SIR THOMAS MORE AND SOME CONTEMPORARIES
While in this great period of the Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo da
Vinci and Michelangelo, and so many others, were demonstrating the
power of the human mind to express itself in aesthetic modes of all
kinds, and Copernicus and Regiomontanus and Vesalius and Paracelsus
were showing how man's intellect might penetrate the mysteries of the
universe without him and that smaller universe the microcosm that he
is himself, and Erasmus and Pico della Mirandola and Linacre were
exhibiting human scholarship at its highest, a great contemporary in
England expressed human life at its best in strong terms of the human
will. This was Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, put to
death by Henry VIII, but not until he had succeeded in making out of
his life a wonderful work of living art of the profoundest
significance, to which men of all classes have been attracted ever
since. He was a great scholar, a great lawyer, a great judge--the
only man who ever cleared the docket of the English Court of
Chancery,--a writer of distinguished ability not only in his own
language but in Latin, a philosopher who so far as the consideration
of social problems was concerned deserves a place beside Plato: yet
not for any of these attainments is he famous, but for his unflinching
following of what he saw to be his duty even though it cost him
everything that men usually hold dear--life, reputation, property and
even the possibility of poverty and suffering for those he held dear
after his death.
Sir Thomas More was born in London, February 7, 1478. We are likely to
think of the Wars of the Roses as farther away from us, but they were
not yet over. Edward the Fourth was now firmly fixed on the throne,
but there had been stormy times for the monarchy in his reign. Edward
{224} originally ascended the throne in March, 1461, but the revolt of
the Kingmaker Earl of Warwick had led to the restoration of poor Henry
VI in 1470, and Edward had to flee the country. He returned in 1471,
defeated Warwick at Barnet, April 14, 1471, and Margaret of Anjou at
Tewkesbury, May 4, 1471. There was tranquillity for a dozen of years
after this, but it was not until Henry VII defeated Richard III at
Bosworth in 1485, and then married the Yorkist Princess Elizabeth,
that peace was assured to England. It was into a very disturbed
England, then, that Sir Thomas More was born. As a boy he had as
teacher Nicholas Holt, who seems, with the true Renaissance spirit, to
have been thoroughly able to arouse the youth's interest. At the age
of twelve he entered the household of Cardinal Morton, the Archbishop
of Canterbury. It was the good old custom at that time to have boys
brought up in the households of distinguished nobles or high
ecclesiastical dignitaries, with the idea that association with men of
parts represented the best stimulus for that development of the
intellectual faculties which constitutes real education.
It was not long before young More attracted the attention of the
distinguished old Cardinal, who prophesied his future greatness.
Roper, who married More's daughter Margaret, tells an incident of the
boy's life at this time and adds that, as a consequence of the
Cardinal's appreciation of him. More was sent to the university. He
says in a famous paragraph that shows us More's precocity and that
sense of humor that was to characterize him all his life:
"Though More were young of years, yet would he at Christmas suddenly
sometimes step in among the players, and never studying for the
matter, make a part of his own there presently among them which made
the lookers on more sport than all the players beside. In whose wit
and towardness the Cardinal much delighting, would often say of him
to the nobles that divers times dine with him: 'This child here
waiting at the table, whoever shall live to see it, will prove a
marvellous man.' Whereupon for his better furtherance in learning,
he placed him at Oxford."
After some four years in the Cardinal's household, More {225} went to
the university on the bounty of his patron, and afterwards took up the
study of law and was admitted to the bar.
When he was twenty-six More became a member of Parliament, and the
next year, in 1505, he married. The story of his marriage has an
interest rather unique of its kind. He had gone down to the home of
John Colt of Newhall, in Essex, with the avowed purpose of getting him
a wife. He had been told that John's elder daughter was just the
person for him. When he got down there he liked the second daughter
better, but married her elder sister so as not to subject her to the
discredit of being passed over. There are those who have said that his
sanctity began right there. It is to be hoped that his wife knew
nothing of it until much later.
The year of his marriage, when he might reasonably have been expected
to be circumspect as to his political future, More strenuously opposed
in Parliament King Henry's (VII) proposal for a very large subsidy as
the marriage portion of his daughter Margaret. In spite of his youth,
his arguments in the matter were so forcible and in accord with
old-time custom and law in England that the House of Commons reduced
the subsidy to scarcely more than a quarter of the amount demanded.
