The Life of Sir Thomas More

Front matter

THE

LIFE

OF

Editor's Preface

THE

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

About five years since I had the pleasure of recommending this delightful piece of genuine biography to the attention of those who are gratified by authentic pictures of ancient manners and ancient virtues. The very limited impression then published was received in the most flattering manner, and copies have now for some time ranked among the number of scarce books. More than one literary journal of eminence gave its approving voice, and recommended the reproduction of this biographical gem in a form which would give it more extensive circulation. I have at length listened to the suggestion, and my good fortune has enabled me very much to amend the text by the collation of two manuscript copies. One of these, in the handwriting of Roper's age, has come into my possession since the former edition was printed; for the collation of the other I am indebted to the polite attention of Sir William Strickland, Baronet, of Boynton, in Yorkshire; who was kind enough to furnish me with it: a favour conveyed in the most agreeable manner, as it came unsolicited, and which I have much pleasure in gratefully acknowledging.

The first edition of this little book is of great rarity: it bears the date of Paris, 1626, but was probably printed in England. It was then not uncommon for books which favoured Catholic doctrines to have a foreign imprint, even when not printed abroad. It is remarkable that the Life of Sir Thomas More, by his great-grandson, Thomas More, was first printed in the succeeding year.

In 1716, Thomas Hearne, the celebrated antiquary, gave to the world another impression, and boasts of having had the choice of several manuscript copies; he does not however seem to have been fortunate in the one he selected, but he has followed it most scrupulously in every particular, errors and redundancies not excepted. His various readings at the end of the volume offer many emendations, of which he, perhaps with too punctilious accuracy, omitted to avail himself in the construction of his text.

In 1729, the Rev. John Lewis, well known by his Life of Caxton and other autiquarian publications, again committed it to the press; upon the whole his edition may be pronounced superior to either of the former, yet it is not without its defects. The manuscript from which Lewis printed was lent him by Mr. Thomas Beake of Stourmouth, in Kent, and appears in many instances to have deserved the preference over those collated by Hearne; but this is not always the case, and it frequently happens that where the sense in the latter is simple and obvious, Mr. Beake's MS, has it involved and obscure.

Mr. Lewis's edition was again printed in London in 1731, and in Dublin in 1765. It was from a collation of the printed copies with Lewis's manuscript collections for his edition, I prepared that which I published in 1817.

Upon the present occasion I have carefully revised the text by a comparison of the two manuscripts mentioned above with my former edition, and the result has been the correction of many errors, some of which materially affected the sense. I have in this instance been induced to reform the unsettled and wretched orthography and punctuation, so as to render this edition acceptable to the general reader, for whom it is more particularly designed; at the same time I beg to assure the literary antiquary that it has been done with proper caution, and that the colour of the style will not be found changed by this innovation.

In the present, as in the former impression, I have given that part of Hearne's Latin preface to his edition of this work which has relation to it; also Mr. Lewis's preface, and the Dedication to the first edition by its anonymous editor T. P.

It should appear that Mr. Roper compiled this life about the close of Queen Mary's reign (A.D. 1557), when Sir Thomas More's English Works were first collected and printed, at the queen's instance, by his nephew, Mr. Justice Rastall. Perhaps it was not ready for the press before the death of Mary, and it is obvious why it was not printed during the reign of her successor. Like other books of a Catholic tendency it was handed about in manuscript, and in the course of frequent transcripts the text became very much corrupted. It is hoped that the two excellent manuscripts which have been collated for this edition may have restored the text to nearly its original integrity.

The Appendix has received some further augmentation which I think will be found acceptable; and here I have continued the old spelling and pointing, because the letters are taken from the printed copy of Sir Thomas More's works, which Dr. Johnson thought might "be better trusted than any English book of that or the preceding age." Some additions have also been made to the notes in the present edition.

A beautiful reduced copy of the exquisite drawing by Holbein, in the collection of his late Majesty, has been added, as giving the most authentic idea of Sir Thomas More's person, and therefore the most appropriate accompaniment to this interesting delineation of his life and virtues.

The following minute description of his person and habits, said to be "according to the relation of those who best knew him," may be no unacceptable addition to the article in the Appendix.

