Lawyer, humanist, author of Utopia, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII, from Oct 1529 to 1532. He was sentenced to death for refusing to acknowledge the king as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England."
A barrister and humanist, More was a close friend of Erasmus and ardent supporter of his programme, which found expression in his own home where all his children, including the girls, were encourage to learn. In 1516 More published his famous Utopia; its title meaning "no place," it imagines a world where there is no pride and greed, where everything is held in common, and gold and diamonds are seen as so worthless, they use gold to make urinals and give diamonds to children to play as marbles which they soon cast aside when they grow up. Despite his learning and often-portrayed kindly manners, however, More can be gross and abusive to the point of being revolting (as evidenced in his reply to Luther on behalf of the king).
A staunch Roman Catholic, More began, in about 1520, to attack to attack the teachings of Luther and his teachings which were beginning to make inroads into England. His anti-evangelical passion took a dramatic shift in 1529 when More was appointed Henry's Lord Chancellor in Oct 1529, and John Stokesley as new bishop of London. Both of them were ardent heretic hunters; loads of Reformation-inspired literature were burned and hundreds were put to death for their new found faith. But More's position was no longer safe. Seeing how things were shaping up as Henry VIII demanded the submission of the church to his rule, he resigned as Lord Chancellor in 1532. He could keep quiet about his disapproval of Henry's divorce of his wife Catherine and marriage to Anne Boleyn. But he could not—when Thomas Cromwell, with the help of Cranmer, engineered the break with Rome, and parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in Nov 1534, which made the king "the Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy in England,"—condemn "my soul to perpetual damnation" by signing the oath. He was the only lay-person to refuse to do so. He was charged with treason, beheaded in the Tower of London on 6 July 1535, and his head displayed on London Bridge.
Further Reading:
Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.
Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1984.
Gerard Wegemer, Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage. New York: Scepter Publishers, 1995.
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