It was because of a scruple that he chose death and it would have been easy for him, skilled in the law as he was, to divert that scruple with the twist of argument or the placation of compromise. But he followed the way of his conscience and accepted a tyrant's revenge. Death was then the frequent punishment, delivered in all manner of device. The swift down-glitter of the headman's axe, the hot pincers, the hack and chop of the quartering process, the stake, the rack, the gibbet, were all part of a pattern which provided no exemption when the King's anger was provoked. The sight of men being put to death was ordinary enough in the year 1535, yet, when the head of Thomas More was set high on London Bridge, England was shocked, and indignation swept Christendom. "I would rather," declared the Emperor Charles V, "have lost the best city in my dominion than such a counsellor as More."

He was fifty-seven when he climbed the scaffold, respected for goodness and wisdom, learning and wit. He was a statesman and a patriot, but high office had never been permitted to usurp the duties of a parent. He was the friend of Erasmus, and he had been the confidant of the prince who sent him to his death. He had written Utopia, and he had been Lord Chancellor of England, but in all manner of circumstance his conduct was characterized by a humility and calmness of spirit which did not desert him at the end. He was then calm enough to jest with his executioner, humble enough to invite the prayers of the crowd. Splendid and triumphant was his final utterance, that he died "the King's good servant, but God's first."

He had the vision of a great reformer and he possessed the genius to translate his hopes and dreams into an understand able form and pattern. He yearned for a better world for all men. And he was one of the first victims of a Revolution which was unique in that it was for the privileged and engineered by the privileged.

He was truly one of the great Christians, and the lustre of his virtues and his talents has survived and grown with the centuries. The acid-tongued Dean Swift described him as "the person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced." Four hundred years after his death Pope Pius XI proclaimed that his name had been added to the roll of the Saints. The cathedrals of the world celebrated.

Not only at the altars was he paid tribute. More was coming into his own as a major prophet of social progress, and even in Russia his Utopia was being studied and admired, although misunderstood. In Moscow an institution bearing the name of Karl Marx communicates with an English convent, seeking information on what is a mutual interest, his life and work and death.

"Nothing speaks more eloquently for the greatness of the man," wrote the socialist Karl Kautsky, "nothing shows more distinctly how he towered above his contemporaries, than that it required more than three centuries before the conditions existed which enable us to perceive he set himself aims which are not the idle dreaming of a leisure hour, but the result of a profound insight into the essentials of the economic tendencies of his age. Although Utopia is more than four hundred years old, the ideals of More are not vanquished but still lie before a striving mankind."[1]

Thomas More was born on the sixth of February, 1478, the year following the publication of the first printed book in England. While not of noble rank the families of his parents were of consequence. His father, John More, was a prosperous barrister, afterwards made a Knight and Judge of the Kings Bench. His maternal grandfather, after whom he was named, also achieved distinction in the same profession and was, in 1503, elected Sheriff of London.

In the colourful story of England there seldom has been a more vivid period. The passing of the fifteenth century and the coming of the sixteenth presented a pageant which was reflected in the turbulent streets of London itself. The rich dress of the merchants and aldermen, scarlet and blue, velvet and gold, their feasts and their arguments, their processions and celebrations, the great banquets and public executions, the King and his Court, the nobles and their retinues, the brawling and jostling, the hawking and vending, the humour and violence, the great solemnities of the Church, the almost continual tolling of deep- and sweet-toned bells, all these made for a scene which prompted the poet Dunbar to sing:

London, thou art of Townes A per se Soveraign of cities, semeliest in sight of high renoun, riches and royaltie; Of Lordis, Barons, and many goodly Knyght; Of most delectable lusty ladies bright Of famous Prelatis, in habitis clericall, Of Merchauntis full of substance and might: London, thou art the flour of Cities all.[1]

John More, the father of Thomas More, fitted well his place and time. He liked life and lived fully, a man of vigour and shrewdness and wit. Commenting on the hazards of matrimony, it was he who compared the multitude of women who were to be chosen for wives to "a bag full of snakes and eels together, seven snakes for one eel."[2] The good Judge had his laugh, but he was not daunted by the odds. Four times he went to the altar, taking his last bride near his seventieth birthday. He had six children, Joan, Thomas, Agatha, John, Edward, and Elizabeth. Thomas was the second child, junior by three years to his sister Joan. Their mother's name was Agnes, and she called her first son after her father, Thomas Granger.

Lawyer More sent his son to St. Anthony's school on Threadneedle Street, then the best in London and possessed of an ancient reputation. Medievalism was on the wane. The printing press was a fact. Scholastic methods in England were about to feel the impact of an intellectual revolution which was already flourishing south of the Alps. But it is doubtful if any changes had yet arrived to disturb the old ways at St. Anthony's. Books were scarce. Discipline was severe. The pupils were trained by memory and disputation. Latin was the main subject. The headmaster was Nicholas Holt, an energetic man who took a liking to young Thomas More and recognized his worth. The boy was assiduous and cheerful and became a leader among his fellows.

Holt was a friend of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of the realm. Access to such a powerful figure was valuable, and shrewd John More was not a man to neglect opportunity. It was the custom for the nobility and the gentle-born to school their sons by putting them into the houses of the great. As a respected barrister John More exerted considerable influence in the City and this influence, along with the headmaster's recommendation, sufficed to have Thomas appointed page to the prelate.

He was about twelve years old when he went to live at Lambeth Palace, a dazzling experience for a bright and observant lad. Here, in the shadow of the archiepiscopal chair, he witnessed a continuous flow of politicians and petitioners, envoys and churchmen. He was attendant at the great functions, playing his role in the complicated etiquette of the time. On more private occasions he would be there too, standing behind his master, ready to pass the goblet or run the errand, always watching, listening, learning.

Archbishop Morton was an astute statesman who had successfully weathered the vicissitudes of civil war, exile, and imprisonment, and who was now adviser to the King, Henry VII. In 1493 he was made a Cardinal. More was to describe him (in Utopia) as "a man . . . not more honourable for his authority, than for his prudence and virtue. He was of a mean stature, and though stricken in age, yet bare he his body upright. In his face did shine such an amiable reverence, as was pleasant to behold, gentle in communication, yet earnest and sage. He had great delight many times with rough speech to his suitors to prove, but without harm, what prompt wit, and what bold spirit were m every man. In the which as in a virtue much agreeing with his nature, so that therewith were not joined impudence, he took great delectation. And the same person, as apt and mete to have an administration in the weal publique, he did lovingly embrace. In his speech, he was fine, eloquent and pithy. In the law he had profound knowledge, in wit he was incomparable, and in memory wonderful excellent. These qualities, which in him were by nature singular, he by learning and use had made perfect. The King put much trust in his counsel, the weal publique also in a manner leaned unto him, when I was there. For even in the chief of his youth, he was taken from school into the Court, and there passed all his time in much trouble and business, being continually tumbled and tossed in the ways of diverse misfortunes and adversities. And so by many and great dangers he learned the experience of the world, which being so learned can not easily be forgotten . . ."[3]

The cheerful face, the winning nature of his page did not escape the attention or affection of the old man. Oftentimes, to amuse his guests, the Archbishop would have plays performed by professional players. It became a feature on these occasions for young Thomas to step in amongst the actors, creating his own part and speeches as the play went along. This he did with great skill and to much applause. "This child here waiting at the table," said his patron, "whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man."[4]

The dexterity and magnitude of Morton's political abilities, particularly in controlling the power of the great feudal landowners, have often been compared to the accomplishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Proximity to such a mentor could not fail to have its effect upon the boy's mind. When writing his Life of Richard III he gave a typical example of the Cardinal's discreet wisdom. As the Usurper, Richard had sent the Duke of Buckingham to discover whether Morton was for or against him. "In good faith, my Lord," was the reply, ''I love not much to talk much of Princes as a thing not all out of peril, though the word be without fault, forasmuch as it shall not be taken as the party meant it, but as it pleaseth the Prince to construe it."[5]

In the second year of young More's attendance upon the Archbishop there was a great rejoicing at Lambeth Castle. A second son was born to Henry VII and it was announced that the babe would carry the name of his father. The dynasty was strengthened and the streets of London were made ready for festivity. The Lord Chancellor gave a banquet at his residence. Prayers were said, speeches made, wine poured. It was an exciting time for the young page. This was in the summer of 1491. Across the seas, in far away Granada, a sober-faced little princess was giving thanks to God that her father was driving the Moors from Spain. She was Catalina, better known as Catherine of Aragon. Elaborate messages of congratulations went from her parents to England, for they had the fullest expectations that their daughter would marry Arthur, the King's first son.

Among those of the English nobility who did not participate heartily in the royal festivities was Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and later second Duke of Norfolk. This nobleman did not come to London but remained in the dark halls of his castle, gloomily watching his favourite daughter, Elizabeth, still with her dolls. Marriage prospects for her were not too bright. Her father had many children and had been in disrepute at Court, although he was now pardoned and soon to be made Lieutenant of the North. In his veins flowed Plantagenet blood, but he was content, when she arrived at the proper age, to wed Elizabeth to a knight.

His son-in-law was no ordinary knight. While it was true that his paternal grandfather was a London wool merchant, his mother was noble-born. He was also very rich, an important factor in the reasoning of any parent. Lastly, he was ambitious. He was Sir Thomas Boleyn, and his third child by Elizabeth was a daughter called Anne. But this birth, so important in our story, was not to be for fifteen years or so. The future Henry VIII had just been born, Thomas More was yet a boy in the service of Morton, and at Oxford University young Thomas Wolsey, son of an Ipswich butcher, enjoyed his first grasp at fame. But the actors were being assembled, the stage was being set, the drama was almost to begin, the drama which was to bring Thomas More great tragedy but a greater glory.

Valuable environment though Lambeth Palace was for his page, the Archbishop realized that too long a stay among the many activities of his household might twist a boy's charm and cleverness into a disagreeable precocity. After two years he made arrangements for the next step in his protege's education and the boy was sent to Canterbury College at Oxford.

It was the same year that Columbus made his landfall, and the University was experiencing the commencement of a dispute born of the Italian Renaissance but having a bent of its own. The new interest in the Greek tongue, inspired by William Selling and the Italian Vitelli, had split the University into two portions, the Greeks and the Trojans. More, upon his arrival, appears to have allied himself with the Greeks. He was fortunate in having for his Greek professor, the learned William Grocyn, who, upon his return from Italy some six years before, had begun the teaching of Greek at Oxford. More also derived instruction in Greek from Thomas Linacre, who, like Grocyn, had studied in Italy. But the outstanding figure among the Renaissance scholars in England at this period was Grocyn's illustrious pupil, John Colet, later to become More's confessor.

Inspired by the spirit of Humanism these men fought an impassioned battle against medieval reactionism. They became known as the Oxford Reformers but, unlike the Protestant reformers who came after them, they sought no schism with Rome. Rather than bring innovation to dogma, they worked to eradicate ecclesiastical abuses and to widen the horizons of learning. They gathered disciples and read the New Testament in the Greek text. They raised their voices against the worldliness of the clergy and the sale of bishoprics. They quoted the Pauline Epistles. They studied Aristotle and Quintilian and Seneca. They applauded Plato's ideal community. They dreamed of a practical application of Christian principles, of giving life to theories. While scanning the past, they hoped for the future. Feudalism with its favours for few and serfdom for many was dying. The capitalistic state, bringing no betterment for the majority, was about to be born. In the stormy transition between the two systems, these few scholars of Oxford fought valiantly to direct their philosophy and faith into action. To better the lot of all men was both their science and their passion, it was the creed which inspired Thomas More to write his Utopia. Another supporter of the revival of letters then at the University was Thomas Wolsey, whose brilliance had won him his Bachelor's degree before he was sixteen and who soon was to be made a Fellow of Magdalen and finally Senior Bursar of the College. He was only six years older than More, and the two must have known each other, but there is no record of any meeting or friendship. When More was resident at Canterbury College, Wolsey was already something of a figure in the University, but More was not of a mould to court his senior. Wolsey, on his part, never allowed the fervour of the "New Learning" to thaw the cold ambition which directed his every step. The son of a London lawyer could have been of little interest to one who eagerly pursued patronage and who eventually found a benevolent patron in the person of the Marquis of Dorset. Wolsey and More were unalike in many ways as men can be, in others they were curiously similar. Both were remarkable scholars, masters of rhetoric and logic, engaging in presence and conversation, standing well out from their fellows. Destiny was to brush their lives together in a strange manner. One, in scarlet magnificence, was to live with a splendour never seen before or since in England. The other, in hair shirt, singing in a parish choir, was to be criticized because of the modesty of his ways. One was to succeed the other as Lord Chancellor of England. Both were to win the fickle esteem of Henry VIII and both were to attract the petulant anger of young Anne Boleyn. "I die the King's good servant, but God's first," said More as he faced martyrdom. "If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King," wept Wolsey from the depths of ignominy, "He would not have given me over in my gray hairs."

