King Henry VIII | Britroyals Children: Three legitimate who survived infancy; Mary, Elizabeth and Edward, and at least one illegitimate child Henry Fitzroy. Died: January 28, 1547 at Whitehall Palace, London, aged 55 years, 7 months, Buried at: Windsor Reigned for: 37 years, 9 months, and 7 days Succeeded by: his son Edward VI King of England from 1509, when he succeeded his father Henry VII and married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. During the period 1513�29 Henry pursued an active foreign policy, largely under the guidance of his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, who shared Henry's desire to make England stronger. Wolsey was replaced by Thomas More in 1529 for failing to persuade the Pope to grant Henry a divorce. By this time Henry's policy had become dominated by his desire to divorce Catherine because she was too old to give him an heir and he was determined to marry Anne Boleyn. At first there seemed a possibility that the divorce might be granted.

The papal legate journeyed to England to hear the case, but Catherine appealed direct to the pope and the court was adjourned. The position was complicated by the fact that Charles V, Catherine's nephew, controlled Rome. Henry then proceeded to act through Parliament, and had the entire body of the clergy in England declared guilty of treason in 1531. The clergy were suitably cowed and agreed to repudiate papal supremacy and recognize Henry as supreme head of the church in England. The English ecclesiastical courts then pronounced his marriage to Catherine null and void and he married Anne Boleyn in 1533 Henry through Thomas Cromwell continued his attack on the church with the suppression of the monasteries (1536�39); their lands were confiscated and granted to his supporters. However, although he laid the ground for the English Reformation by the separation from Rome, he had little sympathy with Protestant dogmas.

As early as 1521 a pamphlet which he had written against Lutheranism had won him the title of Fidei Defensor from the Pope, and Henry's own religious views are quite clearly expressed in the Statute of Six Articles in 1539 which instituted the orthodox Catholic tenets as necessary conditions for Christian belief. As a result Protestants were being burnt for heresy even while Catholics were being executed for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536, ostensibly for adultery. Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, died in 1537. He married Anne of Cleves in 1540 in pursuance of Thomas Cromwell's policy of allying with the German Protestants, but rapidly abandoned this policy, divorced Anne, and beheaded Cromwell. His fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was beheaded in 1542, and the following year he married Catherine Parr, who survived him.

Henry ended his reign with the reputation of a tyrant, despite the promise of his earlier years � in 1536 the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace was viciously suppressed, and advisers of the calibre of More and Bishop John Fisher had died rather than sacrifice their own principles to Henry's will. But the power of the crown had been considerably strengthened by Henry's ecclesiastical policy, and the monastic confiscations gave impetus to the rise of a new nobility which was to become influential in succeeding reigns. King Henry VIII's Signature Quotes: �We are, by the sufferance of God, King of England; and the Kings of England in times past never had any superior but God� � Henry VIII 'If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing...

they shall be childless' � King Henry VIII (quoting The Bible, Leviticus, XX,21, as justification for seeking divorce from Catherine of Aragon who had previously been married to his brother Prince Arthur) �...to wish myself (specially an evening) in my sweetheart's arms, whose pretty ducks [breasts] I trust shortly to kiss�� - King Henry VIII (love letter to Ann Boleyn) �You have sent me a Flanders mare!� - King Henry VIII (on first meeting Anne of Cleves who was about to become his 4th wife) Timeline for King Henry VIII Year BBC - History - Historic Figures: Thomas More (1478 - 1535) Historic Figures z Sir Thomas More © More was an English lawyer, scholar, writer, member of parliament and chancellor in the reign of Henry VIII. He was executed for refusing to recognise Henry VIII's divorce and the English church's break with Rome. Thomas More was born on 7 February 1478 in London, the son of a successful lawyer. As a boy, More spent some time in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury.

He later studied at Oxford, and qualified as a lawyer, although he did contemplate becoming a monk. From 1510 to 1518 he was one of the two under-sheriffs of London and in 1517 entered the king's service, becoming one of Henry VIII's most effective and trusted civil servants and acting as his secretary, interpreter, speech-writer, chief diplomat, advisor and confidant. In 1521 he was knighted, in 1523, he became the speaker of the House of Commons and in 1525 chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. At the same time More was building a reputation as a scholar. He was close to the radical catholic theologian Erasmus, but wrote polemics against Martin Luther and the protestant reformation. Around 1515, he wrote 'The History of Richard III' which established that king's reputation as a tyrant and has been described as the first masterpiece of English historiography. In 1516, he published his most important work 'Utopia' - a description of an imaginary republic ruled by reason and intended to contrast with the strife-ridden reality of contemporary European politics.

More remained a passionate defender of Catholic orthodoxy - writing pamphlets against heresy, banning unorthodox books, and even taking responsibility when chancellor for the interrogation of heretics. More took the post of lord chancellor in 1529, just as Henry had become determined to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The previous chancellor, Lord Wolsey, had failed to achieve this objective. Henry was close to breaking with the Church of Rome, and the so-called 'Reformation parliament' was about to convene. When Henry declared himself 'supreme head of the Church in England' - thus establishing the Anglican Church and allowing him to end his marriage - More resigned the chancellorship. He continued to argue against the king's divorce and the split with Rome, and in 1534 was arrested after refusing to swear an oath of succession repudiating the pope and accepting the annulment of Henry's marriage. He was tried for treason at Westminster and on 6 July 1535 was executed on Tower Hill.

The English Reformation, 1529-47 Deuteronomy 25:5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. Clement VII was naturally reluctant to concede that an earlier pope had lacked the power to grant a dispensation, but he might well have found some formula to oblige Henry VIII had circumstances been different. Since the Sack of Rome (6 May 1527), Clement was effectively under the control of Charles V, the Hapsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, and nephew of Katherine. English diplomacy aimed at giving the pope the freedom of action to ignore Charles V's wishes and grant Henry his annulment. The pope did agree to send a commission headed by Lorenzo Campeggio, but privately Clement instructed to him to procrastinate and avoid any authoritative pronouncement. In 1529, in the face of Katherine's refusal to recognize the commission, the pope recalled it and to decide the case for himself.

Henry blamed Wolsey for his failure to obtain a divorce; and dismissed him. Wolsey's replacement as Lord Chancellor was Sir Thomas More, that rare phenomenon - an honest lawyer, and the author of Utopia (1516). He had been Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, which had obstructed Wolsey's attempts to raise taxes for war with France. Pencil drawing of Anne Boleyn by Hans Holbein Henry's public moves towards divorce and the fall of Wolsey assured Anne Boleyn that he really intended marriage, and she began living with Henry. Anne's relatives were promptly promoted to positions of power. Her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn was appointed Lord Privy Seal & Earl of Wiltshire; Her uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, became Lord Treasurer. Along with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, they ran the English government for a few years after 1529, although only Norfolk showed real ability. Anne Boleyn became pregnant, and on 25 January 1533 Henry married her.

(His marriage to Katherine of Aragon was not officially pronounced 'null and void' until 23 May 1533, when the acquiescent Thomas Cranmer had been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury). Anne was crowned queen 1 June 1533. On 11 July 1533, Clement VII issued a Bull excommunicating Henry. Elizabeth was born 7 September 1533. At some cost, Henry was free of Catherine, but the problem of a male heir was still not resolved. Anne was pregnant in January 1534, but the child miscarried. She was pregnant again in January 1535, shortly after the death from cancer of Katherine of Aragon (7 January 1535) had removed all questions about the legitimacy of any child that might be born. But then Henry had a serious jousting accident, and on January 29 the distressed Anne again miscarried - the son who might have been Henry's and her salvation. Henry's eye began to rove again, and this time settled on Jane Seymour, the daughter of a Somerset gentleman.

Jane Seymour The Boleyn faction had a number of rivals: some were personal rivals like the ambitious Thomas Cromwell, and the Duke of Suffolk, whose wife (Mary Henry's sister) snubbed Anne frequently. Others were religious conservatives - the so-called Aragonese faction, that included the Lords Darcy and Thomas Hussey, and Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The enterprising and unscrupulous Thomas Cromwell led the charge, collecting fabricated evidence that Anne Boleyn was guilty of both treason and adultery. They even accused her of having committed incest with her brother, George. The poet Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder was briefly imprisoned on suspicion of having had an affair with Anne. After a very brief trial, Anne's marriage to Henry was annulled 17 May, and she was executed on 19 May 1536. Henry pronounced Elizabeth a bastard, but refused to legitimize Mary. In July 1536, his bastard son, Henry Fitzroy died. The succession stood in more doubt than ever. Henry also turned on Mary's supporters - the Aragonese Faction - and his harsh treatment of them helped provoke the Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7. The rebellion was crushed.

On 12 October 1537, the problem of the succession seemed finally solved. Jane Seymour produced a son - Edward. (She died on 24th October, killed by incompetent physicians.) Henry's next marriage (in January 1540) to Anne of Cleves was not Henry's idea, but Thomas Cromwell's, who was eager to ally with German Protestants. Anne of Cleves Deceived by a flattering portrait, Henry agreed to wed, but on seeing Anne in the flesh lost all taste for the union. The marriage was annulled within six months. The Duke of Norfolk and others took advantage of Henry's irritation to convince him that Cromwell was a traitor and heretic. They introduced Henry to the nineteen-year-old Catherine Howard, and clinched their case. Cromwell was beheaded in 1540. The Reformation Parliament met in 1529. Immediately, it attacked the English clergy. In 1531, the Commons Supplication against the Ordinaries listed various clerical abuses and demanded that Henry reform these. To appease Henry, the church surrendered their independence by the Submission of the Clergy.

The Acts restraining Payment of Annates (1532) and Appeals to Rome (1553) severed the financial and judicial links to the papacy. The Act of Dispensations (1534) confirmed earlier changes and placed the appointment of bishops wholly in the monarch's hands. "Be it enacted by authority of this present Parliament that the King our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England ..." An Act concerning the King's Highness, 1534. (3) The Henrician Reformers Thomas Cromwell Born about 1485, the son of a Putney ironmonger, Cromwell became a loyal servant of Wolsey. Surviving Wolsey's fall, he rose in Henry's service - 1534 Secretary, 1536 Lord Privy Seal.

In 1535, Henry deputed him to control the church, and in the same year Cromwell organized the republication of Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis; - an anti-papal tract written in the 14th century, that argued for the complete subordination of the clergy to the secular state. A diligent bureaucrat, he was important in ensuring that more laws were passed in the 1530s than ever before. He was as unscrupulous as he was efficient, and had a major impact on the shaping of the Tudor state. Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer was a priest at Cambridge University, who took Henry's side over the divorce and on Henry's instructions tried to persuade the members of European universities to do the same. While abroad in 1532, he married the niece of a German Protestant Reformer, but was very careful to keep the illegal marriage secret. Cranmer put his Protestant sympathies (like his belief in Anne Boleyn's innocence) second to his obedience to Henry VIII. When England returned to Catholicism under Mary I, Cranmer recanted his Protestant faith, but later withdrew his recantation.

He was burnt at the stake in 1556. Gardiner was the son of a clothworker. He was born in Bury Saint Edmunds in about 1495. He studied civil and canon law, and became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. A loyal servant to Henry VIII, he worked for the divorce, but Protestant doctrines held no attractions for him and he was probably the author of the Six Articles (1539). In 1535, he published De vera obedientia (On true obedience) defending the Royal Supremacy, and recommending submission to secular rulers. Gardiner allied with conservative religious faction led by the Duke of Norfolk, and played a part in the fall of Thomas Cromwell, but himself was imprisoned in the Tower during Edward VI's reign. Restored to favor under Mary, he became Lord Chancellor and Mary's chief advisor. He died in 1555. Thomas More "He was the person of the greatest virtue these islands ever produced" (Samuel Johnson) "With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women, even with his own wife, he is full of jokes and banter. ...

No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one departs less from common sense " (Erasmus of Rotterdam) More was the son of a prominent judge, raised in the Household of Cardinal Morton, and a scholar of international renown for his knowledge of the classics. He was an important humanist, who criticized abuses in both church and state. Many of his complaints appeared in Utopia (1516), an account of a nonexistent perfect state. ('Utopia' means 'nowhere'). He made a successful career as a lawyer, and in 1529 became Lord Chancellor on the fall of Wolsey. However, his refusal to join in the attack on Rome and to swear that Anne Boleyn was lawful Queen lost him royal favor. More was arrested, convicted of treason after perjured evidence was given by Cromwell's agent Sir Richard Rich, and beheaded in 1535. Richard Rich went from success to success - deserted Cromwell in time to save his own skin, persecuted Roman Catholics under Edward and Protestants under Mary, and became a baron and Lord Chancellor.

Sir Thomas More | English humanist and statesman | Britannica.com English humanist and statesman Alternative Title: Saint Thomas More Sir Thomas More Saint John Fisher Sir Thomas More, also called Saint Thomas More (born February 7, 1478, London , England —died July 6, 1535, London; canonized May 19, 1935; feast day June 22), English humanist and statesman, chancellor of England (1529–32), who was beheaded for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England . He is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church . Sir Thomas More, oil on panel by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527; in the Frick Collection, New York … Photos.com/Thinkstock Early life and career Thomas—the eldest son of John More, a lawyer who was later knighted and made a judge of the King’s Bench—was educated at one of London’s best schools, St. Anthony’s in Threadneedle Street, and in the household of John Morton , archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England.

The future cardinal , a shrewd judge of character, predicted that the bright and winsome page would prove to be a “marvellous man.” His interest sent the boy to the University of Oxford , where More seems to have spent two years, mastering Latin and undergoing a thorough drilling in formal logic. About 1494 his father brought More back to London to study the common law. In February 1496 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four legal societies preparing for admission to the bar. In 1501 More became an “utter barrister,” a full member of the profession. Thanks to his boundless curiosity and a prodigious capacity for work, he managed, along with the law, to keep up his literary pursuits. He read avidly from Holy Scripture, the Church Fathers, and the classics and tried his hand at all literary genres . Although bowing to his father’s decision that he should become a lawyer, More was prepared to be disowned rather than disobey God’s will. To test his vocation to the priesthood, he resided for about four years in the Carthusian monastery adjoining Lincoln’s Inn and shared as much of the monks’ way of life as was practicable.

Although attracted especially to the Franciscan order, More decided that he would best serve God and his fellowmen as a lay Christian. More, however, never discarded the habits of early rising, prolonged prayer, fasting, and wearing the hair shirt. God remained the centre of his life. In late 1504 or early 1505, More married Joan Colt, the eldest daughter of an Essex gentleman farmer. She was a competent hostess for non-English visitors, such as the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus , who was given permanent rooms in the Old Barge on the Thames side in Bucklersbury in the City of London , More’s home for the first two decades of his married life. Erasmus wrote his Praise of Folly while staying there. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent The important negotiations More conducted in 1509 on behalf of a number of London companies with the representative of the Antwerp merchants confirmed his competence in trade matters and his gifts as an interpreter and spokesman.

From September 1510 to July 1518, when he resigned to be fully in the king’s service, More was one of the two undersheriffs of London, “the pack-horses of the City government.” He endeared himself to the Londoners—as an impartial judge, a disinterested consultant, and “the general patron of the poor.” More’s domestic idyll came to a brutal end in the summer of 1511 with the death, perhaps in childbirth, of his wife. He was left a widower with four children, and within weeks of his first wife’s death he married Alice Middleton, the widow of a London mercer. She was several years his senior and had a daughter of her own; she did not bear More any children. British Culture and Politics More’s History of King Richard III, written in Latin and in English between about 1513 and 1518, is the first masterpiece of English historiography. Though never finished, it influenced succeeding historians. William Shakespeare is indebted to More for his portrait of the tyrant. The Utopia In May 1515 More was appointed to a delegation to revise an Anglo-Flemish commercial treaty.

The conference was held at Brugge , with long intervals that More used to visit other Belgian cities. He began in the Low Countries and completed after his return to London his Utopia, which was published at Leuven in December 1516. The book was an immediate success with the audience for which More wrote it: the humanists and an elite group of public officials. Map of the island of Utopia, woodcut by Ambrosius Holbein, 1518; from the 1518 edition of Sir … © Photos.com/Thinkstock Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Utopia is a Greek name of More’s coining, from ou-topos (“no place”); a pun on eu-topos (“good place”) is suggested in a prefatory poem. More’s Utopia describes a pagan and communist city-state in which the institutions and policies are entirely governed by reason. The order and dignity of such a state provided a notable contrast with the unreasonable polity of Christian Europe, divided by self-interest and greed for power and riches, which More described in Book I, written in England in 1516.

The description of Utopia is put in the mouth of a mysterious traveler, Raphael Hythloday, in support of his argument that communism is the only cure against egoism in private and public life. Through dialogue More speaks in favour of the mitigation of evil rather than its cure, human nature being fallible. Among the topics discussed by More in Utopia were penology, state-controlled education, religious pluralism , divorce, euthanasia , and women’s rights. The resulting demonstration of his learning, invention, and wit established his reputation as one of the foremost humanists. Soon translated into most European languages, Utopia became the ancestor of a new literary genre , the utopian romance. Career as king’s servant On May 1, 1517, a mob of London apprentices attacked foreign merchants in the city. More’s role in quenching this Evil May Day riot inspired a scene, attributed to Shakespeare, in Sir Thomas More, a composite Elizabethan play. More’s success in the thorny negotiations with the French at Calais and Boulogne (September to December 1517) over suits born of the recent war made it harder for him to dodge royal service.

That year he became a member of the king’s council and from October was known as master of requests. He resigned his City office in 1518. While yielding to pressure, he embraced the chance of furthering peace and reform. The lord chancellor , Thomas Wolsey , now looked ready to implement some of the political ideas of the Christian humanists. Between 1515 and 1520 More campaigned spiritedly for Erasmus’s religious and cultural program—Greek studies as the key to a theology renewed by a return to the Bible and the Church Fathers—in poems commending Erasmus’s New Testament. More’s Latin poems were published in 1518 under one cover between his Utopia and Erasmus’s Epigrammata; they are extremely varied in metre and matter, their main topics being government, women, and death.

Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Erasmus offered his London friend as a model for the intelligentsia of Europe in letters to the German humanist Ulrich von Hutten (1519); the Paris scholar Germain de Brie (1520), with whom More had just engaged in a polemic; and Guillaume Budé , whom More had met in June 1520 at the Field of Cloth of Gold , the meeting ground, near Calais, between Henry VIII and Francis I . According to Erasmus, simplicity was More’s mark in food and dress. He shrank from nothing that imparted an innocent pleasure, even of a bodily kind. He had a speaker’s voice and a memory that served him well for extempore rejoinders. “Born for friendship,” he could extract delight from the dullest people or things. His family affections were warm yet unobtrusive. He gave freely and gladly, expecting no thanks. Amid his intense professional activity, he found hours for prayer and for supervising his domestic school. Most of his charges were girls, to whom he provided the most refined Classical and Christian education.

