A new biography of Thomas More allows readers to be their own judge

The reign of Henry VIII began with great hope in 1509: An athletic, educated, and enlightened monarch whose house promised respite from the English War of the Roses willingly married into Spanish royalty. Together, Henry and Catherine of Aragon raised the hope for a European peace that would also eclipse the memory of the Hundred Years' War. Henry VIII's promise ended in the ignition of unspeakable religious violence when he divorced Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn. More than a century of bloody religious warfare erupted between the reformed churches, thought of as Lutheran and Evangelical (eventually categorized as Protestant), and the remnants of what is now called the Roman Catholic Church. Never again would there be a common understanding of what Christians refer to in their Apostles' Creed as "the holy catholic church." Many would leave England and Europe seeking the freedom to worship God according to their conscience, resulting in a country whose founders aspired to protect both the freedom to worship and the freedom from being compelled to worship in any specific way, or at all.

At the crucial moment of this pivotal drama stood a distinguished scholar, lawyer, and judge, Thomas More, who had resigned as Chancellor realizing that his morals could no longer be reconciled with the King's desire to annul his marriage to Catherine. He refused to sign an oath developed by the new Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, reciting that Henry, and not the Pope, was the supreme authority over the churches in England. His refusal to sign the words of the oath led to his imprisonment in the Tower of London and eventually his execution simply for maintaining his silence about the King's assertion of divine power.

Wildly opposing views of More have appeared in the popular culture through which we know him today. More was canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1935, on the 400th anniversary of his execution, and anyone who has watched the 1966 film "A Man for All Seasons," would agree with his sainthood. More, as portrayed by Paul Scofield, is an exemplary man of impeccable morals with a powerful argument for his faith. He dominates every scene, towering above every other character. The picture won the 39th Academy Award for Best Picture. Scofield won for best actor. Yet in Hilary Mantel's 2009 novel, "Wolf Hall" (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2009), More comes across as a small, hypocritical and "shabby" man. He demeans and mocks the women in his life, especially his second wife, Alice. Dame Mantel portrays More as a zealous persecutor of heretics, from whose cellar there is a "sound of screaming." Mantel describes More as a "vain and dangerous man ... a killer." In the 2015 BBC series based on "Wolf Hall," More is portrayed by Anton Lesser, a great actor to be sure, but best known to today's audiences by his role as the scheming Qyburn who perverts a "maester's" scientific knowledge in service of the evil Cersei Lannister in "Game of Thrones."

Given these conflicting portraits of More, I was eager to read Dr. Joanne Paul's new biography of More, entitled "Thomas More: A Life" (London, Pegasus Book, 2025). As Paul begins by noting, More is not only "worshipped as a saint," he is also "condemned as a vicious murderer." Her new biography is the best place to look for an unbiased presentation of the evidence for either proposition.

First off, it bears noting how well Paul has written the book. Her narrative unfolds chronologically, intermixing the political and physical events into a coherent dramatic story that maintains its pace even while it deals with intellectual controversies that may seem puzzling and much less critical to modern secular readers than they did to More and his theological antagonist, Martin Luther, and the European communities who lived through the debate. Paul presents these controversies and helps the modern reader understand why they were so important in their time. Paul includes a clear "Cast of Characters" and a Glossary, as well as extensive sources for those who doubt any aspect of her account. She provides thousands of footnotes to these primary sources.

Unlike the dramatizations of More's life and unlike previous biographers, Paul does not dramatize the story; she provides her own relatively mild opinion of the events in a scant few sentences at the beginning of the narrative and then lets the facts speak for themselves. After all, More's life has plenty of drama on its own: How did England's leading intellectual, the King's beloved friend and the country's highest-ranking executive, come to be convicted and executed for treason?

Paul presents More in the context of his times, and she portrays those times with enough detail that the context comes alive and can be understood clearly, even by those not versed in English history or the Protestant Reformation. The Lutheran reformation occurred in a time when there was near universal belief in final salvation or damnation. In that context, one can better understand why the unity of the Catholic Church, transmutation of the communion host, the possibility of justification by good works, and existence of free will were matters that both More and Luther's adherents treated as issues of ultimate consequence, worth killing and dying for.

While Paul's method for avoiding bias may be unique to her, its success argues for broader use in biographies of public figures, especially those who suffer violent death as apparent martyrs to a cause. As she explains, she largely avoided posthumous sources. She recognizes that most of these sources, and the warring biographies, novels, and films that have resulted from them, were designed to portray More as either a Catholic saint or a Protestant heretic, and so she uses them only with qualification or corroboration. She also portrays More's story in his own words, and it turns out there are a lot of them: There is as much a written record of More's thoughts as there is of any X (formerly known as Twitter) addict. Although the printing press had been invented less than a century before, More's writings and letters, especially his debates with Luther, were nearly all in print and defied Cromwell's efforts to destroy them. As collected by Yale University, they consist of 15 volumes. While More wrote verbosely (apparently More's publishers did not dare edit him), Paul permits an understanding of More's writings for those of us who lack the time to read 15 volumes of 16th century theology. 

