The Life of Thomas More

by Ackroyd, Peter

  He had other assistance, too. Erasmus wrote brief commentaries on the Nux of Ovid for the school and played a formative enough role to be described by Margaret as her ‘praeceptor’ or tutor. This may have been an honorific title, although his work with John Colet on the curriculum of St Paul’s school has already suggested the extent of his interest in early education. Cuthbert Tunstall’s On the Art of Calculation had a dedication for More with the instruction that the treatise should ‘be passed on to your children’.36 More’s contemporaries were aware of the significance of his experiment, and his educational example was followed by one or two more advanced households—the Elyots and the Parrs among them. Erasmus believed, with some exaggeration, that as a result of More’s practice there were now very few noblemen who did not wish their children to be skilled ‘bonis literis’.37 He also gave an indication of one of his friend’s other educational methods: More pretended to be unhappy with his children’s orthographic skills but, when they had copied out once more their own Latin essays, he sent them to Erasmus for comment. The Dutch scholar confessed himself amazed both by their style and their subject. He had once taken no interest in the education of women, but the example of Margaret More and the other girls changed his opinion.

  Sir Thomas More: while authority remained intact More was ‘merry’, to use one of his own favourite words, but if it was challenged he turned savage and unforgiving . (Illu. 14.1)

  Holbein’s drawing of the More household at Chelsea; this study of intimate relations is also a portrait of the last age of Catholic England. (Illu. 14.2)

  Sir John More, the father of Thomas More, who dominated his son’s life and career. (Illu. 14.3)

  William Roper, More’s son-in-law and first biographer, who helped to fashion the saintly legend. (Illu. 14.4)

  Margaret Roper, More’s eldest daughter, who was reputed to be the cleverest woman in England. (Illu. 14.5)

  Elizabeth Dauncey, More’s second daughter; her fashionable and expensive dress emphasises the fact that the entire family was rich, privileged and influential. (Illu. 14.6)

  Cicely Heron, youngest daughter of Thomas More; like all of his daughters, she materially assisted the family fortunes by marrying a man of wealth and power. (Illu. 14.7)

  Anne Cresacre, the wealthy young woman who became one of More’s wards; she completed her association with the household by marrying More’s son. (Illu. 14.8)

  John More, the son of Thomas More; the large nose and thin lips are also characteristic of the father in whose shadow he always lived. (Illu. 14.9)

  Henry VII: the astute, if autocratic, founder of the Tudor dynasty in whose long reign More established a lucrative and successful career. (Illu. 14.10)

  Richard III: Thomas More was five years old when this ‘malicious, wrathfull, enuious … euer frowarde’ king began his short reign. (Illu. 14.11)

  Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII, upon whose death More wrote a lament eschewing ‘worldly joy and frayle prosperitie’. (Illu. 14.12)

  The young Henry VIII, whose princely virtues encouraged More to enter public service for the benefit of ‘the comon welthe’. (Illu. 14.16)

  Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, who at the time of their separation asked him, ‘Wherein have I offended you?’ She considered that More, of all the royal councillors, ‘alone was worthy of the position and the name’. (Illu. 14.14)

  Anne Boleyn, the king’s mistress and second queen, who had woven into her livery the motto which, translated from the French, reads: ‘It will happen, whoever grudges it’. (Illu. 14.15)

  Yet testimony does not come from outsiders only. More, when away from home, sent several letters to his young scholars which manifest the nature of his interest; he composed them in Latin, as a model of style, and expected his children to reply in the same spirit. Each of them was supposed to write to him once a day, preparing their letters in advance so that they would be ready for the messenger. He urged them to continue their practice of verse composition and of disputation; he expected them to make constant progress in their essays and in their reading, at one point particularly recommending Sallust; he advised them to write in English and then translate their sentiments in Latin, remaining alert to solecisms and faulty constructions. On one occasion he sent his ‘schola’ a Latin poem. It was again meant as an exercise, in part, but also it is a charming expression of his deep and tender love for them;38 he recalls how he often took them in his arms, how he fed them cake and pears, how he dressed them in silken garments. Now, he said, they combined learning and eloquence with all their childhood charms. He was particularly interested in the skills of his eldest daughter, Margaret. He continually praised her virtue and her erudition; when he showed her letters to various dignitaries, they were uniformly surprised by the purity and dignity of her Latin style (one of them even insisted on presenting her with a gold coin). He wanted her to pursue her studies in philosophy and classical literature, but urged her to concentrate her attention at some point upon medical learning and sacred scripture. This might seem an odd combination of subjects but it was a sensible division of skills and scholarship: other members of More’s household were to become known for their medical ability as well as for their piety, at a time when practical learning was considered to be an aspect of Christian revelation.

  There are also in the letters various allusions to the tutors whom More employed for his children; they tended to be young men who went from More’s famous household, where they had in a sense been trained, to administrative service or university teaching. The first of them, John Clement, had been educated at St Paul’s School and may well have entered More’s household on the recommendation of John Colet. After his service to More, he was taken into the employment of Cardinal Wolsey and eventually lectured on rhetoric at the newly created Cardinal College in Oxford. His is a perfect example of a late medieval career based upon preferment as well as scholarship, on households as well as books, and it is charmingly embellished by the fact that Clement married one of More’s wards. There were at least four other tutors after his departure—two of whom had been known by Erasmus before they entered the More household. No doubt he suggested them, and their presence suggests the scholar’s continuing interest in the education of the young family. More’s own interest, of course, was profound and permanent. He had turned his household into a form of the community with which he was most comfortable, part monastery and part school, but it is impossible not to notice the amount of deliberation and control which entered his choice. In certain respects he resembles the inhabitants of his imaginary island, who are convinced of the efficacy of what in a later time would be called social engineering. In Utopia the priests are responsible for the training of children, applying to their still unformed minds the principles of order and good government as well as the precepts of learning. But once he had created his school of love and duty, More in a sense remained apart. There were few occasions when he divulged his true feelings and beliefs; it was only by accident, for example, that one of his children realised that he wore a hair shirt. There would also soon come a time when he was weeks, even months, away from home.

  CHAPTER XV

  KINGS’ GAMES

  OW, in his early thirties, More was always occupied. He professed himself to be a bad correspondent because of his work and his duties in the city; the impression he gave was of one thoroughly absorbed in the business of the world. Andrew Ammonius reported, for example, that More was with the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘quotidie’ (‘every day’);1 the nature of their transactions is not known, but they must have been of some importance, in a city where the Church was the most powerful landowner and employer. More himself was steadily gathering wealth and property; he decided to take the whole of the Old Barge on a lease from the Mercers and he also purchased some land in Essex. His more formal City business can be partly reconstructed. In the early months of 1512, for example, he was one of a deputation going ‘to the Kynges counsell to knowe their pleasure f
or Bysket etc. for the Kynge’.2 From the affairs of bakers he went on to those of the fishmongers, whom he assisted in negotiations, and in the same year ‘yong More’ appeared before the House of Lords with the wardens of ‘all craftes’; they went on a barge to Westminster, where More was one of the principal parties ‘to speke and make aunswere’ for the London guilds.3 He was also involved in negotiations with the Duke of Buckingham and the Bishop of Norwich over the right of certain tradesmen to participate in City government. Nor had his work for the Mercers noticeably decreased; he was one of eight negotiators ‘whiche the compeny of the Stapull have electe & chosen to haue Communicacion with the merchauntes adventerers’.4 More’s role would have been that of an arbitrator or legal representative trying to conclude an agreement in complex negotiations. It was said of his practice as a lawyer that he always attempted to persuade opposing parties to agree in advance, thereby avoiding a lawsuit, and he seems to have been preoccupied with the maintenance of harmony and good order. He was also made a commissioner for sewers, covering the long stretch of Thames bank between East Greenwich and Lambeth. His responsibilities comprised such matters as routine maintenance and the avoidance of flooding, but the riverside area included the noisome Long Southwark and Short Southwark (better known today as Tooley Street) as well as the Hospital of St Thomas the Martyr, and there were also real questions of public health to be considered. More, with his connection to Linacre and his deep interest in medical scholarship, was perhaps the first commissioner to deal with such matters in a practical and orderly way.

  His legal business was, in the meantime, flourishing. In 1515 he was appointed the senior ‘Lent’ reader of Lincoln’s Inn, where, beginning on the first Monday of that season, he would once again lecture in Law French on legal statutes. He had been made a ‘Double Reader’, an appointment that usually preceded the elevation to serjeant-at-law. It was an honour ‘to which few but rare and singular Lawyers doe euer attaine’,5 and with it More’s legal career was assured: there was every reason to suppose that he would eventually become a ‘Judge of the Lawe’.6 His own practice was eminently successful; as well as being involved in most major cases, he also engaged in the general law business of the day. The case of Broughton v. Thorneton (1511) includes a record of ‘Thomam More eruditem in lege’ being retained in a dispute over maintenance.7 In his prefatory letter to Utopia, More humbly excused the weaknesses of the book on the grounds that he was always involved in legal business, as arbitrator, or counsel, or under-sheriff.8

  He had a chamber in Lincoln’s Inn and, such was his name and fame, he had no need to resort like many of his colleagues to the pillars of St Paul’s where new business was to be found. No record of his pleadings has survived, but he has left evidence of his style in certain published disputations. We may imagine him in one of the courts of Westminster Hall, on a floor spread with rushes mixed with cloves and crushed herbs; all around him was the noise of argument and debate, with the rustling of papers and the mending of pens, the hurried consultations and the sporadic abuse from prisoners who were sometimes brought in cages to the Hall itself. More would have worn the ‘party coloured’ gown of the barrister with stripes of light blue, or green, or brown. He stood at the bar before the judges, or beside a table covered with papers, writs, seals and subpoenas. ‘Quaeso iudices diligenter attendite’:9 I ask you, judges, to listen carefully … Who would have believed it … Let us imagine … Who would have thought?… I request you again and again to be as attentive as possible … Let us look into the matter more carefully … I will provide you with very clear and sound arguments. And then, at the close, ‘Dixi’. I have finished.

  But his legal associations were not simply with Westminster Hall and his interests were wider than those of a common lawyer. At the end of 1514, for example, he was admitted as a member of Doctors’ Commons in Paternoster Row; this was a loose association of canon lawyers and civil lawyers involved in international and maritime affairs. It has been suggested that he joined this body, later known more formally as the College of Advocates, in order to prepare himself for the diplomatic and commercial ambassadorial career which soon followed. But Doctors’ Commons was also a convivial society that offered an opportunity to discuss affairs away from the press of business. Among those who met in that narrow street north of St Paul’s were John Colet, Andrew Ammonius and William Grocyn, any one of whom could have persuaded—or invited—him to join them. At precisely the point More was admitted, however, there were tokens and intimations of significant change in the application of canon law. One case, in particular, was an object of intense speculation among More’s colleagues.

  The affair of Richard Hunne remained a source of polemic and controversy for more than thirty years. A convenient if not exact analogy might be with the Dreyfus scandal in France—not exact because it can plausibly be claimed that the Hunne imbroglio was the first indication of that great transformation in England which was to occur at the Reformation. Richard Hunne was a wealthy London tailor. His infant child, Stephen, died at the age of five weeks; the rector of the parish in Whitechapel where he was buried, Thomas Dryffeld, asked in traditional fashion for the dead baby’s christening robe as a ‘mortuary’ gift, but Hunne refused to make this customary offering. A year later he was summoned to Lambeth Palace, where Cuthbert Tunstall—the chancellor of the diocese—declared him to be at fault. Still Hunne refused to pay the ‘mortuary’. Two significant events followed. At the end of that year, when he entered his parish church of St Margaret in Bridge Street for Vespers, the priest formally excommunicated him with the words ‘Hunne, thowe arte accursed and thow stondist accursed’;10 not only was Hunne exiled from the life of the community, but he was also in peril of losing his own soul within the perpetual flames of hell. But Hunne struck back. He accused the priest of slander and then issued a writ of praemunire against Dryffeld and his assistants. Praemunire was a late fourteenth-century provision which maintained the rights of the king and the common law courts against the Pope and the clerical courts; in essence by involving praemunire Hunne was claiming that the ecclesiastical authorities had no right to claim his property, the christening robe, with perhaps the further claim that by being tried in Lambeth Palace he had been brought before ‘a foreign and illegal bar’.11 The king and his judges, not the Pope and his representatives, should be the final arbiter of English rights.

  This was a vivid anticipation of later struggles, of course, but the Hunne case had its own sensational outcome. Hunne was next accused of heresy—both of protecting a known heretic and of possessing heretical books in English. On the face of it this might seem a fabricated charge to discredit Hunne’s resort to praemunire, but evidence exists that he was one of those London merchants who supported (and even espoused) Lollardy. His wife’s father had been a proselytiser of that radical cause, so close in many respects to early Protestantism, and it seems likely that Hunne had originally challenged the right of ‘mortuary’ precisely because of his Lollard or Wycliffite sympathies. He was arrested and imprisoned within the Lollards’ Tower in the west churchyard of St Paul’s. But before any conclusion had been reached, on the matters of slander or praemunire, he was found dead in his cell. Although the church authorities declared that he had hanged himself, rumours spread that, in the words of John Foxe, ‘his neck was broken with an iron chain, and he was wounded in other parts of his body, and then knit up in his own girdle’.12 A coroner’s inquest was held, which concluded that Hunne had been murdered by the Bishop of London’s chancellor, Dr Horsey, as well as by the sumner and bell-ringer of St Paul’s.

  Huge consternation and uproar followed as a result of this verdict. The furore was deepened when the Bishop of London declared Hunne to be a heretic, posthumously, and ordered that his corpse be taken to Smithfield and ceremonially burned. The ramifications went much deeper than the death of one man. After numerous disputes in parliament and convocation, it became clear that the death of Hunne raised questions about the privilege of clerics
to be tried only by the spiritual courts. Could Dr Horsey escape secular justice? The details of the statutes and precedents were so intricate that the king himself initiated a series of great debates, in the newly improved Baynard’s Castle by the Thames, on the Hunne case and its consequences. The lords temporal and spiritual, as well as the judges of the realm and other interested parties, listened to conflicting arguments and testimony. Yet it was the king’s silence which prevailed. He refused to respond to a request that the whole matter should be laid before the Pope in Rome and, by insisting that his own traditional powers should in no manner be abridged, he dismissed any suggestion that praemunire should be lifted; the minor clerical orders were, therefore, still in peril of being surrendered to the secular courts. But the decisions had this further consequence. If papal jurisdiction could be exercised only after royal licence, then essentially the Church could be reformed only by consent of king or parliament. The young king had in the plainest fashion asserted his own authority and had thereby threatened the powers of Pope and Church.