From the Law Society of Great Britain's Gazette of December
1999:
Gazette survey feature: Lawyer
of the millennium
Sir Thomas More has topped the lawyers' poll as
the most significant legal figure of the second millennium. Rebecca Towers
looks back on the life of the man for all seasons.
Enlightened Renaissance man and Roman Catholic
martyr Sir Thomas More is the legal profession's choice for Lawyer of the
Millennium. Sir Thomas received 33% of votes cast - but faced stiff competition
from one of this century's most distinguished lawyers, Lord Denning, who
gathered 27% of votes.
Lord Mishcon of Mishcon de Reya acknowledges his
place in history: 'This result leaves no doubt that Sir Thomas More is
still the idol of many lawyers. Especially when celebrating the millennium
it is appropriate that we have honoured the man for all seasons.'
Thomas More was born in 1478 Milk Street, London,
the eldest son of John More, an eminent lawyer and judge of the King's
Bench. The young Thomas was educated in London and was page to John Morton,
the Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England, who sent him to
Oxford University to study Latin and formal logic.
Bowing to his father's wishes to become a lawyer,
More returned to London to study common law. In February 1496 he was
admitted to Lincoln's Inn, one of the four legal societies, to prepare
for admission to the Bar, becoming an 'utter Barrister' - a full member
of the legal profession - in 1501. More, already a profoundly religious
man, followed a monk's way of life as far as was practicable, residing
for four years in a monastery adjoining Lincoln's Inn. For the rest of
his life, More never discarded the practices of his formative years of
prolonged prayer, fasting and wearing a hair shirt.
More was soon immersed in legal London. He held
the post of Under-Sheriff of London - the Sheriff's legal adviser - and
engaged in private law practice as representative of a number of London
companies in negotiations with Antwerp merchants. An account by his son-in-law
William Roper confirms More's dedication to his profession: 'There was
at that time in none of the Prince's courts of the laws of this realm,
any matter of importance in controversy wherein he was not with the one
part of Counsel.'
In May 1515 More was appointed as a delegate to
a conference and given the task of revising an Anglo-Flemish commercial
treaty. The conference was held in Bruges, and its long intervals gave
More the opportunity to visit Belgium's other cities. It was during this
year that he began writing Utopia - an account of a fictitious paradise
which became his most celebrated work. Published in December 1516, the
book was an immediate success and gave birth to a new literary genre.
In Utopia More covered a huge range of moral and
legal issues which included euthanasia, the marriage of priests, consensual
divorce on the grounds of incompatibility and the morality of capital punishment.
'This method of dealing with thieves is both unjust and socially undesirable.
Petty larceny isn't bad enough to deserve the death penalty and no penalty
of earth is going to stop people from stealing if it's their only way
of getting food.' In Utopia More professes it was better 'to provide everyone
with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity
of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.' More's Utopian legal system
was based on good citizenship and was one in which thieves paid their debt
to society with service to the community.
In More's perfect society every citizen was counted
a legal expert. And since Utopians needed so few laws, the simplest interpretation
would always be the right one: 'They think it better for each man to
plead his own cause... the point at issue is less likely to be obscured...
for if nobody's telling the sort of lies that one learns from lawyers,
the judge can apply all his shrewdness to weighing the facts of the case.'
More's advocacy of women's rights is contradictory.
In Utopia 'there is nothing to stop a woman becoming a priest' - yet
Utopian wives must kneel down before their husbands and 'confess their
sins... and ask to be forgiven.' Despite going to great lengths to educate
his own daughters, More did not challenge the orthodoxy of Tudor England
with his views of the worth of women's opinions. His friend Erasmus revealed
that in conversation with women, including with his wife, More confined
himself to making jokes. His other works confirm this interpretation. In
Epigramata (1520) More wrote: 'If you let your wife stand on your toe tonight,
she'll stand on your face first thing tomorrow morning.'
Some commentators believe Utopia was never intended
to represent an idealised society, but was instead an attack on heathen
Europe. In this view, Utopia was a humanist vision based not on a socialist
manifesto but on a society constructed on a strict religious and moral
code.
Utopia translator Paul Turner rejects attempts
to dismiss Utopia's socialism as metaphor. 'I am simple-minded enough to
believe, with certain qualifications, that the book means what it says,
and that it does attempt to solve the problems of human society.'
More's career took him into the service of Henry
VIII as his intellectual courtier, secretary and confidant. More welcomed
foreign envoys, delivered official speeches, drafted treaties and read
dispatches exchanged in the king's name. In 1529 More was appointed Lord
Chancellor of England.
More was ultimately forced to resign from office in
1532 when he refused to denounce papal supremacy and declare Henry VIII
head of the Church of England. For this betrayal, Henry had More tried,
found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. In July 1535, Sir Thomas
More was beheaded at the age of 57.
As a humanist, scholar and an impartial judge,
More endeared himself to many Londoners and was hailed 'Patron of the Poor'.
But the man eulogised in Robert Bolt's play The Man for All Seasons was
not without his flaws. Libel lawyer Peter Carter-Ruck said: 'What may be
described as a stain on [More's] character as a judge was the harshness
of his sentences for religious opinions.' He views Lord Denning's contribution
to the law 'as a distinguished mark of progress for humanity and for succeeding
generations.'
But he regards Sir Thomas's contribution to the
legal profession as 'outstanding' and describes him as 'a most distinguished
lawyer'.
THE RESULTS:
Sir Thomas More 33%
Lord Denning 27%
Nelson Mandela 11%
Gandhi 10%
Henry II 5%
Sir Edward Coke 4%
William Blackstone 4%
William Wilberforce 3%
The Gazette's Lawyer of
the Millennium poll elicited many expected and obvious responses, but
there were also a few surprises.
For example, in a rush of Welsh patriotic pride,
Anthony Jenkins and his three partners at Ungoed-Thomas & King in Carmarthen
voted for a renowned thorn in the side of the English, Owain Glyndwr. According
to Mr Jenkins, Glyndwr 'was a man of great learning and an eminent lawyer.
He had the vision of a unified independent Wales with a codified system
of Welsh law based on the laws as promulgated by Hywel Dda in the 9th and
10th centuries'.
In a similar vein, Craig Verdon of Morgan Stanley
in Hong Kong put forward the 18th century Irish nationalist, Wolfe Tone.
Mr Verdon cites him for having 'organised the French invasion of Ireland
in 1798' and for being the 'orchestrator of the first significant challenge
to British Empire'.
Nicholas Hall of London helped to boost Sir Thomas
More's to the top of the poll with his first vote. But his second choice
would have gone to Cicero.
There were surprisingly few votes for Abraham
Lincoln. But one anonymous reader gave 16th US president a big plug,
describing him as 'an icon for every struggling lawyer who from time to
time doubts why he should bother to continue providing quality for the
ungrateful'.
And back to Hong Kong where Robin Egerton of Hampton
Winter and Glynn voted for the 'unknown lawyer'. Explaining, he said: 'Probably
the most valuable contribution to law for the public as a whole is the
lawyer who is only known to his or her clients, who does not necessarily
bring matters to trial but by careful advice and consideration assists
his clients through the complexities of the legal system, or systems.'
