Sir Thomas More: life and legacy

Interview Sir Thomas More

Interviewer: Sir Thomas More, could you please tell the committee, for the record where and when you where born?

Sir Thomas More: Certainly. I was born in Milk Street, London on February 7, 1478, I am the son of Sir John More, who made his living as a judge.

Could you enlighten us as to just how you were raised, so we may have a greater understanding of your present shortcomings, on the part of the king?

As I have said often, I am the kings good servant, but God's servant first. (Jokinen, 2004). I will of coarse please the committee with my humble history. I was a boy for only a short time, hardened by discipline and labor, though we lived in relative opulence with the grace of fine furnishings and a fine home (Chambers, 1958, pg. 91) the childhood is still but short in or age and I was fortunate to receive my education at St. Anthony's School in London and to page for the Archbishop Morton, who foresaw great things for me. I then studied at Oxford under the great Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn. During this time, I wrote comedies and studied Greek and Latin literature. One of my first works was an English translation of a Latin biography of the great Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola. You may have read it was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.

After this time I returned to London and studied Law, I became a barrister in 1501 but would probably, in retrospect have preferred the life of a Monk, a world I visit often, for clarity and grace. (Jokinen,2004)

I: It is widely accepted, Sir that you are a man of many talents, not the least of which is your prolific writings, but it is also clear that you espouse many progressive ideas of humanism. Why do you feel you have chosen to deny King Henry (VIII) your presence at the coronation of his Queen, Anne Boleyn, and your signature upon his divine decrees of Succession and Supremacy? (Jokinen, 2004)

TM: Sirs, I have honored the king in many ways, and his father before him as well. Yet, must draw the line at the absolution of the my motherland with the Papacy and the one true church. If the church be infallible, which I have often questioned or not, personal ambition and desire must not be the determination of an allegiance to faith. [audience gasps at the treasonous words of the great man] There is no guide within the words of Jesus, regardless of who interprets them that states a man should forsake his true legal wife and progeny because he would like to marry a younger woman, with more devious ambitions than even his own! On fornication my work Utopia expresses a clear expression of my inability to see the wisdom within the recent acts of my beloved King: