Historical Figure
Thomas More
1478–1535
English politician, author and philosopher (1478–1535)
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Biography
Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, which describes the political system of an imaginary island state.
In Their Own Words (5)
Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason.
Advising an author to put his MS. into rhyme. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 604 , 1922
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 , 1516
I die the king's faithful servant, and 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 , 1960
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) , 1530
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 , 1516
Timeline
The story of Thomas More, told in moments.
Publishes Utopia, a Latin work describing an ideal island society with communal property, religious tolerance, and a six-hour workday. The word "utopia" is a pun. It means both "good place" and "no place" in Greek. He writes it as a joke that outlasts him.
Appointed Lord Chancellor of England by Henry VIII, the first layman to hold the office. He's 51 and the second most powerful man in the kingdom. But Henry wants an annulment from Catherine of Aragon. More can't support it.
Resigns the chancellorship. He cites poor health. Everyone knows the real reason. Henry is breaking with Rome to marry Anne Boleyn. More won't support the break. He retreats to his Chelsea home and writes polemics against Protestant heresy.
Refuses to swear the Oath of Supremacy recognizing Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. He's imprisoned in the Tower of London. He spends 15 months in a damp cell, writing letters to his daughter Margaret with charcoal.
Beheaded on Tower Hill. He tells the executioner: "I pray you, I pray you, Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself." He moves his beard from the block, saying it has committed no treason. His head is boiled and placed on a pike on London Bridge.
Canonized as a saint by Pope Pius XI, four hundred years after his execution. In 2000, Pope John Paul II declares him patron saint of statesmen and politicians.
Artifacts (2)
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