Meant to Post This Yesterday

Yesterday, of course, was the feast of Saint Paulinus of Nola, as well as of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, Martyrs.

Wrote Erasmus, in 1519,  of his friend Thomas More:

To begin then with what is least known to you, in stature he is not tall, though not remarkably short. His limbs are formed with such perfect symmetry as to leave nothing to be desired. His complexion is white, his face rather than pale and though by no means ruddy, a faint flush of pink appears beneath the whiteness of his skin. His hair is dark brown or brownish black. The eyes are grayish blue, with some spots, a kind which betokens singular talent, and among the English is considered attractive, whereas Germans generally prefer black. It is said that none are so free of vice. His countenance is in harmony with his character, being always expressive of an amiable joyousness, and even an incipient laughter and, to speak candidly, it is better framed for gladness than for gravity or dignity, though without any approach to folly or buffoonery. The right shoulder is a little higher than the left, especially when he walks. This is not a defect of birth, but the result of habit such as we often contract. In the rest of his person there is nothing to offend . . .He seems born and framed for friendship, and is a most faithful and enduring friend . . .When he finds any sincere and according to his heart, he so delights in their society. In human affairs there is nothing from which he does not extract enjoyment, even from things that are most serious. If he converses with the learned and judicious, he delights in their talent, if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their stupidity. He is not even offended by professional jesters. With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women, even with his own wife, he is full of jokes and banter. No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one departs less from common sense . . .  (H/T)

More was a remarkable figure by all accounts, notably that of his son-in-law William Roper, husband to More's daughter Margaret,  with whom, among all his children, More shared a particularly intimate understanding. Drawn initially to the monastic life, he settled at last into a vocation to the married state, and into politics, which he viewed as a means of discharging his duty to his country. He seems from the beginning not to have minded shooting himself in the foot politically:

One of More's first acts in Parliament had been to urge a decrease in a proposed appropriation for King Henry VII. In revenge, the King had imprisoned More's father and not released him until a fine was paid and More himself had withdrawn from public life. (read more)

 Later, as we all know, he re-entered that life, beginning as undersheriff of London -- a role in which he gained a reputation for impartial justice and compassion for the poor -- and ending as Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor. He was a famous opponent of Luther and the Protestant Reformation, in a time when religious dissent and treason were conflated into one offense and punished with the usual brutality of the age. In his lifetime, More heatedly denied rumors that he had personally ill-treated Protestants, and though those rumors were later given more or less immortal status via Foxe's Book of Martyrs, it is worth considering that their subject seems in general to have been a man of his word, given to decency rather than cruelty. His greatest stringency and sense of penance was reserved for himself;  beneath the opulent dress of the public man, he habitually wore a hair shirt.

Unusually for the time, he believed in the value of education for women and took great pride in the intellectual gifts of his daughters, whom he taught himself in a room his family called the Academia.


 The Anchoress offers as a podcast a letter written to his cherished daughter Margaret during his last imprisonment. Here's an excerpt which, as one Anchoress commenter points out, serves well as a prayer:

Though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear,  I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray to him for help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.

In Cambridge, the windows of our flat looked west across a common to the Catholic Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs. That spire formed our horizon, and I can't help thinking that they had us in their sights, too, all the while.

See also Peter Ackyroyd's Life of Thomas More: