What Happened to Thomas More's Family After He Was Executed
Posted By on July vi, 2010
On the sixth July 1535, Henry Eight'due south former friend and Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, was beheaded on Tower Loma. His crime? Loftier treason.
Only did Sir Thomas More really commit loftier treason?
Crossing a King
No, I don't think he did. I retrieve his only crime was not giving his total support to the disparateness of the King'southward matrimony to Catherine of Aragon. More was an influential human being and although he never spoke out against the King, choosing to resign from his postal service and proceed silent instead, Henry VIII felt betrayed and made an example of More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who also refused to sign the oath.
In my postal service, "Henry VIII – A Tyrant or Just Misunderstood?", I fabricated the point that Sir Thomas More than was arrested in April 1534 for refusing to swear the Oath of Succession, however he was actually put to decease for rejecting the Rex's new title of Supreme Head of the Church of the Church of England. This "offence" was not fabricated treasonable until the Treason Act of 1535 and then how did More manage to commit treason in 1534?! The only prove was the word of Richard Rich, a friend of Thomas Cromwell. He claimed that he had heard More denying that the King was Head of the Church building. How convenient. It reminds me of Anne Boleyn being executed for committing adultery, nonetheless her wedlock to the Rex was annulled shortly before her death.
I believe that Sir Thomas More was an intelligent and diplomatic man, and he kept his thoughts and feelings to himself. He had a potent faith, which prevented him from fully supporting the King, but he besides loved and respected Henry Viii, the man he had in one case written poesy in praise of, and he did non desire to openly defy him.
I know that Sir Thomas More was responsible for the burnings of many Protestants, people he believed to be evil heretics, simply I notice it sad that Henry VIII could turn against a human being who had showed him nothing merely beloved and back up. More had helped shape the King. He had been instrumental in ensuring that Henry, as prince, received the best Renaissance didactics, and so he had been an important adviser to the new, and very young, Rex. In his poetry in celebration of Henry VIII's coronation, he likened the King'south succession to a second coming and obviously had high hopes for his reign, these hopes were dashed when the King became intent of divorcing his showtime wife and using organized religion to help him to practice it.
Sir Thomas More's Execution
Although Sir Thomas More had been sentenced to the full traitor's death, the King commuted his sentence to decease by beheading and he was executed two weeks after his good friend, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.
Hither is a gimmicky business relationship of Sir Thomas More's execution:-
"About Nine he was brought out of the Belfry; his Bristles was long, his face pale and thin, and conveying a Blood-red Cross in his Hand, he ofttimes lift up his Eyes to Heaven; a Woman coming together him with a cup of Wine, he refused information technology proverb, Christ at his Passion drank no vino, merely Gall and Vinegar. Some other Adult female came crying and demanded some Papers she said she had left in his Hands, when he was Lord Chancellor, to whom he said, Good woman, take Patience simply for an Hour and the King will rid me of the Intendance I take for those Papers, and every affair else. Another Woman followed him, crying, He had done her much Wrong when he was Lord Chancellor, to whom he said, I very well recall the Cause, and is I were to decide it now, I should make the aforementioned Prescript.
When he came to the Scaffold, it seemed ready to fall, whereupon he said merrily to the Lieutenant, Pray, Sir, come across me safe upwards; and as to my coming down, let me shift for myself. Being almost to speak to the People, he was interrupted past the Sheriff, and thereupon he only desired the People to pray for him, and prove he died in the Organized religion of the Catholic Church, a faithful Servant both to God and the King. And so kneeling, he repeated the Miserere Psalm with much Devotion; and, rising up the Executioner asked him Forgiveness. He kissed him, and said, Pick up thy Spirits, Man, and exist not afraid to exercise thine Function; my Cervix is very short, take heed therefore m strike not awry for having thine Honesty. Laying his Caput upon the Block, he bid the Executioner stay till he had put his Beard aside, for that had committed no Treason. Thus he suffered with much Cheerfulness; his Caput was taken off at ane Blow, and was placed upon London-Bridge, where, having continued for some Months, and being about to be thrown into the Thames to make room for others, his Daughter Margaret bought it, in closed it in a Leaden Box, and kept it for a Relique. Hall's Chron. Vol. 2. S. two."
One of the Tower Hill Scaffold site memorial plaques
RIP St Thomas More, you are remembered.
You lot tin read more most Sir Thomas More at:-
- Our Thomas More Bio page
- Sir Thomas More
Notes and Sources
- YouTube video clip from "A Man for All Flavour" starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More
- Contemporary account from A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceeding Upon Impeachments for High Treason, etc (London, 1719), cited at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/more/moretrialreport.html
Source: https://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/the-execution-of-sir-thomas-more/
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