When his favorite courtiers brought to Henry VII the news that a man
whom he would deem scarcely more than a beardless boy had brought
about the disappointment of his hopes and schemes and deprived him of
an opportunity to fill his coffers, than which nothing was dearer to
the miserly King's heart, it is easy to understand that More was not a
favorite at Court.
More seems to have considered it advisable to absent himself from
England for a while at this time, because of the king's displeasure.
This provided an opportunity to spend some time at Paris, and also at
Louvain. At Louvain he began that acquaintance with Erasmus which
ripened into the enduring intimacy of later life. No opportunity seems
to have been missed by him to develop his intellect and broaden his
intellectual interests. While he was a lawyer, the Greek authors
became a favorite subject of study and philosophy and science his
diversions. Literally, it might be said of {226} him, that there was
nothing that was human that did not interest him.
After some time, More returned to London and took up the practice of
law. After the death of Henry VII, in 1509, he became the most popular
barrister of the day and very soon obtained an immensely lucrative
practice. He refused to receive fees from the poor, and especially
from widows and orphans who seemed to him to be oppressed in any way.
Tradition shows him as a sort of legal aid society for the city of
London at that time. He absolutely refused to plead in cases which he
thought unjust. Such punctilious practice of the law is sometimes said
to hamper a successful career and, above all, lead to the loss of the
opportunities that bring a lawyer into prominence. The very opposite
happened with More, and he became the best known of his profession
before he was forty.
The pleasantest part of More's life was these years of his
professional career. He then had the opportunity to associate
frequently in the most charming of friendly and literary intercourse
with the group of men whose names are famous in the English
Renaissance. He and Erasmus were life-long friends, and perhaps there
is no greater tribute to Erasmus' character than More's devoted
affection for him, and his sympathetic devotion to More. Erasmus
himself, though a much greater scholar, had nothing like the depth and
strength of character possessed by More. The men were in many ways
almost exact opposites of each other, and perhaps they felt how
complementary their qualities were. More was eminently practical,
Erasmus was rather impractical; More was humorous, Erasmus was witty.
More sympathized with all humanity, even when he found something to
criticise; Erasmus' criticism was likely to be bitter and he laughed
at rather than with people, so that he did not make himself generally
loved, but quite the contrary, except for a few close friends, while
the most typical characteristic of More's life is the love and
affection it aroused.
More's family life is one of the most interesting features of his
career. Erasmus has spoken of it with enthusiastic admiration and, as
he had personal experience of it for rather {227} long periods at
several different times and was himself a highly sensitive, readily
irritable individual, his testimony in the matter is all the more
significant. It may be due to Erasmus' enthusiastic admiration for
More, but in any case it shows us how thoroughly he appreciated and
was ready to place on record his enjoyment of the privilege of being
received as a friend into the household:
"Does my friend regulate his household, where misunderstandings and
quarrels are altogether unknown! Indeed, he is looked up to as a
general healer of all differences, and he was never known to part
from any on terms of unkindness. His house seems to enjoy the
peculiar happiness that all who dwell under its roof go forth into
the world bettered in their morals as well as improved in their
condition; and no spot was ever known to fall on the reputation of
any of its fortunate inhabitants. Here you might imagine yourself in
the academy of Plato. But, indeed, I should do injustice to his
house by comparing it with the school of that philosopher where
nothing but abstract questions, and occasional moral virtues, were
the subjects of discussion; it would be truer to call it a school of
religion, and an arena for the exercise of all Christian virtues.
All its inmates apply themselves to liberal studies, though piety is
their first care. No wrangling or angry word is ever heard within
the walls. No one is idle; everyone does his duty with alacrity, and
regularity and good order are prescribed by the mere force of
kindness and courtesy. Everyone performs his allotted task, and yet
all are as cheerful as if mirth were their only employment. Surely
such a household deserves to be called a school of the Christian
religion."
