Thomas More was born in London in 1478, the son of a judge. He trained as a lawyer, thought seriously of becoming a monk, and became one of the leading humanists of his age, a friend of Erasmus and the author of Utopia (1516). He married twice, had his daughters educated as carefully as his son, and rose in the service of Henry VIII, becoming Lord Chancellor in 1529.
He resigned in 1532 as the king moved to break with Rome. In 1534 he refused the oath required under the Act of Succession, whose wording also rejected the pope's authority, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. There he wrote A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, set in Hungary under threat of Turkish invasion. Convicted of treason, he was beheaded on 6 July 1535, declaring, according to a contemporary report, that he died the king's good servant, but God's first. He was canonised in 1935.
Thomas More in the library (1 work)
- Thomas More: A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation — 1534; edition 1847
Written in the Tower of London while More awaited execution: two Hungarians, facing a Turkish invasion, talk about suffering and trust in God.