[29229] | 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE Archive SYSTEM "http://greenstone.org/dtd/Archive/1.0/Archive.dtd">
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| 3 | <Archive>
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| 4 | <Section>
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| 5 | <Description>
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| 6 | <Metadata name="gsdlsourcefilename">import\englishhistory.net\tudor\primore.html</Metadata>
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| 7 | <Metadata name="gsdldoctype">indexed_doc</Metadata>
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| 8 | <Metadata name="Plugin">HTMLPlugin</Metadata>
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| 9 | <Metadata name="FileSize">7023</Metadata>
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| 10 | <Metadata name="Source">primore.html</Metadata>
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| 11 | <Metadata name="SourceFile">primore.html</Metadata>
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| 12 | <Metadata name="Language">en</Metadata>
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| 13 | <Metadata name="Encoding">windows_1252</Metadata>
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| 14 | <Metadata name="Title">Primary Sources: The last letter of Sir Thomas More, 1535</Metadata>
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| 15 | <Metadata name="FileFormat">HTML</Metadata>
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| 16 | <Metadata name="URL">http://englishhistory.net/tudor/primore.html</Metadata>
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| 17 | <Metadata name="UTF8URL">http://englishhistory.net/tudor/primore.html</Metadata>
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| 18 | <Metadata name="dc.Subject">Tudor period|Others</Metadata>
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| 19 | <Metadata name="Identifier">HASH013127d433f432503810f160</Metadata>
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| 20 | <Metadata name="lastmodified">1374130947</Metadata>
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| 21 | <Metadata name="lastmodifieddate">20130718</Metadata>
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| 22 | <Metadata name="oailastmodified">1374468568</Metadata>
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| 23 | <Metadata name="oailastmodifieddate">20130722</Metadata>
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| 24 | <Metadata name="assocfilepath">HASH013127d4.dir</Metadata>
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| 25 | <Metadata name="gsdlassocfile">primore.gif:image/gif:</Metadata>
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| 26 | <Metadata name="gsdlassocfile">moresketch1.jpg:image/jpeg:</Metadata>
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| 27 | </Description>
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| 28 | <Content>
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| 29 |
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| 30 | <div align="center">
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| 31 | <center>
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| 32 | <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="94%">
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| 33 | <tr>
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| 34 | <td valign="bottom" colspan="3">
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| 35 | <p align="center">&nbsp;<br>
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| 36 | <p align="center">
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| 37 | <img border="0" src="_httpdocimg_/primore.gif" width="527" height="70"><p align="center">&nbsp;</td>
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| 38 | </tr>
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| 39 | <tr>
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| 40 | <td></td>
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| 41 | <td></td>
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| 42 | <td></td>
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| 43 | </tr>
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| 44 | <tr>
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| 45 | <td valign="top" width="48%" bgcolor="#FFFFE8"><p>
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| 46 | <font size="2">
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| 47 | <img border="0" src="_httpdocimg_/moresketch1.jpg" alt="Holbein's sketch of Thomas More" align="left" width="175" height="236">Th</font><font size=-1>e
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| 48 | following letter was written to More's daughter Margaret on 5 July 1535, the
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| 49 | day before his execution.&nbsp; More wrote with a stick of charcoal on
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| 50 | cloth; King Henry VIII had ordered his books and writing materials to be
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| 51 | removed.</font><p>
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| 52 | <font size="-1">More had been appointed Lord Chancellor upon
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| 53 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fpriwols1.html">Wolsey's fall</a> in
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| 54 | 1529.&nbsp; He was already a respected philosopher and writer throughout
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| 55 | Europe.&nbsp; But to his English contemporaries, he was most famous as a
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| 56 | lawyer.&nbsp; He was a brilliant jurist; he served in parliament and on
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| 57 | diplomatic missions.&nbsp; Unlike most royal servants, he had unimpeachable
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| 58 | integrity.&nbsp; He could not be bribed.&nbsp; He believed, above all else,
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| 59 | in the impartial supremacy of the law.&nbsp; As Chancellor, he worked
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| 60 | industriously to promote justice and faith in the courts.&nbsp; However, he
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| 61 | resigned in 1532 when the king's determination to annul his marriage to
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| 62 | Katharine of Aragon caused Henry to reject papal authority in England.</font><p>
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| 63 | <font size="-1">More was deeply pious.&nbsp; He recognized the abuses of the
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| 64 | Catholic church, but he believed it could reform itself from within.&nbsp;
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| 65 | He could not accept spiritual reformation via secular power.&nbsp; As a
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| 66 | young man, he had been torn between a career in the church and a career in
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| 67 | law.&nbsp; Though he had chosen the latter, he never lost his passion for
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| 68 | theology.</font><p>
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| 69 | <font size="-1">After resigning the chancellorship, More retired to his
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| 70 | family home.&nbsp; He attempted to live modestly and quietly, hoping to be
