Sir Thomas More, A Man for all Seasons (Born 1478)

14^th Great Grandfather – FFFMFFMFMFFFFMMF¹

In a previous article, I described the life of William Dawtrey. This William Dawtrey married Margaret Roper and Sir Thomas More was her maternal grandfather.

Margaret Roper was the daughter of William Roper and Margaret More, Sir Thomas More’s eldest, and apparently favourite, daughter Margaret (or Meg)².

Sir Thomas is best known for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and executed. He was eventually canonized in 1935 as a martyr by Pope Pius XI³.

Thomas was born on 7 Feb 1478⁴ to Sir John More and his wife Agnes Graunger, probably at Sir John’s Milk Street house in the City of London. Sir John was a successful lawyer and later Judge. Thomas was probably educated at St Anthony’s School⁵, which was located on Threadneedle Street, currently home to the Bank of England.

From 1490 to 1492 Thomas served as a household page to John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England⁶. Believing that Thomas had great potential Archbishop Morton nominated him for a place at Oxford University where he attended either Canterbury College⁷ or St Mary Hall⁸, both now defunct.

After about 2 years, Thomas’s father Sir John insisted he return to London to begin his legal training and he joined New Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery. In 1496⁹, Thomas became a student at Lincoln’s Inn¹⁰ (see ?@fig-AncestryLincolnsInn) one of the Inns of the Court where he remained until 1502, when he was called to the bar.

According to his friend Desiderius Erasmus¹¹, Thomas apparently considered abandoning his legal career to become a monk, and for 2 years between 1503 and 1504 he lived near the Carthusian monastery outside the walls of London, and joined in the monks spiritual life. However, he eventually decided to remain a layman, standing for Parliament in 1504, and getting married the following year.

Thomas married Joanna (or Jane) Colt, daughter of John Colt, a well connected gentleman from Roydon, Essex. John and his father Thomas had both been Members of Parliament¹² during the second half of the 15th century. There is no record of which seat, Thomas represented in the Parliament of 1504. In fact the only source, is in the book written by his son-in-law, my 13th great grandfather, William Roper¹³, but it is possible that he represented the seat of Gatton in Surrey, which was the seat of his father-in-law John Colt in 1492.

Thomas and Jane leased a house know as the Old Barge on Bucklersbury in St, Stephen Walbrook parish. They had 4 children, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecily and John. Jane died in 1511. He quickly remarried to Alice Middleton a widow, and he raised Alice’s daughter from her previous marriage as his own. A large portrait of the family was painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in about 1527. The original was lost in a fire, but Thomas’s grandson had commissioned a copy.

In 1510, Thomas represented London as a Member of Parliament, and he was also an under-sheriff in the City of London. In 1514 he was appointed as a Privy Councillor, and he served as a personal Secretary and advisor to King Henry VIII.

In 1523, Thomas was elected as a knight of the shire of Middlesex and on Thomas Wolsey’s suggestion was elected as Speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1525 he was appointed as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1527 he accompanied Wolsey to France to confirm the peace that had been negotiated earlier that same year.

On 17 Oct 1529 Thomas Wolsey surrendered the great seal and 9 days later Sir Thomas was appointed Lord Chancellor in his place. This was a little surprising, given that it was already known that Sir Thomas was a declared opponent of the King’s proposed divorce. Apparently Henry felt that he could be won over to his position.

His position became more and more untenable as the divorce crisis moved forward and eventually Sir Thomas resigned as Lord Chancellor on 16 May 1532. He appeared to remain in the King’s favour at this time as while his position was well-known he did not openly reject the King’s actions.

His downfall came about, when he refused to sign the 1534 Oath of Succession. While he was prepared to accept Anne Boleyn as Queen of England and to confirm the rights of Henry and Anne’s children in the succession, the preamble repudiated the authority of the Pope, a step that Sir Thomas could not accept.

Sir Thomas was charged with treason and a trial was held on 1st July 1535 before a panel of judges that included his successor as Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, the queen’s uncle Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, her father Thomas Boleyn and her brother George Boleyn. After testimony, which was probably perjurious, by Solicitor General Richard Rich that he had heard Thomas deny that Henry was the legitimate head of the Church of England, the jury took only 15 minutes to find him guilty.

Thomas was executed on Tower Hill on 6 July 1535 and buried at the Tower of London in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in an unmarked grave. His head had been fixed on a pike over London Bridge for a month as was the normal custom for traitors. Thomas’s daughter Margaret Roper later recovered his head and it is thought to be buried with her and her husband William in the Roper vault at St. Dunstan’s Church Canterbury.

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