Thomas More Born: Utopia's Author and Martyr of Conscience

Thomas More spent his entire legal career building a reputation as the most honest man in England, and then was beheaded for it. Born on February 7, 1478, in London, the son of a successful barrister, he studied at Oxford and Lincoln's Inn before entering legal practice and public life. He was a humanist scholar and close friend of Erasmus, who dedicated "In Praise of Folly" to him, a title that puns on More's name. His book "Utopia," published in 1516, described an ideal island society and coined a word that entered every European language. Henry VIII appointed him Lord Chancellor in 1529, the highest legal office in England, because More was known for his incorruptible judgment and intellectual honesty. When Henry sought to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and break with the Roman Catholic Church to marry Anne Boleyn, More could not in good conscience support the move. He resigned the chancellorship in 1532. He said nothing publicly against the king. He simply refused to take the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging Henry as head of the Church of England. Under the Treason Act of 1534, silence was not enough. The government argued that More's refusal to affirm the oath constituted denial of the king's authority. At his trial, his former protégé Richard Rich testified that More had spoken against the oath in a private conversation. More denied it. The jury convicted him in fifteen minutes. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, a punishment Henry commuted to beheading. On July 6, 1535, More mounted the scaffold at the Tower of London and reportedly told the executioner, "I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself." The Catholic Church canonized him as a saint in 1935.