{"id":9463,"date":"2010-03-26T14:43:35","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T19:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=9463"},"modified":"2010-03-26T14:43:35","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T19:43:35","slug":"who-iswas-thomas-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/03\/who-iswas-thomas-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Is\/Was Thomas More?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Thomas More was a very successful English lawyer (barrister — Lincoln\u2019s Inn, 1501), a judge, and a Member of Parliament about the time of King Henry VIII. But he was much more than that. He came from a family of lawyers. His father, Sir John More, was a prominent lawyer and a judge.<\/p>\n

We would probably not know about Sir Thomas More except for the fact that King Henry had appointed him Lord Chancellor of England and Wales in 1529, replacing Thomas Wolsey, but ultimately the King and Thomas did not see eye to eye with each other. As Lord Chancellor, he was the head of the judiciary and also the presiding officer of the House of Lords. We would call him the Chief Justice, as the House of Lords was the Supreme Court and in charge of regulating the judiciary. Sir Thomas was also one of the most respected people in England and Wales at the time — certainly the most respected lawyer then, and\u00a0maybe one of the most respected lawyers of all time.<\/p>\n

King Henry, you will recall, was married to Katherine of Aragon, his first wife. But he did not want to be married to her and in fact wanted to marry Anne Boleyn.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The King wished to have Sir Thomas endorse King Henry\u2019s plan to marry Anne Boleyn, but he refused and resigned as Lord Chancellor in 1532 citing ill health, but the reason was surely his disapproval of the marriage. Thomas also refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn in June of 1533. When King Henry broke with the Catholic Church in Rome, the King thought (and rightly so) that Sir Thomas also opposed this act.<\/p>\n

More also refused to swear to the Act of Succession and thereafter was committed to the Tower of London and ultimately found guilty of treason and beheaded. His last words were, \u201cThe King\u2019s good servant, but God\u2019s first.\u201d<\/p>\n

No doubt this is why we still talk about Thomas More, five hundred years later. He was a man who stood up for what he believed.<\/p>\n

In 1935, Thomas More was made a saint by the Catholic Church. In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared St. Thomas, the \u201cheavenly patron of statesmen and politicians.\u201d In 1980 More was added to the Anglican calendar of Saints and Heroes of the Christian Church, jointly with Bishop John Fisher, who was beheaded with More.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas More was a very successful English lawyer (barrister — Lincoln\u2019s Inn, 1501), a judge, and a Member of Parliament about the time of King Henry VIII. But he was much more than that. He came from a family of lawyers. His father, Sir John More, was a prominent lawyer and a judge. We would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-history","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}