Thomas More – Tudor Times Person of the Month feature available here:
http://tudortimes.co.uk/person-of-the-month/thomas-more
Five hundred years after he was executed by Henry VIII for refusing to accept Henry’s break with Rome, and proclaiming himself as the head of the Church of England, Thomas More is still an elusive and enigmatic figure. For some, he is a saint and hero who fought to keep the church from splintering. For others, he ruthlessly persecuted Protestants. However you see him, there’s no denying that he is a pivotal figure in 16th century England.
He is the Person of the Month for Tudor Times in September, 2016, and in this episode I interviewed Melita Thomas about More, and got some great unbiased information about him.
Here are some of the resources she mentioned, and places to learn more about him.
John Guy’s book on More’s relationship with his daughter:
A Daughter’s Love: THOMAS MORE AND HIS DEAREST MEG
Peter Ackroyd’s biography
The Life of Thomas More
The Life of Thomas More (hardback – Amazon affiliate link)
The Life of Thomas More (paperback – Amazon affiliate link)
William Roper’s biography:
The Life of Sir Thomas More
Richard Marius Biography
Thomas More.
Jasper Ridley’s The Statesman and the Fanatic
The statesman and the fanatic: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More
More’s most famous work:
Utopia (Penguin Classics)
Stream A Man For All Seasons: here’s how
Very Rough Transcript of Episode 55: Thomas More from Tudor Times
Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, it’s Heather. And I want to remind you about our very special tours to the UK. In 2017, we’ll be doing tours focusing on the even song experience. The evensong service comes from Kramarz book of common prayer from the mid 16th century. It’s been dubbed the atheists favorite service because it requires so little and it gives so much it’s simply divine choral music sung in some of the most historic chapels, abbeys and cathedrals in England. We’ll be spending 10 days visiting places like Cambridge, Oxford bath, the Cotswolds, Winchester, and Windsor with walking tours, free time to explore and then gathering back each afternoon for the even song service. If you choose to attend, it will be 10 days of beautiful countryside, historic cities and villages. And so, so much music invite you to go to England cast.com/tours for full itinerary and pricing information. Again, England cast E N G L a N D C a S T England cast.com/tours. Thanks so much. And now to the show,
Speaker 2: (01:20)
Hello in English history podcast, I’m your host, Heather, I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible.
Speaker 1: (01:29)
I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are our place in the universe and our connection to our own humanity. This is episode 55. It’s another joint episode with Melita Thomas of Tudor times on Thomas More. Just a quick note that the Renaissance English history podcast is a proud member of the Gore podcast network and check out the Agoura podcast of the month, which is lands of Leviathan. It’s a podcast that analyzes concepts and theories from political science and international relations using themes, trends, and trivia in popular culture. So you can listen to two nerds, discuss state reformation during a zombie apocalypse or how the Jedi council would function in our international system. You can learn more and subscribe@landsofleviathan.com and as always, you can get show notes and more information about the Renaissance English history podcast@wwwdotenglandcastdotcomenglandcastenglandhast.com. And there, you can also sign up for the mailing list.
Speaker 1: (02:38)
Mailing list subscribers receive an extra mini cast every month, as well as an exclusive Spotify listening list, book, giveaways, news, and other cool stuff. And for this particular episode as well, you can get lots more information on thomasMore@tutortimes.co.uk. So moving on from all of those links, let’s talk about Thomas More. Now some Malita Thomas is a co founder and editor of Tudor times a website devoted to tutor and Stuart history in the period from 1485 to 1625, you can find it@tutortimes.co.uk Melita, who has always been fascinated by history ever since she saw the 1970s series, Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson also contributes articles to BBC history, extra and Britain magazine. And we started the interview with me asking her what we needed to know about Thomas More.
Speaker 3: (03:40)
Thomas is definitely one of the most controversial figures of the 16th century, perhaps because he’s been recharacterized should we say by the enormous success of Wolf hall? So, you know, it’s been a lot of interest in him of late. He was a Londoner born and brought up in the city of London. His father was a, a lawyer and later a judge and he belonged to what you might call the great and the good of the city. His grandfather was an alderman and so forth. Uh, he was educated in London at school, sometimes Chinese school, which is in, in a later form, still exists. He then went to Oxford where he studied for two years, but didn’t take his degree, which was quite common in those days. Not everybody took a degree in, let’s say, intended to be come a priest. He joined the legal profession, uh, like his father.
