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.
