Remembering More

Many people remember Thomas More as a martyr for his disagreement with King Henry VIII, but the theological principle under dispute is often misremembered. This recurring amnesia inspired the historian E. E. Reynolds to answer one essential question: what was the inviolable principle for which Thomas More was resolved to give his life?¹

This answer is not obvious because there were a variety of egregious acts that contributed to his martyrdom. One such act was Henry VIII’s decision that his marriage with Catherine of Aragon was null and that Anne Boleyn was the true queen, an act which disinherited Catherine’s daughter Mary and made Anne’s children the future monarchs. Another act was Henry’s decision that the nullity of his marriage did not need to rely on Rome but instead could be made by the king, declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church in England “as far as the law of Christ allows.” A third egregious act was the imposition of an oath of allegiance to the king and his decisions, and the failure to take this oath was considered an act of treason, punishable by death. Given these diverse but interrelated scandals, Reynolds took up a task that was of little interest to the jurors at Thomas More’s trial: to understand why Thomas More disagreed with the king, and the principles undergirding such disagreement.

Regarding the king’s divorce, it seems clear that More disapproved. This is seen in Thomas’ refusal to attend the coronation of Anne, as well as conjectural evidence from his private conversations with the king. But while Thomas did not approve of the divorce, he was also willing to accept certain repercussions. More was not obstinately opposed to the children of Anne Boleyn becoming the future monarchs of England, for he lived in a world where marital scandal did not always preclude one from monarchical power. Even in scripture, the once-adulterous mother Bathsheba became part of David’s royal court, and a son born from their scandalous union eventually became a king. More’s objection to Henry’s marriage was not incompatible with accepting the line of succession, but there were some “implications that underlay the Act [of Succession]” which formed More’s essential point of objection.² These implications were articulated in two important moments: at the end of Thomas’ trial, and in the indictment which called Thomas to court.

In the indictment calling him to court, the royal authorities articulated the grounds on which they based their arrest: “Thomas More falsely, traitorously and maliciously . . . attempted wholly to deprive our sovereign lord the King . . . of his dignity, title and name of Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England.”³ The first piece of evidence presented as proof of Thomas’ objection to Henry as the Supreme Head was his silence: “on 7 May 1535, Thomas More remained obstinately and maliciously silent before the commissioners when asked if he accepted the King as Supreme Head.”⁴ In the trial itself, Thomas argues that he never said a malicious word against the king, and that he never stated his opinion as to whether the king could be the Supreme Head of the Church of England.⁵ But this trial was not about discerning the truth and only about sentencing a man to death, and relying on the perjury of Richard Rich, a sentence of condemnation was pronounced.

In response to this condemnation, More stated, “Seeing that ye are determined to condemn me (God knoweth how), I will now in discharge of my conscience speak my mind plainly and freely touching my Indictment and your Statute.”⁶ Now certain of an imminent death, Thomas More corroborated the accusation in the indictment that called him to court and stated publicly, for the first time, the inviolable principle for which he was willing to give his life:

And forasmuch as this Indictment is grounded upon an Act of Parliament directly repugnant to the laws of God and his Holy Church, the supreme Government of which, or of any part whereof, may no temporal Prince presume by any law to take upon him, as rightfully belonging to the See of Rome, a spiritual preeminence by the mouth of our Saviour himself, personally present upon earth, only to St. Peter and his successors, Bishops of the same See, by special prerogative granted . . . No more might this Realm of England refuse obedience to the See of Rome than might the child refuse obedience to his own natural father.⁷

Because More “saw that repudiation of the authority of the Pope opened the door for schism, and schism would lead to heresy,” More believed that refusing obedience to the See of Rome on this matter would sow the seeds of disunity and fracture the Catholic spirit in England.⁸ Seeing the dissolution of the reformation into a variety of sects in his own day, Thomas More had both intellectual and historical reasons to stake his life on the principle that the Pope had an irreplaceable spiritual authority for unifying the Church in England. While he did not articulate all the scenarios in which this authority was to be obeyed by a king, Thomas was willing to die for believing that such authority was binding (and thus unifying) for all complex cases involving marriage and annulments, even those involving a king.⁹

Summarizing the relevant historical data, Reynolds answers the essential question of his book by concluding that

Thomas More could not accept this revolutionary claim to complete national control of the Church. He approved of the limitations that had been imposed in the past on papal interference with purely temporal affairs, but he could not accept the right of any one member of the Universal Church to repudiate the spiritual authority of the Holy See. There he made his stand, and it was for the Primacy of the Pope and the Unity of the Church that he laid down his life.¹⁰