Speaker 3: (04:31)
And he studied first of all at new N, which was one of the ends of Chancery. And then at Lincoln Zen, where he became a barrister and qualified in about 1,501, he was, you know, successful in his profession and he just started to move up the ranks of the lawyers in the early 15 hundreds. It’s possible. He sat in parliament in 1504, although his biographers are a bit unsure about whether that’s true or not, but whilst he was at Oxford and then in London, practicing as a lawyer, he became involved in scholarly circles. I suppose you’d call it with the, the humanist scholars of the period. He became friends with the, uh, most famous Renaissance scholar of the mall Erasmus, uh, with dr. Collet, who was the Dean of st. Paul’s and founders st. Paul’s school with Thomas Linacre, who was to, to, to Prince Orser with William grok and another well known scholar who introduced Greek as a study at Oxford.
Speaker 3: (05:35)
So he was part of this circle of, uh, humanists as, as they were called afterwards. And he started to move in sort of on the edges of, of what you might call Royal circles as, you know, things where things were quite small in those days. I mean, a well, a well-educated lawyer or a well-educated scholar was likely to become involved in the King’s household in some way. One of the first stories we have about him dates from 1499 when he was obviously already well acquainted with the Royal family in some way, he went to visit his friend, Lord Mount joy together with Erasmus, and they decided to pay a call on the Royal children who were ultim palace. And there he met, uh, Henry the eighth as a little boy, uh, Duke of York and, uh, Henry sisters. That was that sort of the first recorded, a meeting between More and Henry.
Speaker 3: (06:32)
So he continued in his legal profession in 15, 12. He sat in parliament for the city of London. He was interested in some of them, the big London cases of the 1510s. There was a very notorious case of Richard Han, which was one of the first examples of, uh, of the discord between the clergy and the, the commons. He became involved in a number of negotiations relating to city and commercial law. And he was retained by Cardinal Woolsey to translate for a PO a PayPal invoice. Uh cardlock Curafur it was, it was later Pope Paul the fourth. So he gradually became more prominent in, in legal and administrative circles. He was invited to join the Kings council in 1518, and he undertook a number of ambassadorial trips. I suppose you’d call them to France and to Flanders as partly as for trade missions, but also partly for negotiations over a number of treaties.
Speaker 3: (07:36)
So there were numerous treaties in the 1510s and twenties between England, between, uh, the various parts of the empire ruled by Charles the fifth and between France and mortar part in a number of the, of the negotiations and embassy visits. He signed a couple of treaties as one of the English representatives in particular, the treaty that agreed that Francis the first of France would marry princess Mary or possibly if he didn’t marry her, that she would marry his youngest son, the Duke of Ali on, uh, so he, he became more and more important as a, as a negotiator, but he was like largely administrative in his role. He wasn’t, he never vied with say Cardinal Woolsey for actually making policy for Henry. He was always a subordinate in 1529 [inaudible] was dismissed from his post of law. Chancellor more was appointed as Lord chancellor. So head of the legal profession at the time, of course, things were very difficult because of Henry the eighth desire to have an annulment of his marriage.
Speaker 3: (08:43)
Well, more, never would never talk about it. And he refused to get involved in it in any way. And Henry agreed that, you know, he more would not be pressed to be involved in it, even though he was Lord chancellor. However, that was not really a tenable position. And eventually as Henry’s demands to control the church became more and more difficult to resist a more resigned his position, but Henry was still very eager for him to confirm his agreement. I mean, More More was, uh, he was very well thought of throughout Europe. He was known as a scholar. He was known as, uh, a man of influence and a man of great wit and therefore it was important to Henry that, that somebody who was very well thought of should, should approve of his actions, but more could not be persuaded to do so eventually.