Some who have found a lack in the chancellor's life of what may be
called romance, for both his courtships were eminently matter-of-fact,
may find adequate compensation for this and material for the proper
appreciation of More's affectionate nature in the contemplation of the
intense affection which he displayed for his children, and especially
for his daughter Margaret. Margaret More richly deserved all this
affection of her father, but there is probably not a case in history
where such affection has been so charmingly expressed. {228}
Fortunately for us, the extensive correspondence that passed between
father and daughter is largely preserved for us. The letters are
charming expressions of paternal and daughterly affection. Perhaps the
one that may interest the young folks of this generation the most is
that in which Sir Thomas replies to a letter of his daughter's asking
for money. Probably there would be rather ready agreement that, in the
great majority of cases, paternal answers to filial requests for money
in our time are couched in somewhat different terms. The father wrote
with classic references that are meant to make her studies seem all
the more valuable:
"You ask me, my dear Margaret, for money with too much bashfulness
and timidity, since you are asking from a father that is eager to
give, and since you have written to me a letter such that I would
not only repay each line of it with a golden philippine, as
Alexander did the verses of Cherilos, but, if my means were as great
as my desire, I would reward each syllable with two gold ounces. As
it is, I send you only what you have asked, but would have added
more, only that as I am eager to give, so am I desirous to be asked
and coaxed by my daughter, especially by you, whom virtue and
learning have made so dear to my soul. So the sooner you spend this
money well, as you are wont to do, and the sooner you ask for more,
the more you will be sure of pleasing your father."
Linacre, the second of the group with whom More was associated to a
considerable extent, is one of the great characters of the England of
that time. Like More, he had attracted the attention of a great
Churchman, Bishop Selling; when young, he had gone to Italy in his
train and there had had the advantage of intimate association with the
family of the Medici when Lorenzo the Magnificent was training his
boys to be rulers of Italy, political and ecclesiastical. Linacre
stayed some ten years in Italy, mainly during the pontificate of Pope
Alexander VI, of whom so much that is derogatory has been said, but,
instead of having his devotion to the Church lessened by the abuses
that are said to have existed in Italy at this time, he came back to
England as a fervent Catholic. Years afterwards, when toward the end
of life {229} he felt its emptiness, he distributed his property for
educational purposes and became a priest. His foundations in both
Cambridge and Oxford, and especially his foundation of the Royal
College of Physicians, were very valuable contributions to the
intellectual life of England. The College of Physicians lives on under
the constitutions that he provided. His chairs founded at Oxford and
Cambridge were not so fortunate, because the disturbances of the end
of Henry VIII's reign and the time of Edward VI led to the
confiscation of many of these educational foundations, or at least of
their diversion to the King's private purposes.
Erasmus was the greatest scholar of the time, Linacre was looked up to
as perhaps the best Greek scholar of the period, and, while in Italy,
Manutius in Venice had taken advantage of his knowledge for the
editing of certain of the Greek classics. He himself translated a
number of volumes of Galen into Latin, and the translation was
proclaimed, in Erasmus's words, to be better than the original Greek.
The third of this group of friends of More was scarcely less
distinguished than the other two. It was Dean Colet of St. Paul's. He,
too, had been touched by the spirit of the Renaissance, but like all
the others of this group, instead of being attracted towards Paganism
or away from Christianity, his devotion to the Church and his faith
had been broadened and deepened by his knowledge. His sermons at St.
Paul's attracted widespread attention. But his personal influence was
perhaps even more telling.
According to tradition, these men and certain others, as Lyly and at
some times probably John Caius, who afterwards founded Caius College
at Cambridge, used to meet for an afternoon's discussion of things
literary, social and philosophic at the home of Colet's mother in
Stepney. There we have a picture of them arguing over literary
questions with that intense seriousness which characterized the
Renaissance, and in the midst of which Colet had sometimes to restrain
the ardent enthusiasm of the others lest argument should run into
strife. Here, according to tradition, Dame Colet, mother of the Dean,
used sometimes to bring them for a collation some of the strawberries
that had been introduced into England {230} from Holland, probably by
Erasmus himself or through his influence, and some of which were grown
in the Colet garden. With English milk and the sweet cakes of the
time, they made a pleasant interlude in the afternoon or served as a
fitting smoothing apparatus for the end of a discussion that had waxed
hot.
Such a group of men make an Academy in the best sense of the word.
When Plato led his scholars through the groves of Academus and
discussed high thoughts with them, the first Academy came into
existence and the English Renaissance furnished another striking
example of how the friction of various many-sided minds may serve to
bring out what is best in all of them. The pleasure of such
intercourse only those who have had opportunities of sharing it can
properly appreciate. The meetings must, indeed, have been events in
the lives of the men, and More, who had not had the opportunity to go
to Italy, must have drunk in with special enthusiasm all that their
long years of Italian experience had given to the others. These
interludes from his more serious practical duties at the bar must have
been most happy and marvellously broadening in their effects.
A good idea of More's interests as a young man between twenty-five and
thirty can be obtained from his setting himself to make a translation
of Pico della Mirandola's "Life, Letters and Works." While Pico was
one of the most learned men of the Renaissance, he was also one of the
most pious. And more than any other he showed the possibility of being
profoundly acquainted with Greek culture, and yet retaining a deep
devotion to religion. More's praise of him in the life that he wrote
shows better than anything else the drift of his own thoughts. The
passage affords a good idea of More's prose style in English, with the
spelling somewhat but not entirely modernized:
"Oh very happy mind," he writes, "which none adversity might
oppress, which no prosperity might enhance: Not the cunning of all
philosophy was able to make him proud, not the knowledge of the
hebrewe chaldey and arabie language besides greke and latin could
make him vain gloriuse, not his great substance, not his noble blood
coulde blow up his heart, {231} not the beauty of his body, not the
great occasions of sin were able to pull him back into the voluptous
broad way that lead us to hell: what thing was there of so marvelous
strength that might overturn that mind of him which now: as Seneca
saith was gotten above fortune as he which as well her favor as her
malice hath, saitheth nought, that he might be coupled with a
spiritual knot unto Christ and his heavenly citizens."
More also wrote some verses on the vicissitudes of fortune, in which
he describes her as distributing brittle gifts among men only to amuse
herself by suddenly taking them back again. It was the literal
expression of his own career, and his advice as to how to defy her is
best illustrated by his own life:
"This is her sport, thus proveth she her might;
Great boast she mak'th if one be by her power
Wealthy and wretched both within an hour.
Wherefore if thou in surety lust to stand.
Take poverty's part and let proud fortune go.
Receive nothing that cometh from her hand.
Love, manner and virtue: they be only tho,
Which double Fortune may not take thee fro':
Then may'st thou boldly defy her turning chance.
She can thee neither hinder nor advance.'"
The young King Henry VIII became deeply interested in More because of
his brilliancy of intellect, his successful conduct of affairs, his
sterling character and, above all, for his wit and humor. He wanted to
have him as a member of his Court, but this More long resisted. He
preferred independence to a courtier's life, and in spite of the
urging of Wolsey, who had been made a Cardinal by Leo X in 1515, and
alleged how dear his service would be to his majesty, continued to
refuse. After an embassy to Flanders, however, on which he went with
Cuthbert Tunstal to confer with the ambassadors of Charles V, who was
then, however, only Archduke of Austria, upon a renewal of the
alliance with the English Monarch and a further embassy of the same
kind in 1516, {232} More consented to enter the Royal Court. On his
embassy in Flanders he had probably taken the leisure to write out his
"Utopia" in Latin, and it was published on the Continent, though not
published in England until nearly twenty years after his death. The
contact with Erasmus woke More's literary spirit, and Erasmus felt
that there were magnificent possibilities for literature in More's
intellect. Erasmus bewailed his becoming a courtier and says in his
letters "the King really dragged him to his Court. No one ever strove
more eagerly to gain admission there than More did to avoid it."
More's literary reputation rests more particularly on his "Utopia,"
written when he was thirty-seven years of age, during his absence from
England on the commission in the Low Countries with Cuthbert Tunstal.
That absence was but for six months, and this will give some idea of
More's industry. At home he was deep in his law practice, and now when
he had leisure from social and ambassadorial demands he found time to
write one of the most interesting contributions to the science of
government from the social side that probably has ever been written.
It was written in Latin and was first printed at Louvain late in 1516
under the editorship of Erasmus, Peter Giles, sometimes known under
his Latin name as AEgidius, and others of More's literary friends in
Flanders. It was subsequently revised by More and printed by Frobinius
at Basel in November, 1518. The book became popular on the Continent
and was reprinted at Paris and Vienna, but was not published in
England during More's lifetime. More evidently feared that it might be
misunderstood there, though he had been very careful in the course of
the book to make whatever might seem to reflect upon England appear to
be directly referred to some other country.
