Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1980 Sir Thomas More, Humanist and Hero: a Man for All Ages. Noel Joseph Toups Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Toups, Noel Joseph, "Sir Thomas More, Humanist and Hero: a Man for All Ages." (1980). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3573. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3573 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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U niversi^ Micrdfilms International 300 N. 2EEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1 R 4EJ, ENGLAND Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8110427 Toups, Noel Joseph SIR THOMAS MORE, HUMANIST AND HERO: A MAN FOR ALL AGES The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Ph.D. Col 1980 University Microfilms I nter n at i O n a!300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SIR THOMAS MORE, HUMANIST AND HERO: A MAN FOR ALL AGES A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Noel Joseph Toups B.A., Nicholls State University, 1960 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1962 December, 1980 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Lawrence A. Sasek, who directed this project, for his patience and invaluable suggestions. I am also appreciative of the help and encouragement of Drs. John H. Wildman and Don D. Moore, who were members of my committee. I am also indebted to Drs. Fabian Gudas and John R. May for participating as committee members. A suggestion for this topic first came from Dr. H. Maxwell Quertermous, and I,wish to acknowledge his initial inspiration and continued encouragement. Deserving special recognition are the members of my family, who have endured much while I completed this project, and Mrs. Mary Anne Truxillo, who helped in many ways . 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................ ü ABSTRACT.......................................... iv INTRODUCTION .................................... ix CHAPTER I THE B E G I N N I N G S ............................ 1 CHAPTER II CULMINATION OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY TRADITIONS .................... 105 CHAPTER III THE CONTINUING TRADITION .................. 187 CHAPTER IV THE TRADITION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ...................... 311 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................... 380 VITA .............................................. 395 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Sir Thomas More has appeared as a literary character in many diverse works from the time of his death to the twentieth century; these works have generally treated him as a model of intellectual integrity and adamantine conscience whose love of truth has made him the perfect touchstone against which a panoply of other individuals may be judged. More's own century viewed him in conflicting ways. The Tudor apologists, like the Skeltonic author of "The Image of Hypocrisy," Hall, Holinshed, and Foxe were critical of More's wit and treatment of heretics and deemed prideful his insistence upon conscience regarding the "King's Great Matter." However, the recusants pictured More the loyal servant of London, devoted father, respected humanist, and man of unswerving conscience. These include, among others, the biographers Roper and Harpsfield; sixteenth century treatments culminate in two by Ro. Ba. and Anthony Munday. Monday's Book of Sir Thomas More, an essentially Protestant play for an essentially Protestant audience, lionizes More, thus consummating the flattering treatments subtly begun by Holinshed. By the seventeenth century, received tradition, reinforced by oral legends, had crystalized; thus the iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. London drama, The True Chronicle History of...Cromwell, applauds both Cromwell and More. Although briefly, Shakespeare’s Henry VIII does also. Generally, that treatment perseveres through Bacon's Apophthegms, wherein little of the Tudor zeal for attacking More survives. In fact, emphasis on More’s integrity dominates and endures in Baker’s Chronicle, Winstanley’s Worthies, Fuller’s Worthies, and Aubrey’s Lives. In the eighteenth century, Thomas Ward’s popular Hudibrastic, England’s Reformation, praises More as avatar of goodness against whom King Henry and others falter. Addison and Prior also celebrate More’s wit and praise him for avoiding expediency. Thereafter Swift celebrates More’s greatness in two memorable presentations in Gulliver’s Travels and in the essay "Concerning that Universal Hatred, Which Prevails Against the Clergy"; essentially. Swift makes him an ethical and rational standard for emulation. Whereas other epochs begot several dramatic profiles of More, the eighteenth century fostered but one: Hurdis’s Tragedy of Sir Thomas More, a dull play derivative from long-standing traditions, one exception being that it placed greater emphasis on the protagonist’s familial devotion than had previous dramas. Charles Lamb next briefly tarnished the image, possibly because he could not comprehend More’s treatment V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of heretics; however, in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Wordsworth celebrated More's ethics and "unbending" will. Southey then used More as one of two discussants in his Colloquies who present a liberal political program designed by the poet, but that character is indistinguish­ able from the other, who transparently represents Southey. Charles Dickens later returned to common usage--More the touchstone-- in his Child * s History and measured that "royal pig" Henry against More's wit, wisdom, and goodness. The last nineteenth century author to expend considerable energy upon More is Froude, who in his History of England and other works expressed strong Henrician partisanship and opposition to More's treatment of heretics, but often treats More in an affirmative, even warm fashion, especially when dealing with his courage under duress. Twentieth century popular novelists as exemplified by Eleanor Hibbert, Francis Hackett, and Evelyn Anthony and popular drama as represented by Anne of the Thousand Days have continued the dominant traditions of previous epochs with few aberrations. Bolt's A Man for All Seasons and Percy’s Love in the Ruins become the modern age's important contributions to this tradition, however. Bolt studies More's earthy humanity and sense of selfhood, but always against the backdrop of family and court. Tempering More's responses to pressures from both is his conscience, vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and More's conscience is contrasted with