Speaker 3: (09:38)
Um, you know, after a number of requests and demands to conform more was eventually faced with the act of succession of 1534, which required everybody who was asked to swear an oath that the King was Supreme head of the English church and that his children by his new queen and were, uh, his legal successes, more refused to sign the oath. He, he wouldn’t give any reason for his refusal just said he wouldn’t wouldn’t sign it. And he was imprisoned for about six months during which time there were repeated requests for him to sign it, but he wouldn’t, he would never take the oath nor would he ever explained why, what he objected to in it on the basis that he didn’t wish to incriminate himself. Eventually he was tried and convicted of maliciously denying the role of Henry as head of the church. And he was executed on the 6th of July, 1535 st. Thomas is Eve and he was executed by beheading. And
Speaker 4: (10:49)
Why did you choose him for the person of the month?
Speaker 3: (10:51)
There are a couple of reasons behind it. Uh, one of the reasons that brought him to the forefront of the list was a request from one of our listeners to, uh, look at him. She wrote to us, and she is apparently one of his descendants. He had four children, uh, at least two of whom had children of their own. And to always say over time, these descendants, presumably, you know, just continued to expand in any way this lady wrote to us and said, would we look at him? So we moved him up the list, but of course he is an absolutely pivotal figure in the, um, mid, early to mid 16th century in the whole history of the English reformation and, you know, very worthy and very complex and interesting man to read about it. It’s very hard to actually form a real view of his character. He’s quite elusive. So it’s been, it’s been interesting to read about it.
Speaker 4: (11:47)
Hmm. Yeah. And on that note, I know, like you mentioned with Wolf hall, there’s been a renewed interest
Speaker 3: (11:54)
In him. What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions that we have about him? Well, it is very hard, very hard to know anything in the sense that because he, he is seen as a religious martyr by som and as a religious persecutor by others, you know, it’s very hard to get anybody who doesn’t have a, a preconceived view based on their own perceptions of whether the reformation was a good or a bad thing. So although in his lifetime, uh, all of the, all of the descriptions of him pretty much in his lifetime were positive and that he was, um, obviously a very wishy man, people, he, everybody mentioned his, his wit and occasionally you see the odd, the odd sentence that you can see. Um, you know, that the, that he, he, he did have a, uh, a very dry sense of humor.
Speaker 3: (12:49)
Um, but, but that’s not always popular. So, so generally he’s very well spoken. I was an honest man, a diligent man, uh, a man who was chancellor gave good justice and speedy and follow the law. Um, but possibly also a very rigid man in his thinking. Um, particularly as he got older, uh, uh, the, the chronicler Edward Hall, who was a supporter of the, uh, of the reformation is accuses him of making, uh, making a joke who have everything or making a mockery of everything. And, uh, you know, just not taking anything seriously enough after his lifetime, uh, his, his first biographer was his son William Roper, who wrote during the reign of Mary, in which time there was obviously a, a great desire to, to promote his, um, his defense of the, of the Catholic church and his son in law was clearly clearly up partial.
Speaker 3: (13:48)
He, he was very attached to his father-in-law John Fox in his book of martyrs, accuses him of being a vicious and sadistic persecutor of heretics. Uh, we’ve got to bear in mind that, um, Fox didn’t disagree with the principle of persecuting for religion in principle. He just didn’t like when it was hitting Protestants. So we have to do is, have to take that one with a modicum of, you know, what was happening on both sides throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the, what you might call the week view of history, that the reformation was a good thing, uh, more is, was largely seen through Fox’s eyes, although even, even detractors tended to confirm his, his more positive aspects of being a good chance of being a good family man. So, so no, somebody wouldn’t, nobody was ever all bad about him, the Catholic church in the late 19th century and the 1886, um, sort of resurrected.
Speaker 3: (14:51)
And beatified him possibly as that was a period in the Catholic church when the authority of the Pope was being promoted even further. So that that’s when the doctrine of papal infallibility came back, actually not, not until the 19th century, uh, so more, although he wasn’t perhaps quite as keen on papal supremacy as he’s portrayed, uh, you know, he, he, he, he was a good one to be a good one to be, um, promoting from the, from the church’s point of view. And he was then made a Saint in 1935. He was portrayed as a Saint in the famous a man for all seasons that, that marvelous film of the 1960s. And it’s, you know, it’s hard for anybody brought up as I was in the, you know, seeing, seeing that film as a child to not have that vision of him in your mind, but in, uh, Henry Montel, the Wolf hall, he’s definitely portrayed as, um, not quite the body.