The result of Paul's disciplined method is instructive for the presentation of unbiased history. Her method cannot be universally employed, especially for historical persons whose lives predate the printing press. For example, the life of Jesus would be a blank page, as there is virtually no evidence of him predating his death, and he left no writings. On the other hand, it would be an interesting exercise to apply her method to the life of more recent figures, even in our own time, whose sudden violent deaths inspire hagiographies designed to sanctify or vilify them.

As a reader, I felt free to form my own opinions of More as the events unfolded in Paul's telling, and to feel confident that my opinions were based on admissible evidence, as that is largely all that is presented. Not every reader will share my opinions; different readers might reach different conclusions, which they could also support with the evidence.

More's pursuit of heretics cannot be disputed, as even he would not dispute it. He replied to his critics in book form in his own lifetime, admitting each thing he did and setting forth his justification. As Paul points out, most of these actions were not unusual in the context of More's time. He did indeed arrest heretics while he was in power, imprisoning them in his own home and even putting them in stocks. His goal was to reform them and, in some cases, he succeeded. More felt that he was saving them from eternal fire. Several of these alleged heretics were conspicuously executed by burning at the stake during More's short term as Chancellor. He did not personally order or carry out the executions, but he did heartily approve of some of them. The executions continued after Cromwell replaced More as Chancellor, and Cromwell, a Lutheran sympathizer, did not risk his position with the King to stop them.

In hounding these heretics, More carried out the policy of Henry VIII, who at the time regarded himself as the chief defender of the faith against the Lutheran heretics. Some of his takedowns of Luther were made at Henry's behest, but More did not lack enthusiasm for the enterprise as he and Luther sunk to a level of debate worthy of the vituperative chaos unfolding on X and similar platforms. Just as More was uncompromising in his own religious convictions, he was likewise uncompromising in his belief that a government that drew its power from God must enforce those beliefs. He was an adherent to Catholic doctrine, and so it is unfair to judge him in the context of our own time, in which the Catholic Church opposes capital punishment for any crime, much less for heresy.

More accurately perceived that by placing ultimate authority in scripture alone, Luther's rebellion threatened the Catholic Church's unity and power, which was the source of order and the power of kings in the Western world. Understanding this, More regarded Luther's doctrines as threats to Western civilization, amply illustrated for him by the Peasants' Revolt in Germany or the sack of Rome by German troops. He thought that Luther's rejection of the concept of justification by good works was operating to grant his followers "a license to do whatever they pleased ...." In retrospect, he was correct that the power of the Church and the power of Kings would never be the same -- consider the fate of Charles I or the remaining power exercised by Charles III.

As to More's treatment of women, Dame Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" novel is decidedly unfair, especially in the context of his time. He educated his daughters and the other women in his household, believing that women had equal abilities to learn and should be given an equal opportunity to do so. His daughter Margaret was an impressive intellectual in her own right. He had endearing relationships with both his wives. He knew that his views on Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon would inevitably bring him ruin, no matter what he did, and he sought to prepare his family and protect them as best he could. His connections on the European continent might have allowed him to flee the country, but any family who had remained would have suffered instead. In the end, they suffered anyway.

While Henry had initially styled himself as a defender of the Pope and the faith against Lutheranism, More could see that the King's desire for a divorce was dearer to the King than any theological debate. More knew that Cromwell's facilitation of the King's wishes for a divorce gave Cromwell and other advocates of the Reformation the ability to manipulate Henry.

The King's desire to put away his first wife Catherine could not be honestly justified, theologically or intellectually. Henry had submitted Catherine's testimony that she did not consummate her marriage to his brother Arthur in support of original his petition to the Pope to marry her. Later, he claimed her testimony was false -- but she protested that she had told the truth. As King, Henry did not feel obligated to moral or intellectual consistency. Cromwell knew that More had spent a lifetime creating an identity of such consistency, and there were 15 volumes of writing setting forth his consistent views.

When More agreed to enter Henry's service, initially as a secretary and counselor, More had Henry's assurance that he could look first to God for guidance, and only after God, to the King, an assurance Henry would betray. More's "Utopia," written just as he decided to enter Henry's service, reflects that he knew he would be out of place and in potential danger, yet he felt an obligation to engage in public service and to try to turn public policy to the good:

"You must strive to guide policy indirectly, so that you make the best of things, and what you cannot turn to good, you can at least make less bad. For it is impossible to do all things well unless all men are good, and this I do not expect to see for a long time."

Thomas More, "Utopia" 23 (New York: Crofts Classics, 1949). While he saw it as his moral obligation to steer Henry in the right direction, he understood the idealistic monarch who had been his youthful friend had become a dangerous man who maintained power through brutal force.