"Sir Thomas More was no tall man; all the parts of his body were in good proportion, and congruous as man could wish. His skin was something white; the colour of his face drew rather to whiteness than to paleness, far from redness, saving that some little red sparkes every where appeared. His hair was blackish yellow, or rather yellow blackish, his beard thin; his eyes grey and speckled, which kind of eyes do commonly betoken a good and sharp wit, and as physicians say are least cumber'd with diseases and faults; his were not great, nor yet glittering, yet much pleasing. His countenance was conformable to his nature and disposition, pleasant and amiable, somewhat resembling to the fashion of one that would seem to smile. His voice was neither boisterous nor big, nor yet too small and shrill; he spake his words very distinctly and treatably, without any manner of hastiness or stuttering; and albeit he delighted in all kind of melody, yet he seemed not of his own nature to be apt to sing himself. He enjoyed the health of his body very well: and although he was never a strong man, yet he was able to go through with any labour and pains meet and convenient for him to dispatch his business. A little before he gave over his office of Lord Chancellor, he began to be troubled with a little sickness, and after he was shut up in the Tower it much increased. When he was a young man, he used and delighted in drinking of water; his common drink was very small ale; and as for wine he did but sip of it, and that only for company's sake, or for pledging his friends. He delighted more to feed on beef, and salt meats, coarse bread, and that very well leavened, than upon fine meats and bread. He loved well milk and fruit, and especially eggs. He had great pleasure to behold the form and fashion of beasts and fowls. There was not lightly any kind of birds that he had not in his house. He kept an ape, a fox, a weasel, a ferret, and other beasts more rare. If there had been any strange thing brought out of other countries, and worthy to be looked on, he was desirous to buy it, and ail this was to the contentation and pleasure of such as came to him; and himself now and then would take recreation in beholding them."

Some additional particulars relating to Mr. Roper from the same source will not be misplaced here. It appears that "When he was married he was a zealous Protestant; and withal liked so well of himself and his divine learning, … that he thirsted very sore to divulge his doctrine to the world, and thought himself able to defend it against any; so he much longed to be pulpited. His zeal was so great in Luther's new religion, he could have been contented, so that he might have satisfied his mad affection, to have foregone a good portion of his lands, which by inheritance were fair and ample; for his father was the King's Attorney General, and had procured for him the Prothonotary's office in the King's Bench, which hitherto hath continued in his name. … His fall into heresy, as he afterward would often say, did first grow of a scruple of his own conscience, for lack of grace and better understanding. For he daily did use immoderate fasting and many prayers; which if discretion and counsel had prescribed, it had been well; but using them of his own head, without order and good consideration, thinking God never to be pleased therewith, he did weary himself usque ad tedium, even unto loathsomeness thereof. Then did he understand of certaine books of Friar Luther's … and he was so infected with the poison of them that he believed every thing that Luther said to be most true … and was fully of opinion that only faith doth justify, and that good works do nothing profit; and that if a man would once believe that Christ died for him it was enough; then all the ceremonies, rites, and sacraments used in the church of God were vain and superstitious. And so far he waded in these heresies that he wished he might be suffered publicly to preach; thinking, as we have said, that he should be better able to edify the people than the best Doctor that comes to Paul's Cross. And thus for his open talk, and companying with divers merchants of the Stilyard, and others suspected of heresy, he was convened before Cardinal Wolsey. The merchants abjured at Paul's Cross; yet Master Roper, for some respect the Cardinal bore to Sir Thomas, his father-in-law, was, after a friendly warning, discharged for that time.