In 1520 and 1521 More took part in talks, at Calais and Brugge, with the emperor Charles V and with the Hansa merchants. In 1521 he was made undertreasurer and knighted. His daughter Margaret married William Roper, a lawyer. For Henry VIII ’s Defense of the Seven Sacraments, More acted as “a sorter out and placer of the principal matters.” When Martin Luther hit back, More vindicated the king in a learned, though scurrilous, Responsio ad Lutherum (1523). In addition to his routine duties at the Exchequer , More served throughout these years as “Henry’s intellectual courtier,” secretary, and confidant. He welcomed foreign envoys, delivered official speeches, drafted treaties, read the dispatches exchanged between the king and Wolsey, and answered in the king’s name. Often he rode posthaste between the cardinal’s headquarters at Westminster and Henry’s various hunting residences. In April 1523 More was elected speaker of the House of Commons; while loyally striving to secure the government’s ends, he made a plea for truer freedom of speech in Parliament.

The universities—Oxford in 1524, Cambridge in 1525—made him their high steward . Trending Topics Opium Wars By 1524 More had moved to Chelsea. The Great House he built there bore the stamp of his philosophy, its gallery, chapel, and library all geared toward studious and prayerful seclusion. In 1525 he was promoted to chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which put a large portion of northern England under his judiciary and administrative control. On More’s return from an embassy to France in the summer of 1527, Henry VIII “laid the Bible open before him” as proof that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon , who had failed to produce a male heir, was void, even incestuous, because of her previous marriage to Henry’s late brother. More tried in vain to share the king’s scruples, but long study confirmed his view that Catherine was the king’s true wife.

After being commissioned in March 1528 by Bishop Tunstall of London to read all heretical writings in the English language in order to refute them for the sake of the unlearned, More published seven books of polemics between 1529 and 1533—the first and best being A Dialogue Concerning Heresies. Years as chancellor of England Together with Tunstall, More attended the congress of Cambrai at which peace was made between France and the Holy Roman Empire in 1529. Though the Treaty of Cambrai represented a rebuff to England and, more particularly, a devastating reverse for Cardinal Wolsey ’s policies, More managed to secure the inclusion of his country in the treaty and the settlement of mutual debts. When Wolsey fell from power, having failed in his foreign policy and in his efforts to procure the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine, More succeeded him as lord chancellor on October 26, 1529. On November 3, 1529, More opened the Parliament that was later to forge the legal instruments for his death.

As the king’s mouthpiece, More indicted Wolsey in his opening speech and, in 1531, proclaimed the opinions of universities favourable to the divorce; but he did not sign the letter of 1530 in which England’s nobles and prelates, including Wolsey, pressured the pope to declare the first marriage void, and he tried to resign in 1531, when the clergy acknowledged the king as their supreme head, albeit with the clause “as far as the law of Christ allows.” More’s longest book, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, in two volumes (1532 and 1533), centres on “what the church is.” To the stress of stooping for hours over his manuscript More ascribed the sharp pain in his chest, perhaps angina, which he invoked when begging Henry to free him from the yoke of office. This was on May 16, 1532, the day when the governing body (synod) of the church in England delivered to the crown the document by which they promised never to legislate or so much as convene without royal assent, thus placing a layperson at the head of the spiritual order.

More meanwhile continued his campaign for the old faith, defending England’s antiheresy laws and his own handling of heretics, both as magistrate and as writer, in two books of 1533: the Apology and the Debellacyon. He also laughs away the accusation of greed leveled by William Tyndale , translator of parts of the first printed English Bible. More’s poverty was so notorious that the hierarchy collected £5,000 to recoup his polemical costs, but he refused this grant lest it be construed as a bribe. Indictment, trial, and execution More’s refusal to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn , whom Henry married after his divorce from Catherine in 1533, marked him out for vengeance . Several charges of accepting bribes recoiled on the heads of his accusers. In February 1534 More was included in a bill of attainder for alleged complicity with Elizabeth Barton , who had uttered prophecies against Henry’s divorce, but he produced a letter in which he had warned the nun against meddling in affairs of state.

He was summoned to appear before royal commissioners on April 13 to assent under oath to the Act of Succession , which declared the king’s marriage with Catherine void and that with Anne valid. This More was willing to do, acknowledging that Anne was in fact anointed queen. But he refused the oath as then administered because it entailed a repudiation of papal supremacy. On April 17, 1534, he was imprisoned in the Tower. More welcomed prison life. But for his family responsibilities, he would have chosen for himself “as strait a room and straiter too,” as he said to his daughter Margaret, who after some time took the oath and was then allowed to visit him. In prison, More wrote A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, a masterpiece of Christian wisdom and of literature. The Arrest and Execution of Sir Thomas More in 1535, oil on panel by … © Photos.com/Thinkstock His trial took place on July 1, 1535.