Life at Oxford at the close of the fifteenth century was harsh and regulated by monastic discipline. The day began with Mass at five, studies commenced at six. The hours of prayer and study were long, and violations of either met with prompt severity. Latin, except at the time of the principal festivals, was the language of the Halls and a student was fined when he broke the rule. Older students were expected to coach their juniors, and in the morning the Bachelors and Masters gave lectures. The first meal was not served until ten in the morning, the second and last at five in the afternoon. The food was meager. The afternoons were usually devoted to examination, discussion, and disputation. The student had to attend all Church ceremonies, and every member of a Hall was required to be in by eight in the evening. More suffered all the hardships of a poor scholar, for his father gave him a very scant allowance. But he bore his father no ill will and later wrote: "Thus it came to pass that I indulged in no vice or vain pleasure, that I did not spend my time in dangerous or idle pastimes, that I did not even know the meaning of extravagance and luxury, that I did not learn to put money to evil uses, that, in fine, I had no love, or even thought, of anything beyond my studies."[6]

Poverty did not prevent More from being happy at Oxford. There was much to compensate for the rigours. The beauty of the buildings and landscape, the comfort of intellectual comradeship, the joy of study, fitted his nature. Nor did he find ecclesiastical rule too irksome. He was never as successful lawyer or high official, to abandon the habit and exercise of ordered prayer. There was always a great deal of the priest in him. In those crowded days at the University he must have pondered over his fitness to hold the Chalice and prepare the Sacrifice. His friends and teachers, indeed most of the undergraduates at that time, were in Holy Orders. The Church was the sure highway to success and security for the brilliant, yet More chose another road. But to his death the monastic life held a fascination for him. When, during his imprisonment in the Tower, his daughter Margaret wept at the sight of his cell he told her: "I assure thee on my faith, my own good daughter, if it had not been for my wife and you that be my children, whom I account the chief part of my charge, I would not have failed long ere this to have closed myself in as strait a room, and straiter too."[7]

He had been at Oxford less than two years when John More became alarmed at the direction of his son's education. The London lawyer had little interest in the dispute over the Greek revival, nor did he wish his son to adopt a contemplative life. He wanted his son to follow his own footsteps and wear the long robe of the Law, the best and most sensible, in his opinion, of secular pursuits. He abruptly took the youth from the University and brought him to London.

It was a wrench for the young student to leave Oxford and all that it meant. He offered no rebellion to the parental will, but he did not permit departure from the University to end the interests and friendships which had been nurtured there. His absorption in the Greek revival remained unabated, and it was in London that he achieved full participation in the movement. The hours of his apprenticeship in Law were long, but somehow he found time to continue the learning which he had begun at Canterbury College. Under the watchful eyes of his father he was initiated into the mysteries of writs and procedure at New Inn, an Inn of Chancery. He had little taste for the family profession; nevertheless he accepted his destiny with docility and good heart.

The teaching of Canon Law and Civil Law was the property of the great Universities, but the Inns of Court in London and their affiliated Inns of Chancery produced the actual practitioners of English Common Law. The four Inns of Court, Lincoln's, Gray's, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple, along with the Inns of Chancery, where a young man was introduced to ethics, politics, and the foundations of jurisprudence, comprised what in fact was a legal university. The student was instructed in history, scripture, music, "dancing and other nobleman's pastimes." But Law was the ruling subject, taught by lecture, argument, and rehearsal of procedure. Each Inn was a highly organized society with complicated government by many officers of various grades and seniority. The council consisting of masters of the bench was the top of the hierarchy, then came the utter-barristers, those already admitted to the law. There were four elected governors, the Autumn and Lent readers, the dean of the Chapel, the keeper of the Black Books, the marshal, the pensioner, the butler for Christmas, the steward for Christmas, the master of the revels, the chief butler, and the chaplain. Ceremonies and revels gave colour to a routine which, although disciplined, was nothing like as strict as More had experienced at Oxford. His fellow students in London seem to have been singularly high-spirited, for the records of the time show that Francis Suttwell, John Pole, and Henry Smyth "were put out of the commons for playing at dice."[8] Another rowdy character was fined three shillings and four-pence for breaking into a tavern and beating the wife of the proprietor. Still another was similarly penalized for assaulting the wife of the Inn's gardener. The butler was attacked by one of the students with drawn sword, and so the roll goes on, a litany of turbulence and rule breaking.

The same diligence, the same rapid facility he had shown in the past, accompanied More's application to Law. After the required stay at New Inn he moved on to the wider opportunities of Lincoln's Inn. There he rapidly won attention and reward and was promoted Reader of Furnival's Inn, an affiliate of Lincoln's. The position of Reader in the Inns was similar to that of a professor in a university. More gave lectures and supervised the activity of students. He had both the esteem of his superiors and the respect of his juniors, and it is surprising, in view of his quick prominence, that he did not incur the dislike of the less favoured. But he had a natural charm, and his industry was leavened by a wit which saved him from the gloom of pedantry. He played his part in the revels and merry games of the Inns, and his popularity was endorsed by a large attendance at his lectures. Long before his apprenticeship was concluded he excelled in the many devices of the barrister's trade. He was persuasive of speech, quick with question, ready with answer, master of logic and procedure. His reputation exceeded his years and spread beyond the precincts of the Inns. A brilliant career seemed certain for him when he was finally called to the Bar but he was not prompt to plead in the Courts. Religion and literature were still his fondest interests. He had obeyed his father and learned the Law, but doubt still haunted him.

Exercise in the Greek tongue and in philosophy had kept pace with More's acquisition of legal knowledge. The hours spent in study while he was an inmate of the Inns were formidable, made possible only because of an exceptional ability and extreme self-discipline. He slept not more than four or five hours, and for a bed he used a plank with a log for a pillow. One of his extraordinary talents was the power to absorb the meaning of sentences as a whole, at a single glance. "Everybody who has ever existed," wrote a friend, "has had to put his sentences together from words, except our Thomas More alone. He, on the contrary, possesses the super-grammatical art, and particularly in reading Greek."[9]

Some of his Oxford friends had come to London, and their shared interest in the Greek revival insured more continuing enthusiasm in the joys of learning. John Grocyn, his tutor at the University, was now vicar in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Thomas Linacre was busy with the foundation of the society which became the Royal College of Physicians. John Colet was canon of St. Martin le Grand, soon to be appointed Dean of St. Paul's and after to establish his famous school of that name, marking a new system of education. William Lily, the Greek scholar, was to become first headmaster of St. Paul's. Colet was More's confessor, and when he was absent from London, More wrote to him: "Meantime, I pass my time with Grocyn, who is, as you know, in your absence the guide of my life, with Linacre the guide of my studies, and with our friend Lily, my dearest friend."[10]

The enthusiasts indulged in a constant and pleasant competition. They wrote verse and epigrams. They translated Greek into Latin and Latin into English. More participated fully in these friendly rivalries. He also wrote playlets for the revels at the Inns, and somehow he found time to collaborate with Lily on a Latin translation of epigrams from Greek anthology.

Judge More Resented the literary activities of his son that seemed so far removed from the practical studies and conventional pastimes of the Inns. He was a man of common sense, who had arranged and set the goal of a safe and prosperous living for his son. He was proud of Thomas' progress in the Inns, but he could not understand these other diversions. He considered them to be a waste of time, dangerous to his plan. An argument arose between father and son, and in an attempt to uphold parental authority, the Judge reduced Thomas' allowance to a pittance.

John More was not wrong in thinking that his plans for his son's career were in danger. The altar still beckoned to Thomas, even though he worried over his fitness to approach it. There was little doubt where his heart lay, and his appearance in the pulpit of St. Lawrence's Church, where he lectured on St. Augustine's City of God, created a minor sensation. His friend Grocyn, vicar of the church, persuaded him to this action, and the applause of a distinguished audience made it a spectacular triumph for the young layman.

A second great influence in More's life at this time was provided by the holy men of the Carthusian Order, still in possession of their celebrated London Charterhouse. Here in buildings founded by an illustrious Crusader, the white-clad monks led a solitary and contemplative existence, regulated by lengthy devotions, studies, and hard manual labour. Stout adherence to stern rule was then, as now, characteristic of an Order which in its long history has never experienced the need for reform. To those austere men, More brought his perplexities, asking them to assist in the scrutiny of his conscience. Should he take the vows and wear the cowl of their Order? Should he be simple priest or Franciscan friar? Or was it his destiny that he should remain a layman? They gave a wise decision. Thomas More was to come and live with the monks, but he was not to take vows. Time and prayer and contemplation would furnish the answer to his problems, but until he was sure of that answer, he was not to sever relations with temporal responsibilities.

More went to the Charterhouse with high purpose and strong resolve and, as far as his studies would permit, he steadfastly lived as an ordinary monk. He was given a pallet in a solitary cell and he wore a hair shirt to "tame his flesh." He observed the rules of silence and of fasting, for the monks ate but twice a day and then sparingly and without meat. He rose early in the morning to attend long devotions. There were fixed hours of prayer all through the day, and near midnight he left his cell again to assist in the singing of Matins and Lauds of the Dead. Every night and in darkness, save for the flicker of the sanctuary light and a few oil lamps, the monks chanted for nearly three hours. It was an impressive, but surely a melancholy, exercise, for the monks sang with a dolorous note. "As the duty of a good monk is rather to lament than to sing," say the rubrics, "we must so sing that lamentation, not the joy of singing, be in our hearts."

For nearly three years Thomas More remained with the Carthusian Order, then of a sudden he left the Charterhouse and wholeheartedly gave his attention to public affairs and the practice of Law. The sixteenth century was but three years old when this quick departure from the cloister occurred, and the two years following saw More established as a barrister, elected to Parliament, and married to a country miss from Essex.

What occasioned this abrupt change of thought and action? The question of priest, monk, or layman had been solved in favour of the last, but certainly not because of loss of faith. More remained deeply religious, even to the degree of continuing to subject himself to the penance of the hair shirt. The decision could not have been born of mere whim or impulse. The period of self-examination had been too long, his nature too prudent.

According to family tradition recorded by his great-grandson, Cresacre More, he proposed to pattern his life after a singular layman, Pico della Mirandola, whose biography had been written by his nephew. More translated the book and studied it diligently. There was much in the Italian's nature and circumstance akin to his own, although there were many things dissimilar. Both had been endowed with high intellect and personal charm and good fortune. Both were fascinated by philosophy and theology. Both saw the need for clerical reform Both had felt the urge of religious life, the haunting feeling that a rejection of it would be wrong, the knowledge that the taking of so solemn a step, and finding oneself unfit, would be worse. The Italian had finally resolved to wear the Dominican habit but died before taking his vows.

Medievalism brought rogues, as well as saints, to take the tonsure, and More must have known many in the clerical state who took their vows lightly. In a structure where secular positions and powers were often held by men in orders there was not the same opprobrium attached to the worldly priest as there is now. In Thomas More the disavowal of a vocation was, in a sense, proof of his piety. For such as he, already known as scholar and orator, the Church was a sure road to preferment and power had he been a creature of ambition. Thomas Wolsey, on leaving Oxford, had served as one of the chaplains to the Archbishop of Canterbury and was now holding a similar appointment to Sir Richard Nanfan, Deputy Governor of Calais. For the true ascetic, and this More was, it was sacrifice to leave the tranquillity of the cloister, to reject the mysteries of contemplative life. The question persists. Why did he so suddenly and so ardently become the busy lawyer, the fervent husband? Was the long self-examination a deliberate test to determine his allegiance to chastity, an effort to ascertain whether he was better suited to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony rather than the Sacrament of Orders?