An English translation was not published in England until Edward the
VI's reign in 1551. The standard translation, however, is that made by
Bishop Burnet. It can scarcely but seem strange that the author of the
history of "The Protestant Reformation," who more than any other
almost kept England from relaxing any of her antipopery feeling or
governmental regulations, should translate the last great Papal {233}
Catholic's book for his countrymen, but it is a tribute the
significance of which cannot be missed. Burnet is said to have been
induced to make the translation from the same feelings of protest
against arbitrary government that led to More's writing of it. The
passages quoted here are always taken from Burnet's translation.
Unfortunately, "Utopia" is mainly known to ordinary readers from the
adjective Utopian, derived from it and which has come to mean a
hopelessly ideal or infeasibly impractical scheme. Doubtless many have
been deterred from even the thought of reading it, because of the
feeling produced that a book of Utopian character could not be of any
serious import. Utopia from the Greek simply means nowhere. More
himself often calls it by the Latin name Nusquama, with the same
meaning. It was simply a country which unfortunately existed nowhere
as yet, in which things were done very differently from anywhere in
civilized Europe at least, but where the people had reasoned out what
ought to be their attitude of mind towards many things which in Europe
following tradition and convention were liable to many abuses and
social wrongs.
Sir Thomas recognized all the danger there was from the so-called
Reformation and did not hesitate to take his part in the controversies
that inevitably came. As early as 1523 he published the answer to
Luther, in 1525 a pamphlet letter against Pomeranus, in 1528 the
dialogue "Quoth He and Quoth I," in 1529 the "Supplication of Souls,"
in 1531 the "Confutation of Tindale," in 1532 his "Apology," in 1533
"The Deballation of Salem and Bizance" and in 1533 the "Answer to the
Supper of the Lord," probably written by either William Tindale or
George Jay. [Footnote 22]
[Footnote 22: A good idea of how the spelling of the
English language has changed in four centuries may be
gathered from the title of one of these controversial
works of More's, as it appeared recently in the catalogue
of a bookseller. The frequent use of _y_ where we now use _i_
would almost make one think that the _i_'s have been
exhausted in the particular font of type, or else that
this typesetter had a special fondness for _y_. This latter
idea is probably true, for, as a matter of fact, in books
printed about this same time so many _y_'s were not
ordinarily used.
"Sir Thomas More A dyaloge . . . whereyn he treatyed dyvers maters
as of the veneracyon and worshyp of ymagys and relyques, prayng to
sayntis, and goynge on pylgrymage. Wyth many other thyngys
touchyng the pestylent secte of Luther and Tyndale, etc. Newly
oversene. Sm. folio black letter, with the leaf of "fawtes escaped
in the pryntynge."]
When Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor, fell after the failure of the
divorce proceedings, the King insisted on Sir Thomas More accepting
the position. More must have known how {234} difficult, indeed almost
impossible, the post would be for him. It was dangerous, however, to
oppose Henry VIII's will, and so within a week after the deposition of
Wolsey, Sir Thomas More was installed as Lord Chancellor, an office
that had very seldom before this been held by a layman, though it has
been held by laymen ever since, almost without exception. His
installation is said to have taken place with the joy and applause of
the whole kingdom. There are some who have said that More was glad to
triumph over Wolsey, and that indeed he took advantage of the
opportunity afforded him by the new dignity to abuse his predecessor
and to show that he had schemed to succeed him. There are no grounds
for such expressions, however, and even Wolsey himself had declared
that More was the man who should have the post, the only one fitted to
succeed him. Erasmus, writing on the matter, is quite sure that More
himself does not deserve to be congratulated, for he foresaw the
difficulties ahead, but the kingdom deserves congratulation. He felt,
too, that it would be a loss to literature. As he said: "I do not at
all congratulate More or literature, but I do indeed congratulate
England, for a better or holier judge could not be appointed."
