The Life of Thomas More (55 page)

Why had Henry chosen a man who had found it impossible to endorse the king’s ‘great matter’? Of course More’s reputation was considerable, both as diplomat and statesman; his skill as a lawyer and his success as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were also of paramount importance. He was well known for his caution and discretion, while his fame among the humanist scholars and administrators of Christendom lent him additional authority. One of his great opponents paid tribute to the ‘wisedome and lerning that is in him, but also the great auctoritie and experience’,
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and there was even a grammar prepared
for children that included a litany of More’s praises as an exercise in translation. ‘Moore is a man of an aungels wyt & syngler lernying’ is one phrase to be parsed, together with ‘a man of merveylous myrth and pastymes & somtyme of as sad gravyte as who say a man for all seasons’.
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As Speaker of the Commons he had proved that he could deal with the vicissitudes of parliament, and the clergy had already chosen him as their polemicist in the fight against heresy. Perhaps most importantly, he had worked closely with the king for more than ten years; Henry believed that he could rely upon his loyalty and good judgement as the proceedings against his marriage continued their serpentine course. But by appointing a layman as chancellor for the first time in almost a hundred years, Henry was also reasserting his own power over that of the Church. Wolsey’s fall and More’s appointment, therefore, were directly associated with the king’s desire to separate himself from Catherine of Aragon.

According to More, the king broached the subject with him soon after the ceremony in Westminster Hall—‘sone after which tyme his Grace moved me agayne … to loke and consydre his great mater’.
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It is significant that More should be approached at the time of his appointment; the king needed to learn no lessons from Machiavelli, as his subsequent words to his new chancellor might also imply. He asked More to ponder the question of the annulment and, if persuaded, ‘wold gladly vse me among other of his counsailors’.
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But he declared that More should follow his conscience and repeated the injunction that ‘I shold fyrst loke vnto God and after God vnto hym’. He was clearly anxious to enrol More into his cause, however, since he assigned the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as well as other dignitaries to persuade him of the merits of his case. But More proved obstinate, or merely impassive, and listened with great care to the various arguments without once changing his mind. He believed the original papal dispensation to have been valid and the marriage sound. Henry was disappointed but in More’s words, was ‘neuer the lesse graciouse lord’.

So why had he accepted the post of Lord Chancellor, when he was fully aware of the pressures which would be applied to him? He may have had little choice in the matter but, in any event, no choice was necessary. He was fulfilling his life’s work, or, rather, his work in the world; the chancellorship was the culmination of the process which had
begun at the time of his birth. All the stages of his youthful study and adult career converged at this point, and we may imagine the spiritual presence of Archbishop Morton somewhere about him when he accepted the Great Seal. To be elevated to the most powerful official position in the country would also greatly please his wife and, most importantly, his already ailing father. By becoming Lord Chancellor of England ‘young More’ had amply fulfilled his filial responsibilities.

The Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, reported to his masters that everyone was ‘delighted’ at the promotion of More because ‘he is an upright and learned man, and a good servant of the Queen’.
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The knowledge that More supported Catherine of Aragon was not confined to the ambassador, and indeed may have played some part in Henry’s decision to appoint him as chancellor. The king was aware of Catherine’s popularity, particularly among the people of London, and to have More by his side was a way of protecting himself against accusations of malice or falsehood. Such an ‘upright and learned man’, known to favour the queen, was a visible warrant of the king’s holy intentions. More would have been sensible of this device, but he had equally powerful motives of his own. As Lord Chancellor he would be in a position to assist the queen, albeit in a discreet manner, but he might also be able to protect the Church against the possible wrath of the king. It could even be argued that More accepted the post precisely in order to defend and maintain his Church in an age of anxiety. It was his ‘bounden duty’ to do so. It was the greatest obligation in a life filled with obligations.

He wrote a short letter to Erasmus after his elevation, but it is not altogether of a cheerful or optimistic nature. He told his old friend that he had been promoted without any warning and required sympathy rather than congratulation. The reason he gives for his acceptance of his new role is that it was vitally concerned with ‘rei Christiane’ or the affairs of Christendom.
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He does not advert to his private feelings on this momentous change, but they can be gathered from a remark elsewhere in his writings. In times of apparent success or prosperity it is important that a person ‘by lesse lykyng the false flateryng world set a crosse vppon the shypp of his hart, & bere a low saile theron, that the boysteouse blast of pride blow hym not vnder the water’.
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Thus he set sail upon the ocean of affairs. He was working now as part of a triumvirate around the king; Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
was lord treasurer, and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk was soon to be appointed lord president of the council. The royal secretary, Stephen Gardiner, was also influential and in the foreground there was Sir Thomas Boleyn, newly ennobled as the Earl of Wiltshire. The most powerful figure was Norfolk, however, whose position was further secured when his daughter married the Duke of Richmond, the king’s illegitimate son; he was also the uncle of Anne Boleyn, and therefore has some claim to being the courtier closest to the king. He was a short, spare man, perpetually suspicious, conscientious but ever anxious. From the beginning he and More co-operated in the affairs of state and they were, in particular, united in their desire to defend the ‘old faith’.