A bishop warns the aspirant to the sub-diaconate: "You ought anxiously to consider again and again what sort of a burden this is which you are taking upon you of your own accord. Up to this you are free. You may still, if you choose, turn to the aims and desires of the world." More's friend, Erasmus, was of the opinion that it was the question of celibacy which turned More from the spiritual life. "When of a sentimental age, he was not a stranger to the emotions of love," he wrote, "but without loss of character, having no inclination to press his advantage, and being more attracted by a mutual liking than by any licentious object . . . he applied his whole mind to religion, having some thought of taking orders, for which he prepared himself by watchings and fastings and prayers and such like exercises; wherein he showed so much more wisdom than the generality of people, who rashly engage in so arduous a profession without testing themselves beforehand. And indeed there was no obstacle to his adopting this kind of life, except the fact that he could not shake off his wish to marry. Accordingly he resolved to be a chaste husband rather than a licentious priest."[1]

In some support of Erasmus' statement that More "was not a stranger to the emotions of love" is a poem he wrote in later years, which was dedicated to an Elizabeth, whom apparently he knew when he was sixteen and she younger. In pretty verse he tells her that the years had passed since first they met but the memory of her remained with him.

Severed, our different fates we then pursued, Till this late date my raptures has renewed. Crimeless, my heart you stole in life's soft prime, And still possess that heart without a crime. Pure was the love which in my youth prevailed, And age would keep it pure, if honour failed. O may the gods, who, five long lustres passed, Have brought us to each other well at last, Grant, that when numbered five long lustres more, Healthful, I still may hail thee healthful as before![2]

"A chaste husband rather than a licentious priest." Once having decided to be a husband, More lost no time in finding a bride. A descendant of the union which he was soon to make, Cresacre More, declares that it was More's confessor who urged him to matrimony. He gives an account of a somewhat odd courtship: "Sir Thomas More having determined by the advice and direction of his ghostly father to be a married man, there was at that time a pleasant . . . gentleman of an ancient family in Essex, one Mr. John Colt . . . that invited him to his house, being much delighted in his company, and proffered unto him the choice of any of his daughters, who were young gentlewomen of very good carriage and complexions, and very religiously inclined, whose honest and sweet conversation, whose virtuous education enflamed Sir Thomas not a little; and although his affection most served him to the second, for that he thought her the fairest and best favoured; yet when he thought with himself, that this would be a grief and some blemish in the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before her, he, of a kind of compassion settled his fancy upon the eldest, and soon after married her, with all her friends good liking.[3]

The role of husband fitted Thomas More awkwardly at the beginning. Jane Colt was ten years his junior. The girl bride missed the companionship of her sisters, and liked not at all the exchange of rustic peace for London tumult. The shy girl of seventeen must have had many a tremulous moment when asked to play hostess to such close friends of her husband's as the learned doctors, Grocyn and Linacre, and the Dutch scholar, Erasmus. Besides, More was fresh from the sombre company of the Carthusians. From childhood his companions had been elder and serious men. It is true there was that other and lighter side to his nature; he was the man of broad humour who later kept a clown in his house, and monkeys in his garden. But the many heavy excursions into philosophy and theology provided little charm for the new bride, and during the first days of their marriage she was bewildered and distressed.

Early during More's marriage Erasmus came from Rotterdam to visit the More household at Bucklersbury in London, and what he saw there provided him with the basis of a tale which he wrote years later. It was the story of a learned man who endeavoured to educate a young wife by "getting her to repeat the substance of the sermons she heard." Copious weepings and expressions of misery being the only result of such heavy instruction, the husband finally appealed to his father-in-law. "Use your rights," he was told, "and give her a good beating." When the husband refused to adopt such drastic measures, the father feigned such a rage and became so disagreeable that the frightened girl was glad to seek solace in the soothing arms of an understanding husband.

Whatever the reason, the adjustment to each other was quickly made, and with compatibility came an idyllic happiness. A child was expected and during the long wait the young wife cheerfully took lessons in music from her husband, and, with affectionate submission, made effort to share his learning and to absorb his teaching.

More's fame as a scholar was steadily growing. He was a hospitable man, and there was a steady traffic of learned guests to awe young Mistress Jane.

"In London there are five or six men," wrote Desiderius Erasmus to Servatius on the occasion of his second visit to that city, "who are accurate scholars in both tongues, such as I think even Italy itself does not at present possess."[1]

The celebrated Hollander was about twelve years older than More, and a friendship spontaneously and quickly developed between them. This association was to prove immensely stimulating and valuable to two men who were able in many respects and with like interests, yet differed widely in character and conscience. They were peers in scholarship and wit, and, with More and Machiavelli, Erasmus has been called a pioneer in political philosophy. Father Phillip Hughes agrees with Mesmard in declaring that as an influence in European life Erasmus won importance never achieved by any other writer, even Voltaire. Some writers have dubbed him "the Voltaire of the Renaissance," but in this they are mistaken, for Erasmus, while bitterly attacking a corrupt clergy was never, like the Frenchman, against the Church itself.

The circumstances which surrounded his birth and early life reflected his times and the need for that reform which employed the pen of both himself and More. He was the son of a priest, and while still a youth he had been thrust into a monastery without any true liking for the religious life.

Monastic discipline proved terribly irksome, and the confining walls of a Priory of the Augustinian Canons were a harsh restraint to the vocationless lad who yearned to travel and to enjoy the delights of secular scholarship and classical research. A wise superior made it possible for him to leave the cloister and, as a Latin secretary, to secure employment in the household of the Bishop of Cambrai. His literary skill and productivity soon won him fame and the patronage and esteem of the great. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he was aware of the true significance of the printing press and the tremendous changes it was to bring. He became the most important leader of German Humanism, and because of his ceaseless and savage attacks on existing ecclesiastical conditions he has been charged with being the intellectual father of the Reformation. But unlike Luther, he never broke with Rome. He watched the revolt with interest, but he was appalled by the bigotry and ferocious intolerance of its leaders. He was a prodigy, but, alas, the possession of genius has never been a guaranty against the weaknesses of egotism and vanity. He was brilliant and discerning and utterly devoid of that strength of character which was so markedly the property of More.

Holbein shows him long-nosed and thin-lipped, cadaverous, and somewhat bland in expression, bent with the stoop of a scholar. He had pale blue eyes and, as Lindsay in his famed book on the Reformation remarks, "the dainty hands, and general primness of his appearance" suggested descent "from a long line of maiden aunts." Unhappy in his own ill-bestowed priesthood and ever cynical of the practice of formalized religion in others, he never, in his long friendship with More, found anything to criticize in the life and habits of one who rigidly adhered to the practices of his staunch faith.

More and Erasmus met, so legend has it, in the great hall where the Lord Mayor of London was accustomed to preside over a lavish banqueting table. The conversation and company fitted well the generous hospitality, and in the repartee that was exchanged the two scholars discovered the measure of each other. "You must be More or no one," cried the delighted Hollander. "You must be Erasmus or the Devil," was the reply from the Englishman.

Their intellectual prowess brought the two friends into exalted company, and from Erasmus we learn of a historic meeting with the future Henry VIII. More came to meet Erasmus, who was a guest in Lord Mountjoy's country house. They walked as far as the next village. ". . . there all the Royal children were being educated, Arthur alone excepted, the eldest son. When we came to the Hall, all the retinue was assembled; not only that of the palace, but Mountjoy's as well. In the midst stood Henry, aged nine, and having already something of royalty in his demeanour; in which there was a certain dignity combined with singular courtesy. On his right was Margaret, about eleven years old, who afterwards married James, King of Scots; and on his left played Mary, a child of four. Edmund was an infant in arms. More with his companion Arnold, after paying his respects to the boy Henry, the same that is now King of England, presented him with some writing."[2] The golden-haired boy looked at the two scholars with respect. Favoured by God in every way this most princely of princes was, in a very few years, to court the services of both. He, too, was to be dazzled by wide and splendid prospects of the New Learning, and it was their friend Linacre who was to teach him a workable knowledge of Latin within the brief span of six weeks.

Many years of friendship and even the crucible of literary collaboration did not lessen Erasmus' admiration for More. In a famous letter to Ulrich von Hutten the Hollander's talent and affection moulded a striking eulogy of his friend which invariably is, as it should be, quoted whenever a full-length portrait of More is sought: "Most illustrious Hutten—your love, I had almost said your passion for the genius of Thomas More,—kindled as it is by his writings, which, as you truly say, are as learned and witty as anything can possibly be,—is, I assure you, shared by many others, and moreover the feeling in this case is mutual; since More is so delighted with what you have written, that I am myself almost jealous of you. It is an example of what Plato says of that sweetest wisdom, which excites much more ardent love among men than the most admirable beauty of form. It is not discerned by the eye of sense, but the mind has eyes of its own, so that even here the Greek saying holds true, that out of Looking grows Liking; and so it comes to pass that people are sometimes united in the warmest affection, who have never seen or spoken to each other. And, as it is a common experience, that for some unexplained reason different people are attracted by different kinds of beauty, so between one mind and another, there seems to be a sort of latent kindred, which causes us to be specially delighted with some minds, and not with others.

"As to your asking me to paint you a full-length portrait of More, I only wish my power of satisfying your request were equal to your earnestness in pressing it. For me, too, it will be no unpleasant task to linger a while in the contemplation of a friend, who is the most delightful character in the world. But, in the first place, it is not given to every man to be aware of all More's accomplishments; and in the next place, I know not whether he will himself like to have his portrait painted by any artist that chooses to do so. For indeed I do not think it more easy to make a likeness of More than of Alexander the Great or of Achilles; neither were those heroes more worthy of immortality. The hand of an Apelles is required for such a subject, and I am afraid I am more like a Fulvius or a Rutuba than an Apelles. Nevertheless I will try to draw you a sketch, rather than a portrait of the entire man, so far as daily and domestic intercourse has enabled me to observe his likeness and retain it in my memory. But if some diplomatic employment should ever bring you together, you will find out, how poor an artist you have chosen for this commission; and I am afraid you will think me guilty of envy or of willful blindness m taking note of so few out of the many good points of his character.

"To begin with that part of him which is least known to you—in shape and stature More is not a tall man, but not remarkably short, all his limbs being so symmetrical, that no deficiency is observed in this respect. His complexion is fair, being rather blonde than pale, but with no approach to redness, except a very delicate flush, which lights up the whole. His hair is auburn inclining to black, or if you like it better, black inclining to auburn; his beard thin, his eyes a bluish grey with some sort of tinting upon them. This kind of eye is thought to be a sign of the happiest character, and is regarded with favour in England, whereas with us black eyes are rather preferred. It is said, that no kind of eye is so free from defects of sight. His countenance answers to his character, having an expression of kind and friendly cheerfulness with a little air of raillery. To speak candidly, it is a face more expressive of pleasantry than of gravity or dignity, though very far removed from folly or buffoonery. His right shoulder seems a little higher than his left, especially when he is walking, a peculiarity that is not innate, but the result of habit, like many tricks of the kind. In the rest of his body there is nothing displeasing, only his hands are a little coarse, or appear so, as compared with the rest of his figure. He has always from his boyhood been very negligent of his toilet, so as not to give much attention even to the things which according to Ovid are all that men need care about. What a charm there was in his looks when young, may even now be inferred from what remains; although I knew him myself when he was not more than three-and-twenty years old, for he has not yet passed much beyond his fortieth year. His health is sound rather than robust, but sufficient for any labours suitable to an honourable citizen, and we may fairly hope that his life may be long, as he has a father living of a great age, but an age full of freshness and vigour.

"I have never seen any person less fastidious in his choice of food. As a young man, he was by preference a water-drinker, a practice he derived from his father. But, not to give annoyance to others, he used at table to conceal this habit from his guests by drinking, out of a pewter vessel, either small beer almost as weak as water, or plain water. As to wine, it being the custom, where he was, for the company to invite each other to drink in turn of the same cup, he used sometimes to sip a little of it, to avoid appearing to shrink from it altogether, and to habituate himself to the common practice. For his eating he has been accustomed to prefer beef and salt meats, and household bread thoroughly fermented to those articles of diet which are commonly regarded as delicacies. But he does not shrink from things that impart an innocent pleasure, even of a bodily kind, and has always a good appetite for milk puddings and for fruit, and eats a dish of eggs with the greatest relish.

