Thomas More: Fidei Defensor

 

The Reformation was a trying time for the Church, and many souls were lost to its confusion. Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses are generally viewed as the first domino that sent the world tumbling into the Reformation.¹ Luther rejected the authority of the Papacy itself, and many others followed him in his new religion, Lutheranism. While Luther started things off, the Reformation was characterized by three separate heresies: Lutheranism under Luther, Calvinism under John Calvin, and Anglicanism under the king of England himself. Saint Thomas More served under Henry VIII, the king of England at the time, and was a leading member of the English government; it was here that he became a stalwart defender of the Church against not only these heresies, but also his very own friend and king.

Saint Thomas More was born in 1477 to a prosperous family in London. His father was a rising figure in the legal profession and More followed closely behind in his footsteps, studying law as well. More was unique as a defender of the Faith because he, unlike many others, was primarily a lawyer and a statesman, rather than a philosopher. He was an incredibly intelligent man, studying Law at Canterbury in Oxford, then leaving before his degree was completed to study at New Inn and Lincoln's Inn in London. Somewhere along the path of his academic life, a spark of spirituality was ignited which soon grew into a flame and seemed only to continue growing. After living among the Carthusian monks for several years, More determined that he should continue to seek God among society, not withdrawn from it; so he returned and married, starting a family and becoming a well-respected lawyer in London and eventually an English statesman.²

Even though he was a leading figure in English politics, More was also deeply religious, and engaged in a public battle against the Lutherans, whose teachings and literature began pervading England. “In the mind of Catholics such as More, the Lutheran position… amounted to no less than a demand to change the very idea of Christian faith itself: a transformation that would inevitably alter the entire Christian conception of social order.”³ More eventually wrote against Martin Luther on behalf of Henry VIII himself, who fully supported More in his campaign against Protestantism and who even publicly rejected Lutheranism and declared his loyalty to the Papacy in his work, Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (“Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther”).

Though More fought valiantly to fend off the perplexity of Protestantism and the Reformation, it soon began to overtake his beloved country, and its effects became troublingly apparent and widespread. Although King Henry VIII was still a Catholic, he was also now faced with a problem: he and his wife, Catherine, were unable to produce a male heir to ascend the throne after Henry's death. They had been able to conceive, but several of their children were stillborn or died in infancy. The only child to survive was a girl, Princess Mary. Unfortunately, she was not a suitable successor: “no one relished the thought of a female succession with all the dynastic and political uncertainties it would bring.”⁴

Henry blamed Catherine for their inability to produce a male heir to the throne and felt an increasing aversion to her. This was only made worse by his growing fondness of one of the court attendants, Anne Boleyn. She was young, only twenty, and Henry wanted her to be more than his mere mistress; he wanted to make Anne his new wife. To marry her, and also ensure that any heirs she bore him would be legitimate, he would have to divorce Catherine. His distaste for Catherine only helped him to convince himself that their marriage had been invalid in the first place because she had first been his brother’s widow; he believed that the deaths of their children were proof of God’s disapproval of their union and that they were living in mortal sin together which must be brought to an end immediately.

Henry sought an annulment from the Pope, but his request was swiftly denied. He also asked More for help in this matter, but More too affirmed the validity of Henry's marriage to Catherine. More knew that even if he did chose to support Henry and declare the marriage invalid, he had no authority to do so.⁵ Indeed, such a declaration would make him a Protestant. After More's initial refusal, Henry even sought Lutheran support, but Luther did not approve of the divorce.⁶ So, with annulment by the Church no longer an option, Henry sought another path; he had one of his own English bishops declare the Catherine marriage invalid, and forthwith married Anne, thus beginning a revolution which he did not fully intend to ignite. He was excommunicated by the pope for his blatant disregard of papal authority and his title, Fidei Defensor (“Defender of the Faith”) was revoked, but the English people were not troubled by this; they embraced the new Anglican church, the Church of England, with Henry at the head.

More refused to attend Anne’s coronation as the new queen of England, and Henry VIII noticed his absence. Because of More’s prominence as the most publicly known layman in the country, Henry could hardly continue his rule without addressing More’s disapproval in some way; it seemed to him that More must publicly acknowledge him as head of the Church or he must be publicly punished. The king’s new minister attempted several times to accuse More of engaging in treasonous activities, but More, being extremely familiar with the law, simply refuted each charge. Finally, More was summoned to appear before the commissioners to swear an oath to the Act of Succession, “which declared the king’s marriage with Catherine void and that with Anne valid.”⁷ More was willing to accept the succession and Anne’s queenship but refused to take the oath. It was this refusal that initiated his own little passion.

He was detained in a tower, and at first, he was permitted to see his family and to have writing materials, but these things were eventually taken from him. During his interrogations, his inquisitors attempted to either force him into submission or to trick him into saying something condemning, but More had too sharp an intellect for that. His trial and interrogations continued for a long time until finally he was convicted of treason by falsified evidence. Having held his tongue for so long during his trial, he finally spoke his mind after the verdict was delivered, declaring that Christendom itself was behind him, supporting his conscience.⁸

Though More was not a philosopher in the traditional sense, he was in every sense a defender of truth and a student of history; from the time he first experienced the truths of the faith in school to his very death. Not only did he seek the truth, but he was willing to do anything for its preservation, even to the point of sacrificing his own life rather than denying his faith. In a modern world flooded with relativism and a seeming unwillingness to stand by objective truth, More is a shining model for us. What would this world look like if more of us lived like Saint Thomas More, declaring our faith to the world and willing to give our very lives to avoid denying it?


¹ B. A.Gerrish, "Reformation." Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed., edited by Donald M. Borchert,  Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, 295-299.

² R. S. Sylvester, and R. J. Schoeck, "More, Sir Thomas, St." In New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed.,  Vol. 9. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2003, 887-893.

³ Travis Curtright, Thomas More : Why Patron of Statesmen? Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.

⁴ Britannica Academic, s.v. "Henry VIII," accessed May 2, 2020, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Henry-VIII/40026.

⁵ Curtright, 191-192.

⁶ Curtright, 119.

⁷ Britannica Academic, s.v. "Thomas More," accessed May 2, 2020, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Thomas-More/53689.

⁸ Sylvester and Schoeck.