St. Thomas More | June 22

Sir Thomas More was a humanist and statesman in Tudor England. He is still widely known today as the author of Utopia. More was a prolific writer and theologian. A true martyr of the Church, he was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886, and canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 19, 1935.

More was born in London in 1478, the son of Sir John More, a lawyer and judge. He attended Oxford where he studied Latin and Greek, as well as formal logic. He left Oxford in 1494 to train as a lawyer in London. After attaining the Bar, he spent time discerning a call to the priesthood. Though attracted to the Franciscan order More remained a lay Christian, continuing to fast, pray, and wear a hair shirt. He was married twice, the loving father of three daughters, a stepdaughter by his second marriage, and one son. More wrote many letters to his children when he was away on business and his daughters were known for their academic abilities, as they received the same education as his son, an anomaly at the time.

More rose to the Privy Council in 1514. He became the good friend and advisor to Henry VIII, and in 1521 he was knighted. In 1529 he was made Lord Chancellor of England. However, this appointment was the beginning of the end for the saint. He could not support the break with the Church in Rome when Henry failed to receive from the Pope the annulment of his first marriage to Katherine of Aragon to wed Anne Boleyn. More resigned as Lord Chancellor and continued to refuse to accept Henry as the head of the Church in England. Eventually he was imprisoned, tried, and sentenced to a traitor’s death, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Henry commuted the sentence of his former friend to the more humane beheading. More was executed at Tower Hill, on July 6, 1535, before his death he famously proclaimed that he was “the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”