"Albeit Master Roper married Sir Thomas his eldest daughter, yet of all men in the world, at that time he least loved him, yea, in his heart abhorred him. And no marvel, for Luther's easy, short, and licentious doctrine had cast him to so sweet a sleep that he gave over his fasting, his prayers, and loathed both good books and good folks, and got himself forsooth a Lutheran Bible, wherein upon the holidays, instead of his prayers he spent his whole time, thinking it sufficient to get a little knowledge, and to be able amongst the ignorant persons to babble and talk, as though he had been a great Doctor. Thus he continued some years, and could not be recovered by any means. Upon a time Sir Thomas talking with his daughter Margaret, said unto her in this sort, 'Meg, I have borne a long time with thy husband; I have reasoned and argued a long time with him, and still given him my poor fatherly counsel; but I perceive none of all this can call him home again. And therefore, Meg, I will no longer dispute with him; nor yet will I give him over, but I will go another way to work, and get me to God, and pray for him.' And presently upon this through the great mercy of God, and the devout prayer of his father-in-law, he perceived his own ignorance, malice, and folly, and returned again to the Catholic faith. And so firmly was rooted and fixed in it that he continued very resolute and constant unto his life's end, and left it as an inheritance unto his house and children; and was afterwards a singular helper and patron to all afflicted Catholics, and especially to such as were in prison, or otherwise troubled for the defence of the Catholic faith. His ordinary alms, as yet to be seen in his book of accounts, amounted yearly to one thousand pounds: his extraordinaries were as much, and sometimes more; sometimes two, three, and four thousand pounds a year. He was for relieving by his alms a learned man, Master Beckenshawe, sent to the Tower, in the reign of King Henry the Eighth. His charity and alms were so great to poor and needy persons that it was a hard matter to find another of his degree, who might in that respect be compared with him: for he was oculus cccco, pes claudo, et pater pauperum; an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, and a father to the poor." Of Margaret Roper, his admirable wife, the same writer says, that " she was nearest her father as well in wit, learning, and virtue, as also in merry and pleasant talk, and in feature of body. She was to her servants meek and gentle; to her brothers and sisters most loving and amiable; to her friends steadfast and comfortable; and would give very sound counsel, which is a rare thing in a woman. Some men of good calling and experience, in their perplexities and difficult cases would consult with her, and found, as they afterward reported, as grave and profitable counsel at her hands as they doubted to find the like elsewhere. … To her children she was a double mother, as not only to bring them forth to the world, but also brought them to Heaven-ward, by instructing them in learning and virtue. It happened her husband, upon a displeasure taken against him by the King, was sent to the Tower; whereupon certain commissioners were sent to search his house. So upon a sudden coming to her, they found her not puling and whining (as commonly they do in such cases), but cheerfully teaching her little children. They delivered to her their message; wherewith she was nothing appalled, but in her talk to them she showed such constancy, gravity, and wisdom, that they were in great admiration at her demeanour, and afterwards they would say that they could never speak so much good of her as she deserved. To her husband she was such a wife, as I suppose it were hard to match her; for she was so debonair and gentle, that Master Roper thought himself a happy man that ever he happened upon such a treasure; and he had her in such estimation that he would often say that she was more worthy, for her excellent qualities, to have been a Prince's wife. And he again was of his part so sober to her, so sweet, so modest, and so loving a husband, that if he had not been her husband, it might have seemed to have been her own germane brother, as Erasmus was wont to say of a happy couple. But above all, she was to her father a most natural loving child. And albeit her behaviour and reverence towards him all her lifetime was much to be commended, yet never so notably as after her father's trouble and imprisonment: and then not so much for her pains and travail, which she took to procure him some ease and relief, as for her wise and godly talk, and for her comfortable letters she often sent him, and for some other reasons; so that it well appeared she was the chiefest, and only comfort almost he had in the world. Erasmus wrote many Epistles to her, and dedicated his commentaries on certain hymns of Prudentius to this gentlewoman, and calleth her the flower of all the learned matrons of England. Nor was she meanly learned. She composed in Greek and Latin, both verse and prose, and that most eloquently. Her wit was sharp and quick."

A few additional particulars of no very great importance relating to the life of Sir Thomas More may be gleaned from this anonymous writer, who seems to have constructed his narrative fromRoper, Harpsfield, and Stapleton, together with copious extracts from the letters which are to be found in our Appendix. Dr. Wordsworth justly observes, "that by means of the successive lives of Sir Thomas More, we possess a curious specimen of the aversion which Popery has against reforming itself; or rather of its propensity to accumulate falsities and forgeries, even amidst surrounding reformation and refinement In Roper and Harpsfield there is scarcely any thing fanatical; Stapleton, who wrote (in 1588) about thirty years afterwards, and at a distance from the scene of action, being in exile at Douay, has detailed several miraculous stories: but Mr. More, Sir Thomas's great grandson, whose life of his ancestor came out in the year 1627, goes much farther; (one very short specimen may be found in the note). May we not easily believe that, but for the iniquity of the times, in another generation Sir Thomas More would have been canonized?"

The character of Sir Thomas More has been variously estimated by writers of various parties, but all allow him to have been endowed with many virtues; and the only serious and unrefuted charge which can be brought against his memory, is the severity of misguided zeal with which he sought out and punished the early reformers, whom he unrelentingly persecuted with the pen and the scourge, as pernicious heretics. That he entertained more liberal opinions at his outset in life is apparent from his letters to Erasmus, and from some parts of his Utopia, in which he expressly declares that no man ought to be persecuted for his religious opinions. Yet at last he himself suffered death for a religious scruple of conscience! That he was a great and a good, though mistaken man, there can be no doubt; and, as Addison has elegantly remarked, "His death was of a piece with his life. There was nothing in it new, forced, or affected. He did not look upon the severing his head from his body as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind, and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern improper on such an occasion, as had nothing in it which could deject or terrify him."

