Thomas More as author of Margaret Roper's letter to Alice Alington

Moreana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (Number 211) (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Travis Curtright
Keyword(s):  
Political Engagement ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
Indirect Argument

Why would Sir Thomas More write a letter to Alice Alington under the name of Margaret More Roper? To answer that question, this essay examines the political and familial circumstances of the letter's composition, its artfully concealed design of forensic oratory, and use of indirect argument. A careful analysis of the letter's rhetorical strategy will reveal further that More crafted his defense of conscience with allusion to the question of counsel from Utopia, whether or not a philosopher should enter into a king's service. In the Alington letter, from More's position as an imprisoned, former Chancellor of England, he revised civic humanism's call for political engagement into a powerful statement of defiance against King Henry VIII.

Thomas More in the Subtext of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII

Moreana ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (Number 163) (3) ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Clare M. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Dominant Theme ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Since the dominant theme of the play is that of “The King’s Great Matter” (his divorce of Katherine and marriage to Anne) it would be difficult for a viewer or reader not to think of Thomas More as the play unfolds, so much was he involved in this event. But Sir Thomas More—which also had Shakespeare among its authors—was not approved by the Master of the Revels, and the playwrights no doubt wished to avoid a similar rejection. A solution for them was to suggest More in the subtext, particularly since his cult was by then well established. This article studies the relationship of the absent More to several of the characters present on stage.

“Still more things to forget, in the wiping of Henry Patenson’s bottom in the Exchequer”

Moreana ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (Number 195- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-43
Author(s):  
Roger Schofield
Keyword(s):  
High Rank ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
The One ◽  
Very High

The final piece of parchment of the roll kept by the Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer for 16 Henry VIII, or 1524–5, contains a very strange case. Written partly in Latin and partly in English, as was the normal practice of the Court of the Exchequer, it contains a pretended report on the dispute between John Hone, a citizen and maker of candles, on the one hand, and Henry Patenson, more familiarly known as Harry Patenson, because of his physical likeness to king Henry VIII. The defendant in the Exchequer case was described as the ‘Simperyng fole of london’. This case in the Exchequer court had some exceptionally well known participants, including the Second and Third Barons of the Exchequer, who were of very high rank. This article sheds new light on Sir Thomas More.

Tunstal—Trimmer or Martyr?

1973 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morley Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Close Friend ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The World ◽  
Sir Thomas More

Was Cuthbert Tunstal a ‘trimmer’—that is, one primarily concerned with his own advantage—rather than a partisan in the religious revolution initiated by Henry VIII? We might have expected the latter contingency after reading the glowing tribute paid to him by Sir Thomas More: ‘… the incomparable Cuthbert Tunstal, who, to everyone's satisfaction, has recently been appointed Master of the Rolls. I will not try to praise him, not simply because the world would discount such praise from a close friend, but because his fine qualities and learning defy description. His fame is so widespread, that praising him would be, as they say, like lighting up the sun with a candle’. Yet the historiographical neglect of Tunstal seems to indicate that historians have preferred the pejorative judgement of Foxe, who says that he ‘dissembled’ in taking the Oath of Supremacy to Henry VIII. All the conservative bishops who took the oath ‘turned cat-in-the-pan’ in Mary's reign, but when they took it in 1535 they were, according to Foxe, ‘right Lutherans’. He, unquestionably, thought Tunstal was a ‘trimmer’.

scholarly journals Sir Thomas More, Utopia, and the Representation of Henry VIII, 1529-1533

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Warner
Keyword(s):  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Open Debate ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lord Chancellor

This essay examines Sir Thomas More's Utopia in the context of Henry VIII's divorce crisis. During this period tracts from the royal press publicized an image of Henry VIII as a disinterested philosopher-king who welcomed open debate and advice at his court. Reading Morus and Hythlodaeus's dialogue on the subject of court counsel in light of this campaign helps us to perceive the manner in which More's appointment as lord chancellor served the purposes of the king's propaganda.

Sir Thomas More and the Opposition to Henry VIII

Moreana ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 4 (Number 15-16 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 285-303
Author(s):  
G.R. Elton
Keyword(s):  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Sir Thomas More

Two Tudor Witnesses to “the Corps of Christendom” – More and Shakespeare

Moreana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (Number 181- (3-4) ◽  
pp. 94-107
Author(s):  
Peter Milward
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
Sir Thomas More ◽  
History Play ◽  
The One ◽  
The Ideal

In the literary history of Tudor England, I venture to propose two names as standing out and claiming comparison with each other as witnesses to the ideal and reality of Christendom – those of Thomas More in the reign of Henry VIII and William Shakespeare in the reign of Elizabeth I. In the case of More, little needs to be said, it is so obvious that he bore witness to the ideal and the reality, even to the shedding of his blood as a canonized martyr. But in that of Shakespeare, much more has to be said in view of the seemingly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For this purpose it is necessary to take account not just of the dramatist’s indebtedness to More’s Life of Richard III in his history play of that title, nor just of his contribution to the MS Book of Sir Thomas More, nor of the one explicit mention of More in the play of Henry VIII, which is commonly attributed to John Fletcher, but of the whole corpus of Shakespeare’s plays in their chronological order as bearing witness in their totality to what More called in his last speech at his trial in Westminster Hall “the whole corps of Christendom”.

John Guy’s Thomas More: On the Dimensions of Political Biography

Moreana ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 37 (Number 143- (3-4) ◽  
pp. 81-96
Author(s):  
John M. Headley
Keyword(s):  
Full Length ◽  
The Political ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Biography ◽  
Religious Dimension ◽  
Historical Biography

John Guy’s full-length biography of Thomas More proves both intellectually stimulating and historically clarifying. Committed at the outset to a broad skepticism, denying the possibility of a truly historical biography of More on account of the plethora of myths and icons created both during the subject’s own life and by posterity, he proceeds to demolish these obstacles, much to the interest of any reader. Yet while most can draw satisfaction from the work of this highly competent legal/political historian, one cannot help but feel that he discloses the emerging flaw in his own enterprise, when very early he hazards the suggestion that More probably wanted most to be remembered for his stand against Henry VIII. In an imperialist mobilization and ruthless reduction of all the evidence to the political activities and import of More’s life, he produces a political biography, which for all its clarifications fails to do justice to the religious dimension of More’s being.

Fictional Remembrances of Sir Thomas More: Part I - The Sixteenth Century

Moreana ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (Number 203- (1-2) ◽  
pp. 171-204
Author(s):  
Régis Augustus Bar Closel
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
John Fletcher ◽  
Thomas Nashe ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Morality Play ◽  
Sir Thomas More

This article focuses on how literary works such as plays in 16th–17th century England dealt with the fictional presence of Sir Thomas More. Among Tudor statesmen, Thomas More had a special appeal as a topic of thought during the Elizabethan–Jacobean period, quite apart from his opposition to the marriage which led to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The Marian, Elizabethan and Jacobean periods cover the range of the selected works. They compose a heterogeneous and intriguing group in which every piece has its own particular way of remembering Thomas More. Six works are presented here: the dialogue Il Moro (1556), by Ellis Heywood; a late morality play, The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art (1569), by William Wager; a novel, The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), by Thomas Nashe; and three plays, Cromwell (1602), by an unknown dramatist, Sir Thomas More (1600–1603/4), by five different dramatists, and Henry VIII (1613), by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Due to the scope of this research, the article is written in two parts. This part explores the first three sixteenth century fictional works by Wager, Heywood and Nashe.

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