More Thomas - A daughters love: Thomas More and his dearest Meg

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
BOSTON NEW YORK
2009

Copyright 2008 by John Guy

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Fourth Estate,
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Guy, J. A. (John Alexander)
A daughter's love : Thomas More and his dearest Meg / John Guy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-618-49915-1
1. Roper, Margaret, 15051544. 2. More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 14781535.
3. Great Britain History Henry VIII, 15091547 Biography.
4. Women Great Britain History 16th century Biography.
5. England Intellectual life 16th century. 6. Christian martyrs
England Biography. 7. Humanists England Biography.
I. Title.
DA 335. R 6 G 89 2009
942.05'20922 dc22 [ B ] 2008034932

Printed in the United States of America

DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Endpapers: Map of Middlesex from John Norden, Speculum Britanniae.
The first parte (London, 1593). Bb*.10.46(E). Reproduced with the
permission of the Cambridge University Library.

For Julia

Birth, marriage, death ploughing, seedtime and harvest all move
in tune and the cosmic relationships are mirrored in the human
relationships.

GEOFFREY WAGNER on Lewis Grassic Gibbon,
Essays in Criticism, 1952

Illustration credits ix

Acknowledgements xiii

Genealogical tables xv

Map xviii

Note on units of currency xix

Prologue 1

PART I: Margaret's World 7

1 A Child is Born 9

2 Family Matters 18

3 Rites of Passage 27

4 Enter Alice 37

5 A Go-Between 47

6 An Absent Father 57

7 Coming of Age 66

PART II: Thomas's World 75

8 Speaking in Tongues 77

9 Speaking Out 84

10 The Limits of Reason 94

11 Alternative Utopias 104

12 Convulsions in Christendom 112

13 A Utopian Dilemma 120

PART III: The Ropers 129

14 Shifting Sands 131

15 Heaven in Chelsea 140

16 'Our Father' 149

17 The Devil Makes Work 160

18 Illusion of Reality 168

PART IV: Thomas's Challenge 179

19 'Fate We Must Obey' 181

20 Grappling with the Devil 189

21 The Press of Suitors 199

22 Resignation 206

PART V: Two against a Tyrant 217

23 A Knock at the Door 219

24 The Heart of the Matter 229

25 Fighting Back 243

26 'Merrily in Heaven' 255

27 Telling the Story 265

References and Abbreviations 275

Notes 280

Bibliography 329

Index 365

The Bridgeman Art Library

Self Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Portrait of a woman, possibly Catherine of Aragon (oil on panel) by Michiel Sittow, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Portrait of Nicholas Kratzer (oil on panel) by Hans Holbein the Younger, Louvre, Paris, Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.

King Henry VIII (oil on oak panel) by Hans Holbein the Younger, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid.

Portrait of Erasmus (oil and egg tempera on panel) by Hans Holbein the Younger, Private Collection.

Sloane MS 2596 fo.52, 'Map of London, the River Thames and London Bridge', 1588, British Library, London British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.

Anne Boleyn (oil on panel), English School (sixteenth century), Hever Castle, Kent.

Peter Gilles (oil on panel) by Quentin Massys or Metsys, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Cambridge University Library

'The King of the Apes', from'S. Brant, Esopi appologi siue mythologi cum quibusdam carminum et fabularum additionibus (Aesop's Fables), 1501 edn, Sel.3.111 (unpaginated).

'Burning of Thomas Hitton', from J. Foxe, Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenying in the Church ... Newly revised, 1583 edn, vol. 2, Young.200, p.998.

'Death of Richard Hunne', from J. Foxe, Actes and monuments of these latter and perillous days, touching matters of the Church, 1563 edn, vol. 1, Sel.2.15a, p.390.

Map of Middlesex 1593, by John Norden, from Speculum Britanniae. The first parte, Bb*.10.46(E), no.6, between pp.8 and 9.

Title page from The workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, 1557 edn, Young.242.

Reproduced with the permission of the Cambridge University Library.

Frick Collection

Sir Thomas More (oil on panel) by Hans Holbein the Younger. Copyright The Frick Collection, New York.

Thomas Cromwell (oil on panel) by Hans Holbein the Younger. Copyright The Frick Collection, New York.

Kunstmuseum Basel

Preparatory sketch of The Family of Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger, Kupferstichkabinett. Inv. 1662.31, photo credit Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin Bhler.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Miniatures of William Roper and Margaret More, wife of William Roper (vellum laid on card), by Hans Holbein the Younger, Rogers Fund, 50.69.1, 50.69.2. Photograph 1979 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

National Trust

Sir Thomas More and His Family, by Rowland Lockey after Hans Holbein the Younger, from the Lower Hall at Nostell Priory. By kind permission of Lord St Oswald & The National Trust NTPL/John Hammond.

Royal Library, Windsor

Drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger of Thomas More (2 images), Judge John More, John More the Younger, Anne Cresacre, Elizabeth Daunce, Cecily Heron, Margaret Giggs, Bishop John Fisher (R.L. 12270, 12228, 12229, 12269, 12226, 12224, 12225, 12268, 12202): The Royal Collection 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Wroclaw University Library

Letter of Margaret Roper to Erasmus (2 pages), Letter of Thomas More to Erasmus (2 pages), from MS R.254, fos.309, 310, 354, 356. By kind permission of the University Library in Wroclaw.

Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Map of the island of Utopia, from the first edition of Thomas More's Utopia, 1516 edn.

Annotated folio (fo.xlvii) of Sir Thomas More's Psalter.

Title page of Margaret Roper's A deuoute treatise vpon the Pater noster, c.1525 edn.

Engraving illustrating the executions of Thomas More and John Fisher, from Richard Verstegan, Theatrvm crudelitatum haereticorum nostri temporis, 1592 edn.

Although the More family's archives have long been lost or destroyed, most of their major life transactions and those of their in-laws, even before the proliferation of parish registers, can be reconstructed from unpublished deeds, marriage settlements, land conveyances, court pleadings, witness depositions, wills and so on. All but thirty or so of Thomas's surviving letters and memos and all of Margaret's extant letters are collected in the invaluable The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton University Press) and St Thomas More: Selected Letters (Yale University Press), both edited by Elizabeth Frances Rogers. Yale University Press has published in fifteen indispensable volumes