Box Hill, August, 1822.

Lewis's Preface

THE

REV. JOHN LEWIS'S

PREFACE.

S Thomas More being a person so very remarkable for his strict virtue, excellent learning, great skill in our municipal laws, his honours and promotions, and lastly for the cause for which he suffer'd a violent death, many have taken in hand to write his history. Of these, that which I now publish as it seems to have been the first written, so all the rest are more or less transcripts of or copies from it. And indeed none of the many other writers of Sir Thomas's Life, can any way pretend to the same advantages and opportunities of knowing him which the author of this little history had, who not only married his beloved daughter, with whom Sir Thomas entrusted his secrets, but who lived sixteen years in the same house with Sir Thomas, and was his attendant and companion almost wherever he went. Accordingly he gives this reason himself for his committing to writing these Memoirs of Sir Thomas's Life, &c. that he knew his doings and mind no man living so well.

This gentleman was William Roper the son and heir of John Roper, Esq.; prothonotary of the King's Bench, and of an ancient and worshipful family at St. Dunstan's in the suburbs of the City of Canterbury. He married Margaret the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. This lady had all the advantages that could arise from great natural parts and very fine learning: she was a perfect mistress of the Greek and Latin tongues, and of all sorts of music, besides her skill in arithmetick and other sciences. For thus we are assured by a very learned friend of Sir Thomas, that he took a great deal of care to have his children instructed in the liberal disciplines or sciences; so that the fine things said of her and to her by the greatest men of that age and since, were more than complements or words of course, they were what she had a right to and very well deserved.

With this excellent woman Mr. Roper lived about 16 years, she dying 1544, nine years after her father, when she was buried in the family burying place at St. Dunstan's, with her father's head in her arms, as she had desired. By her Mr. Roper had two sons and three daughters: of whose education the mother took the same care that had been taken of her own. The famous Roger Ascham, then fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge, and afterwards Latin Secretary to Queen Elizabeth, tells us, That she was very desirous of having him for their tutor to instruct them in the learned languages, but that he would not then upon any terms be prevailed with to leave the university; that therefore she procured Dr. Cole and Dr. Christopherson, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, both very famous at that time for their skill in the Greek tongue. Ascham stiles this Mrs. Clarke, one of Mrs. Roper's daughters, an eminent ornament of her sex and of Queen Mary's court. This daughter of Mrs. Roper's, who afterward married James Basset, was one of the gentlewomen, so they were then called, of Queen Mary's privy chamber, and translated into English part of her grandfather's exposition of the passion of our Saviour, which he wrote in Latin; and is said so well to have imitated Sir Thomas's stile that any one would think it was written by him in English. After her decease Mr. Roper lived a widow 33 years, even to the time of his death, January 4th, 1577, being then 82 years old, and left the following good character, viz. 'That he was very generous at home and abroad, mild and merciful, and the staff or support of those who were either prisoners, or under oppression, or in poverty.' He was buried in the same grave with his dear and beloved wife. The very diligent and exact Mr. Somner has preserved the following inscription or epitaph made for him, which was, it seems, with other funeral inscriptions for persons of that ancient family to be seen in his time in the chancel or chapel of the Ropers on the south side of the high chancel of St. Dunstan's church, but they are all now so totally defaced that not the least remains are left: nay one cannot so much as guess whereabouts they were placed.

Gulielmus Roper Johannis Roperi Margareta Gulielmi, Thomæ Mori Angliæ Gulielmus Thomæ Gulielmus Margareta ) 33. Jan. 1577. 82.

Mr. Roper seems to have been very well qualified for a writer of Sir Thomas's Life, but his affection for him has had some influence on his pen, so as instead of a history, he has wrote a panegyric. As great and as good a man as Sir Thomas was, it's certain he was not altogether without his foibles. The principal of these seems to me to have been too great an affectation of singularity. Somewhat of this appeared in his very dress; he used, we are told, to wear his gown awry upon one shoulder, and so to appear as if one shoulder was higher than the other. Archbishop Cranmer seems to have been of this mind that Sir Thomas was somewhat too conceited and desirous of esteem, and therfore wherein he had once said his mind, would not vary therefrom that he might not for ever distain or blemish his fame and estimation.