More's execution was not a matter of his hypocritical insistence on a few meaningless words: It seems highly unlikely he could have stopped it by his mere agreement with the Oath of Supremacy. Cromwell had fashioned the oath in Parliament specifically to ensnare and neutralize More and the Catholic priests and bishops who maintained loyalty to the Pope. Even if he had signed the oath, Cromwell would have found another way to irreversibly silence the chief intellectual opposition to the Reformation. The King was aware of More's views from their private conversations, and so was Anne Bolyn. Even More's silence regarding the marriage was so eloquent that the King and Cromwell felt it was necessary to execute him to let all know there could be no opposition. After imprisoning him for a year in the Tower of London, Cromwell passed a new law that enabled More's execution for treason based on a mere refusal to speak what he felt was a lie. Cromwell and the King had read "Utopia," where More said, "Whether a philosopher can speak falsely, I do not know, but certainly I can't." "Id." supra at 23. They knew his entire identity required that he speak truthfully and act consistently.

In his final stand at trial, More presented a legal rather than a religious defense. In that moment, More stood for freedom of thought and belief against the power of the state, a liberty that heretics of Catholic or Protestant origin could both admire, and which even today we must protect against the continuing threats presented by an era in which some see free speech as only an ideal rather than an absolute, subject to interpretation in favor of the reigning political party. Cromwell had designed a law to ensnare More for his silence. In doing so, Cromwell went beyond the previous reach of criminal law, as More so eloquently pointed out to the jury Cromwell had rigged:

"'I clearly respond to you,' he declared, 'that it is not lawful for me to be judged to death for such silence on my part, because neither your statute nor anything in the laws of the whole world can rightly afflict anyone with punishment unless he has committed a crime in word or deed.'"

In essence, More articulated the right to remain silent as fundamental to the tradition of criminal law, a tradition reawakened centuries later in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1964). Though seriously ill and without a lawyer, More brilliantly defended himself at his trial, impeaching the lone perjurious witness against him. Had there been a fair jury, it would have been a runaway verdict for the defense. Of course, had any jurors voted for More, they would have shared his fate.

As Cromwell would eventually find out for himself, when pleading with Henry for his own head a few years later, More could not have been saved by any late appeal for mercy. The only mercy he would receive would be his quick beheading. Numerous others who refused to sign the oath were not even given show trials, and suffered the full fate for treason: hanging, though not till death, disembowelment, burning of one's intestines, and only then the mercy of beheading, followed by quartering of the finally dead body. Cromwell probably feared that carrying out this sentence in public might have provoked a riot, and so More was given a quiet, dignified beheading in the Tower. Cromwell posted More's head on London Bridge with the others.

Though Paul sees More as having "little immediate significance," he inspired continued Catholic resistance, and his intellectual arguments helped preserve a greatly weakened Catholic Church. The power of Luther's rebellion stemmed from a force that could not be stopped, unleashed by the sudden availability of the Bible's text to the commoner in his native language. More could not have stopped people from noticing that there is nothing in the Bible about popes, purgatory or indulgences.

The religious war that both Catholics and Protestants felt was worth killing and dying for teaches an historical lesson that cannot be forgotten. Whatever you think of religious belief, we cannot use a citizen's religious belief as a basis for civil penalty or criminal punishment. When we do so, we are wielding the power of government in support of or against religious belief, even when we attempt to impose anti-religious beliefs or secularly cloaked, woke ideologies through the operation of civil and criminal law.

Our own time is marked by such fundamental divisions that civilization again seems to be splitting apart due to irreconcilable ideologies. Paul correctly points out that More's story contains a timeless lesson on the importance of principled judging and lawyering within a legal system buffeted by such times. Lawyers and judges who do have morals and conscience must risk entering the fray to participate in the system despite the danger of disagreement with prevailing popular belief systems. Otherwise, the only lawyers or judges in the system will be those who have no conscience, or who lack the courage to adhere to it in the face of ideological exercise of executive or legislative power. Lawyers and judges must resist the temptation to view themselves as mere servants of clients, the law or the legal system.

Of course, it is decidedly not the role of a judge to change or bend the law to suit one's individual desires or conscience. Yet even an ordinary career in practicing law or serving as a judge will inevitably bring conflicts between a client's wishes and a lawyer's conscience, or between the law imposed by single-party governance and a judge's conscience. As Paul notes, there will be things you are asked to do for a client, or which our increasingly ideologically influenced law will require you to do as a judge, to which you must say a quiet and respectful, "No." At least in our country, you will not be beheaded, but you may lose clients, a law license or a judicial office. How many of us are ready to make that sacrifice? As More wrote in his "Prayer for Lawyers," a prayer posted outside my office, we must not lose our souls to win a point.

Each fall, the Catholic Church celebrates the Red Mass in which judges of all faiths march wearing red judicial robes and attend Mass. As a judge, I walked in this march and was proud to do so. To me, it was a reminder to be guided by the principle stated by More just a moment before the axe severed his head: "I die the king's good servant, and God's first." His words reminded me that my service to the United States of America and the State of California was a part of my service to God, and that when the two were in irreconcilable conflict, God must come first. In that regard, More will always be a patron saint to me.