| 1 | <html>
|
|---|
| 2 |
|
|---|
| 3 | <head>
|
|---|
| 4 | <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
|
|---|
| 5 | <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
|
|---|
| 6 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
|
|---|
| 7 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
|
|---|
| 8 | <title>Primary Sources: The last letter of Sir Thomas More, 1535</title>
|
|---|
| 9 | <style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #0000FF; font-weight: bold}
|
|---|
| 10 | </style>
|
|---|
| 11 | </head>
|
|---|
| 12 |
|
|---|
| 13 | <body link="#0000FF" vlink="#0000FF" alink="#0000FF">
|
|---|
| 14 |
|
|---|
| 15 | <div align="center">
|
|---|
| 16 | <center>
|
|---|
| 17 | <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="94%">
|
|---|
| 18 | <tr>
|
|---|
| 19 | <td valign="bottom" colspan="3">
|
|---|
| 20 | <p align="center"> <br>
|
|---|
| 21 | <p align="center">
|
|---|
| 22 | <img border="0" src="primore.gif" width="527" height="70"><p align="center"> </td>
|
|---|
| 23 | </tr>
|
|---|
| 24 | <tr>
|
|---|
| 25 | <td></td>
|
|---|
| 26 | <td></td>
|
|---|
| 27 | <td></td>
|
|---|
| 28 | </tr>
|
|---|
| 29 | <tr>
|
|---|
| 30 | <td valign="top" width="48%" bgcolor="#FFFFE8"><p>
|
|---|
| 31 | <font size="2">
|
|---|
| 32 | <img border="0" src="citizens/moresketch1.jpg" alt="Holbein's sketch of Thomas More" align="left" width="175" height="236">Th</font><font size=-1>e
|
|---|
| 33 | following letter was written to More's daughter Margaret on 5 July 1535, the
|
|---|
| 34 | day before his execution. More wrote with a stick of charcoal on
|
|---|
| 35 | cloth; King Henry VIII had ordered his books and writing materials to be
|
|---|
| 36 | removed.</font><p>
|
|---|
| 37 | <font size="-1">More had been appointed Lord Chancellor upon
|
|---|
| 38 | <a href="priwols1.html">Wolsey's fall</a> in
|
|---|
| 39 | 1529. He was already a respected philosopher and writer throughout
|
|---|
| 40 | Europe. But to his English contemporaries, he was most famous as a
|
|---|
| 41 | lawyer. He was a brilliant jurist; he served in parliament and on
|
|---|
| 42 | diplomatic missions. Unlike most royal servants, he had unimpeachable
|
|---|
| 43 | integrity. He could not be bribed. He believed, above all else,
|
|---|
| 44 | in the impartial supremacy of the law. As Chancellor, he worked
|
|---|
| 45 | industriously to promote justice and faith in the courts. However, he
|
|---|
| 46 | resigned in 1532 when the king's determination to annul his marriage to
|
|---|
| 47 | Katharine of Aragon caused Henry to reject papal authority in England.</font><p>
|
|---|
| 48 | <font size="-1">More was deeply pious. He recognized the abuses of the
|
|---|
| 49 | Catholic church, but he believed it could reform itself from within.
|
|---|
| 50 | He could not accept spiritual reformation via secular power. As a
|
|---|
| 51 | young man, he had been torn between a career in the church and a career in
|
|---|
| 52 | law. Though he had chosen the latter, he never lost his passion for
|
|---|
| 53 | theology.</font><p>
|
|---|
| 54 | <font size="-1">After resigning the chancellorship, More retired to his
|
|---|
| 55 | family home. He attempted to live modestly and quietly, hoping to be
|
|---|
| 56 | left alone. But he was too famous and respected to be forgotten.
|
|---|
| 57 | Henry VIII knew that his controversial reformation would be far more
|
|---|
| 58 | credible if men such as More accepted it. As the premier intellectual
|
|---|
| 59 | in England, More's opinion was too important to remain his own.</font><p>
|
|---|
| 60 | <font size="-1">It should be noted that More accepted parliament's ability
|
|---|
| 61 | to decide the succession in favor of the king's children with Anne Boleyn,
|
|---|
| 62 | for it was a legal issue and parliament was within rights to decide it.
|
|---|
| 63 | However, he would not take an oath recognizing Henry's position as Supreme
|
|---|
| 64 | Head of a new English church. He simply could not repudiate the
|
|---|
| 65 | spiritual authority of the papacy.</font><p>
|
|---|
| 66 | <font size="-1">And so he was arrested in the spring of 1534. He was
|
|---|
| 67 | kept in the Tower of London for over a year, under increasingly harsh
|
|---|
| 68 | conditions. The king hoped that imprisonment would alter More's
|
|---|
| 69 | disposition. It did not. More was finally charged with high
|
|---|
| 70 | treason and tried at Westminster on 1 July 1533. Despite his brilliant
|
|---|
| 71 | defense, he was found guilty and executed on 6 July. The news shocked
|
|---|
| 72 | all of Europe. It remains the most famous example of judicial murder
|
|---|
| 73 | during Henry's reign. More was later canonized by the Catholic church.</font></td>
|
|---|
| 74 | <td width="4%"></td>
|
|---|
| 75 | <td valign="top" width="48%">Our Lord bless you, good daughter, and your good husband, and
|
|---|
| 76 | your little boy, and all yours, and all my children, and all my god-children
|
|---|
| 77 | and all our friends. Recommend me when ye may to my good daughter Cecily,
|
|---|
| 78 | whom I beseech Our Lord to comfort; and I send her my blessing and to all
|
|---|
| 79 | her children, and pray her to pray for me. I send her a handkercher, and
|
|---|
| 80 | God comfort my good son, her husband. My good daughter Daunce hath the
|
|---|
| 81 | picture in parchment that you delivered me from my Lady Coniers, her name
|
|---|
| 82 | on the back. Show her that I heartily pray her that you may send it in
|
|---|
| 83 | my name to her again, for a token from me to pray for me.
|
|---|
| 84 | <p>I like special well Dorothy Colly. I pray you be good unto her. I would
|
|---|
| 85 | wot whether this be she that you wrote me of. If not, yet I pray you be
|
|---|
| 86 | good to the other as you may in her affliction, and to my good daughter
|
|---|
| 87 | Jane Aleyn too. Give her, I pray you, some kind answer, for she sued hitherto
|
|---|
| 88 | me this day to pray you be good to her.
|
|---|
| 89 | <p>I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry if it should
|
|---|
| 90 | be any longer than to-morrow, for it is St. Thomas's even, and the utas
|
|---|
| 91 | of St. Peter; and therefore, to-morrow long I to go to God. It were a day
|
|---|
| 92 | very meet and convenient for me.
|
|---|
| 93 | <p>I never liked your manner towards me better than when you kissed me
|
|---|
| 94 | last; for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure
|
|---|
| 95 | to look to worldly courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me,
|
|---|
| 96 | and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in heaven.
|
|---|
| 97 | I thank you for your great cost. I send now my good daughter Clement her
|
|---|
| 98 | algorism stone, and I send her and my godson and all hers God's blessing
|
|---|
| 99 | and mine. I pray you at time convenient recommend me to my good son John
|
|---|
| 100 | More. I liked well his natural fashion. Our Lord bless him and his good
|
|---|
| 101 | wife, my loving daughter, to whom I pray him to be good, as he hath great
|
|---|
| 102 | cause; and that, if the land of mine come to his hands, he break not my
|
|---|
| 103 | will concerning his sister Daunce. And the Lord bless Thomas and Austin,
|
|---|
| 104 | and all that they shall have.<p align="center"> <p align="center">
|
|---|
| 105 | <font size="2">
|
|---|
| 106 | <a href="citizens/more.html">to the Thomas
|
|---|
| 107 | More website</a></font><p align="center"><a href="primary.html">
|
|---|
| 108 | <font size="2">to Primary Sources</font></a></td>
|
|---|
| 109 | </tr>
|
|---|
| 110 | </table>
|
|---|
| 111 | </center>
|
|---|
| 112 | </div>
|
|---|
| 113 |
|
|---|
| 114 | </body>
|
|---|
| 115 |
|
|---|
| 116 | </html><!-- text below generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE --><!-- Counter/Statistics data collection code --><script language="JavaScript" src="http://hostingprod.com/js_source/geov2.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="http://visit.webhosting.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1108082599" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript>
|
|---|
| 117 | <IMG SRC="http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=76001524&t=1108082599" ALT=1 WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1>
|
|---|