Erasmus, tho' a very great admirer of Sir Thomas, and one who loved him so well as to seem to himself to have died with him, yet observes of him that his aspect was somewhat ludicrous and tending to the smile, and more apposite to pleasantry and jesting than either to gravity or dignity. This he imputes to Sir Thomas's being from a child, so delighted with jesting that he seem'd to be even born for it. But then he adds that he never degenerated into scurrility, and that he did not love an ill-natured jest, that put another to pain. Sir Thomas himself observes that it was reckoned a blemish in his writings against the Protestants, that he mix'd with the most serious matters fancies and sports and merry tales. But in this he thought himself justified by the authority of the Roman poet Horace, who, Sir Thomas observes, sayeth, A man maye sometime saye ful soth in a game2ridentem dicere verum quis vetat?

The same great man tells us that Sir Thomas seem'd to be rather superstitious than irreligious: tho' else where he observes of him that he was the farthest possible from all superstition. But how far from being exact this latter judgment of him is, let the following history of his life be an evidence.

It was likewise laid to the charge of Sir Thomas, as he tells us himself, that he 'handled Luther, Tindal, &c. with no fayrer wordes, nor in no more courteous manner, and treated their persons when he had them in his power with too much rigor and severity.' Thus is it particularly remarked of his Latin answer to Luther, that in it he has forgotten himself so far that he has there u thrown out the greatest heap of nasty language that perhaps ever was put together, and that the book throughout is nothing but downright ribaldry without a grain of reason to support it, and gave the author no other reputation but that of having the best knack of any man in Europe at calling bad names in good Latin; tho' his passion is sometimes so strong upon him that he sacrifices even his beloved purity to it.' The like censure do his English Tracts against Tindal, Barns, &c. deserve. He by way of sneer calls the protestants, the brethren, forgetting that this was the name the first christians were commonly called by. But for this Sir Thomas makes the following apology,—'Where they fynde the faute that I handle these folke so foule, how coulde I other doe? For whyle I declare and she we they're writynge to be suche (as I nedes muste or leave the most necessarie pointes of all the matter untouched) it were verye harde for me to handle it in suche wise as when I plainlye prove them abhominable heretiques and against God and his sacraments and saints very blasphemous fools thei should wene that I speake them faire. I am a simple plain body2For thoughe Tindall and Frith in their writings call me a poet, it is but of their owne courtesy, undeserved on my part. For I canne neither so muche poetry nor so much rethorique neither as to fynde good names for evyll thinges, but even as the Macedonians coude not call a traytour but a traytour, so canne I not call a foole but a foole, nor an heretique but an heretique2 But now these good brethren, that fynde the faute wyth me that I speake no fairer unto these holye prophetes of theirs, be so egall and indifferent that in them they finde no faute at all for their abhominable raylinge against so manye other honest, honourable, good and vertuous folke, nor for condempninge for dampned heretikes the whole catholique churche of all christian people, excepte heretikes, both spirituall and temporall, seculare and religious to. But then the good brethrene excuse theim and saye, that they write against none but onelye theim that are nought, and write but against their vices.'

Of this apology the indifferent reader must judge how far it will serve to excuse Sir Thomas's manner of writing against those he calls hereticks, and the low unmanly reflections which he constantly makes on their persons. Tho' it must be own'd, in this they were pretty even with him in the answers which they made to him, and treated him with as little ceremony as he had used towards them.

But besides the reflections made on their persons, its but too plain that Sir Thomas is not always so careful, as one would expect a person of his learning and of so tender and scrupulous a conscience would be, in reporting matters of fact wherein they whom he called hereticks were concerned. For instance, Tyndall had written 'that the cardinall was compelled even with his awne good will to resygne his chauncelareshippe, and that to whome he lysted himselfe: that he thought to undo his destenye with his policyes, and went and put downe himselfe under a colour and sett up in his roume4the chefest of all his secretaries2More.—And as for the bishopryche of Durham he coude not of good congruyte but rewarde his old chappellayne, and one of the chefe of all his secretaryes with all2Tunstalle.'

These stories seem indeed to be perfect tattle and romance, but thus Sir Thomas misrepresents them.— The practise of prelates; wherin Tindall had went to have made speciall shewe of his highe worldly witte, and that men shulde have sene therein that ther wer nothing clone among princes but that he was fully advertised of all the secretes, and that so farre furthe that he knewe the privie practise made betweene the King's Highnesse and the late Lord Cardinall and the reverend father Cuthbert then Bishop of London, and me, that it was devised wilily that the Cardinall should leave the Chauncellorship to me, and the Bishopricke of Durham to my said Lord of London for a while, till he list himself to take them both againe.'