About Sir Thomas More - of the Church as well as the nature of law and the scope of the state's legitimate authority. Imprisoned in the Tower of London for fifteen months bef...

Реферат - About Sir Thomas More

of the Church as well as the nature of law and the scope of the state's legitimate authority. Imprisoned in the Tower of London for fifteen months before his execution, More was heavily pressured by his family and friends to sign the oath accepting Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church in England. More steadfastly refused but never expressed animosity towards those who complied. During this time, he wrote a number of devotional and exegetical works, including A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, A Treatise on the Passion, and The Sadness of Christ. That More was God's servant first and foremost was readily seen in his life of prayer and penance. From the time he was a young man, More started each day with private prayer, spiritual reading, and Mass, regardless of his many duties. He lived demanding mortifications in his characteristically discreet and merry manner. He generously cared for the poor and needy, and involved his own children in this same work. He had special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, to frequent meditation on the Passion, and to the rosary. More was executed on July 6, 1535, and canonized on May 19, 1935. He has become a symbol of professional integrity, famous for the balanced judgment, ever-present humor, and undaunted courage that led him to be known, even in his own lifetime, as the "man for all seasons.

The Trial of Sir Thomas More, 1535

The following, sadly, is a true story. It is the story of Sir Thomas More, beheaded in London in 1535.

Thomas More was born in London on February 7, 1478. He was educated at St. Anthony's School in London, then the best in the city. More managed to get a placement with the family of the Archbishop of Canterbury through his father's influence. Sir Thomas More, Senior, was a prominent local barrister. Thomas Junior went on to study at Oxford where he wanted to learn Greek. But Greek was frowned upon by the elite because it was thought that it would give young people access to "novel and dangerous ways of thinking." Couldn't have that. More's father removed him from Oxford and sent him to tutor in law. More soon became a lawyer (barrister) like his father but he did not lose his interest in Greek studies and he read all the Greek books that he could. When he was about twenty, he toyed with the idea of becoming a monk, fasting every Friday, sleeping on the ground with only a log as pillow. But he soon bored of that and then befriended Erasmus, then an "prince of learning" and More renewed his learning of Greek. He began to translate Greek publications in English. He also continued his career as a barrister and was elected to Parliament in 1504. In 1515, Thomas More published Utopia, in which he theorized about the perfect world. In Utopia, More foresaw cities of 100,000 inhabitants as being ideal. In his Utopia, there was no money, just a monthly market where citizens bartered for what they needed. Persons engaged to each other were allowed to see each other naked before marriage so that they would know if the other was "deformed". Six years before Utopia was published, Henry the 7th died and he was replaced by son, Henry the 8th. King Henry took a liking to Thomas More although More did not reciprocate. The King was known to put his arm around More. "This growing favour, by which many men would have been carried away," writes the Encyclopedia Britannica "did not impose upon More. He discouraged the king's advances, showed reluctance to go to the palace and seemed constrained when he was there. Then the King began to come to More's house and would dine with him without previous notice." Privately, More did not like Henry the 8th and told his oldest son-in-law that "if my head would win him a castle in France, it should not fail to go." More was right. Henry the 8th failed miserably as King. He divorced his first wife (and his brother's widow), Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the King of Spain and married Anne Boleyn, without the blessing of the Pope. More was a devout Catholic and believed deeply in the supremacy of the Pope and the impropriety of this marriage. It would be his downfall.

Henry promoted More until More became Lord Chancellor. As such he was master of equity law and of the Court of Chancery, the most powerful judicial office in the land. But, in 1532, when he saw that King Henry was determined to marry Anne Boleyn and that divorce was in the air, rather than stay in the King's cabinet, he claimed ill health and was allowed to retire from the bench.

That's when things started to deteriorate for him. The King invited him to the marriage with Boleyn

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