"His voice is neither loud nor excessively low, but of a penetrating tone. It has nothing in it melodious or soft, but is simply suitable for speech, as he does not seem to have any natural talent for singing, though he takes pleasure in music of every kind. His articulation is wonderfully distinct, being equally free from hurry and from hesitation.

"He likes to be dressed simply, and does not wear silk, or purple, or gold chains, except when it is not allowable to dispense with them. He cares marvellously little for those formalities which with ordinary people are the test of politeness, and as he does not exact these ceremonies from others, so he is not scrupulous in observing them himself, either on occasions of meeting or at entertaimnents, though he understands how to use them, if he thinks proper to do so; but he holds it to be effeminate and unworthy of a man to waste much of his time on such trifles. . .

"He seems to be born and made for friendship, of which he is the sincerest and most persistent devotee. Neither is he afraid of that multiplicity of friends, of which Hesiod disapproves. Accessible to every tender of intimacy, he is by no means fastidious m choosing his acquaintance, while he is most accommodating in keeping it on foot, and constant in retaining it. If he has fallen in with anyone whose faults he cannot cure, he finds some opportunity of parting with him, untying the knot of intimacy without tearing it; but when he has found any sincere friends, whose characters are suited to his own, he is so delighted with their society and conversation, that he seems to find in these the chief pleasure of life, having an absolute distaste for tennis and dice and cards, and the other games with which the mass of gentlemen beguile the tediousness of Time. It should be added that, while he is somewhat neglectful of his own interest, no one takes more pains in attending to the concerns of his friends. What more need I say? If anyone requires a perfect example of his true friendship, it is in More that he will best find it.

"In company his extraordinary kindness and sweetness of temper are such as to cheer the dullest spirit, and alleviate the annoyance—of the most trying circumstances. From boyhood he was always so pleased with a joke, that it might seem that jesting was the main object of his life; but with all that, he did not go so far as buffoonery, nor had ever any inclination to bitterness. When quite a youth, he wrote farces and acted them. If a thing was facetiously said, even though it was aimed at himself, he was charmed with it, so much did he enjoy any witticism that had a flavour of subtlety or genius. This led to his amusing himself as a young man with epigrams, and taking great delight in Lucian. Indeed, it was he that suggested my writing the Moriae, or Praise of Folly, which was much the same thing as setting a camel to dance.

"There is nothing that occurs in human life, from which he does not seek to extract some pleasure, although the matter may be serious in itself. If he has to do with the learned and intelligent, he is delighted with their cleverness, if with unlearned or stupid people, he finds amusement in their folly. He is not offended even by professed clowns, as he adapts himself with marvellous dexterity to the tastes of all, while with ladies generally and even with his wife, his conversation is made up of humour and playfulness. You would say it was a second Democritus, or rather that Pythagorean philosopher, who strolls in leisurely mood through the marketplace, contemplating the turmoil of those who buy or sell. There is no one less guided by the opinion of the multitude, but on the other hand no one sticks more closely to common sense.

"One of his amusements is in observing the forms, characters and instincts of different animals. Accordingly, there is scarcely any kind of bird that he does not keep about his residence, and the same of other animals not quite so common, as monkeys, foxes, ferrets, weasels, and the like. Besides these, if he meets with any strange object, imported from abroad or otherwise remarkable, he is most eager to buy it, and has his house so well supplied with these objects, that there is something in every room which catches your eye, as you enter it, and his own pleasure is renewed every fame that he sees others interested. . .

"His house seems to have a sort of fatal felicity, no one having lived in it without being advanced to higher fortune, no inmate having ever had a stain upon his character.

"It would be difficult to find anyone living on such terms with a mother as he does with his stepmother. For his father had brought in one stepmother after another; and he has been as affectionate with each of them as with a mother. He has lately introduced a third, and More swears that he never saw anything better. His affection for his parents, children and sisters is such, that he neither wearies them with his love, nor ever fails in any kind attention.

"His character is entirely free from any touch of avarice. He has set aside out of his property what he thinks sufficient for his children, and spends the rest in a liberal fashion. When he was still dependent on his profession, he gave every client true and friendly counsel, with an eye to their advantage rather than his own, generally advising them, that the cheapest thing they could do was to come to terms with their opponents. If he could not persuade them to do this, he pointed out how they might go to law at least expense; for there are some people whose character leads them to delight in litigation....

"It has always been part of his character to be most obliging to everybody, and marvellously ready with his sympathy, and this disposition is more conspicuous than ever, now that his power of doing good is greater. Some he relieves with money, some he protects by his authority, some he promotes by his recommendation, while those whom he cannot otherwise assist are benefited by his advice. No one is sent away in distress, and you might call him the general patron of all poor people. He counts it a great gain to himself, if he has relieved some oppressed person, made the path clear for one that was in difficulties, or brought back into favour one that was in disgrace. No man more readily confers a benefit, no man expects less in return. And successful as he is in so many ways-while success is generally accompanied by self-conceit, I have never seen any mortal being more free from this failing.

"I now propose to turn to the subject of those studies which have been the chief means of bringing More and me together. In his first youth his principal literary exercises were in verse. He afterwards wrestled for a long time to make his prose more smooth; practicing his pen in every kind of writing in order to form that style, the character of which there is no occasion for me to recall, especially to you, who have his books always in your hands. He took the greatest pleasure in declamations, choosing some disputable subject, as involving a keener exercise of mind. Hence, while still a youth, he attempted a dialogue, in which he carried the defence of Plato's community even to the matter of wives! He wrote in answer to Lucian's Tyrannicide, in which argument it was his wish to have me for a rival, in order to test his own proficiency in this kind of writing.

"He published his Utopia for the purpose of showing what are the things that occasion mischief in commonwealths; having the English constitution especially in view, which he so thoroughly knows and understands. He had written the second book at his leisure, and afterwards, when he found it was required, added the first off-hand. Hence there is some inequality in the style.

"It would be difficult to find anyone more successful in speaking ex tempore, the happiest thoughts being attended by the happiest language; while a mind that catches and anticipates all that passes, and a ready memory, having everything as it were in stock, promptly supply whatever the time, or the occasion, demands. In disputations nothing can be imagined more acute, so that the most eminent theologians often find their match, when he meets them on their own ground. Hence John Colet, a man of keen and exact judgment, is wont to say in familiar conversation, that England has only one genius, whereas that island abounds in distinguished intellects.

"However averse he may be from all superstition, he is a steady adherent of true piety; having regular hours for his prayers, which are not uttered by rote, but from the heart. He talks with his friends about a future life in such a way as to make you feel that he believes what he says, and does not speak without the best hope. Such is More, even at Court; and there are still people who think that Christians are only to be found in monasteries!"[3]

Once Thomas More was certain that the way of the Carthusians was not for him, he not only applied himself to his profession but also turned his attention to public affairs. In the beginning of the year 1504 he was elected to the House of Commons "for many had now taken notice of his sufficiency." He was only twenty-four, but immediately he won celebrity by raising an eloquent voice against the wishes of the King. It was risky business, this opposition to a cunning ruler whose avarice and greed matched his dynastic ambitions.

Henry VII had convened this parliament to extort money in the form of "reasonable aids, on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter and the knighting of his son." The royal request was in accord with feudal practice, but the subsidy demanded was preposterously high, one hundred and thirteen thousand pounds. This at a time when: "a fat ox sold for twenty-six shillings, and a chicken bought for a penny." The son, Prince Arthur, was already dead, and it was certain that even if Parliament did accede to Henry's wishes, his daughter would not carry a too extravagant dowry to her Scottish spouse. Nevertheless, a docile Commons probably would have submitted if young Thomas More had not rallied and strengthened the opposition. He spoke with the audacity of youth, the brilliance of a natural orator, and the logic of an adept practitioner of the law.

His words stirred the hearts of his older colleagues. Their courage mounted. They rejected the King's exorbitant demands, and though a grant was finally voted, it was less than one third of the original request. A Mr. Tyler, one of the King's Privy Chamber, did what was expected of him and rushed to Henry with the information that "a beardless boy had disappointed all his purpose. Whereupon the King, conceiving great indignation towards him, could not be satisfied until he had some way revenged it."[1]

Tudor revenge was notoriously prompt and fierce, but on this occasion, for some reason, the irascible monarch bided his time. Perhaps the knowledge of law that his young antagonist had displayed before Parliament made the wily prince seek some form of legality. He gave a long and thorough look at the Mores, father and son, and on a trumped-up charge had the father arrested and imprisoned in the Tower until a fine of a hundred pounds was levied and paid.

More and his friends were alarmed. He thought of fleeing the country, and with exile in mind, he began to study French and to withdraw from his practice at the bar. That he had good cause for fear is shown in his son-in-law's account of the following incident. According to Roper, More brought a suit to Dr. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, a member of the King's Privy Counsel. The Bishop called him aside, and pretending great favour towards him, promised him that, if he would be ruled by him he would not fail into the King's favour again to restore him—meaning (as it was after conjectured), to cause him thereby to confess his offenses against the King, whereby His Highness might with the better colour have occasion to revenge his displeasure against him. But when he came from the Bishop, he fell into communication with one Master Whitford, his familiar friend, then chaplain to that Bishop . . . and showed him what the Bishop had said unto him, desiring to have his advice, therein; who for the passion of God, prayed him in no wise to follow his counsel: 'For my Lord, my master,' quoth he, 'to serve the King's turn, will not stick to agree to his own father's death.' [2]

More did not return to the Bishop again, nor did he make any confessions to the King. How wise was this friendly counsel may be deduced from the legendary account of the two notorious unfortunates, Dudley and Empson. Upon being led to their execution, Dudley spied More and cried: "Oh, More, Morel God was your good friend that you did not ask the King forgiveness, as many would have had you do, for if you had done so, perhaps you should have been in the like case with us now."[3]

During the year that preceded the death of Henry VII, More crossed the Channel, ostensibly to transact legal affairs on behalf of a group of merchants, but, in the interests of prudence, he probably was also seeking a suitable refuge in case he had to flee. While on the Continent he visited the universities of Louvain and Paris. Seven years later he described that visit in a letter to Martin Dorp: "I was in both those universities and though not for a very long time, yet I took pains to ascertain what was taught there and what methods were followed. Though I respect both of them, yet neither from what I saw then, nor from what I have since heard, have I found any reason why, even in dialectics, I should wish any sons of mine (for whom I desire the very best education) to be taught there rather than at Oxford or Cambridge."[4]

The projected exile did not materialize, for the Kmg died and the hostilities of his reign were pushed to the past even while the candles of his requiem still burned. His son took the throne. "dive le Royl" cried the chief herald, and all England, released from the strain of the old King, joyfully acclaimed the name of Henry the Eighth.

A new era was promised in the splendid person of this magnificent boy. Tall and handsome, rich in intellect, rich in power, rich in purse, eager for learning, eager for justice, the eighteen-year-old prince embodied the hopes of an entire nation. The most discerning eye could yet not detect in the broad-shouldered, spectacularly beautiful youth any trace of the besotted tyrant, the cruel butcher, the lustful libertine.

At his side was Wolsey, already splendid, already rich, already chaplain to the young monarch, soon to be Almoner, planning the first of his great mansions, lifting his eyes to the scarlet, happy in his dreams of power.

Happy too was sombre-eyed little Catherine of Aragon. It was nearly seven long years since the Spanish Princess had landed at Plymouth amidst the gaudy flutter of Spanish standards and the welcome of English bells. It had not been easy for her in this strange land. Her Spanish ways and her Spanish retinue were often regarded with suspicion. Even More wrote of her court: "You would have burst with laughing if you had seen them. They looked like devils out of Hell." But in the same letter he gave voice to a loyalty to Catherine which was never to wane. "There is nothing wanting in her, that the most beautiful girl should have . . . May this famous marriage be fortunate and of good omen to England."[5]

The young Princess, puppet of dynasts and courts, had obediently accepted her betrothed, Arthur, the King's first son. He was younger than she, and a sickly creature. Upon her marriage to the frail boy her escort to the altar had been his younger brother Henry, then a sturdy ten-year-old youngster, intended by his penurious father for the Church and the revenues of Canterbury. But the royal union had never been consummated. Within a few months Arthur was dead, and again the fate of the Princess became the shuttlecock of dynasts. One hundred thousand crowns, half of her dowry, had been paid into the coffers of Henry VII, and he had no intention of returning it. Many decisions, not helped by the slow communication with the Spanish court, had to be made. The tacticians maneuvered with exasperating procrastination, and the young girl, tremulous with the aches of homesickness and uncertainty, bowed to their discipline. At length a dispensation had been procured from Pope Julius II to allow her to marry her husband's brother. The betrothal was solemnly made official, but the English King had demurred and postponed the wedding, intently scanning the shifting and complicated course of the Toledo court, carefully weighing the advantages against the disadvantages of a Spanish alliance.

The negotiation with Rome had also been slow. The watchful ladies of Catherine's little court, so close to her in person and thoughts, were fiercely willing to swear that the marriage had never been consummated, that the nuptial bed of the sick boy and innocent girl had meant nothing. Nevertheless, the proceedings, delayed by the deaths of two Popes, had dragged on until the urgent appeals of Queen Isabella resulted in a Brief which was privately dispatched to Spain. Later a Bull of a more public character was promulgated. During these happenings, so important to her destiny, her father-in-law kept Catherine and her retinue in a seclusion marked by parsimonious restrictions and in an atmosphere of uncertainty and rumour. He also kept a firm grip on that portion of her dowry which had already been paid. The death of his wife Elizabeth of York, following the delivery of the eighth child, created a new situation. Five of the children were already dead. There remained two daughters and but one son. The entire fortunes of the Tudor dynasty depended upon the life of this boy prince. Henry was forty-six, and not unreasonably he thought of another marriage and more sons to ensure the succession. His eyes for a short time turned upon Catherine, but from Spain came indignant objections and a suggestion instead that he choose a more fitting spouse in the person of the widowed Queen of Naples. With fairly good grace he then abandoned the somewhat unsavory plan of uniting himself with Catherine and agreed she should marry his remaining son.

Henry VII died on April 21, 1509, and in the clement days of May was lowered to his grave in kingly splendour. Not so regal was the wedding which followed nine weeks later, for, while Catherine worried and waited, a council had deliberated on her worth in the game of politics. There were those who favoured alliance with Spain and there were those who would rather seek friendship with France. One of the latter was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he was willing to protest the papal dispensation and thus invoke the Levitical law. During the preceding intrigue the young Henry had secretly been taken before a bishop and instructed to protest his betrothal. But in the shadows of his father's deathbed, he had also solemnly vowed to follow the parental wish. He kept that promise, and soon, at the oratory of the Franciscan Observants in Greenwich, Catherine finally became England's Queen, joined to Henry by the very prelate who had wished to question the validity of the dispensation.

All England extravagantly welcomed the new King. All men lived in a joyful anticipation of a happy and enlightened reign. But no men were more happy than the scholars who comprised the advocates of the New Learning. They knew of the new sovereign's enlightened views and his sympathy for their speculations. It was certain that in his person they now had an ardent and enthusiastic patron. The thrill of the chase, the excitement of the jousting ground and gaming tables, the gossip of the court were not sufficient for the monarch. Mountjoy joyously reported to Erasmus that the young king had expressed his wish that he was more learned.

"That is not what we expect of your grace," answered Mountjoy, "but that you will foster and encourage learned men."

"Yea surely," came the humble reply, "for indeed without them we should scarcely exist at all."[6]

Henry's scholarship and his desire for even more knowledge was surprising. He had a working knowledge of Latin. His theology was better than that of many in orders. Astronomy fascinated him and the science of geometry did not repel him. He could discuss Aquinas with the same ease that he could compose a tune or fashion a couplet. The golden-haired youth was also a poet. In these early days of his reign (when Anne Boleyn was still in her cradle) he wrote of constancy:

Green groweth the holly, so cloth the ivy. Though winter blasts blow never so high. Green groweth the holly.

As the holly groweth green And never changeth hue, So I am, ever have been, Unto my lady true.[7]

The advent of the new regime lifted the heavy weight that had oppressed Thomas More during the latter years of the reign of Henry VII. Because of his bold action in Parliament, the hardships and uncertainty of exile had been a very active threat while the old king had lived. A new life in a new country might not have been too irksome for a bachelor, but in 1509 More was not only a husband but a father. Since his marriage to Jane Colt in 1505, four children had arrived, three girls and one son. Margaret was the eldest, then came Elizabeth and Cecilia and finally his only son, John. Inevitably parenthood widened the scope of his affections, but the broad vista of family love was clouded by responsibility The enthronement of the enlightened young King dissipated the dismal likelihood of flight abroad. Thomas More was now able to speak his mind and practice his profession. The joy in his heart inspired him to hail the youthful sovereign in the lyrical lines of a Latin poem, in which he enumerated the virtues of Henry and his ancestors; the noble heart of his grandfather, Edward IV; the piety of his grandmother, the Lady Margaret; the kindliness of his mother, Elizabeth of York; the prudence of his father, Henry VII; nor did he omit Queen Catherine, whom he compared to the faithful Greek wives, Alcestis and Penelope. In concluding his verses, More dwelt on the son whom Catherine was to bear Henry to perpetuate his dynasty, and in so doing the poet proved a poor prophet, as he himself must have ruefully confessed to himself in the sad years that terminated the royal marriage.

But in 1509 Henry's subjects rejoiced in the death of tyranny and the rebirth of liberty. Mountjoy dispatched a letter to his old teacher, Erasmus, who was then in Italy, inviting him to return to England:

"Oh, my Erasmus," he wrote, "if you could see how all the world here is rejoicing in the possession of so great a prince, how his life is all their desire, you could not contain your tears for joy. . . Avarice is expelled the country. Liberality scatters wealth with bounteous hand. Our King does not desire gold or gems or precious metals, but virtue, glory, immortality . . . Make up your mind that the last day of your wretchedness has dawned. . . You will come to a Prince who will say, 'Accept our wealth and be our greatest sage.'"[8] Erasmus had mounted far on the ladder of success since his first meeting with More. His name was held in high esteem throughout Europe and he was regarded as the foremost oracle of his time. He was welcome at the tables of rulers and high prelates, but because of the promise inherent in the reign of the young English monarch, he joyfully accepted MountJoy's invitation to return to England and share in the blessings of the new reign.

To while away the tedium of the long journey from Italy to England, most of which was made on horseback, Erasmus composed his famous panegyric, Moriae Encomium, or The Praise of Folly. In the epistle to More which served as the dedication to the work, Erasmus confessed that he was prompted to write the Moriae by the resemblance between More's family name and the Greek word for "fool." "In the next place I surmised, that this playful production of our genius would find special favour with you, disposed as you are to take pleasure in jests of this kind, jests, which, I trust, are neither ignorant nor quite insipid,—and generally in society, to play a sort of Democritus. . . You will therefore not only willingly receive this little declamation, as a memento of your comrade, but will adopt and protect it, as dedicated to you, and become not mine, but yours."[9]

The actual writing of the book was done in More's house. On his arrival, Erasmus suffered an acute attack of lumbago. Having none of his own books at hand, he occupied himself in setting his Moriae on paper.

In April, 1511, Erasmus, tired of waiting for favours that never came, left England for Paris, where was published his Moriae Encomium. It promptly went into seven editions. But Erasmus, like More in his panegyric to the young King, had overshot his mark. The Praise of Folly was a denunciation on the part of the Humanists of the evils of their time. It decried the dishonesty and irreverence among clericals, the methods of Biblical interpretation used by scholars, the irresponsibilities and vain gloriousness of rulers, and other blatant social evils. The object was reform, but the tone was light, and Moriae furnished heavy ammunition for those who questioned authority, and particularly the authority of Rome. Thomas More was too closely identified with the Moriae to escape criticism. On being charged with aiding irreverence, he refuted the charge and defended Erasmus, at one and the same time.

"Nor if there were any such thing in Moriae, that thing could not yet make any man see that I were myself of that mind, the book being made by another man, though he were my darling never so dear. Howbeit, that book of Moriae cloth indeed but jest upon the abuses of such things, after the manner of the jester's part in a play."[10]

For more than two years Erasmus waited hopefully for a summons from Henry VIII to return to England. Finally, John Fisher, Chancellor of Cambridge University, persuaded him to come to the University to lecture in Greek. In September, 1513, Erasmus took refuge from the plague with his friends the Gunnells at Landbeach. In the beginning of January, 1514, he determined to leave England. He returned to the continent and settled at Basle.

More had assiduously applied himself to the business of law. Success came with remarkable quickness, and soon he was the recipient of an annual income, according to Roper, that exceeded four hundred pounds. It is difficult to judge the worth of money from one age to the next, but one may hazard the estimate that More's income, compared with modern standards, approximated one hundred thousand dollars per year. So great were the demands made upon him. ". . . there was at that time in none of the Princes' Courts of the laws of this realm," recorded his son-in-law, "any matter of importance in controversy wherein he was not with the one part of counsel. [11]

His hours were crowded, yet he found time to accept an appointment as Under-Sheriff of London, a judicial office of no small importance. More performed the duties of his offlce every Thursday morning and held it to be a high honour. He was careful but quick in his decisions, and there was a great traffic in his court. He was just, he had wide knowledge of the law, and often when the litigants were poor he remitted the fees due him. The care and skill and wisdom which More displayed as a judge did much to win him the esteem and popularity of his fellow citizens, and it also gave him a valuable and profound schooling in human nature.

Success at the bar was matched by domestic tranquillity. The little misunderstandings between the bride and groom, the scholar and the country miss, had vanished after six years of marriage. Jane had now some understanding of her husband's bent and was not afraid of his distinguished friends. She had learned to perform on the viol and she could sing prettily. Like most young parents she and her husband dreamed of, and made plans for, a larger residence.

Her husband had definite and elaborate ideas for the education of his children. They were all to be scholars. The girls were not to be exempted because of their sex for unlike most of his contemporaries, he held enlightened views on the position and education of women.

"Nor do I think that the harvest will be much affected whether it is a man or a woman who sows the field. They both have the same human nature, which reason differentiates from that of beasts; both therefore are equally suited for those studies by which reason is perfectioned, and becomes fruitful like a ploughed land on which the seed of good lessons has been sown. If it be true that the soil of woman's brain be bad, and after to bear bracken than corn, by which saying many keep women from study, I think, on the contrary that a woman's wit is on that account all the more diligently to be cultivated, that nature's defect may be redressed by industry."[l2]

With tender care his theory had been given practice with his wife. Throughout the long months of one pregnancy after another, he had moulded her young mind to an appreciation of the delights of the intellect. But it was not all sombre study. There was singing and there were games and there was much romping with the children. There was great joy in the More household, and oftentimes he was disturbed because of the long hours which his profession forced him to spend away from his hearth.

He held a particular devotion to his firstborn, Margaret, which was never to waver and which always was to be reciprocated. "Meg" was his pet name for her, and as the eldest child she was the first to undergo his carefully prepared training. She was taught Latin, Greek, Logic, Philosophy, Theology, Mathematics, and Astronomy. It was a formidable course upon which to embark a young girl, but its terrors were lightened by the charm and humour and genius of More's personal direction and understanding.

Margaret was only five years old and her young brother not yet a year when their mother, the sweet-natured Jane, suddenly died.

Before a month passed More married again. It was a deliberate action. He had four young children, three of whom were girls, in his house. Professional tasks and civic duties occupied most of his hours. No matter how scrupulously and carefully he acted the father, there still remained the necessity of a mother's care. With this thought in mind he chose a widow, seven years older than himself, Mistress Alice Middleton. Of her children by her first husband, one, Alice, was young enough to be brought up with More's children. It was a practical arrangement, this union. His second wife was a good woman and an efficient housekeeper, although she was never able to attain a full understanding of the many sides of her husband's character. Years later Father Bouge, More's parish priest, wrote of the suddenness of the second marriage: "I buried his first wife. And within a month after, he came to me on a Sunday, at night, late, and there he brought me a dispensation to be married the next Monday, without any banns asking . . . This Mr. More was my ghostly child: in his confession to be so pure, so clean, with great study, deliberation, and devotion, I never heard many such. . ."[13]

Jane, the mother of his children, was never forgotten by More. Nearly twenty years later, when he made ready for his own burial, he had her coffin transferred to the grave he thought he would occupy. He wrote his epitaph and in his graceful Latin she took her place as "dear Jane, Thomas More's little wife."

