The Life of Sir Thomas More/Appendix 19
No. XIX.
Of Sir Thomas Moore's Family.
Sir Thomas had issue by his first wife Jane, the daughter of John Colt, of Colt's Hall in Essex, one son, named after his grandfather John, and three daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Cecilia. Sir Thomas had the three daughters first, and his wife very much desired a boy. At last he had this son who proved little better than an ideot, as is shown in the countenance of his picture at Well-hall. Upon which Sir Thomas, it is said, told his Lady, She had prayed so long for a boy, that she had now one who would be a boy as long as he lived. However he had all the advantages that a good and ingenious education could give him, by which his natural parts seem to have been improv'd. Among Erasmus's Letters we have one written to him by that great man, in which he stiles him a [1]youth of great hopes, and tells him, that he might not seem to make him no returns for his little presents, and so many of his friendly letters, he now sent him a nut, which he would not have him despise as a trifle, since it was a very elegant one, to wit an Ovidian nut. Altho' were it otherwise he could not be thought to make a very small present who sent the whole tree, nor a cheap one who presented a tree so eloquent. He was not, he said, used to kill many birds with one stone, but yet it would look candid in him, and he himself should appear less ungrateful, if this nut, whose fruit nature had made divisible into four parts, he would please to let be in common among his most agreeable sisters Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecilia, and their happy companion Gige who so often teazed him with their letters, which he was persuaded were their own by their good sense and chast Latin. He added, that it was to no purpose to exhort him either to the study of letters or the practise of vertue, since he was himself so well disposed and had at home such a father. Erasmus likewise inscribed to him his account of Aristotle's works, by which it should seem as if he understood Greek as well as Latin. This he concluded with putting the young man in mind of his parentage, and exhorting him to continue his endeavours to appear worthy of such a father.
He was married sometime before he was 19 years old to Anne Crisacre, daughter and sole heir of Edward Crisacre of Baronburgh in Yorkshire, who was not 15 years old. Mr. Roper tells us, she was an heire in possession of more then an hundred pounds land by the yeere. By her, Mr. More, it is said, had issue five sons. The eldest of these was named Thomas and had 13 children, the first of which was named Thomas; who being a most zealous Roman Catholic gave the family estate to his younger brother and took orders at Rome, whence by the Pope's command he came a missionary into England. He afterwards lived at Rome, where and in Spain he negotiated the affairs of the English clergy at his own expence, and wrote the life of his great grandfather Sir Thomas, which after his death was printed with the following title.
D. O. M. S.
The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore, Lord High Chancellour of England, written by M. T. M. It was dedicated "to the High and Mightie Princesse our most gracious Queene and Soveraigne Marie Henriette Queene of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, Ladie of the Isles of the British Ocean," first printed in 4to. about the year 1627.
Which [2]match, the author of the Dedication tells us, Thomas More was very instrumental in making. He died April xi A.D. 1625, aged 59. Over his grave, it's said, was soon after laid a monumental stone of white marble at the charge of the English clergy at Rome, on which is the following inscription in capital letters.
Magni illius Thomæ Mori Angliæ
Cancellarij et Martyris Pronepoti
Atque Hæredi: Viro probitate
et pietate insigni :
Qui, raro admodum apud Britannos
exemplo, in Fratrem natu
minorem, [4]amplum transcripsit
Patrimonium, et Presbyter Romæ
Factus, inde, jussu Sedis Apostolicæ
in patriam profectus, plusculos
annos strenuam Fidei
propagandæ navavit operam:
Postea Cleri Anglicani negotia
vii annos Romæ et v. in Hispania
P. P. Paulo V et Gregorio XV. summa
integritate et industria, suisque
Sumptibus procuravit.
Episcopo ad Urban. VIII. missus
Negotio eo feliciter confecto
Laborum mercedem recepturus
ex hac Vita migravit xi. Ap.
A. MDCXXV ætatis suæ 59.
I'll only add, that this Mr. More in relating Mrs. Roper's coming to her father when he was brought back to the Tower after his condemnation, tells us, that she was not able to say any word, but, oh my father, oh my father! but Mr. Roper, from whom he took his account, says not that she spake a word to him: and the Latin letter concerning Sir Thomas's death, expressly says, she could not speak a word to him. For which he gives the tragic poet's reason, Cura leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.
As for Sir Thomas's daughters, the eldest of them and his great favourite was married to [5]William Roper, Esq. of Well-Hall, in the parish of Eltham in Kent, the author of this Life of Sir Thomas. By him she had issue Thomas Roper, who married Lucy, the daughter of Sir Anthony Brown, Master of the Horse and Privy-Councellour to K. Henry VIII. Anthony Roper, a second son, and three daughters, viz. Elizabeth, who married ——— Stevenson, and was a second time married to Sir Edward Bray, Knt. Margaret, married to William Dawtery: and Mary, first married to Stephen Clarke, and a second time to James Basset.
Sir Thomas's second daughter Elisabeth was married to ——— Dancy, and his third daughter Cecilia to Giles Herond, and that is all I know of them. These all lived together with Sir Thomas at Chelsea. Erasmus, who had been there and knew their way of living, calls the family a little house of the muses, and another acedemy of Plato: only, he says, he does it wrong by the comparison. Since in Plato's academy they disputed about numbers and geometrical figures, and but sometimes of moral virtues, wheras this house was more properly a school and exercise of the christian religion. There was neither man nor woman who was not employed in liberal disciplines and fruitful reading, altho' the principal study was religion. There was no quarrelling, not so much as a peevish word was to be heard, nor was any one seen idle. All were in their several employs, they all appeared chearful, nor was there wanting sober mirth. And so well managed a government Sir Thomas did not maintaine by severity and chiding, but by gentleness and kindness.
- ↑ Optimæ spei adolescenti. Erasmi. Epis. Lib. xxix. No. 16.
- ↑ The Papists of those times had their expectations very much raised by this match of having their superstition agen established here in England. Accordingly we find books written by them about this time frequently dedicated to the King and Queen. And in 1622, was printed without the name of any place, a book with this title:Missale parvum pro sacerdotibusBut in an edition of this Ordo, &c. Duaci 1604, it's more truly said to be jaxta usum insignis Ecclesiæ SARISBURIENSIS.
in Anglia itinerantibus,
Ordo etiam Baptizandi, aliaque
sacramenta ministrandi, et
Officia quædam Ecclesiastica rite
peragendi.
Ex pontificali, et Rituali Romano, jussu
Pauli P. P. Quinti editis extractus. - ↑ The estate which he inherited of the Crisacres was in Yorkshire.
- ↑ Somewhat more than 100l. per ann.
- ↑ Erasmus stiles him ornatissimum Roperum.