The most characteristic feature of More's Chancellorship was his
prompt disposing of cases. He realized very well that not only must
justice be done, but as far as possible it must be done promptly, and
the tedious drawing out of cases to great length works injustice, even
though they are justly decided after many years. The Court of Chancery
in England has become a byword for slowness of procedure and has been
satirized on many occasions during the nineteenth {235} century, but
already in the sixteenth century there were many cases before the
Court that had been dragging on for twenty years, and even more.
Delays were mainly due to the fact that Lord Chancellors were occupied
with many other duties and did not always feel equal to the task of
trying cases and weighing evidence. Undoubtedly some delays had been
occasioned by the fact that presents were received, if not by the Lord
Chancellor himself at least by court officials, and the longer cases
were allowed to drag on the more opportunity was there in them for
such irregularities. The clearing up of the calendar of the Court of
Chancery marked an epoch in English legal history and is one of our
best evidences of More's thoroughly practical character.
It is by his death more than anything else that More is admirable.
Here was a man of marvellous breadth of interests, to whom life must
have meant very much. As a young man he had been brought in intimate
contact with the pick of the intellectual men of his time. In early
manhood he had been the chosen friend of the best scholars in
Europe--men like Colet, Erasmus and Linacre, with international
reputations. He had represented his King abroad in important missions
before he was forty. He had shown himself a great lawyer in spite of a
scrupulosity of conscience that would ordinarily be supposed to make
the successful practice of the law extremely difficult.
Notwithstanding the most thorough honesty in every activity of life
and the absence of every hint even of truckling of any kind to popular
or royal opinion, he had been the favorite of all classes. As an
author he wrote books that the world will not willingly let die. They
are occupied with things that men often push away from them, serious,
high-minded, purposeful, yet they are more read now than they were in
his own time. He was a philosopher worthy to be placed beside the
greatest practical philosopher, and his ideal republic, written in his
own profound vein of humor, is a distinct contribution to that form of
literature.
To this man there came, about the age of fifty, the highest office
that he could possibly hope to attain in England. He was the favorite
of his King and of the Court. He used his high office for the benefit
of the commonwealth in every way, {236} and above all for the benefit
of the people. He revolutionized methods in chancery and succeeded in
bringing Justice back to haunts of the law, where her presence had
been so rare as almost to be doubted. He had a great future before him
in the possibilities of good for others. Unselfish as he had always
shown himself to be, surely he could have had no greater satisfaction
for his ambition than this. In the midst of his efficient duties there
came a decision to be made with regard to himself. The Lord High
Chancellor of England is often spoken of as the keeper of the King's
conscience. Such More evidently deemed himself to be in reality.
Anyhow, he was the keeper of his own conscience.
The King, unable to obtain a divorce from the wife whom he had married
twenty years before in order to marry a younger, handsomer woman, had
resolved to grant one to himself and for that purpose assumed the
supremacy in Church as well as in State. The great nobles, knowing his
headstrong character, submitted to this usurpation of authority, which
was besides baited with the possibility of enrichment through the
confiscation of monastic property and its transfer to king's
favorites. Even the bishops of England hesitated but for a time, and
then almost to a man took the oath of supremacy which declared Henry
to be supreme head of the Church as well as the State. There were only
one or two notable exceptions to this.
It would seem as though after this there ought to be no difficulty for
More. If the bishops and the clergy of the country were willing to
accept the King as the head of the Church, why should a layman
hesitate? And yet More hesitated. He refused to take the oath of
supremacy. It was represented to him that to refuse was dangerous. On
the other hand, it was shown to him, and it must have been very clear
to himself, that if he took it he would obtain great favor with the
King, and that indeed there was almost nothing that he might not
aspire to. Lord Chancellor he was, but ennoblement and enrichment
would surely come to him. The King had always thought much of him, was
now particularly irritated by his refusal, but would be won to him
completely if he yielded. It seemed not unlikely that a peerage would
be his at once, and {237} that higher degrees of nobility were only a
question of time. Times were disturbed, and he might be able to do
much good, certainly he could not expect that other advisers near the
King would do anything but yield to the monarch's whims.
Here was a dilemma. On the one hand, honor, power, wealth and the
favor of his King, as well as the esteem of his generation; on the
other hand, disgrace, impoverishment of his family by attainder,
imprisonment, probably death. More calmly weighed it all and decided
in favor of following his conscience, no matter what it might cost
him. He did so entirely on his own strength of character and without
any encouragement from others. On the contrary, there was every
discouragement.