Richard Rich , the solicitor general, a creature of Thomas Cromwell , the unacknowledged head of the government, testified that the prisoner had, in his presence, denied the king’s title as supreme head of the Church of England. Despite More’s scathing denial of this perjured evidence, the jury’s unanimous verdict was “guilty.” Before the sentence was pronounced, More spoke “in discharge of his conscience.” The unity of the church was the main motive of his martyrdom. His second objection was that “no temporal man may be head of the spirituality.” Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, to which he also referred as the cause for which they “sought his blood,” had been the occasion for the assaults on the church: among his judges were the new queen’s father, brother, and uncle. More was sentenced to the traitor’s death—“to be drawn, hanged, and quartered”—which the king changed to beheading. During five days of suspense, More prepared his soul to meet “the great spouse” and wrote a beautiful prayer and several letters of farewell. He walked to the scaffold on Tower Hill.

“See me safe up,” he said to the lieutenant, “and for my coming down let me shift for myself.” He told the onlookers to witness that he was dying “in the faith and for the faith of the Catholic Church, the king’s good servant and God’s first.” He altered the ritual by blindfolding himself, playing “a part of his own” even on this awful stage. The news of More’s death shocked Europe. Erasmus mourned the man he had so often praised, “whose soul was more pure than any snow, whose genius was such that England never had and never again will have its like.” The official image of More as a traitor did not gain credence even in Protestant lands. Assessment Though the triumph of Anglicanism brought about a certain eclipse of Thomas More, the publication of the state papers restored a fuller and truer picture of More, preparing public opinion for his beatification (1886). He was canonized by Pius XI in May 1935.

Though the man is greater than the writer and though nothing in his life “became him like the leaving of it,” his “golden little book” Utopia has earned him greater fame than the crown of martyrdom or the million words of his English works. Erasmus’s phrase describing More as omnium horarum homo was rendered later as “a man for all seasons” and was given currency by Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons (1960). Monuments to More have been placed in Westminster Hall, the Tower of London , and the Chelsea Embankment, all in London. In the words of the English Catholic apologist G.K.

Chesterton, More “may come to be counted the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English History.” More about Sir Thomas More 20 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References 1000+ images about Saint Thomas More on Pinterest | St thomas, The scaffold and Patron saints Saint Thomas More Medal Necklace by HopeFaithAndBeads on Etsy Saint Thomas More is the patron saint of : • Adopted children • Civil servants • Court clerks • Difficult marriages • Large families • Lawyers • Politicians • Step parents • Widowers See More Treason From the Act of Supremacy (1534) Albeit the king's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognized by the clergy of this realm in their convocations, yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of England, and to repress and extirpate all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, be it enacted, by authority of this present Parliament, that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors

, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicans Ecclesia; and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all honors, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of the supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquility of this realm; any usage, foreign land, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the contrary

 hereof notwithstanding.

From the Trial of Sir Thomas More, 1535 As to the first article, charging me with having always maliciously op­posed the King's second marriage, I will only answer that what I have said has been according to my conscience. I never wished to conceal the truth, and if I had, I should have been a traitor. For this error, if error it should be called, I have been condemned to perpetual imprisonment, which I have already suffered for fifteen months, and my goods confiscated. For this rea­son I will only reply to the principal charge against me, that I have in­curred the penalty of the Statute made in the last Parliament since I was in prison, by refusing to the King his title of Supreme Head of the Church, in proof of which you allege my reply to the Secretary and Council, that as I was dead to the world, I did not care to think of such things, but only of the passion of Christ.

I reply that your Statute cannot condemn me to death for such silence, for neither your Statute nor any laws in the world punish people except for words or deed, surely not for keeping silence." To this the King's proctor replied that such silence was a certain proof of malice intended against the Statute, especially as every faithful subject, on being questioned about the Statute, was obliged to answer categorically that the Statute was good and wholesome. "Surely," replied More, "if what the common law says is true, that he who is silent seems to consent, my si­lence should rather be taken as approval than contempt of your Statute. You say that all good subjects are obliged to reply; but I say that the faith­ful subject is more bound to his conscience and his soul than to anything else in the world, provided his conscience, like mine, does not raise scandal or sedition, and I assure you that I have never discovered what is in my conscience to any person living.

… Touching the third article, that when I was examined by the Council, I answered that your Statute was like a two-edged sword, for he who ap­proved it would ruin his soul, and he who contradicted it, his body; and that the bishop of Rochester answered similarly, showing that we were confederates, I reply that I only answered thus conditionally, that if the Statute cut both ways like a two-edged sword, how could a man behave so as not to incur either danger? I do not know how the Bishop replied, but if he answered like me, it must have been from the agreement between us in opinion, but not because we had ever arranged it between us. Be assured I never did or said anything maliciously against the Statute, but it may be that this has been maliciously reported to the King. … More then spoke as follows: "Since I am condemned, and God knows how, I wish to speak freely of your Statute, for the discharge of my con­science.

