Thomas More was the sixteenth-century
statesman who served as Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII before
being executed for defending the ancient liberties of his country and for
refusing to compromise his conscience. Coming from humble roots, Thomas More
achieved uncommon professional success, and he attributed that success to
the depth and excellence of the education that he received. A principled
politician known as "the best friend the poor ever had" and dedicated to God
and His laws, he was an intellectual with a great sense of humor; he was
the first in history to give a defense for free speech; he was the first to
use the word "integrity" in the English language, and although he worked for
a monarch, he showed the superiority of parliamentary government based on
the people's consent. More was a dedicated family man who studied throughout
his life and carefully attended to his children’s education. He was also a
shrewd professional and entrepreneur. A master of diplomatic speech, famous
for the range of his irony and wit, More has been known, even in his own lifetime,
as "a man for all seasons.
Interest in Thomas More has never
been greater than in our own times. Beginning with his canonization in 1935
on the eve of World War II, and continuing with the release of the Pulitzer
Prize winning play and Academy Award winning film A Man for All Seasons
in the ‘60s, Thomas More has consistently been presented as a champion of
truth and conscience in times plagued both by tyranny and by politicians
without principles. So great is More’s appeal in diverse circles that he was
added to the Anglican Calendar of Saints in 1980, voted “Lawyer of the Millennium”
in 1999 by the Law Society of Great Britain, and proclaimed “Patron of Statesmen”
on October 31, 2000 by John Paul II in response to an international petition
signed by hundreds of world leaders and politicians of widely different
backgrounds. As the first major thinker and writer of the English Renaissance,
More’s works and influence also attract considerable scholarly interest,
as the publication (1997) of his complete works by Yale University Press
indicates.