By the time he had reached his thirty-fifth birthday, Thomas More had achieved a state of living that would have satisfied the aims of most men. He was a lawyer with a wide and lucrative practice. As Under-Sheriff he had gained an envied position in the City of London. He was a popular Bencher amongst his colleagues at Lincoln's Inn. He was an acknowledged scholar with a large circle of distinguished friends. He was a fond parent and a considerate husband.

His every hour was apportioned to a duty or a task, and he was jealous of inconsequentialities that diverted or stole his time. He thought he was neglecting his literary work. In a letter to his friend Peter Giles he complained: "For while in pleading, in hearing, in deciding causes, or composing disputes as an arbitrator, in waiting on some men about business, and on others out of respect, the greatest part of the day is spent on other men's affairs, the remainder of it must be given to my family at home; so that I can reserve no part to myself, that is, to study. I must gossip with my wife and chat with my children, and find something to say to my servants; for all these things I reckon a part of my business, unless I were to become a stranger in my house; for with whomsoever either nature or choice or chance has engaged a man in any relation of life, he must endeavour to make himself as acceptable to them as he possibly can. In such Occupations as these, days, months, and years slip away. Indeed all the time which I can gain to myself is that which I steal from my sleep and my meals, and because that is not much I have made but a slow progress."[14]

He made no mention of the long hours he gave to religious exercises. Every morning saw him at Mass. Every day this busy lawyer recited prayers and read the Psalms with his household. He made numerous pilgrimages, and m the interest of self-discipline he underwent austerities that were worthy of the monastery. He was always reticent about this phase of his life, this taming of the flesh. Even when he became Lord Chancellor of the realm he wore beneath the splendid robe of office a hair shirt that chafed and bloodied his body.

The act of penance was confided to his beloved elder daughter Margaret, and it was she who washed the penitential garment. She was capable of understanding such asceticism, unlike his wife, who strongly disapproved.

Dame Alice could not comprehend the mortification that induced More to wear the hair shirt as antidote to his material success and outward comfort. She went to his confessor and voiced her alarm. "His wife," wrote the priest, "desired me to counsel him to put off that hard and rough shirt of hair: and yet it is very long, almost a twelve-month, ere she knew of this habergeon of hair; it tamed his flesh till the blood was seen in his clothes."[l5]

More first wore the hair shirt when he was at Oxford, and it was a penance never abandoned. Years after Dame Alice's complaint there is another incident. The heat of a summer day caused More to wear a plain shirt without ruff or collar. A hint of the hair shirt caught the alert eyes of his young daughter-in-law, Anne Cresacre. The girl was amused, but the ever attentive Margaret, according to her husband, "perceiving the same, privily told him of it; and he, being sorry that she saw it, presently amended it." More did not cease the penance until his execution was certain. Then from his cell in the Tower, the hair shirt was sent to Margaret with his last letter.

Despite More's lamentations that he had scant opportunity for literary activity, his pen was constantly engaged. In his thirty-fifth year we have seen that he was a busy man at law, yet this is the year he produced The History of King Richard III, the last of the House of York, and like everything of his invention it was composed with care. He wrote both in Latin and English, yet curiously enough The History was never finished. It could scarcely have been because he thought it was without merit. It was too good for that. The spirit which drives an author and buoys his dream could not have deserted him with such abruptness. Either he lacked the leisure to complete this excellent work, or, perhaps, he felt the need of caution in dealing with matters that might offend his young sovereign.

More's style in the Latin version has been likened to that of Tacitus, and it is generally acknowledged that in the vernacular it was the first and best history of its kind for many generations. He planned that it should be a history of his age. It was both a criticism of the structure of government and attack against the evils of tyrants. The eloquent prose was to give Shakespeare inspiration and material for his Richard III, and the mood of its theme was to provide its own author with the spirit that was responsible for Utopia.

The pitiable state of the common man, and the dire need for a new system of society, had long been the subject uppermost in the thoughts of More and his Humanist friends. The promise and person of the young Henry provided a bright hope, but in the fifth year of his reign there were already signs of the dark and brutal route that lay ahead.

This year of 1513 was the year of Flodden and of the invasion of France. Aided, and indeed prompted, by Wolsey, the young king was giving way to his martial dreams and grandiose schemes. The genius of Wolsey had brought forth the organization of a great army, the formation of a new fleet. The delights that Henry had found in philosophy and religion receded before the more active thrills of drum and cannon. The tramp of his soldiery, the booming salutes of his ships, intoxicated the young prince. Wearing his scarlet and gold, he paraded his warriors and lived in gleeful anticipation of conquest and victory. While the tattle group of Humanists frowned and worried, Henry played with his fleet as a child with his toys. He had his portrait painted on the deck of a ship of war. He delighted in his title of Supreme Head of the King's Navy Royal, and, as such, trumpeted on a large gold whistle. His ships answered in reverberating salute. He gave these gaily painted, well-bannered craft pretty and brave names. There were the Dragon, the Lion, the Mary Rose, the Mary George, the Mary John, the George of Falmouth, the Anne of Greenwich, the Peter Pomegranate. With a side glance at the scholars, one little vessel was named Erasmus.

The pretext for war was accompanied with an easy conscience that was soon to become familiar to England's King. Henry named some of his cannon after the Apostles, for this quarrel with France was, according to him, a Holy War. In crossing the Channel he actually was defending the Church and freeing it, so he proclaimed, "from the savage King of the French, who is the common enemy of all Christian princes."

The war with the Scots was also, according to his thinking, "a just, holy and somewhat necessary war," for the Scottish king in addition to his friendship with the French, had spoken against "the sovereign pontiff, the head of our religion."

Giving support to these pious exclamations, always giving encouragement to the King's every whim, bowing, twisting, manipulating, entrenching himself in favour and power, wearing the cloth but prompting the sword, was the priest Wolsey, already rich in benefices and hungry for more, the patient and able architect of the new reign. His dreams now had dazzling scope. With this impetuous prince as instrument, England could become master of Europe, and on that grand scale England's destiny seemed to be his own fate. In his thoughts the cardinalitial splendour was a certainty, the tiara even not improbable.

More's good friend, Dean Colet, did not hesitate to voice open disapproval of the martial policies when he preached before Henry on Good Friday of 1513. His sermon was a bold attack on the evils of war and the wickedness of those who waged war. The King sent for him that very afternoon, and with some trepidation the Dean answered the summons. But the young monarch was all humility. He professed great piety and said he was in accord with Colet's sermon. Most wars were born of man's hatred and ambition, he agreed, but surely on occasion there was need for good men to defend that which was right. The Dean could not gainsay this logic, and then Henry in the same pious and humble vein, and with all his charm, explained that the French were definitely schismatics and enemies of the Church. This war was in truth a just war, and surely the good Dean would so mention in his next sermon. Colet murmured his surrender and received a royal embrace. The King called for wine and proposed Colet's health, "Let every one have his own doctor," he said, "and let every one favour his own; this man is the doctor for me."[l]

Back on the Continent, the disillusioned Erasmus voiced his disgust. "I often wonder," he wrote, "what thing it is that drives, I will not say Christians, but men, to such a degree of madness as to rush with so much pains, so much cost, so much risk, to the destruction of one another! . . . For us, who glory in the name of Christ . . . can anything in the world be of so great concern as to provoke us to war, a thing so calamitous and so hateful, that even when it is most righteous, no truly good man can approve it."[2]

While More was sharing with Colet and Erasmus this deep hatred of war and passion for peace, his fine legal training and his personal charm were attracting the attention of Wolsey, whose great schemes needed able men. More's talents were too pronounced to escape the attention of so alert a prelate. There were difficulties between the merchants of London and those of Flanders, and More was appointed to an embassy which was to represent the English interest. In the early summer of 1515 the envoys made their departure from England, and it was with heavy heart that the home-loving More said farewell to his family. Accompanying him as a fellow envoy was his friend, Cuthbert Tunstall, later to be Bishop of London. In addition to their royal credentials they carried a letter of introduction from Erasmus addressed to Peter Giles, the Town Clerk of Antwerp. He described More and Tunstall as being "the two most learned men of all England . . . both great friends of mine. If you should have an opportunity of offering them any civility, your services will be well bestowed."[3]

Another to travel with them was Richard Sampson, who represented Wolsey. Henry's armies had taken the town of Tournay from the French, and promptly Wolsey had acquired the bishopric of that region. Sampson was appointed his Vicar General, despite the resentment and objections of both Flemings and French, and he was instructed to impose his claims with vigorous authority, while at the same time wearing the cloak of diplomatic immunity. "Handle the matter boldly," he was ordered by his acquisitive master, "and fulminate the censures, not fearing for any excommunication of any man."

In More's mind the ambassadorial honour was poor compensation for leaving his family. There was also the question of expense. His lucrative legal practice naturally suffered during his absence, and he had no other revenues. "When I am away, I have two households to maintain, one in England and another abroad. I received a liberal allowance from the King for the persons I took with me, but no account is taken of those whom I leave at home." More's typical humour shows in this same letter. "Although you know what a kind husband, what an indulgent father, what a considerate master I am, yet I have never been able to induce my family to go without food during my absence. . ."[4]

He expected his stay abroad would not be more than sixty days, but because of the Tournay troubles the negotiations dragged, and he was gone for six months. His own finances reached a critical state. Tunstall reported to Wolsey: "Master More at this time, as being at a low ebb, desires by Your Grace to be set on float again."[5] Most of his time abroad was spent in the cities of Bruges, Brussels, and Antwerp, and it was during this period that the imaginary island of Utopia was given design.

The seed that Erasmus had planted with his letter of introduction to Peter Giles flowered into a companionship which was rich in intellectual productivity. The Englishman and his new friend utilized the long waits necessary to official duties by constantly discussing and analyzing the problems that agitated them. These talks and an appreciation of the wide attention given Erasmus' The Praise of Folly certainly did much to provide More with the inspiration to employ his pen in tracing his own conception of the reforms and philosophy necessary to an ideal commonwealth.

Utopia is divided into two books. The first book, which was written last and in more haste, was completed in 1516, the year of publication. It consists of a thinly disguised account of the wrongs that existed in the England of More's day. The second book, completed a year before, is a brilliant jeu d'esprit. For the amusement of his friends More took an idea-the idea of a society ruled by reason without Revelation-and followed where the idea led him. The Utopians are without Revelation, and for More, Revelation is essential to the conduct of life. With only reason to guide them-and not Reason in the abstract but their own fallible reason-they can but do their best: let us see what their best is, says More. He keeps a straight face, but amusement is the point. Every so often seriousness breaks in mainly where indignation at contemporary contrasts is too strong for him. The moment over, he resumes the straight face and the brilliant fantasy. One imagines how the humourless learned have misread the book ever since. No one can be certain where this powerful, humorous mind is merely enjoying itself, where it is wholly serious. The natural tendency is to assume that More meant it, whenever he describes the Utopians doing something the reader agrees with. It is a highly unsafe rule, and has led to results as funny as anything in Utopia.

More began Utopia in an apparently realistic vein. He describes how his official duties took him to Antwerp, where he met Peter Giles, "a man of . . . honest reputation . . . Upon a certain day when I had heard the divine service in our Ladies Church I chanced to espy this . . . Peter talking with a certain stranger, a man well stricken in age, with a black sunburned face, a long beard, and a cloak cast homely about his shoulders, whom, by his favour and apparel forthwith I judged to be a mariner."[6] But More meets the stranger and finds him to be no mariner but a Portuguese philosopher with a liking for travel. He is Raphael Hythlodaye, the admiring observer of Utopia. The traveller tells his attentive listeners that he had accompanied the famous Amerigo Vespucci on his last three voyages. He had not returned with the explorer on the final voyage but had elected to stay with some companions on the coast of Brazil, and from that distant region he had slowly journeyed to Ceylon and Calicut and from thence home. He had seen many strange things and odd people. More invites him to a garden seat and the fabulous account begins.

