Council, all the way up to the highest position, Chancellor.

He was a loyal family man. He had 3 daughters and a son with his first wife, Joanna Colt, who died suddenly in 1511. Almost immediately he was married to Alice Middleton, a wealthy and eligible widow who had a daughter of her own. The family also took on wards, and adopted Margaret Giggs who was the daughter of a family friend, thought to have been wet-nurse to his eldest daughter, also called Margaret. Thomas took an active role in the lives of all of his children, directing their religious and academic education personally, and this led to his household often being referred to as ‘the More School’. In fact all of is children, but especially his eldest daughter Margaret, gained a reputation for their learning and academic abilities, and served as an example for other early-modern parents to follow.

Thomas’s other passion was his writing. Throughout his life he wrote almost every single day, and produced books, pamphlets, poems and essays prolifically. He wrote about a broad range of subjects, including history, politics, the education and position of women in society, and theology. Examples of his work include:

• The History of King Richard the Third (c.1513-1518)
• Utopia (1516)
• A Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1528-9)
• A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534)

A full list of his works is available at https://www.luminarium.org/renlit/morebib.htm , and there you can find his poetry, letters and other works in full.

Thomas took his work and beliefs incredibly seriously and this is how and why, in 1532, he resigned the Chancellorship, stating that he could not willingly carry on in the position if the King was going to continue to seek out his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Over the coming months he would come under increasing scrutiny for his actions towards the King, and his new Queen Anne Boleyn. He did not attend Anne’s coronation, and when asked to take an oath supporting the King’s break from Rome, Thomas refused.

In April 1534, after this refusal, Sir Thomas was taken to the Tower. He spent over a year in prison, visited only by his daughter Margaret, and occasionally sent packages from well-wishers and supporters of his position. In July 1535 he was brought to trial and found guilty of high treason, for refusing the accept that King Henry VIII was supreme head of the Church of England. He was executed on the 6th July 1535, on Tower Hill and his head was placed on a spike on Tower Bridge.

Following his death, Sir Thomas’s body was buried in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. His head however, should have ended up in the River Thames, or thrown away by the guards on Tower Bridge, but instead his daughter Margaret bribed the guard and took her father’s head away and preserved it. She kept it with her until her death. There is now a head, said to be that of Sir Thomas, buried alongside Margaret and her husband, William, in the Roper Chapel crypt of St Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury.

His head was not the only thing of Thomas’s that Margaret preserved. She collected together all of his written works, letters and papers that had survived and thanks to her work, we now have a trove of information about the Early Modern period that potentially would not exist. Thomas’s written work allows us to study Humanism, sixteenth century life and the court of Henry VIII is detail and gives us a window into the lives of so many well known characters of the age.

I go into more detail about Margaret and Thomas’s relationship and her work to preserve his legacy in my upcoming book ‘The Female Tudor Scholar and Writer: The Life and Times of Margaret More Roper’, published by Pen and Sword books. Due for release in July 2024, it is now available for pre-order on Amazon here.

For more Information about Sir Thomas I would recommend reading:

A Daughter’s Love by John Guy

The Life of Sir Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd