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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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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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19 | <Metadata name="webicon">_iconworld_</Metadata>
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20 | <Metadata name="/weblink"></a></Metadata>
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21 | <Metadata name="dc.Subject">Tudor period|Others</Metadata>
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22 | <Metadata name="Identifier">HASHf6d1d9e14f32b2af285a7d</Metadata>
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23 | <Metadata name="lastmodified">1398925788</Metadata>
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24 | <Metadata name="lastmodifieddate">20140501</Metadata>
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26 | <Metadata name="oailastmodifieddate">20140501</Metadata>
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29 | <Metadata name="gsdlassocfile">moresketch1.jpg:image/jpeg:</Metadata>
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30 | </Description>
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31 | <Content>
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32 |
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33 | <div align="center">
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34 | <center>
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35 | <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="94%">
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36 | <tr>
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37 | <td valign="bottom" colspan="3">
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38 | <p align="center">&nbsp;<br>
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39 | <p align="center">
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40 | <img border="0" src="_httpdocimg_/primore.gif" width="527" height="70"><p align="center">&nbsp;</td>
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41 | </tr>
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42 | <tr>
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43 | <td></td>
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44 | <td></td>
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45 | <td></td>
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46 | </tr>
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47 | <tr>
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48 | <td valign="top" width="48%" bgcolor="#FFFFE8"><p>
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49 | <font size="2">
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50 | <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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51 | following letter was written to More's daughter Margaret on 5 July 1535, the
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52 | day before his execution.&nbsp; More wrote with a stick of charcoal on
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53 | cloth; King Henry VIII had ordered his books and writing materials to be
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54 | removed.</font><p>
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55 | <font size="-1">More had been appointed Lord Chancellor upon
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56 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fpriwols1.html">Wolsey's fall</a> in
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57 | 1529.&nbsp; He was already a respected philosopher and writer throughout
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58 | Europe.&nbsp; But to his English contemporaries, he was most famous as a
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59 | lawyer.&nbsp; He was a brilliant jurist; he served in parliament and on
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60 | diplomatic missions.&nbsp; Unlike most royal servants, he had unimpeachable
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61 | integrity.&nbsp; He could not be bribed.&nbsp; He believed, above all else,
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62 | in the impartial supremacy of the law.&nbsp; As Chancellor, he worked
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63 | industriously to promote justice and faith in the courts.&nbsp; However, he
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64 | resigned in 1532 when the king's determination to annul his marriage to
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65 | Katharine of Aragon caused Henry to reject papal authority in England.</font><p>
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66 | <font size="-1">More was deeply pious.&nbsp; He recognized the abuses of the
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67 | Catholic church, but he believed it could reform itself from within.&nbsp;
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68 | He could not accept spiritual reformation via secular power.&nbsp; As a
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69 | young man, he had been torn between a career in the church and a career in
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70 | law.&nbsp; Though he had chosen the latter, he never lost his passion for
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71 | theology.</font><p>
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72 | <font size="-1">After resigning the chancellorship, More retired to his
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73 | family home.&nbsp; He attempted to live modestly and quietly, hoping to be
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74 | left alone.&nbsp; But he was too famous and respected to be forgotten.&nbsp;
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75 | Henry VIII knew that his controversial reformation would be far more
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76 | credible if men such as More accepted it.&nbsp; As the premier intellectual
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77 | in England, More's opinion was too important to remain his own.</font><p>
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78 | <font size="-1">It should be noted that More accepted parliament's ability
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79 | to decide the succession in favor of the king's children with Anne Boleyn,
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80 | for it was a legal issue and parliament was within rights to decide it.&nbsp;
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81 | However, he would not take an oath recognizing Henry's position as Supreme
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82 | Head of a new English church.&nbsp; He simply could not repudiate the
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83 | spiritual authority of the papacy.</font><p>
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84 | <font size="-1">And so he was arrested in the spring of 1534.&nbsp; He was
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85 | kept in the Tower of London for over a year, under increasingly harsh
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86 | conditions.&nbsp; The king hoped that imprisonment would alter More's
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87 | disposition.&nbsp; It did not.&nbsp; More was finally charged with high
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88 | treason and tried at Westminster on 1 July 1533.&nbsp; Despite his brilliant
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89 | defense, he was found guilty and executed on 6 July.&nbsp; The news shocked
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90 | all of Europe.&nbsp; It remains the most famous example of judicial murder
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91 | during Henry's reign.&nbsp; More was later canonized by the Catholic church.</font></td>
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92 | <td width="4%"></td>
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93 | <td valign="top" width="48%">Our Lord bless you, good daughter, and your good husband, and
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94 | your little boy, and all yours, and all my children, and all my god-children
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95 | and all our friends. Recommend me when ye may to my good daughter Cecily,
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96 | whom I beseech Our Lord to comfort; and I send her my blessing and to all
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97 | her children, and pray her to pray for me. I send her a handkercher, and
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98 | God comfort my good son, her husband. My good daughter Daunce hath the
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99 | picture in parchment that you delivered me from my Lady Coniers, her name
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100 | on the back. Show her that I heartily pray her that you may send it in
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101 | my name to her again, for a token from me to pray for me.
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102 | <p>I like special well Dorothy Colly. I pray you be good unto her. I would
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103 | wot whether this be she that you wrote me of. If not, yet I pray you be
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104 | good to the other as you may in her affliction, and to my good daughter
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105 | Jane Aleyn too. Give her, I pray you, some kind answer, for she sued hitherto
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106 | me this day to pray you be good to her.
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107 | <p>I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry if it should
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108 | be any longer than to-morrow, for it is St. Thomas's even, and the utas
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109 | of St. Peter; and therefore, to-morrow long I to go to God. It were a day
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110 | very meet and convenient for me.
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111 | <p>I never liked your manner towards me better than when you kissed me
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112 | last; for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure
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113 | to look to worldly courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me,
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114 | and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in heaven.
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115 | I thank you for your great cost. I send now my good daughter Clement her
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116 | algorism stone, and I send her and my godson and all hers God's blessing
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117 | and mine. I pray you at time convenient recommend me to my good son John
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118 | More. I liked well his natural fashion. Our Lord bless him and his good
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119 | wife, my loving daughter, to whom I pray him to be good, as he hath great
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120 | cause; and that, if the land of mine come to his hands, he break not my
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121 | will concerning his sister Daunce. And the Lord bless Thomas and Austin,
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122 | and all that they shall have.<p align="center">&nbsp;<p align="center">
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123 | <font size="2">
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124 | <a href="_httpextlink_&amp;rl=1&amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fcitizens%2fmore.html">to the Thomas
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125 | 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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126 | <font size="2">to Primary Sources</font></a></td>
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127 | </tr>
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128 | </table>
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129 | </center>
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130 | </div>
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131 |
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132 |
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133 |
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136 | </Content>
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137 | </Section>
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138 | </Archive>
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