Speaker 3: (15:55)
And actually, as you, as you read through it, you become to realize in, in the two books, how much more and Cromwell are actually alike in many ways, they’re, they’re sort of the, the two sides of the same coin. So, so it’s interesting, but it definitely, um, it’s definitely a more negative picture. And some of the, uh, English historians of the 1960s and seventies were very, uh, perhaps hung up on their perceptions of, uh, sadomasochism and, uh, rather worked up about what they saw as more sexuality. Um, the actually looking at what, looking at, what I can see from the time is not necessarily born out it’s all a bit post Freudian. Um, they’re, they’re very worked up about the fact that he used to, um, apparently wear a hair shirt, what he did wear a hair shirt and that he, um, went for self-flagellation or self mortification.
Speaker 3: (16:49)
But although we might see that as a rather strange and, you know, say weird sexual practice, it was certainly not uncommon as a religious practice like fasting. Uh, so we shouldn’t necessarily read sexual connotations into, I mean, there might’ve been there. I mean, I don’t know of course, but it’s not necessarily fair to sort of leap from that, even though you could say he, he was, um, you know, very concerned about chastity and he did seem to dwell on that to a degree. It doesn’t necessarily mean he was a sadomasochist it’s, that was a bit of a leap. Um, but here he is, he is complicated. It’s not straightforward. I probably started off with a more, perhaps a more positive view of him than I’ve ended up with. Hm. Um, yeah. And, you know, you talked about Hilary mantel. How have the recent interpretations, is there anything else you can say about how he’s changed in the past, say 30, 40 years when he’s definitely gone from being, being a Saint to a sinner without, without sort of passing go or stopping in between Peter Ackroyd’s biography of him is probably the current, what you might call the standard.
Speaker 3: (17:59)
There was a very, there’s a very interesting one, very nice style by Richard merrier. That’s a bit older. That’s, that’s baiting from the eighties. I think we probably, I think it’s probably time for him to be seen as neither Saint nor sinner, but as like most of us, some somewhere in between, he had his very good points and he had his not so good points. Although of course, again, it’s, it’s, it’s looking at the context of the times and how much do you think, how much do we put our own perceptions of what is good or bad or moral immoral on people of a different time? Sure. To a degree you have to, but I’m one of the, one of the questions I’ve asked myself is, um, around his, around, he was definitely a, a persecutor of what he considered to be heretic. So when there’s no, no two ways about it.
Speaker 3: (18:54)
And for those of us who think that religious freedom is, is important, that’s, that’s very hard to understand why he hated them with such a such virulence and why he was prepared to pursue them to the ends of the law. I’m absolutely certain that he didn’t personally lock them up and beat them, uh, swore he didn’t. And he was a man definitely of his word that, you know, everything was, he did was legal. Um, but then you, if you look in the wider context and you realize that his, his fundamental belief was that the church was a union or a communion of souls from the beginning of the Christian era, right up until the current day that there was no that the whole church was a single union. And that for individuals to try to break out of that was, was to risk the souls of other people, that people, and he wasn’t the only one they saw heretics is you’re carrying contagious disease in effect, but not, not of the body, but of the soul.
Speaker 3: (19:55)
And therefore that was, you know, it was every, it was the duty of the church and the law to protect the rest of the rest of society from these people. And you might also ask, and this is one of the questions I have asked is in a, in a time ourselves on we’re very concerned about war and terrorism. And in, in, in more time that, you know, that the peasants’ war that was seen as provoked by the Lutherans, although, you know, obviously it was a lot more complicated than that. It was a terrible year between a hundred and 300,000 Germans were slaughtered in a couple of years in from that. So it was seen as unleashing all these terrible forces, the sack of Rome, it, you know, they, they were worried. And if you take an analogy of our own day, there are many people who think it would be right to lock up people whom they see as peddling quotes, violent extremism, you know, and everybody’s interpretation of that might be, be different. But the concept of there are people out there and what they say is dangerous to society hasn’t changed. So, yeah, certainly lots to think about I found yes. So
Speaker 4: (21:12)
He, he was also, um, a bit of a historian. Wasn’t he? His, um, history on Richard, the third really kind of shaped our views of, of the Wars, the roses, and, um, and of Richard, can you tell me about kind of his work as a historian?
Speaker 3: (21:31)
Well, that’s really interesting because again, until I started to investigate, I had to assume that yes, history, wasn’t sort of an important path part of his, you quite significant body of work, but actually rich, the third was never finished. It was actually written it’s part it’s in, into version. There’s a Latin one and an English one that he appeared to be writing more or less side by side, but it was never finished and it was never published. It perhaps, you know, it’s often been castigated as being a propaganda written to please the tutors, but actually that doesn’t nest, that’s not necessarily the case. It was, it was not a work that he published or promulgated in any way. It’s possible that he wrote it as a sort of grammatical or rhetorical advice for his, um, his children to the huge interest in education and, um, you know, very modern way. He was a great believer in education for women. Yeah. So rich, the third, uh, wasn’t meant as serious history. There were, there were obvious errors in it, you know, regardless of your views on Richard, the third’s character that more probably knew weren’t true. Like the age of Edward, the fourth, when he died on the other hand, some of the things that people have said, weren’t true as Richard, some spinal deformity that they actually were true. So it’s possible that it wasn’t quite the, you know, runaway bestseller, but everybody thinks you pause.
Speaker 4: (23:00)
Right? Yeah. I, I heard a little bit just separate about, uh, he’s like the main source of information about, uh, Edwards mistress. It was her name Jane shore. Yes. And he wrote a lot about her cause she was still alive at the time that he was writing. And he was quite complimentary to her. I think talking about how she was such a beautiful lady now, and she was older of course at the time and how she’s kept her beauty through the years and, uh, seemed to really, I don’t know, seems to paint a really nice picture of her, I think.
Speaker 3: (23:37)
Yes. Yeah. I have to say I haven’t, I haven’t read his, his history of Richard the third, but, but yes, that he spoke, I mean, Jane Shaw, um, whether it was just more, but all or all that’s ever been written about, her suggests that she was, uh, she was, uh, a nice woman, a, a very friendly affectionate woman who use, use the imprints she had with Edward the fourth for good. She was a London. Aaron said Thomas More throughout his life was always a Londoner. And he was always, um, keen to promote the city and to promote its its virtue. So he was, he was likely to think that that a Goldsmith’s wife from London was, was a, was a good girl.
Speaker 1: (24:18)
Right, right. Um, so tell me about his work as chancellor and you know, what he did as the reformation started to take hold and what he did to kind of fight that. And you kind of alluded to his persecution of heretics, but tell me more about that.
Speaker 3: (24:35)
Well, in, in his youth and as a humanist more was, was not, you know, he was not some sort of reactionary who thought that everything that the church did all said was, was right. He was, he promoted Erasmus his new translation of the Bible, even though quite a lot of conservative church men objected to it. He was not, he was not a supporter of what you might call the superstitious, um, element that had, had certainly crept into the church. You know, uh, stories that if you said the rosary every day, it didn’t matter how bad you were, you weren’t gonna go to hell. So he was quite dismissive of that, that sort of, um, superstition, but his, his central view was that the, the church itself as a, as a spiritual body was, was important that it wasn’t just what was written in the Bible, although that was clearly the most important source of the truth, but that custom and tradition and the views of church councils and the overall history of the church were also relevant to how people should believe and how, how, how the world should, should be conducted.
Speaker 3: (25:49)
He definitely believed that even if the priest himself were bad, that did not mean that the church was bad. So, so he, he was perfectly well aware that they were very bad priests and monks, but, and also very good ones, but he held the traditional view that even if the priest himself about it didn’t didn’t mean the institution itself was, was flawed. Whereas the, um, the reformers. So certainly the more, there were many of them who felt that the church, because some of the members themselves were so corrupt, but that necessarily meant the church itself was, was severely or seriously flawed. So in his, in his younger days, he was certainly a promoter of reform within the church. And he supported, uh, Erasmus and others who, who were keen to improve morality within the church. I mean, by the early 15 hundreds, many of the church men in, in England, where we’re certainly improving, um, uh, Fisher Rochester, of course, who was, who was killed at the same time as More, Bishop Fox, um, where, um, you know, they, they, they were all good.
