The biography of a great Christian who refused to betray his conscience even at the cost of his life

by John Farrow

THE reader will soon discover that my aim was not to write an exhaustive biography in the conventional sense, but to tell a story in general terms of a man and his friends and his enemies; his time and circumstance; a story of tenderness and violence and tragedy, and, above all, a story of courage and example. I am indebted to Fr. Joseph Donovan, S.J., Dean of Law at Loyola University in Los Angeles, who encouraged me to write the book and who, at the planning stage, took me to the Huntington Library. There, thanks to the graciousness of the Library officials, my appetite was stimulated by the famous Holbein collection and the treasure of papers and books of the period. The Assistant to the Librarian, Miss Gertrude Ruhnka, consented to aid me in the compilation of the considerable research. This she did most ably and I thank her deeply. Upon completion of the writing, I sent the manuscript to a More scholar and fellow devotee then in London, Dr. Frank Sullivan. He interrupted his busy literary labours at the British Museum to make valuable suggestions and criticism. I thank him also.

J.F.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Farrow was a man of many and various accomplishments. He was born in Australia and educated there as well as in England and on the Continent. He went to sea at an early age and served in the U.S. Marine Corps, the Merchant Service, the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy.

He wrote in many forms-verse, short stories, a novel and screen plays. His history, Pageant of the Popes, was awarded the Catholic Literary Prize. His biography, Damien the Leper, is a best seller in many lands. In 1956, he won the Academy Award for the best screen play and also the Screen Writers' Guild Award for the best comedy. He won the New York Critics' Award for direction and was nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for same.

John Farrow won many honors and decorations, among them Commander's rank in the Order of the British Empire, the Canadian Decoration, the Canadian Volunteer Medal with Clasp and several other war decorations and commendations from the governments of Great Britain and the Netherlands.

He was a Knight of the Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre (the Vatican), Knight of Malta and Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. He was awarded the Lateran Cross, the St. Thomas More Award of the University of San Francisco, a Doctorate from Loyola University and many other honors.

THE STORY OF THOMAS MORE was originally published by Sheed and Ward.


CHAPTER 1


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]


CHAPTER TWO

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 111 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 fourpence 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.



CHAPTER THREE


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 whiteclad 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 subdiaconate: "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 mimd 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.

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