There was ample reason to connect the story with the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. Europe was then excited with the inviting horizons of the New World. Before More had attained his majority John Cabot had anchored off the American mainland. Before Henry VIII had ascended the throne, the chant of Sebastian Cabot's leadsmen, proclaiming their fathoms, had echoed over the cold waters of what we now call Hudson Bay. Returning navigators had strange stories to relate, and not the least of these tales was the legend of a civilized and prosperous people who held property in common and who, unlike Europeans, did not struggle for gold or gems. Even while Utopia was being written, More's brother in-law, John Rastell, with the help of the More family, was organizing a colonization venture. Eventually his ship, the Barbara, left Greenwich, but the voyage failed because of a mutiny. The ambition remained in the family, and at a later date his son, John, crossed the ocean and landed in Labrador.

More's main interest, however, centered nearer home. His opinion of the King's service is clearly expressed early in the first book. Hythlodaye's listeners are impressed by his knowledge and wisdom, and Peter Giles puts him the question: "Surely Master Raphael . . . I wonder greatly, why you get you not into some king's court. For I am sure, there is no prince living that would not be very glad of you, as a man not only able highly to delight him with your profound learning and this your knowledge of countries and peoples, but also meet to instruct him with examples, and help him with counsel."[7] Hythlodaye replied that he has no wish to give himself in "bondage to Kings," and when further pressed says: "For, first of all, the most part of all princes have more delight in warlike matters and feats of chivalry (the knowledge whereof I neither have nor desire) than in the good feats of peace, and employ much more study how by right or wrong to enlarge their dominions, than how well and peaceably to rule and govern that they have already . . ."[8] Later he remarks bitterly that philosophy has "no place amongst Kings."

The dialogue continues. Existing conditions and injustices are discussed. Hythlodaye relates of the Utopians: "Among whom with very few laws, all things be so well and wealthily ordered, that virtue is had in price and estimation, and yet, all things being there common, every man hath abundance of everything." He agrees with Plato: "and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them, that refused those laws, whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions of wealth and commodities. For the wise man did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a commonalty, if equality of all things should be brought in and established. Which I think is not possible to be observed, where every man's goods be proper and peculiar to himself . . . Thus I do fully persuade myself, that no equal and just distribution of things can be made . . . unless this property be exiled and banished . . ."

More disagrees: "Methinketh that men shall never there live wealthily, where all things be common. For how can there be abundance of goods, or of anything, where every man withdraweth his hand from labour? Whom the regard of his own gains driveth not to work, but the hope that he hath in other men's travail maketh him slothful . . ."[9]

Hythlodaye assures him that such a system works well in Utopia, whereupon More beseeches him to "describe unto us the island. And study not to be short, but declare largely in order their grounds, their rivers, their cities, their people, their manners, their ordinances, their laws, and, to be short, all things that you shall think us desirous to know." Hythlodaye agrees, but first the three men decide to dine. They return to the quiet of the garden and More gives the order to his servants "that no man should trouble us."[l0] The traveller then enters into that graphic narrative comprising the second book of Utopia, which reflects the author's protests against the social injustices of his own time.

There can be no doubt that Utopia was intended for a limited audience. Following the example of Plato, More utilized dialogue in the first book. As a skilled advocate, he sought to expose the weaknesses and wrongs of that which was his target by having them defended and explained by an interlocutor. He well realized that this classic pattern of presenting his thesis could be misunderstood and misinterpreted by the untutored, and for that reason Utopia was not written in English. Years after its composition, in his Confutation, he said: "I say therefore in these days in which men by their own default misconstrue and take harm of the very scripture of God, until men better amend, if any man would now translate Moriae into English, or some works either that I have myself written ere this, albeit there be none harm therein, folk yet being (as they be) given to take harm of any that is good, I would, not only my darling's [meaning Erasmus] books but mine own also, help to burn them both with mine own hands, rather than folk should (though through their own fault) take any harm of them, seeing that I see them likely in these days so to do."[11]

Despite his words, misinterpretation was to linger through the centuries, until, in our own time, we find the Director of the Karl Marx-Engels Institute of the Central Executive Committee of the Union of Soviet Republics writing to the Sisters of Beaufort Street Convent in London for information "about that great communist Thomas More."

The year in which Utopia was published (1516) was a memorable year for Erasmian reformers as well. In February Erasmus published the greatest of his works, Novum Instrumentum, his Greek text of the New Testament, the editing of which had taken him sixteen years to write. A month later he published the Institute of the Christian Prince, dedicated to the young King, Charles of Castile and the Netherlands. It was an eloquent treatise against war and a cry for justice to the poor. In this same summer the Dutch scholar could also report that the first portion of the great edition of Jerome was finished and that he was dedicating it to Archbishop Warham of Canterbury. "Would that in all our princes were the same mind that is in you," he addressed the prelate, "then these insane and wretched wars would end, and rulers would turn their minds to making their age illustrious by the arts of peace."[l2]

Before Utopia reached the printer, Thomas Wolsey was elevated to the Cardinalate. For the reception of the Red Hat forwarded by Pope Leo, Wolsey arranged an unparalleled display to dazzle the Londoners. He despatched a Bishop and an Earl with an elaborate escort to Blackheath to meet the protonotary, bearing it to England. The Mayor and Aldermen on horseback, the City Guilds on foot, turned out to give the Hat salute as it was borne in triumph through the streets of the city to Westminster. There it reposed in state upon the high altar until the following Sunday. Three Archbishops, eight Bishops, and eight Abbots participated in the ceremonials. An eye-witness remarked that he had never seen the like, save in the coronation of a mighty prince. Dean Colet was not intimidated and preached a rousing sermon on humility. His words were unheeded. As the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham, passed down the nave at the close of the ceremony, no crozier was borne before him, and none was ever again borne before him in Wolsey's presence.

A fortnight later Cardinal Wolsey urged the dissolution of Parliament. It met but once in the fourteen years that Wolsey remained in his high office. Three weeks later, on December 22, 1515, the Cardinal succeeded Warham as Lord Chancellor.

More, who had returned from his diplomatic mission to Flanders, despatched a copy of Utopia, fresh from the press, with a letter to Warham congratulating him upon his resignation from the heavy burden of the Chancellorship and upon the integrity with which he had borne that burden.

For the new Chancellor, More had nothing but good will. He entertained no political ambitions. Besides, the encouragement of letters furnished a strong bond between the two men. With peace at hand, the longed-for Golden Age might well return. To Erasmus he wrote: "The Archbishop has been at last relieved of the Office of Chancellor, the burden of which, as you know, he has been anxious to shake off for some years. Having secured the privacy he has long desired he enjoys a leisure sweetened by literature, and by the recollection of important affairs well administered. The King has put in his place the Cardinal of York, who so conducts himself as to surpass the high expectation of all. After so excellent a predecessor, it is no easy matter to give, as he does, complete satisfaction."[1]

With Wolsey as Lord Chancellor, it was inevitable that More be drawn more closely into royal service. In his letter to Erasmus he expressed his distaste for ambassadorial duties. It did not suit a married man thus to leave his family, he complained; "indeed it does not seem as suitable for us laymen, as for you clergymen, who either have no wives and children, or find them wheresoever you go." This latter was a gentle jibe at his friend, himself in orders, and a significant comment on the light manner with which many of the priests of that day observed their vows.

He confessed that he had been offered a royal pension. This, however, I have hitherto refused, and shall, I think, continue to do so, because if I took it, the place I now hold in the City, which I prefer to a higher office, would have to be given up or retained—much to my regret—and with some offence to the citizens, who, if they had any questions with the Government, as sometimes happens about their privileges, would have less confidence in me as a paid pensioner of the King.

"However, in that embassy of mine there were some very agreeable circumstances. In the first place, there was the long and constant intercourse with Tunstall, who, as he is unsurpassed in all literary accomplishments and in strictness of life and character, is at the same time a most delightful companion. Another circumstance was my acquaintance with Busleiden, who entertained me with a magnificence suitable to his noble fortune and a kindness proportioned to the goodness of his heart. He showed me a house adorned with singular taste and provided with the choicest furniture; he showed me many monuments of antiquity, of which you know I am curious, and finally his well-stored library, and a mind still better stored . . ."[2]

In February, 1516, the Queen bore Henry a child. The royal infant was a girl, who was given the name Mary. Her godparents were Wolsey and the Duchess of Norfolk. Henry would certainly have preferred a princeling, nevertheless he displayed high spirit. A week following the birth of his daughter, he jovially confided to the Venetian Ambassador that: "We are both young. if it was a daughter this time by the grace of God the sons will follow."[3]

More might fear unhappiness in the King's service but the Cardinal was obdurate. While the royal pension dangled before More, Erasmus wrote in alarm, warning him against the atmosphere of princes and courts. More pleaded to Wolsey that he could not, in conscience, faithfully execute the duties of Under-Sheriff and at the same time receive a stipend from the King. But all his objections proved futile before the Cardinal's design, and finally, if not eagerly, he accepted the royal pension.

The year of the Princess Mary's birth was the year that Charles of Castile became King of Spain after the death of Ferdinand. The latter had died on the hunting field at the age of sixty-three. Wolsey and Henry watched sharply, waiting for the moves of his successor. Both feared France. On the great stage of European politics the interminable drama never ceased; the ordinary conflicts, the conventional treacheries, the usual game of broken treaties and expected wiles, obscuring the significance of the New Learning, all in this year that was so fruitful to the Erasmian reformers.

When Erasmus had completed his translation of the New Testament he had dedicated it to Pope Leo X and wrote gleefully to More that it was approved by those "whom I thought most likely to find fault; and the leading theologians like it very much."[4] It was a work of high importance, and quite naturally there were critics aplenty to look askance at what they considered—a challenge to tradition. His friend, Martin Dorp, canon and theologian of Louvain, had earlier sent a message of apprehension to the master: "This is another matter upon which in all friendship I have longed to convey a warning to a friend . . . You are proposing to correct the Latin copies by the Greek. But if I show that the Latin version has no mixture of falsehood or mistake, will you not admit that such a work is unnecessary? But this is what I claim for the Vulgate, since it is unreasonable to suppose that the Universal Church has been in error for so many generations in her use of this edition, nor is it probable that so many holy Fathers have been mistaken, who in reliance upon it have defined the most arduous questions in General Councils, which, it is admitted by most theologians as well as lawyers, are not subject to error in matters of faith."[5]

Erasmus made ready reply to this letter, but More offered an abler defence: "Erasmus is not as you seem to suppose a mere grammarian but a theologian too, and he is only at pains to criticize those who give themselves up to scholastic subtleties-men as far removed from true theology as they are from common sense . . ."[6] In a long letter to Dorp he stressed that Scriptural studies must not be sacrificed to scholastic theology: ". . . I cannot hear it said that these minute questionings are more useful than the knowledge of the sacred writings to the flock for which Christ died. If you merely contend that these things are worth studying, I will not contest it; but if you put them on a level with the dissertations of the ancient Fathers, I cannot listen to you.