Having made his decision he did not proceed to think that everyone
else ought to have seen it the same way, but on the contrary he felt
for the others, realized all the difficulties and calmly recognized
that they might well be in good faith. When the decision of his judges
that he must die was announced to him, he told them very calmly that
he thanked them for their decision and said that he hoped to meet them
in heaven. The passage is well worth reading in More's own quaint,
simple, forcible language.
It is probable that there has never been an occasion in the world's
history when the obligation of following conscience has been more
clearly seen and more devotedly acknowledged than when More went to
death for what was called treason, because he refused to take the oath
that the King of England was the head of the Church as well as of the
State. Every human motive was urgent against his following of
conscience in the matter. He stood almost entirely alone. Bishop
Fisher of Rochester, it is true, was with him, but More stated in one
of his letters that even had the bishop found some way to compound
with his conscience and take the oath as so many other upright and
conscientious men, as they thought themselves and others thought them,
had done, he did not feel that he could take it.
It was urged upon him that the very fact that he stood alone showed
that there must be something wrong about his {238} method of reasoning
and his mode of coming to a decision in the matter. All the bishops of
England had consented to take the oath. Some of them, it is true, had
solaced their conscience by putting in an additional phrase, "as far
as the law of God allowed," or something of that kind, but most of
them had taken it without any such modification, and indeed, as a
rule, the Commissioners who had administered the oath refused to
accept it unless taken literally and without additions.
Perhaps the hardest trial for More's constancy of purpose came from
his own family. When he was imprisoned they were allowed to see him
frequently, with the deliberate idea that they would surely break down
his scruples. His wife absolutely refused to see why anyone should set
himself up in opposition to all the rest of the kingdom and think that
his conscience should be followed no matter what happened, though so
many other people's consciences were apparently at ease in the matter.
As she said to him over and over again, did he think that he was
better than the Bishops of England and the priests who had taken the
oath, and did he set himself up as the only one who properly
understood and could see the right in the question? Some of her
expressions are typical of women in her position and show us how
little human nature has changed in these four hundred years. More
simply laughed at her quietly and gently and, after explaining his
position a few times from varying standpoints, refused to argue with
her, but occupied the time of her visits with talk about other matters
as far as possible. It was not hard to divert her mind, as a rule, to
any other subject, for she did not see very deeply into anything and,
above all, had no hint at all of the serious condition of affairs in
England.
His daughter Margaret, of whom he thought so much, was a much more
dangerous temptress than Mistress More, though of course she did not
think of herself in any such role. She has told the story in a letter
to the Lady Allington, More's step-daughter, for his second wife had
been previously married. Lady Allington had written to Margaret a long
letter, in which she related an interview that she had had with
Audley, the Lord Chancellor, who had promised to help {239} More,
though he declared that the remedy was in More's own hands, if he
would put aside his foolish scruples. Audley had said to Lady
Allington that "he marvelled that More was so obstinate in his own
conceit in matter that no one scrupled save the blind Bishop [Fisher]
and he." Always, when wife or daughter came to see him, they first
prayed together, and I may say that the prayers were not short, for
they included the Seven Penitential Psalms as well as other formal
prayers. When Margaret approached the subject of Lady Allington's
letter and how More's obstinacy was alienating his friends, smiling,
he called her mistress Eve, the temptress, and asked if his daughter
Allington had played the serpent with her "and with a letter set you
at work to come tempt your father again and for the favor that you
bear him labor to make him swear against his conscience and so send
him to the devil."
It was at this time that he emphasized very much the fact that
everyone must make up his conscience for himself. We have the verbatim
report of one of his conversations with his daughter that emphasized
this position very strongly:
"Verily, daughter, I never intend to pin my soul at another man's
back, not even the best man that I know this day living. For I know
not whither he may hap to carry it. There is no man living of whom,
while he liveth, I may make myself sure. Some may do for favor, and
some may do for fear, and so might they carry my soul a wrong way.
