Who Was St Thomas More?

by Kilian SC · December 9, 2016

Saint Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist—and a steadfast Catholic, a faithfulness that would cost him his life.

Born in London on February 7, 1478, he was the son of a successful lawyer and later judge. After studying in Oxford, he joined his father in the legal profession.

According to his friend, the Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus, More seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career to become a Carthusian monk. He joined them in their spiritual exercises but remained a layman.

He stood for election to parliament in 1504 and married Jane Colt the following year. Believing in educating women, he tutored his younger wife, and ensured that their three daughters — Margaret, Elizabeth and Cicely — and subsequently his step-daughters would receive the same high level of education as son John did.

Jane died in 1511, and within a month, More married the rich widow Alice Harpur Middleton. That marriage is believed to have been an economic rather than romantic union; it likely was never consummated.

More’s political career progressed rapidly. By 1523 he was the speaker of the House of Commons; two years later he was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, giving him executive and judicial responsibilities over much of northern England.

Upon the death of Cardinal Wolseley in 1529, King Henry VIII appointed him Lord High Chancellor of England, a position akin to prime minister.

In that role, he was very active in suppressing the Protestant Reformation that had been launched by Martin Luther in Germany. He denied rumours of having ordered Protestants tortured and executed, though during his chancellorship, six people were burned at the stake for heresy.

Meanwhile the conflict over supremacy between the papacy and the king was coming to a breaking point.

More loyally supported the supremacy of the pope over that of the king of England. In 1530, he refused to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. His relationship with Henry soured, and in 1532 More resigned his chancellorship.

A year later More refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as queen of England. Though he had acknowledged her queenship in writing, the snub was seen as an act of treason. Various attempts to charge More with trumped up crimes failed, but when refused to take the oath of supremacy of the crown in the relationship between the kingdom and the church in England, his fate was sealed.

In kangaroo court trials in 1535, More and Bishop John Fisher of Rochester were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. St Thomas was executed by beheading on July 6, 1535, two weeks after St John Fisher.

Pope Pius XI canonised More and Fisher in 1935 as martyrs. In 2000 Pope John Paul II declared him the “heavenly patron of statesmen and politicians”.

Interestingly, even the Church of England regards More and Fisher as saints and as Reformation martyrs.

He gave up public office when King Henry asserted supremacy over the Church in England so he could annul his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon and wed Anne Boleyn.

St Thomas was condemned for high treason after he refused to take an oath attached to the Act of Succession, which recognised any children of the marriage of Henry and Anne to be rightful heirs to the throne.

St Thomas Moore’s hairshirt on public display

The hairshirt worn by St Thomas More as he contemplated a martyr’s death in the Tower of London has been enshrined for public veneration. The folded garment made from goat’s hair was encased above an altar in Buckfast Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in south-west England.

Benedictine Abbot David Charlesworth of England’s Buckfast Abbey looks the encased hair shirt worn by St. Thomas More. The shirt is now on permanent display at the abbey. (CNS photo/Luke Michael Davies, courtesy Buckfast Abbey Media Studios)

St Thomas, a former Lord Chancellor of England, wore the shirt while he was incarcerated in the Bell Tower of the Tower of London awaiting execution for opposing the Protestant reforms of King Henry VIII.

Benedictine Abbot David Charlesworth said that the shirt had not been shown in public before.

He said that although the shirt was a secondary relic, he believed it was of greater significance than a body part, or primary relic, because it was directly linked to the religious convictions of the saint.

“What this relic represents is St Thomas More’s faith,” Abbot Charlesworth said. “This relic says something about who Thomas More was as a Christian…it is a major relic. It is linked to his life of conversion and his identification with the sufferings of Christ.”

St Thomas married and fathered four children, but wore the shirt in private, sometimes beneath his robes of high office. Bishop Mark O’Toole of Plymouth, the diocese in which Buckfast is situated, said he hoped the shrine would become an international pilgrimage destination. He said there was a huge cult dedicated to St Thomas in countries as diverse as Germany and South Korea, as well as global significance as the patron of statesmen and politicians, and as patron saint of lawyers.—Simon Caldwell, CNS