The first test came in November with the summoning of parliament in order to consult the powers and interests of the nation at a moment of transition. The fall of Wolsey, who had administered the affairs of state for almost fifteen years, had naturally provoked a bout of anticlericalism—at least among those groups, such as the lawyers and London merchants, who were not disposed to think well of the clergy. The king wanted to use the session as the quickest way to waive his debts, while the new Lord Chancellor wished to affirm the principles by which his policy would be guided. There were, in addition, matters of domestic legislation to be resolved. On 3 November a great procession made its way to the church of Blackfriars; Archbishop Warham of Canterbury walked beside Sir Thomas More, who wore the vivid scarlet robe of his new office. Who could have believed, on that winter’s day by the river, that this particular parliament would not be dissolved for seven years; and that, in the course of its eight sessions, the ‘comen knowen catholick church’ would be wholly changed? Before the end of its deliberations, too, the new Lord Chancellor would be beheaded on Tower Hill.

In the parliament chamber of Blackfriars, and in the presence of the king, More opened the proceedings with a speech in which he declared that ‘divers new enormities were sprong amongest the people’ which required the passing of new laws ‘to reforme the same’. He then denounced his predecessor, Wolsey, for ‘fraudulent juggeling and attemptes’ and described him as ‘the great wether which is of late fallen’.
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It has sometimes been suggested that More was here guilty of ingratitude to his once great master, but his was essentially a rhetorical
performance on behalf of the king. He could hardly have dismissed as inconsequential the matter of Wolsey’s fall, and there might have been an additional urgency in his condemnation, since at the time there were rumours that the cardinal might somehow, one day, be reinstalled into the king’s favour. This was not an outcome which either More or Norfolk desired. For there was urgency, too, in More’s demand that new laws be passed to deal with various of the problems that had emerged in recent years.

When parliament reconvened at Westminster three days later, it soon became clear that the forced departure of Wolsey had indeed aroused resentment against the worldliness and power of other priests. Various articles of complaint, for example, came from those members of the ‘Comen House’ associated with the London mercers; the clergy were accused by them of taking too much money for ‘mortuaries’ and ‘probat of testaments’. There were also priests who acted as stewards for bishops and deprived honest men of employment; there were priests who lived in the palaces of the rich and noble without attending to the needs of their parishioners; there were priests growing fat upon the vices of pluralism and non-residence. A special committee of MPs then announced a number of measures designed to remove these abuses. More heard John Fisher, in the Lords, denounce the proposals as an attempt to bring the clergy into the ‘contempt and hatred of the layetie’; he also condemned the members of parliament for lack of faith, which charge they indignantly denied. But Thomas More might not have been as vociferously opposed to reform as the bishop. At a later date he described his severe ‘correccyon’ of bad or wayward priests, for example, and boasted that ‘there was no man … into whose handes they were more lothe to come’.
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He knew the temper of the times and he understood the paramount need of keeping the Church free from scandal. The members of the Commons were not attacking the Church but, rather, abuses within the Church; this was at least a possible interpretation, even if subsequent events might suggest that it was the beginning of a much more fundamental process of change. In the event, the proposals were never fully implemented; they were filtered through committee, most likely under the guiding hands of More and Norfolk, and were finally passed by the Lords with various provisos and modifications that remedied certain abuses without greatly affecting the privileged position of the clergy.

Thomas More, as Lord Chancellor of England, calm and inscrutable even at the height of his power; beneath the rich gown he is wearing a hair shirt. (
Illu. 26.1
)

Below:
Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist whom More called ‘my derlynge’. He in turn addressed More as ‘sweetest Thomas’. (
Illu. 26.2
)

Opposite:
Peter Gillis, the public servant of Antwerp in whose house and company More conceived
Utopia.
This double portrait was sent to More by Erasmus as a tribute to the friendship between the three men. (
Illu. 26.3
)