For the seven years that I have studied the matter, I have not read in any approved doctor of the Church that a temporal lord could or ought to be head of the spirituality." The Chancellor interrupting him, said, "What, More, you wish to be considered wiser and of better conscience than all the bishops and nobles of the realm?" To this More replied, "My lord, for one bishop of your opinion I have a hundred saints of mine; and for one parliament of yours, and God knows of what kind, I have all the General Councils for 1,000 years, and for one kingdom I have France and all the kingdoms of Christendom." Norfolk told him that now his malice was clear. More replied, "What I say is necessary for discharge of my con­science and satisfaction of my soul, and to this I call God to witness, the sole Searcher of human hearts.

I say further, that your Statute is ill made, because you have sworn never to do anything against the Church, which through all Christendom is one and undivided, and you have no authority, without the common consent of all Christians, to make a law or Act of Parliament or Council against the union of Christendom. I know well that the reason why you have condemned me is because I have never been willing to consent to the King's second marriage; but I hope in the divine goodness and mercy, that as St. Paul and St. Stephen whom he persecuted are now friends in Paradise, so we, though differing in this world, shall be united in perfect charity in the other. I pray God to protect the King and give him good counsel. From The Life of Sir Thomas More (written in 1556) By William Roper (More’s Son In-law) So remained Sir Thomas More in the Tower more than a sevennight after his judgment.

From whence the day before he suffered he sent his shirt of hair, not willing to have it seen, to my wife, his dearly beloved daughter, and a letter, written with a coal, contained in the foresaid book of his works, plainly expressing the fervent desire he had to suffer on the morrow in these words: "I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry if it should be any longer than to-morrow. For to-morrow is St. Thomas' even, and the Octave of St. Peter, and therefore to-morrow long I to go to God, that were a day very meet and convenient for me. And I never liked your manners better, than when you kissed me last. For I like when daughterly love, and dear charity hath no leisure to look to worldly courtesy." And so upon the next morning, being Tuesday, St. Thomas' even, and the Octave of St.

Peter in the year of our Lord God 1537, according as he in his letter the day before had wished, early in the morning came to him Sir Thomas Pope, his singular friend, on message from the King and his Council, that he should before nine of the clock in the same morning suffer death, and that therefore forthwith he should prepare himself thereto. "Mr. Pope," saith he, "for your good tidings I most heartily thank you. I have been always bounden much to the King's Highness for the benefits and honors which he hath still from time to time most bountifully heaped upon me, and yet more bounded I am to his Grace for putting me into this place, where I have had convenient time and space to have remembrance of my end, and so help me God most of all, Mr. Pope, am I bound to his Highness, that it pleased him so shortly to rid me of the miseries of this wretched world. And therefore will I not fail most earnestly to pray for his Grace both here, and also in another world." "The King's pleasure is further," quoth Mr.

Pope, "that at your execution you shall not use many words." "Mr. Pope" (quoth he), "you do well that you give me warning of his Grace's pleasure. For otherwise, had I purposed at that time somewhat to have spoken, but of no matter wherewith his Grace, or any other should have had cause to be offended. Nevertheless, whatsoever I intend I am ready obediently to conform myself to his Grace's commandment. And I beseech you, good Mr. Pope, to be a mean unto his Highness, that my daughter Margaret may be present at my burial." "The King is well contended already" (quoth Mr. Pope) "that your wife, children, and other friends shall have free liberty to be present thereat." "O how much beholden," then said Sir Thomas More, "am I to his Grace, that unto my poor burial vouchsafeth to have so gracious consideration." Wherewithal Mr. Pope taking his leave of him could not refrain from weeping, which Sir Thomas More perceiving, comforted him in this wise, "Quiet yourself, good Mr. Pope, and be not discomforted.

For I trust that we shall once in heaven see each other full merrily, where we shall be sure to live and love together in joyful bliss eternally." Upon whose departure Sir Thomas More, as one that had been invited to a solemn feast, changed himself into his best apparel; which Mr. Lieutenant espying, advised him to put it off, saying, That he that should have it was but a worthless fellow. "What Mr. Lieutenant" (quoth he), "shall I account him a worthless fellow, that will do me this day so singular a benefit? Nay, I assure you, were it cloth of gold I would account it well bestowed on him, as St. Cyprian did, who gave his executioner thirty pieces of gold." And albeit at length, through Mr. Lieutenant's persuasions he altered his apparel, yet, after the example of that holy martyr St. Cyprian, did he of that little money that was left him, send one angel of gold to his executioner. And so was he brought by Mr.

