St. Thomas More: Renaissance Statesman & Martyr

Episode 3: St. Thomas More - Show Notes

• Corrections or clarifications on a few point are provided below in the Summary. Also, since this discussion went long, we have divided the recording into three parts, separated by short breaks: • Part 1: Early Life (beginning to 35:40) • Part 2: Beginning of the Reformation (35:40 to 57:06) • Part 3: Martyrdom (57:06 to end)

*Special Thank You to Paul Spring for allowing us to use his song "Itasca" from the album Borderline EP (2014)!

Brief Chronology:
• 1478 - Birth of Thomas More
• 1485 - Battle of Bosworth Field (end of Plantagenet and beginning of Tudor dynasty)
• 1490-92 - More is a page in Cardinal Morton's household
• 1504 or 1505 - Marriage to first wife, Jane Colt, mother to More's four biological children
• 1511- Death of Jane Colt and marriage to second wife, Alice Middleton
• 1515 - More writes Utopia (published 1516)
• 1517 - Martin Luther posts his Ninety-Five Theses (starting Protestant Reformation)
• 1525 - Peasants' War in Germany; William Tyndale translates New Testament
• 1527 - Rome sacked by Charles V's army
• 1529-1532 - More is made Lord Chancellor
• 1533 - Marriage of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn
• 1534 - More is imprisoned in Tower of London
• 1535 - Trial and execution of Thomas More
• 1935 - Canonization by Pope Pius XI

Episode Summary:

This was a long conversation, but we hope you get a lot out of good information from it! Thomas More was (probably) born February 7, 1478 in London, England. His childhood was a unstable time for England: the final years of a civil war between rival branches of the ruling Plantagenet family called the Wars of the Roses. Thomas More would become an important official under the new Tudor dynasty, especially under Henry VII's son Henry VIII. More studied grammar, logic and rhetoric from a young age and was eventually sent to Oxford and the Inns of Court to study law. He also spent some years as part of the household of Cardinal Morton, which may have helped shape him spiritually.

More's family came from a middle class background: his grandfathers were a baker and brewer. His father John More was sent to study law and eventually became a judge. However, the family seems to have been targeted by Henry VII after a young Thomas More opposed a tax in parliament that the king wanted. (+ Correction to the episode: the tax was related to posthumous knighting of Arthur and a dowry for Princess Margaret's marriage to the king of Scotland).

After Henry VII's death, More found favor with his son Henry VIII and eventually More rose to the high position of Lord Chancellor, technically the highest judicial post, but which also included other duties at the king's discretion. Both before and after becoming Lord Chancellor, More was responsible for suppressing what were then considered heresies (Protestantism), a fact which has made him controversial for modern scholars. The Reformation is traditionally reckoned to have begun with Martin Luther posting his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517. The reformation spread to the rest of Europe and started to take on new forms. In England it was viewed as a dangerous sequel to the Lollard movement. Henry VIII's government, fearing sedition and social chaos, violently suppressed the Protestants. More was the highest lay official in this government and vehemently opposed to the Protestants' attack on tradition. Six people were executed for heresy during his time in office and many protestant books were seized and burned. During this period More wrote books against the ideas of Luther and Tyndale, who had ironically been influenced by the ideas of More's friend Erasmus.

(+ Another correction to the episode: the Bible text that Zwingli and other reformers liked, which Jake butchers is," The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing." - John 6:63).

Nonetheless, More was moderate in his response to his son-in-law William Roper's temporary conversion to Protestantism and he may have sensed that the Reformation would eventually gain the upper hand. He privately confided to Roper, "'And yet, son Roper, I pray God,' said he, 'that some of us, as high as we seem to sit upon the mountains, treading heretics under our feet like ants, live not the day that we gladly would wish to be at league and composition with them, to let them have their churches quietly to themselves, so they would be content to let us have ours quietly to ourselves." (Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, Knight, p. 18). Ironically, More became a victim of the same government he had served.

More took over office as Lord Chancellor, following the fall of Cardinal Wolsey from royal favor, in a turbulent time. While central Europe was dividing along sectarian lines, Italy was fought over by France and the Holy Roman Empire. England shifted first from an alliance with the Holy Roman Empire (championed by Wolsey) to an alliance with France when it became clear that Emperor Charles V would not support Henry VIII's claim to be king of France. However, despite Wolsey's efforts, Pope Clement VII would not approve Henry VIII divorce from Queen Catherine, Charles V's aunt. Clement VII was apparently fearful after Charles V's troops sacked Rome in 1527, but he also may have realized that the annulment could have tarnished his spiritual and moral authority, which was already in jeopardy due to the Reformation (Richard Marius, Thomas More, p. 214-15).

In his position of power, More's beliefs eventually became impossible to reconcile with King Henry VIII's objectives of divorcing Catherine and declaring himself supreme head of the Church of England. More was allowed to resign, but refused to publicly support the marriage or the new laws enacting the English Reformation. Anne Boleyn and the royal secretary Thomas Cromwell, both favoring reformation, increasingly targeted More. After refusing an oath to support the marriage to Anne Boleyn and succession, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. After over a year of confinement, during which he continued to refuse to take the oath or to say directly why he would not, he was finally put on trial for treason. When he was executed on July 6, 1535, More told onlookers "to pray for him, and to bear witness with him that he should now suffer death in and for the faith of the Holy Catholic Church." (Roper, p. 50) Four hundred years later, in 1935, Pope Pius XI declared Thomas More a saint along with his fellow martyr St. John Fisher.

Even if Thomas More had not risen to high office or been martyred for his faith, he would still be famous today as a renaissance humanist and writer. He left behind political works such as Utopia as well as religious and philosophical writings, such as the Dialogue Concerning Heresies and the Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation. He was friends with the famous humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam, who remembered More after his execution as follows: " [...] Thomas More, who was the chief magistrate of his country, whose heart was whiter than snow, a genius such as England never had before, nor ever will have again, a country by no means lacking genius" (Erasmus’ Dedicatory Preface to Ecclesiastes, August 1535, online at The Center for Thomas More Studies).

Primary Sources:

• Utopia by Thomas More, ed. by Edward Surtz, S.J . (Yale Univ. Press, 1964).
• Final Letters by Thomas More, ed. by Alvaro de Silva (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2000)
• The Life of Sir Thomas More, Knight by William Roper - Citations above are to the edition published in Lives of Saint Thomas More, ed. by E.E. Nichols (J.M.Dent & Sons, Ltd, 1963). This is a short memoir of More by his son-in-law William Roper.
• The Center for Thomas More Studies: https://thomasmorestudies.org/index.html

Secondary Sources:

• Thomas More: A Biography by Richard Marius (Alfred A. Knopf, 1984).
• The King's Good Servant but God's First: The Life and Writings of St. Thomas More by James Monti (Ignatius Press, 1997).
• The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More, ed. by George Logan (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011) - Especially recommended is the essay, "Thomas More and the heretics: statesman or fanatic?" by Richard Rex .
• Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants, and the Conversion of England by Eamon Duffy (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017).
• The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid McCulloch (Penguin, 2004).

Movies:

• A Man of All Seasons (1967) - Highly recommended award-winning movie based on the play by Robert Bolt. (source for the quote, "This isn't Spain, this is England!" featured in the episode).

Image Credit: "Thomas More and His Family" (1592) - Rowland Lockey [Public domain]