Speaker 3: (27:01)
Churchman Woolsey, not so much. And Woolsey was in many ways, uh, an archetype of the, of the church man who was a, to, to wealthy, to ambitious, too powerful. But once, once Luther came upon the scene, then more started writing in attracts again against him. His first one actually is pretty revolting. Henry the eighth had written a book against Luther and he was very proud of his book, the assertion of the seven sacraments against Martin Luther. And for this, the Pope gave Henry the eighth, the title defender of the faith and More had worked with him on it. He won, he hadn’t written the book, but as with all books, you know, Henry had discussed it with him. And, and what have you Luther responded to the King’s book with a really shocking and abusive personal attack. Now Luther’s language was very, very, um, scatological.
Speaker 3: (28:00)
And that was obviously the customer at the time. So Henry couldn’t, couldn’t write back to Lutheran those sorts of terms. So More was commissioned to write a refutation of Luther and basically it’s, you know, all that Luther does is talk about chefs and all that meant more. Does it talk about shit in return? I mean, endless in, in those words or, or worse. So, so that’s all pretty, pretty revolting, but you know, fairly standard for the time. So a number of his works against heresy are, are in those, those sorts of terms, which is somewhat distasteful, but he also wrote, um, more, more considered works about religion himself, uh, later in his life, uh, which were much more about his own sort of more religious and looking at the sacraments and looking at the passion of Christ, uh, per se, rather than as reputations of heresy as Lord chancellor, it was his job to oversee the law, the course, and it was his job to support the church in its battle against heresy.
Speaker 3: (29:13)
So as the law stood at the time, the church would investigate allegations of heresy. And if they were found to be valid and the heretic refused to recant, then the church would hand over the, the heretic to the, to the state, to the secular arm for punishment and punishment generally were public recantation, or that the heretic would be sent off to, um, to look at a fire and his book and books would be thrown into it, or they’d have to throw a faggot of wood into it. As it, as a symbol, it was, people were burned throughout the, uh, the middle ages. It was in the range of I’m not minimizing it. I think there were, I think there were four or five burned during Henny, the sevenths rain quite a few bit burnt under Henry the fourth, but you know, those are the sorts of numbers, generally, most heretics recanted, and depending on what the local Bishop was like, you know, people paid more or less attention to, to them.
Speaker 3: (30:16)
I Woolsey was definitely not interested in persecuting people. He would call them before and give him a good scare and you know, more or less tell them to be on their way more. They were more burnt on the under most chancellorship than there had nobody was burnt under Woolsey’s chance of a ship. And I think it’s probably about 10 I, the, the figure, same, it, same, a little muddled about 10 were burnt whilst more was chancellor. But of course, against that, you have to, you have to put the fact that it was right at the forefront of public discussion by that. And whereas during the 15th and early 16th centuries, it had not, not been an issue. So, you know, people more, wasn’t the only one who was worried about heretics, lots and lots of people were, and very many people were seeing it as almost the thin end of the wedges.
Speaker 3: (31:10)
I mean, Europe was very, very torn by war. I mentioned the German peasants’ war, the Turks were invading in the East, in the East of Europe. And, you know, people, people felt under siege. His other role as chancellor was in the secular courts and the chancellor’s job is to be his head of equity. So where the common law doesn’t give a good remedy or gives a remedy that is manifestly unjust, then the courts of equity can intervene. And, uh, that was, that was more his role. He heard a lot of cases. He was, he was obviously, um, a popular judge. People, people chose to be heard by, by his courts rather than by the, um, the, the King’s bench, which was common law. So,
Speaker 4: (31:57)
So what was his relationship like with Henry and how did that change throughout
Speaker 3: (32:02)
Of his life? I think, I think Henry probably had a different view of it from that, which more hat, as I mentioned, his first meeting with Henry or his first published meeting with Henry, presumably he he’d seen him before was when Henry was about 10 and more would have been about, uh, in his early twenties, 23 or so. And he took Erasmus to see Henry because he thought he was, you know, very impressive child, 10 years, 10 years old. And when Henry became King more ropes, some very, um, flattering verses about how everybody was happy that the miserly old Henry, the seventh dead and how delighted they were with the new Prince who was clever and, um, it’s all enhance them and all those sorts of things. And it would appear that, you know, although more often wrote with his tongue in his cheek, it would appear that he, he was genuinely impressed with the young Henry when he first became one of Henry’s counselors, uh, which he resisted for a while because he enjoyed his law practice.