And some might hap to frame himself a conscience, and think that if
he did it for fear God would forgive it. And some may peradventure
think that they will repent and be shriven thereof, and that so
shall God remit it to them. And some may be, peradventure, of the
mind that, if they say one thing and think the while contrary, God
more regardeth the heart than the tongue; and that, therefore, their
oath goeth upon what they think and not upon what they say. But in
good faith, Margaret, I can use no such ways in so great a matter."
In spite of this, Margaret still urged that he was not asked to swear
against his conscience in order to keep others company, but instructed
to reform his conscience by the {240} considerations that such and so
many men consider the oath lawful, and even a duty since Parliament
required it.
Bridgett, in his "Life of Sir Thomas More," gives some details of the
conclusion of the discussion that have a very human interest: "When he
saw his daughter, after this discussion, sitting very sadly, not from
any fear she had about his soul, but at the temporal consequences she
foresaw, he smiled again and exclaimed: 'How now, daughter Margaret?
What now, Mother Eve? Where is your mind now? Sit not musing with some
serpent in your breast, upon some new persuasion to offer Father Adam
the apple yet once again.'
"'In good faith, father,' replied Margaret, 'I can no further go. For
since the example of so many wise men cannot move you, I see not what
to say more, unless I should look to persuade you with the reason that
Master Harry Pattenson made.' (It will be remembered that Pattenson
was More's fool, now in the service of the Lord Mayor.) 'For,'
continued Margaret, 'he met one day one of our men, and when he had
asked where you were, and heard that you were in the Tower still, he
waxed angry with you and said: "Why, what aileth him that he will not
swear? Wherefore should he stick to swear? I have sworn the oath
myself." And so,' says Margaret, 'have I sworn.' At this More laughed
and said 'that word was like Eve too, for she offered Adam no worse
fruit than she had eaten herself.'"
All the details of the scenes of his death have a deep interest of
their own. He was ready to obey the King in everything, except where
he felt his conscience was involved. When they came to ask him not to
make a speech at his execution, because the King wished him not to, he
thanked them very simply and said he was glad to have had the King's
wishes conveyed to him and that he would surely obey them. He added
that he had had in mind to say something, but that now he would
refrain. When it was called to his attention that the clothes that he
wore would fall as a perquisite to the executioner, and that therefore
the worse he wore the less his loss, he asked if there was anyone who
could do him a greater favor than the headsman was going to perform
and {241} that he would prefer to wear his best. He had actually
donned them when it was represented to him by the Governor that this
was a bad precedent to set, and then he changed them for others. He
was the same, meek gentleman in everything, though it might be
expected that his insistence on his conscience against that of all the
others would mark him as an obstinate man absolutely immovable in his
own opinions.
The humor that characterized all his life and that had so endeared him
to his friends did not abandon him even to the very end. Twenty years
before Erasmus had written about it, punning on the name, _Encomium
Moriae_, using the Greek word Moria for folly. Years and high office,
serious persecution, bitter imprisonment, lofty decisions involving
death all had not obliterated it. When he was about to ascend the
scaffold the steps of that structure proved to be rather shaky, and he
asked that he should be given a hand going up, though as for coming
down he said he felt that he might be left to shift for himself. On
the scaffold he commended himself to the headsman, gave him a present
and then, as he was placing his head on the block, his beard, which he
had been unused to wearing before he went to prison, coming on it he
pushed it out of the way, saying "This at least has committed no
treason." All the rest was silent communion with his God.
Thus died one of the greatest men of his race--great in intellect, in
sympathy, in practical philosophy, great above all in character.
_Totus teres atque rotundus_.
Of his execution Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Lord Chancellors
of England," said: "Considering the splendor of his talent, the
greatness of his acquirements, and the innocence of his life, we must
still regard his murder as the blackest crime that has ever been
perpetrated in England under the forms of law."
In closing his life of him in "The Lives of the Lord Chancellors,"
Lord Campbell, who had no sympathy at all with More's religious views
and who is quite sure that the Reformation was a very wonderful
benefit to England, declared:
{242}
"I am indeed reluctant to take leave of Sir Thomas More not only
from his agreeable qualities and extraordinary merits, but from my
abhorrence of the mean, sordid, unprincipled chancellors who
succeeded him and made the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII
the most disgraceful period in our annals."
[Illustration: MATTEO CIVITALE, FAITH (BARGELLO)]
{243}