Thomas More’s choice to give up his life rather than go against his conscience is a primary reason why he is recognized as such a heroic figure by Catholics and others. In 2000, he was proclaimed the patron saint of statesmen and politicians by St. Pope John Paul II. He was also someone whose life and thought embraced the mores of his age: speaking out against tyrants but also sanctioning the execution of heretics.
Joanne Paul, an honorary associate professor in intellectual history at the University of Sussex, wrote her powerful and considerable biography Thomas More because she finds More’s life relevant to today’s world. But the book also addresses another question: Was More a saintly martyr or a vicious murderer?
More lived a prominent and distinguished life that included professional and personal relationships with numerous notable historical figures. His own roles in English public life were many: lawyer, undersheriff of London, judge, writer (e.g., his famous Utopia), foreign diplomat, secretary and advisor to the king, House of Commons speaker, lord chancellor and, ultimately, martyr and saint.
In those roles, More played a part in the lives and events of King Henry VIII, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, France’s King Francis I, Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Bishop John Fisher, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, all of whom are covered in the book.
In the book’s first half, Paul comprehensively chronicles More’s early life from his birth in 1478 through his formative years up to 1518. The author describes More’s father, studies, marriage and his role as an English historian. Paul describes the young More as someone who combined “devotion to God and dedication to scholarship with marriage and a public career.”
The biography’s highlights occur in the second half, which covers Henry VIII’s marriages, the Protestant Reformation and Henry’s developing views of his supremacy, the role of the pope, and the relationship between church and state. In 1509, Henry was crowned as king and married Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella; she had been married before to the English king’s now-deceased brother. A controversy arose over the validity of Catherine’s first marriage under church law. At the time, the pope gave a dispensation allowing Henry and Catherine to marry despite any consanguinity issue.
In 1526, however, Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn, a member of Catherine’s entourage, and decided to divorce Catherine and marry her. At that time, one of the king’s most prominent advisors was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who had become a cardinal in 1514 and the lord chancellor in 1515. Cardinal Wolsey was charged with the task of getting Henry’s marriage to Catherine annulled.
Henry ultimately became disappointed with Cardinal Wolsey’s failure to obtain an annulment, and in 1529, charged him with praemunire (the crime of asserting or maintaining papal jurisdiction in England). More replaced the cardinal as lord chancellor. When Henry asked him for his view on what Henry referred to as his “great matter” (that is, his divorce and annulment), More responded to the king that he had not yet decided on the issue. The new lord chancellor was surely worried about how this would adversely affect his role in Henry’s life—and thus, his continued earthly existence.
At the same time, the influence of Protestant voices in Europe was rising. Henry was alarmed about the threats Martin Luther’s views could have on England and the Catholic Church. The king’s book Defense of the Seven Sacraments was written to counter Luther’s views; shortly after, Henry was declared by the pope to be a fidei defensor—“defender of the faith.” The title would take on particular irony later in the king’s reign, considering his later statements on his supremacy as the head of the Church of England over the pope.
More eventually resigned as lord chancellor in 1532, though he cited personal health reasons rather than political motivations. Soon after, Parliament approved England’s infamous Acts of Succession and Supremacy, which required oaths of loyalty and obedience to the crown. Because the crime of treason in England at the time required an actual deed, simply speaking or writing against the king was not sufficient for a conviction. But not taking the Oaths of Succession or Supremacy was a “misprision of treason,” or the concealment of treason, so the penalty was imprisonment and the forfeiture of one’s property, not beheading.
Henry VIII was eager for More to support him on his quest for religious supremacy above the pope and his divorce and annulment. To emphasize his goal, Parliament finally passed the Treasons Act in 1534, which redefined treason to include any malicious speech or writing against the king, his marriage or his supremacy.
More was then required to swear that Henry’s marriage to Catherine was invalid and that no English subject should recognize any foreign authority, including the pope. More refused. Shortly after, he was accused of high treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than a year. At his trial, only one person provided testimony, Richard Rich. Nevertheless, More was found guilty and was beheaded on July 6, 1535.
Along with the details of More’s heroic stand against the king, the author is candid in describing some of More’s decisions that most people today would find unconscionable. Most importantly, More, in his work Dialogue Concerning Heresies, clearly supported the church’s policy of turning religious heretics over to the state—which enforced beheading or burning to death as the penalty. More argued that just as a prince is justified in killing invaders of one’s country, so the church and the state can punish heretics with death because they seek to destroy one’s soul.
The disjuncture between that view and almost all modern ideas of the relationship between church and state will cause most readers to grapple with the time-limited views of saints and heroes of the past like More. On the one hand, he acted in ways that we abhor today; at the same time, many still see him as a luminary to be emulated for putting one’s conscience above the actions of those in power.
In the book’s preface, Paul argues that “Thomas More did almost nothing to change the course of English history.” But the author’s view should be evaluated from a global perspective. More is among one of the most famous figures in English history, and the Catholic Church canonized him in 1935. His influence in the centuries since his martyrdom has also been significant in Great Britain’s religious history. For example, St. Cardinal John Henry Newman, whom Pope Leo XIV recently declared a doctor of the Catholic church, is sometimes linked to More because of his decision while an Anglican bishop to follow his conscience and become a Catholic.
Paul concludes her text with an answer to a question she posed at the beginning: Who was Thomas More? She writes that “Thomas More could comfort himself with the assurance that he had lived his life—and given his life—in service of those things he held most dear.” We need such examples today from those who are entrusted with the public’s common good. Five hundred years after his death, we can take from More’s bravery and integrity much that we need to learn in our own time.
This article appears in April 2026.
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