Speaker 3: (33:02)
And he liked being, you know, um, in this, in city politics rather than necessarily getting involved in, in government. Uh, he went, he went and saw the oath to Henry reading, Abby and Henry, uh, told him he was to be God’s servant first. And then the Kings, which obviously more took very much to heart, but he became, he was on very good terms with Henry. After that they had a lot of intellectual interests in common, uh, astronomy in particular, they would, uh, go up onto the roof and look at the stars, uh, mathematics. And he was quite a keen mathematician and Latin of course, and Henry would often call more to join him in queen Catherine after, after supper for just conversation and, um, you know, private, private evenings together. So he was insofar as you can be a friend of the King, he was, he was friends with the King and queen, but he was always rather cherry of how much influence he really had, uh, when people complimented him on how much the King relied on him more was always quick to say that, you know, that he didn’t have any influence. And I think there’s one quote, where he said, um, that if a castle wood that ever has had wood, when Henry a castle in France, he would not hesitate to have it. And that was so perhaps he understood a bit more about what it’s like to be a friend of a King.
Speaker 1: (34:29)
And then, but Henry,
Speaker 3: (34:31)
It was obviously extremely important to Henry that more agreed with him. He went to huge lengths to persuade more, to accept Henry supremacy. It clearly mattered to Henry on a personal level. It wasn’t like Fisher, even though he’d known Fisher, all his life Fisher had been one of his grandmother’s closest friends. There isn’t the same personal feeling about it. He, he really wanted more to, to agree with him. Why do you think that
Speaker 1: (35:01)
More was so insistent on not accepting the supremacy?
Speaker 3: (35:06)
Cause he saw it as the thin end of the wedge for breaking up the universality of the church on unlike possible later interpretations. He wasn’t ever that excited about the popup Supreme head of the church. He was much more inclined to the view that the church as a whole owned the truth, that councils were important that the Pope was only a source of authority within the church. Although was the Supreme source of authority. He wasn’t, he wasn’t sort of the only one. So he wasn’t quite as enamored of papal supremacy as a concept. And in fact, he objected or suggested to Henry that in Henry’s own book, he ought to tone down his views of people supremacy. Once, once, once the unity of the church was challenged, that’s fat is what he couldn’t couldn’t accept. It wasn’t that he couldn’t accept reform within the church or that things didn’t need to improve or change. But to, to break it up was, was what he did as far as the succession of an as queen and the succession of her children. He said that he was, he was willing to accept that he accepted that that was within the competence of the English parliament to, to agree. It was just that the actors drawn act of succession. You couldn’t sweat one without the other, that it was not a political thought about. Um, Quinan what
Speaker 5: (36:40)
Was the, um, what was his view of him immediately after his death? And were there any repercussions in international circles for Henry or within his own parliament and his own country?
Speaker 6: (36:56)
Yes,
Speaker 3: (36:57)
No. I mean the internationally people seemed wildly surprised that Henry would have had a man who was so university in, in, in Europe thought of as a, as a great scholar and a statesman to execute it. You know, Charles the fifth and France, the first both sort of express surprise that the, that such amount had been executed. The letter immediately written off to by the French ambassador was that, um, you know, quote such was the miserable end of More, who was formerly in great reputation and much loved by the King, his master and regarded by all as a good man, even to his death. So yeah, there was general surprise, but nobody did anything about it. I mean, there was nothing, nothing that they could do or should do. It was, you know, it was up to Henry and what to do in his own realm from that perspective, uh, home, uh, I think probably everybody who had had second thoughts about signing the oath of supremacy chewed up to sign it. It was probably one of the elements that in 1536 led to the pilgrimage of grace. I mean, not specifically as a retaliation for the death of mall, but it was one of the events that made Henry’s attack on the church and tradition more unpalatable. There was no, no direct repercussion.
Speaker 5: (38:21)
And later on in his life, did Henry ever regret his death
Speaker 3: (38:26)
Come across suggestions that he did, although possibly in, in that he wanted to blame else for it. So there is a story that he and Anne quarrels and CNN frequently quarreled, it would seem, uh, and that he accused her of being responsible for the death of the best men in his kingdom. But that was typical Henry who always wants to blame somebody else for his own actions, as soon as he sought better off them. I would guess from, you know, some bit of pop psychology, which has, you know, I’m very fond of, um, Henry Henry was not a man, whoever liked to take responsibility for unpalatable actions. He was always very quick to, um, distance himself from, from things that turned out not to be quite what he’d quote quite what he’d hoped. And he was, I don’t know whether this is this narcissism. He, everything was always somebody else’s fault.
