Today in 1529 Thomas More became the Lord Chancellor after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. His rise made the Catholic traditionalists happy as he supported Queen Catherine over Anne Boleyn in Henry VIII’s divorce proceedings.
While More was a humanist and favored reform of the church from within, he fought against the Protestant Reformation. He originally aided Cardinal Wolsey in suppressing Protestant literature including Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament.
Once he was Lord Chancellor, he took this work even more seriously and he approved of burning heretics thinking that they were cancer on the church.
More would resign in 1532 as the clergy was under more and more pressure from Henry to recognize him as the Supreme Head of the Church, and More could not abide by that. He would eventually refuse to take an oath against the Act of Succession, and he was executed in 1535.
That’s your Tudor minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
Suggested links:
Episode 055: Tudor Times on Thomas More
Episode 009: A Tale of Two Thomases Part I (Wolsey & More)
From the shop:
Thomas More Thug Life Shirt
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(Tudor Thug Life)
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).