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| 71 | left alone.&nbsp; But he was too famous and respected to be forgotten.&nbsp;
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| 72 | Henry VIII knew that his controversial reformation would be far more
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| 73 | credible if men such as More accepted it.&nbsp; As the premier intellectual
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| 74 | in England, More's opinion was too important to remain his own.</font><p>
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| 75 | <font size="-1">It should be noted that More accepted parliament's ability
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| 76 | to decide the succession in favor of the king's children with Anne Boleyn,
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| 77 | for it was a legal issue and parliament was within rights to decide it.&nbsp;
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| 78 | However, he would not take an oath recognizing Henry's position as Supreme
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| 79 | Head of a new English church.&nbsp; He simply could not repudiate the
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| 80 | spiritual authority of the papacy.</font><p>
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| 81 | <font size="-1">And so he was arrested in the spring of 1534.&nbsp; He was
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| 82 | kept in the Tower of London for over a year, under increasingly harsh
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| 83 | conditions.&nbsp; The king hoped that imprisonment would alter More's
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| 84 | disposition.&nbsp; It did not.&nbsp; More was finally charged with high
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| 85 | treason and tried at Westminster on 1 July 1533.&nbsp; Despite his brilliant
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| 86 | defense, he was found guilty and executed on 6 July.&nbsp; The news shocked
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| 87 | all of Europe.&nbsp; It remains the most famous example of judicial murder
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| 88 | during Henry's reign.&nbsp; More was later canonized by the Catholic church.</font></td>
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| 89 | <td width="4%"></td>
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| 90 | <td valign="top" width="48%">Our Lord bless you, good daughter, and your good husband, and
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| 91 | your little boy, and all yours, and all my children, and all my god-children
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| 92 | and all our friends. Recommend me when ye may to my good daughter Cecily,
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| 93 | whom I beseech Our Lord to comfort; and I send her my blessing and to all
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| 94 | her children, and pray her to pray for me. I send her a handkercher, and
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| 95 | God comfort my good son, her husband. My good daughter Daunce hath the
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| 96 | picture in parchment that you delivered me from my Lady Coniers, her name
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| 97 | on the back. Show her that I heartily pray her that you may send it in
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| 98 | my name to her again, for a token from me to pray for me.
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| 99 | <p>I like special well Dorothy Colly. I pray you be good unto her. I would
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| 100 | wot whether this be she that you wrote me of. If not, yet I pray you be
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| 101 | good to the other as you may in her affliction, and to my good daughter
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| 102 | Jane Aleyn too. Give her, I pray you, some kind answer, for she sued hitherto
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| 103 | me this day to pray you be good to her.
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| 104 | <p>I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry if it should
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| 105 | be any longer than to-morrow, for it is St. Thomas's even, and the utas
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| 106 | of St. Peter; and therefore, to-morrow long I to go to God. It were a day
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| 107 | very meet and convenient for me.
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| 108 | <p>I never liked your manner towards me better than when you kissed me
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| 109 | last; for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure
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| 110 | to look to worldly courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me,
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| 111 | and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in heaven.
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| 112 | I thank you for your great cost. I send now my good daughter Clement her
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| 113 | algorism stone, and I send her and my godson and all hers God's blessing
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| 114 | and mine. I pray you at time convenient recommend me to my good son John
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| 115 | More. I liked well his natural fashion. Our Lord bless him and his good
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| 116 | wife, my loving daughter, to whom I pray him to be good, as he hath great
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| 117 | cause; and that, if the land of mine come to his hands, he break not my
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| 118 | will concerning his sister Daunce. And the Lord bless Thomas and Austin,
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| 119 | and all that they shall have.<p align="center">&nbsp;<p align="center">
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| 120 | <font size="2">
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| 121 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fcitizens%2fmore.html">to the Thomas
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| 122 | More website</a></font><p align="center"><a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fprimary.html">
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| 123 | <font size="2">to Primary Sources</font></a></td>
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| 124 | </tr>
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| 125 | </table>
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| 126 | </center>
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| 127 | </div>
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| 128 |
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| 129 |
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| 130 |
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| 133 | </Content>
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| 134 | </Section>
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| 135 | </Archive>
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