Lieutenant out of the Tower, and from thence led towards the place of execution, where going up the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall, he said to Mr. Lieutenant, "I pray you, I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." Then desired he all the people thereabouts to pray for him, and to bear witness with him, that he should then suffer death in and for the faith of the holy Catholic Church, which done he kneeled down, and after his prayers said, he turned to the executioner, and with a cheerful countenance spake unto him. "Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office, my neck is very short. Take heed therefore thou shoot not awry for saving thine honesty." So passed Sir Thomas More out of this world to God upon the very same day in which himself had most desired.

The Execution of Thomas More (1535) Account Written by Tudor Chronicler Edward Hall This year also on 17 June was arraigned at Westminster in the king's bench John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, for treason against the king, and he was condemned there by a jury of knights and esquires (the lord chancellor sitting as high judge), who passed this sentence on him - that the said John Fisher should go from thence to the place where he came from, which was the Tower of London, and from thence to be drawn through the City of London to Tyburn, there to be hanged, cur down alive, his bowels taken out of his body and burnt before him, his head cut off, and his body be divided into four parts and his head and body be set in such places as the king should assign. The effect of the treason was denying the king to be Supreme Head of the Church of England, according to a statute, The Act of Supremacy, made in the last session of Parliament.

This year also on 1 July, being Thursday, Sir Thomas More, sometime chancellor of England, was arraigned at Westminster for high treason and there condemned, and the Tuesday after, being 6 July, he was beheaded at Tower Hill and his body was buried within the chapel in the Tower of London, and his head was set on London Bridge. The effect of his death was for the same cause that the bishop of Rochester died for. On the morning of 06 July 1535, Sir Thomas More, former Lord Chancellor of the Realm and one of the greatest Renaissance humanists of the age, climbed the executioners platform at the Tower of London. He asked the crowd to pray for his friend, King Henry VIII and told the people assembled that he would pray for them in the next life. He then asked the royal officials present to tell their lord that “More had died a faithful servant to the king, but to God first.” He then knelt down in prayer. When More was finished praying, he put his head on the block and stretched out his arms. The executioner’s blade came down quickly administering the king’s justice. With one stroke, Thomas More was gone.

Only a few years earlier, More’s execution would have been unthinkable. He had been perhaps the closest advisor to King Henry VIII, a man the king could trust. A man whose principles were known to be beyond reproach, More was even known to disagree (from time to time) with Henry about politics and legal matters. Both men considered themselves to be children of the Renaissance and humanists to the core, so arguments over theoretical situations were common. Over time, More grew closer and closer to Henry. When Cardinal Woolsey, the chancellor (chief advisor) fell from the king’s grace over Henry’s desire to procure an annulment of his first marriage, the king turned the office over to his friend More. The new chancellor was reluctant to accept his new office, but hesitantly did so as the king’s humble servant. It would prove to be a fateful decision. More’s legal integrity and skill was unchallenged, but so were his beliefs in the supremacy of the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church.

At first, More used the chancellorship to go after what he deemed to be the heresies of the Reformation, but as the rift between his master and Pope Clement VII deepened, More was forced to choose between his religious beliefs and the reality of the situation in England. It was a choice that would ultimately doom the chancellor to the executioner’s block. In 1532, as the split deepened, More convinced the king to let him step down and to retire with the promise that the former chancellor would never speak ill of the monarch or the decision to break with Rome. Henry relented. It was only a temporary reprieve. More never believed that Henry’s new marriage to Anne Boleyn was legal, although he did admit publicly that Parliament could make her queen. In Apr 1534, More was summoned before a legal commission to swear an oath of allegiance to the crown as the supreme head of the English church. He refused. Henry put him in prison for over a year, trying to soften More’s stance, but to no avail. On 01 Jul 1535 More was tried and convicted for treason against the king. He spent the next few days in the Tower of London.

Five days later, More was executed on Tower Hill. More’s body was buried at the Chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula at the Tower (ironically, More’s nemesis, Anne Boleyn, would meet a similar fate less than a year later and is buried in the same chapel). The chancellor’s head was boiled, stuck on a pike and placed on London Bridge for a month. Reports say that More’s daughter Meg was able to purchase the head before it was thrown into the river. Legend says that it was buried in the Roper family burial chamber in Canterbury. Through an in-depth analysis of various primary and secondary sources, students in this lesson will identify, understand and be able to explain the story of Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More and how his position on King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church ultimately led to his arrest, trial and execution. Students will identify, analyze, understand and be able to explain the story of Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More and his place in England during the Reformation. Students will identify, analyze, understand and be able to explain how More’s positions on King Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Students will identify, analyze, understand and be able to explain how More’s positions on Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church ultimately led to his arrest, trial and execution. To view resource web pages, download the lesson plan PDF above. I. Anticipatory Set Writing / Question: What is an annulment? Why might it be used? (5 min) Handouts – Copies of the primary sources and readings from the websites listed. (5 min) II. Body of Lesson

Question: Who was the Lord Chancellor beheaded for refusing to recognize Henry VIII as head of the church?
Answer: Thomas More