Speaker 3: (39:21)
And he was always a victim of somebody else’s, um, you know, lies or receipts or betrayal or whatever. He was a man who did seem very, very upset at what he’s thought of as personal betrayals. And if you look at the people he punished, they will very often those who he thought were his friends or that he loved who he felt had betrayed him. So more and herself probably perhaps Katherine to a lesser degree. And then later the, the Marquess of Exeter, uh, Edward Neville, quite a lot of the people who were, who were executed after the pilgrimage of grace and the, the alleged acts to conspiracy of people. Who’ve been very close to him and he seemed to really struggle with his friends, not agreeing with them. Um, so I guess if he regretted it, it would be more along the lines of regretting that, that more hadn’t seen how right Henry was all alone and that more, it probably brought it on himself. I would have thought would be his view.
Speaker 5: (40:26)
Where can we go for more information to learn more about him? I know we can’t really cover him all in, completely in this podcast. So where can people go to learn more?
Speaker 3: (40:36)
Uh, well, one of the, one of the books I really liked and, uh, uh, daughter’s love by John Guy. It’s a, it’s a joint biography of Thomas and his daughter Margaret. And one of the things we haven’t really mentioned is his is very warm and affectionate family life has particularly his daughter, Margaret. He was deeply attached to he, he education for women was important to him, not, you know, in the sense of going to university or whatever, but he believed unlike many people of his time that women were as intellectually capable as men and that they could and should be educated. That’s a really nice book. Her daughters loved Thomas and Thomas and Margaret More by John Guy. There’s the Peter Ackroyd biography, which is solid. Should we say there’s an awful lot of other information in there, guys, the early biography by William Roper, which of course is, is all the time, but not always a hundred percent accurate on facts from what can be gleaned from other sources.
Speaker 3: (41:40)
There’s the Richard Marius one from the eighties, which is very good, although it’s very long on, on theology, this one and there’s the Jasper readily a statesman and a fanatic. But I think he he’s a bit too hung up on his, um, his sadomasochism bed. Yeah. Just what, one of the sort of thoughts on that with the whole education piece is that in those days it was very common for children to be beaten. I mean, that was, that was pretty, pretty much standard fare, but so Thomas More, he would beat his children with peacock feathers. So he was obviously not into, into physical chastisement nearly as much as some of his contemporaries work. Yeah. So say it’s a bit difficult to get away from some of these sort of hagiography of the, of the, the S the st stuff, but those three are good. Excellent. And of course your website, indeed, indeed. But, um, obviously we were confined with words. I mean, there’s so much more one could say about it, and then we’ve, we’ve, we’re going to manage to squeeze into the website. Okay, perfect.
Speaker 2: (42:45)
Thank you so much. And is there anything else that you wanted to say?
Speaker 3: (42:49)
I thought him, I’m good. I’m going to make one little quote. I don’t know whether you can fit this one in or not. It’s sort of to do with his sense of humor when he was, he was on a mission to flounders and the other ambassadors were boasting about how much more sophisticated their languages work and more challenged them to say a sentence in any of their languages, which he would, which he would repeat. So, you know, they did the French and Latin and Spanish or whatever. So he repeated it and then he said, Oh, wait, you can’t repeat an English sentence. And he said, you know, repeat after me waits, flanked him with a [inaudible] a throttle is a, is, is an old fashioned whittling knife.
Speaker 2: (43:33)
Thank you again to Melita Thomas for taking the time to talk to us about Thomas More.
Speaker 3: (43:37)
For more information on him, go to
Speaker 2: (43:39)
You, tutor times.co.uk, or see the resources available on the England cast site@englandcast.com. In about two more weeks, we’ll be back with a guest episode from James of the Queens of England podcast. And he’s going to be talking about Bessie, bland Henry, the eights mistress, who bore him, his only acknowledged illegitimate son. So stay tuned for that. That was Henry Fitzroy. So she was Henry Fitzer as mother. So stay tuned. Thanks so much for the listening and have a great [inaudible].
[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave a rating or review on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
