Saint Thomas More

Thomas More was born in London in 1478, the son of a judge. As a boy he served in the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, studied at Oxford, and trained as a lawyer. For some years he lived near the Carthusian monks of London and shared their prayers, wondering whether he was called to religious life. He decided that he was called to marriage, but all his life he wore a hair shirt and kept hours of prayer.

He married twice and had four children, and he gave his daughters, especially Margaret, the same learning as his son, which was very unusual at the time. His house at Chelsea was famous for its learning, music and cheerfulness. His friend Erasmus described it as a school of the Christian religion. In 1516 he published Utopia, the satire that gave the word to our language.

He rose rapidly in the service of Henry VIII and in 1529 became Lord Chancellor, the highest office in the land after the king. But Henry was determined to put away his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and when the pope would not allow it, he made himself head of the Church in England. More resigned in 1532. In 1534 he refused to swear the oath that acknowledged the king’s new marriage and rejected the pope’s authority, and he was sent to the Tower of London.

After fifteen months he was convicted of treason on false testimony. He was beheaded on 6 July 1535, telling the crowd that he died “the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” He was canonized in 1935 with Saint John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, who had died for the same cause two weeks before him. Their shared feast is 22 June.