"I do not think you will contest this with me, that whatever is necessary for salvation is communicated to us in the first place from the Sacred Scriptures, then from the ancient interpreters, and by traditional customs handed down through the ancient Fathers from hand to hand, and, finally, by the sacred definitions of the Church. If, in addition to all this, these acute disputants have curiously discovered anything, though I grant it may be convenient and useful, yet I think it belongs to the class of things without which it is possible to live . . . The reason why the ancient interpreters are so much neglected is because certain unhappy geniuses have first persuaded themselves, and then led others to believe, that there is nowhere any honey besides what has already been stored in the hives of the Summists . . ."[7]

With such encouragement from More, Erasmus was spurred on, and now finally the great work, after sixteen years of prodigious toil, was finished, and the happy author wrote: "I would have the weakest woman read the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul . . . I would have those words translated into all languages, so that not only Scots and Irish, but Turks and Saracens too might read them. I long for the ploughboy to sing them to himself as he follows the plough, the weaver to hum them to the tune of his shuttle, the traveller to beguile with them the dullness of his journey . . . Other studies we may regret to have undertaken, but happy is the man upon whom death comes when he is engaged in these. These sacred words give you the very image of Christ speaking, healing, dying, rising again, and make him so present, that were he before your very eyes you would not more truly see him."[8]

More was giving service to the King, but as yet he had not been persuaded or pressed into permanent employ. He still practiced law and still occupied his beloved office of Under-Sheriff. But there now came two incidents which would strengthen Wolsey's resolve into a command. A law suit existed between the Royal and Papal states in the matter of a Papal vessel which, it was charged, had illegally put into the port of Southampton and had thus violated the law of the nations. The Crown had seized the ship and claimed her as a forfeit. More was retained by the Nuncio, and the trial was eventually relayed to the Star Chamber. It was an event complete with the solemn paraphernalia and persons of the Chief Justices, the Lord Treasurer, and the magnificence of the Lord Chancellor himself. Even the King attended. But More was neither intimidated nor bewildered by his audience. He argued with his usual brilliance and logic, and the judgment was delivered in his favour. Both King and Cardinal listened to his arguments with keen appreciation, both all the more convinced that they were witness to a talent which must be diverted to their use and to their ends.

Then came "Evil May Day," long to be a black memory in London. Once again the measure of More was displayed, although in a different way. May Day was a traditional day of play for all Englishmen, and for the multitude of London 'prentices it was the great occasion for undisciplined fun and demonstration. In 1517, their mood was ugly. The twisted streets of the capital hummed with the business of many crafts and trades: haberdashers, weavers, cappers, tailors, butchers, grocers, vintners, waterbearers, candlemakers, chandlers, brewers, fellmongers, saddlers, leathersellers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, armourers, swordmakers, vendors of all kind and description. It was only natural that the rich markets should attract merchants and skilled artificers from abroad. There were nearly five thousand Flemish weavers living in the city, and there was also a flourishing colony of Frenchmen. Italians lent money, carved stone, and made fine furniture. The Hanseatic merchants of the Steelyard, "a walled German community in the very midst of London," brought in and sold timber, tar, rope, iron, and wax. And as the babble of alien tongues increased, so too did the resentment of the Londoners. During Easter week a popular priest spoke against the foreigners: "The aliens and strangers," he cried from the pulpit, "eat the bread from the poor fatherless children, and take the living from all the artificers, and the intercourse from all the merchants, whereby poverty is so much increased that every man bewails the misery of others, for craftsmen be brought to beggary and merchants to neediness."[9]

The talk went fast and hot. A Frenchman had abducted and, it was said, maltreated an Englishman's wife. Furthermore, he boasted of it, and one of his fellow countrymen said loudly that if he had the Mayor's wife of London they would keep her. A sturdy mercer by name of William Bolt gave angry reply: "Well, you whoreson Lombards, you rejoice and laugh, by the Mass we will one day have a day at you, come when it will."[10] Rumours and tales circulated like fever, becoming all the wilder in passing from mouth to mouth. London was ready for riot and bloodshed.

On the Eve of May Day, the City sent for two officials, More and the City Recorder, Richard Brook, to receive instructions from the Cardinal. They returned to the Guildhall with a peremptory instruction that a curfew be imposed that very night on all citizens, their 'prentices and servants. It was an impracticable and unpopular command, and when one rash alderman attempted to enforce it, a mob sprang into being. The rallying cry of "Clubs and Prentices" quickly brought hordes of excited and resentful recruits from doorways and corners. Mischief grew to violence, a prison was breached, and while terrified foreigners hid, there was sacking and burning. The alarmed Wolsey sent for the Earl of Surrey, who immediately set out for the city with a sizeable force of armed men. Sir Richard Cholmeley, Lieutenant of the Tower, manned and exploded his clumsy cannon, making a great noise but doing little damage.

While Surrey's men were converging, it was More who ventured out into the darkness and faced the rabble, parleying and reasoning, meeting fury with common sense. There was much stone-throwing and shouting of threats, but the Under-Sheriff stood his ground with calmness and courage. Later in the century it was surely Shakespeare who was to exalt this moment in the play, Sir Thomas More.

When the rioters demanded that all aliens be removed from London, the playwright has More answer:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise Hath chid down all the majesty of England. Imagine that you see the wretched strangers, Their babies at their backs, and their poor luggage, Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation, And that you sit as kings in your desires, Authority quite silenced by your brawl, And you in ruff of your opinion clothed What had you got? I'll tell you. You had taught How insolence and strong hand should prevail How order should be quelled; and by this pattern Not one of you should live an aged man; For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought With self same hand, self reasons and self right Would shark on you; and men like ravenous fishes Would feed on one another.[11]

Most of the rioters dispersed during the early morning hours, and soon the City officials, aided by sundry noblemen and their armed retainers, succeeded in restoring complete order. And now Henry, who had been safe at Richmond, gave early demonstration of that cruel tyranny which later was to mark his every act. The street rioting, because of the King's friendship with foreign nations, was considered to be treason, and the punishments to be so measured. Gallows were hastily thrown up around the city. Thirteen unfortunate wretches were summarily hanged, then drawn and quartered. Others were held for the same treatment. Shocked by this harshness, the Mayor and Aldermen met and appointed a deputation to wait on the King and to beg for leniency. More led the group to the Royal presence. Dressed in black they made the appeal, but were coldly told to address their plea to the Lord Chancellor. Wolsey had little liking for blood, but knowing his master, and with his genius for high ceremony and pageant, he proceeded to put on a great spectacle. The King in solemn state, accompanied by his Queen and Court, came to Westminster Hall. The chosen prisoners, four hundred men and boys and eleven women, were mustered before his cold stare, and each one stripped for the gibbet, a halter around each neck. Kneeling before the monarch, they begged for mercy. The King refused to be moved. The Queen fell to her knees and added her voice and tears. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal joined in the appeal. Henry refused again, but finally after another speech from Wolsey he magnanimously granted the pardon. There were wild shouts of rejoicing and gratitude. Standing there witness to it all, indeed a first actor in the scene, dressed in his mourning black, was the author of Utopia. A thunder of voices was raised for the King, but in many hearts the real salute was given to Lawyer More. He, more than anyone, had stayed the riot before it grew to rebellion. And he, as Wolsey was well aware, had played a major part in dissipating the Royal vengeance. Henceforth there could be no alternative. All the hours of this wise man, this respected man, this good man, must be given the King.

More's Humanist friends were sorry to see him enter the Royal service, but at least his wife was happy. She had long considered it foolish for him to reject Wolsey's overtures. And once she had chided him for not being sufficiently ambitious. "Will you sit still by the fire and make goslings in the ashes with a stick as children do? . . . for as my mother was wont to say . . . it is ever better to rule than to be ruled."

"By my truth, wife," answered More, "in this I dare say you say truth, for I never found you willing to be ruled yet."[l2]

There were many duties awaiting the King's new servant. In August, More was commissioned to travel across the Channel again, this time to stay in Calais and negotiate a trading pact with the French merchants. Before he sailed there was another emergency in London. A plague-like disease, the dreaded "Sweating Sickness," swept the city and its environs, bringing horror and death and much confusion. The King moved to a remote place in the country, but not before many close to him, including his pages and one of his secretaries, had died. The disease, probably born of the filth of the congested and ill-kept streets, was enormously potent, killing off its victims within the first twenty-four hours. Nor was it a respecter of rank. The Cardinal was stricken three times and barely survived. The deathcart was as familiar to the doors of the noble household as it was to the darkest corner of some lowly lane. More helped keep order in the city and later was given the task of improving conditions at Oxford, where the plague had also struck. He saw to it that some measures of quarantine were undertaken; infected houses were given markings, and those good people who visited and nursed the victims were instructed to carry white wands.

"Deaths are frequent all around us," he wrote to Erasmus, "almost everybody at Oxford, at Cambridge, and here in London, having been laid up within the last few days, and very many of our best and most honoured friends being lost . . . For in this Sweating Sickness, as they call it, no one dies but on the first day. I, with my wife and children, am as yet untouched; the rest of my family have recovered. I can assure you that there is less danger up on a field of battle than in this town It is now, I hear, beginning to rage at Caiais, when we are being forced thither ourselves to undertake a diplomatic mission-as if it were not enough to have been living in contagion here without following it elsewhere. But what is one to do? What our lot brings us must be borne; and I have composed my mind for every event."[13]

The stay at Calais with its dull business of bickering and compromise, the long absence from his home, was a sacrifice for the man who was so much the good parent and complete Londoner. Erasmus informed him that he had been offered a commission by the Emperor, but that he should do anything "rather than become entangled in that kind of business; and how glad I should be if you were clear."[14] More replied: "I approve of your plan in not wishing to be involved in the busy trifles of Princes; and you show your love for me by desiring that I may be disentangled from such matters, in which you can scarcely believe how unwillingly I am engaged. Nothing indeed can be more hateful to me than my present mission. I am sent to stay at a little seaport, with a disagreeable soil and climate; and whereas at home I have naturally the greatest abhorrence of litigation, even when it brings me profit, you may imagine what annoyance it must cause one here, when it comes accompanied with loss."[15]

As a relief to the "litigation" More kept his pen busy. There was certainly much to discuss with his Humanist friends; Erasmus' great triumph with the New Testament; his own success with Utopia; the hope springing from papal efforts to achieve a universal peace amongst the Christian nations. For in the August of 1517, Leo X, fearing the Turk, had promulgated a Bull which sought to impose a five years' truce on the Princes of Europe. Then there were the high maneuverings of Wolsey, whose "balance of power" policy, ostensibly to protect the Papacy but certainly not harmful to England's interest, prompted Henry to subsidize the young scion of the Hapsburgs, Charles of Castile, soon to be Emperor. This youth, already occupant of his father's dukedom of Burgundy, was now ready for his Spanish inheritance. A loan was arranged, and off sailed the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella to occupy his kingdom. And then there were all the signs of the great storm that was gathering over Germany. Luther did not nail his "Ninety-five Theses" to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral until the November of this year. But Tetzel, the Dominican orator and fund raiser, had, by means of his vigorous money-gathering campaign and improper traffic in Indulgences, made an opportune scandal that was to prove ready and valuable ammunition for those who were to reject the papal supremacy.

Neither royal service nor the traffic of many guests prevented More from supervising in detail the training of his children. The household was a testing ground for his theories of education. Here was taught and lived the Christian belief that in a perfect society there would be two authorities, the natural and the supernatural, and that the latter, being God's will, should govern the first. This is what he taught in his home, it was the rule by which he lived; it was the principle for which he died.

He did not send his children to school, for he had his own ideas as to their training. The best of tutors were brought in, and they lived as members of the family. The excellent school, St. Paul's, which had been founded by his friend Colet, was not far away, yet his son John was kept and educated at home. In an age when the education of females was mostly confined to domestic virtues, his daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecily, and his adopted daughter, Margaret Giggs, were given a thorough grounding, along with their brother, in Latin, Greek, Logic, Philosophy, Theology, Mathematics, and even Astronomy. To teach the latter subject came Master Nicholas Kratzer, German-born and formerly a fellow of Corpus, Oxford. Serving with him were also Master Drew, Richard Hyrde, and William Gunnell. When More was forced by his official duties to journey abroad or attend the Court, he kept supervision over his family's training by letters both to the tutors and to the children.

To Gunnell came an admonition on the necessity of humility and the danger of pride: ". . . the more I see the difficulty of getting rid of this pest of pride, the more do I see the necessity of setting to work at it from childhood. For I find no other reason why this evil clings so to our hearts, than because almost as soon as we are born, it is sown in the tender minds of children by their nurses, it is cultivated by their teachers, and brought to its full growth by their parents; no one teaching even what is good without, at the same time, awakening the expectation of praise, as of the proper reward of virtue. Thus we grow accustomed to make so much of praise, that while we study how to please the greater number (who will always be the worst), we grow ashamed of being good (with the few). That this plague of vainglory may be banished far from my children, I do desire that you, my dear Gunnell, and their mother and all their friends, would sing this song to them, and repeat it, and beat it into their heads, that vainglory is a thing despicable,