Thus it was the Primacy of the Pope, and not the primacy of Queen Catherine, which formed the inviolable principle which Thomas More could never admit of an exception. Thomas More went to the gallows, not as a “martyr for marriage” but as a martyr for Petrine Primacy, whose authority extends even to divine laws governing marriage.¹¹

Thomas More is a “man for all seasons,” not only because of his defense of this unifying principle, but also because of the way he allowed it to develop. Thomas says that “I had not formed my conscience neither suddenly nor slightly but by long leisure and diligent search of the matter,” and he mentioned at his trial that he reached his conclusion “only after a long and extended study over seven years.”¹² Thomas’ mind preferred a slow and diligent search for truth, and in this search, he found an answer which put him at odds with the rest of England. But having formed his conscience diligently and slowly, he was ready to defend it persistently and faithfully. Why did all of Thomas’ immediate family and nearly all of England swear an oath of allegiance to the king’s decisions, but Thomas himself did not? Perhaps because he was the only one to study the matter with diligent interest, shielding him from the plebeian necessity of relying exclusively on the “Bishops, Universities, and best learned men of the realm” who supported the king with their intellectual authority.¹³ For these nationalist theologians, the search for truth disintegrated into the reinforcement of only popular opinion; for Thomas More, the search for truth led to the rejection of royal opinion, at the cost of his own life.

More is also heroic for the way in which he shared this inviolable principle, for it was silence that formed his primary mode of communication. The indictment calling Thomas to court accused him of silence on this great question, a point which Thomas never denied. Thus he testified at court, “I assure you that I have not hitherto to this hour disclosed and opened my conscience and mind to any person living in all the world.”¹⁴ But could there have been any conclusion more important to share with all of England than Thomas’ conclusion that obedience to the Pope on matters of marriage and divine law was an essential ingredient for both civil and ecclesial unity? Did Thomas forsake his duty by remaining silent about an issue which was troubling every Catholic mind in his homeland?

Here, we see a great contrast between modern instincts and this modern saint, for instead of getting a group of parishioners to start a petition or ramping up his social media posts, Thomas More chose to be silent. Thomas did discuss these heated topic with some of his contemporaries, but he states that he never revealed his judgement in these discussions; in fact, Thomas said that he never once tried to persuade someone to refuse the Oath to the King nor did he put “any scruple in any man’s head,” choosing instead to “leave every man to his own conscience.”¹⁵ Thus Thomas More is an icon, not of democratic polemics, but of an intensely personalistic conscience; he spent all his time in a near-scrupulous formation of his own conscience and none of his time informing others of his conscience. Those seeking to emerge victorious in modern democratic polemics may profit from imitating Thomas’ technique, for in the end, silence was a supremely effective tool for sharing his opinions with all the world; it just took a despotic king to bring these thoughts into the open.

Equally heroic is the fact that Thomas’ silence was not a rigid or resentful silence. He stated that “whatsoever other folk thought in the matter (whose conscience and learning I would not condemn nor take upon me to judge), yet in my conscience the truth seemed on the other side.”¹⁶ This tendency to respect the contradictory opinions of his opponents shines brilliantly in Thomas’ final words at the trial:

More have I not to say, my Lords, but that like the Blessed Apostle St. Paul as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, was present and consented to the death of St. Stephen . . . and yet be they now both twain Holy Saints in heaven, and shall continue there friends together forever, so I verily trust, and shall therefore right heartily pray, that though your lordships have now here in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together, to our everlasting salvation.¹⁷

When the case was lost and his beheading imminent, Thomas More did not resort to verbal violence or belittling those who opposed him, nor did he emphasize his previous points more aggressively and insistently; instead, there was an authentic act of forgiveness and an expressed desire for Christian fellowship with those whom he considered himself unworthy to judge. These are virtues worth striving for in all seasons.

We are always at risk of molding our heroes into our own image and likeness, but true devotion happens in the reverse direction. Thomas More laid down his life for believing in the indispensable role of papal authority in securing Church unity, and the inability of any national church or executive power to replace this authority, especially when applied to marriage. From the shores of Galilee in AD 30 into the modern age, there has never been a time when this truth was unchallenged. Thankfully, there has never been a time when this truth was left undefended, even if only in the silent conscience of a formerly resplendent lawyer trapped in a tower prison.