Thomas More was a brilliant scholar, influenced by the ‘New Learning’ growing out of the Renaissance, and a good friend of dean John Colet and Erasmus of Rotterdam. The latter, in fact, was More’s house guest on several occasions and a frequent correspondent. Trained at Oxford, More was a devout Roman Catholic and had considered entering holy orders. He decided instead on law. He was very successful, entered Parliament in 1504 and became known for his fairness and clemency, as well as for his interest in social reform. During this period he published his most famous work, Utopia, which describes an ideal state where people had all things in common but were allowed freedom of religion.
More and his wife were generous and hospitable and had many friends among learned and influential people in politics and the royal court. They often invited guests to their homes, both in the City and later on the riverside at Chelsea, where there was much lively and witty conversation around the dinner table. More not only had a private chapel in his home but in 1528 rebuilt a chapel for his private worship in the parish church next to his property. This, as well as the epitaph which he wrote for himself, may still be seen in Chelsea Old Church. However, multiple sources draw attention to his personal involvement in the persecution, torture and burning of Protestants – even torturing some at his home in Chelsea. He wrote half a million words against William Tyndale, often exhibiting a frenzied hatred of Tyndale’s Reformation convictions.
The king, who had great confidence in Thomas More and knighted him in 1521, appointed him lord chancellor in 1529 when that office was vacated by Thomas Wolsey. But More’s rise to the top administrative post in the land was short lived. In 1531 Henry VIII had induced a convocation of the clergy to acknowledge him as supreme head of the church, and More as a convinced Catholic could not support him in this. Neither could he give his approval to Henry’s plan to obtain a divorce. He used the excuse of ill health to resign from the chancellorship in 1532 and tried to remain silent. But the king felt threatened even by the silence of so influential a man, and More was committed to the Tower and brought to trial for treason in 1534. He stuck steadfastly to his refusal to approve of the divorce even though his daughter pleaded with him in prison. He went to the block that same year.