Thomas More's Life and Death in the Memory of the English

chapter 5 Man of Conscience, Martyr, and Saint: Thomas More’s Life and Death in the Memory of the English Catholic Community

Robert E. Scully, sj

From the sixteenth century to the present, Thomas More has attracted legions of admirers, but also a certain number of detractors. Highly praised by his fel- low Catholic and humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus as a man of genuine piety and great learning, More was castigated by the Protestant martyrologist John Foxe as a papist and harsh heresy hunter.1 In recent times, the majority of those who have written biographies and studies of More, while largely avoid- ing the extremes of hagiography or hatchet-job, have generally been favorable in terms of their overall assessment of the “Man for All Seasons,” including Travis Curtright, Peter Ackroyd, Gerard Wegemer, Louis Martz, and Anthony Kenny, along with R.W. Chambers, author of a classic but perhaps overly en- thusiastic account.2 A more complex and nuanced picture is presented by John

1 See Erasmus’s Letter to Ulrich von Hutten, Antwerp, 23 July 1519, in Sir Thomas More: Selec- tions from his English Works and from the Lives by Erasmus and Roper, ed. P.S. and H.M. Allen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924), 1–9; Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days (or “Book of Martyrs”): “The John Foxe Project,” https://hridigital.shef.ac.uk/john-foxe- project/ (accessed 5 August 2016), with numerous references to Thomas More. It is instruc- tive that Foxe’s portrayal of More grew progressively harsher, for example, in comparing his first edition in 1563 to that of 1570. See the discussion in Anne Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 62–64. For a collection of early accounts of and writings by More, see A Thomas More Source Book, ed. Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith (Washington, dc: Catholic University of America Press, 2004). For a range of more recent assessments of More and his writings, see The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More, ed. George M. Logan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) [hereafter, Cambridge Companion]. 2 Travis Curtright, The One Thomas More (Washington, dc: Catholic University of America Press, 2012); Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More (New York: Talese/Doubleday, 1998); Gerard Wegemer, Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage (Princeton: Scepter Publishers, 1995); Louis L. Martz, Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Anthony Kenny, Thomas More (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); R.W. Chambers, Thomas More (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935; repr. 1962). In opposition to some critical assessments, in The One Thomas More Curtright argues for the consistency and integrity of More’s actions and writings. For another generally positive account of More’s thought and written

Man of Conscience, Martyr, and Saint 41

Guy.3 In rather sharp contrast, Richard Marius and, even more so, Jasper Ridley, have painted decidedly darker portraits.4 The goal of this essay is to examine three more or less contemporaneous (sixteenth-century) biographies of More, all written by English Catholics and, therefore, not surprisingly, quite positive if not effusive in their appraisal of him. Yet, how did William Roper and Nicholas Harpsfield, writing in the 1550s, and Thomas Stapleton, writing in the 1580s, remember More, and what were the perceived lessons and benefits of his life and death for the English Catholic community in the mid- and late-Tudor periods?5

Roper’s Life

William Roper’s Life of Sir Thomas More (c. 1557; published 1626) straddles the boundaries of history, memoir, biography, and hagiography.6 Roper’s Life, like

works, see Alistair Fox, Thomas More: History and Providence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). 3 John A. Guy, Thomas More (London: Arnold, 2000). See also John A. Guy, The Public Career of Sir Thomas More (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980). 4 Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1984); Jasper Ridley, The Statesman and the Fanatic: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More (London: Constable, 1982). For an interpretation of the period that is generally not favorable to More, see G.R. Elton, Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). For a New Historicist approach, see Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980; repr. 2005), esp. Ch. 1: “At the Table of the Great: More’s Self-Fashioning and Self-Cancellation.” 5 For some background, see Michael A. Anderegg, “The Tradition of Early More Biography,” in Essential Articles for the Study of Thomas More, ed. R.S. Sylvester and G.P. Marc’hadour (Ham- den, ct: Archon, 1977), 3–25 [hereafter, Essential Articles]; James K. McConica, “The Recus- ant Reputation of Thomas More,” in ibid., 136–49. For a further discussion of the sources on Thomas More’s life and works, see Chambers, Thomas More, 15–47. Another Life of More was written in this period—by More’s nephew, William Rastell—but much of it has been lost. See Chambers, Thomas More, 34–38. 6 William Roper, The Life of Sir Thomas More, in Two Early Tudor Lives, ed. Richard S. Sylvester and Davis P. Harding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 197–254 [hereafter, Roper]. For another edition, with additional background discussion, see William Roper, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, Knighte, ed. Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock (London: Oxford University Press, 1935; repr. 1958). See also Antony Francis Allison and David Morrison Rogers, The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English Counter—Reformation between 1558 and 1640, 2 vols. (Alder- shot, uk: Scolar Press, 1989, 1994), 2:136–37, no. 688 (hereafter A&R); R.S. Sylvester, “Roper’s Life of More,” in Essential Articles, 189–97.