The Life of Sir Thomas More/Lewis's Preface

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The Life of Sir Thomas More
by William Roper
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3693726The Life of Sir Thomas More — Lewis's PrefaceWilliam Roper
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THE

REV. JOHN LEWIS'S

PREFACE.

Sir Thomas More being a person so very remarkable for his strict virtue, excellent learning, great skill in our municipal laws, his honours and promotions, and lastly for the cause for which he suffer'd a violent death[O 1], many have taken in hand to write his history. Of these, that which I now publish as it seems to have been the first written, so all the rest are more or less transcripts of or copies from it. ​And indeed none of the many other writers of Sir Thomas's Life, can any way pretend to the same advantages and opportunities of knowing him which the author of this little history had, who not only married his beloved daughter, with whom Sir Thomas entrusted his secrets, but who lived[O 2] sixteen years in the same house with Sir Thomas, and was his attendant and companion almost wherever he went. Accordingly he gives this reason himself for his committing to writing these Memoirs of Sir Thomas's Life, &c. that he knew his doings and mind no man living so well.

This gentleman was William Roper the son and heir of John Roper, Esq.; prothonotary of the King's Bench, and of an ancient and worshipful family at St. Dunstan's in the suburbs of the City of Canterbury. He married Margaret the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. This lady had all the advantages that could arise from great natural parts and very fine learning: she was a perfect mistress of the Greek and Latin tongues, and of all sorts of music, besides her skill in arithmetick and other sciences. For thus we are assured by a very learned friend of Sir Thomas, that he took a great deal of care to have his children instructed in the liberal disciplines or sciences; so that the fine things said of her and to her by the greatest men of that age and since, were more than complements or words of course, they were what she had a right to and very well deserved.

​With this excellent woman Mr. Roper lived about 16 years, she dying 1544, nine years after her father, when she was buried in the family burying place at St. Dunstan's, with her father's head in her arms, as she had desired. By her Mr. Roper had two sons and three daughters: of whose education the mother took the same care that had been taken of her own. The famous Roger Ascham, then fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge, and afterwards Latin Secretary to Queen Elizabeth, tells us, [O 3]That she was very desirous of having him for their tutor to instruct them in the learned languages, but that he would not then upon any terms be prevailed with to leave the university; that therefore she procured Dr. Cole and Dr. Christopherson, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, both very famous at that time for their skill in the Greek tongue. Ascham stiles this Mrs. Clarke, one of Mrs. Roper's daughters, an eminent ornament of her sex and of Queen Mary's court. This daughter of Mrs. Roper's, who afterward married James Basset, was one of the gentlewomen, so they were then called, of Queen Mary's privy chamber, and translated into English part of her grandfather's exposition of the passion of our Saviour, which he wrote in Latin; and is said so well to have imitated Sir Thomas's stile that any one would think it was written by him in English. ​After her decease Mr. Roper lived a widow 33 years, even to the time of his death, January 4th, 1577, being then 82 years old, and left the following good character, viz. 'That he was very generous at home and abroad, mild and merciful, and the staff or support of those who were either prisoners, or under oppression, or in poverty.' He was buried in the same grave with his dear and beloved wife. The very diligent and exact Mr. Somner has preserved the following inscription or epitaph made for him, which was, it seems, with other funeral inscriptions for persons of that ancient family to be seen in his time in the chancel or chapel of the Ropers on the south side of the high chancel of St. Dunstan's church, but they are all now so totally defaced that not the least remains are left: nay one cannot so much as guess[O 4] whereabouts they were placed.

Hic jacet venerabilis Vir Gulielmus Roper armiger, filius et heres quondam Johannis Roperi armigeri, et Margareta uxor ejusdem Gulielmi, filia quondam Thomæ Mori miiitis summi olim Angliæ Cancellarij, Grecis, Latinisque literis doctissime, qui quidem Gulielmus patri suo in officio prothonotariatus supreme Curie Banci Regij successit, ​in quo cum annis 54 fideliter ministrasset idem Officium filio suo primogenito Thomæ reliquit. Fuit is Gulielmus domi forisque munificens, mitis, misericors, incarceratorum, oppressorum, et pauperum baculus. Genuit ex Margareta uxore quam unicam habuit) filios duos et filias tres, ex ijs vidit in vita sua nepotes et pronepotes, uxorem in virili aetate amisit, viduatus uxore castissime vixit annis 33. Tandem, completis in pace diebus, decessit in senectute bona ab omnibus desideratus die quarto mensis Jan. Anno Christi salvatoris 1577. aetatis vero sue 82.

Mr. Roper seems to have been very well qualified for a writer of Sir Thomas's Life, but his affection for him has had some influence on his pen, so as instead of a history, he has wrote a panegyric. As great and as good a man as Sir Thomas was, it's certain he was not altogether without his foibles. The principal of these seems to me to have been too great an affectation of singularity. Somewhat of this appeared in his very dress; he used, we are told, to wear his gown awry upon one shoulder, and so to appear as if one shoulder was [O 5]higher than the other. Archbishop Cranmer seems to have been of this mind that Sir Thomas was somewhat too conceited and desirous of esteem, and therfore wherein he had once said his mind, would not vary therefrom that he might not for ever distain or blemish his fame and estimation.

​Erasmus, tho' a very great admirer of Sir Thomas, and one who loved him so well as to seem to himself to have[O 6] died with him, yet observes of him that his aspect was somewhat ludicrous and tending to the smile, and more apposite to pleasantry and[O 7] jesting than either to gravity or dignity. This he imputes to Sir Thomas's being from a child, so delighted with jesting that he seem'd to be even born for it. But then he adds that he never degenerated into scurrility, and that he did not love an ill-natured jest, that put another to pain. Sir Thomas himself observes that it was reckoned a blemish in his writings against the Protestants, that he mix'd with the most serious matters fancies and sports and merry tales. But in this he thought himself justified by the authority of the Roman poet Horace, who, Sir Thomas observes, sayeth, A man maye sometime saye ful soth in a game——ridentem dicere verum quis vetat?

The same great man tells us that Sir Thomas seem'd to be rather[O 8] superstitious than irreligious: tho' else where he observes of him that he was the farthest possible from all superstition. But how far from being exact this latter judgment of him is, let the following history of his life be an evidence.

​It was likewise laid to the charge of Sir Thomas, as he tells us himself, that he 'handled Luther, Tindal, &c. with no fayrer wordes, nor in no more courteous manner, and treated their persons when he had them in his power with too much rigor and severity.' Thus is it particularly remarked of his Latin answer to Luther[O 9], that in it he has forgotten himself so far that he has there u thrown out the greatest heap of nasty language that perhaps ever was put together, and that the book throughout is nothing but downright ribaldry without a grain of reason to support it, and gave the author no other reputation but that of having the best knack of any man in Europe at calling bad names in good Latin; tho' his passion is sometimes so strong upon him that he sacrifices even his beloved purity to it.' The like censure do his [O 10]English Tracts against Tindal, Barns, &c. deserve. He by way of sneer calls the protestants, the brethren, forgetting that this was the name the first christians were commonly called by. But for this Sir Thomas makes the following apology,—[O 11]'Where they fynde the faute that I handle these folke so foule, how coulde I other doe? For whyle I declare and she we they're writynge to ​be suche (as I nedes muste or leave the most necessarie pointes of all the matter untouched) it were verye harde for me to handle it in suche wise as when I plainlye prove them abhominable heretiques and against God and his sacraments and saints very blasphemous fools thei should wene that I speake them faire. I am a simple plain body——For thoughe Tindall and Frith in their writings call me a poet, it is but of their owne courtesy, undeserved on my part. For I canne neither so muche poetry nor so much rethorique neither as to fynde good names for evyll thinges, but even as the Macedonians coude not call a traytour but a traytour, so canne I not call a foole but a foole, nor an heretique but an heretique——[O 12] But now these good brethren, that fynde the faute wyth me that I speake no fairer unto these holye prophetes of theirs, be so egall and indifferent that in them they finde no faute at all for their abhominable raylinge against so manye other honest, honourable, good and vertuous folke, nor for condempninge for dampned heretikes the whole catholique churche of all christian people, excepte heretikes, both spirituall and temporall, seculare and religious to. But then the good brethrene excuse theim and saye, that they write against none but onelye theim that are nought, and write but against their vices.'

Of this apology the indifferent reader must judge how far it will serve to excuse Sir Thomas's manner of writing against those he calls hereticks, and the low unmanly reflections which he constantly makes on their persons. Tho' it must be own'd, in this ​they[O 13] were pretty even with him in the answers which they made to him, and treated him with as little ceremony as he had used towards them.

But besides the reflections made on their persons, its but too plain that Sir Thomas is not always so careful, as one would expect a person of his learning and of so tender and scrupulous a conscience would be, in reporting matters of fact wherein they whom he called hereticks were concerned. For instance, Tyndall had written[O 14] 'that the cardinall was compelled even with his awne good will to resygne his chauncelareshippe, and that to whome he lysted himselfe: that he thought to undo his destenye with his policyes, and went and put downe himselfe under a colour and sett up in his roume————the chefest of all his secretaries——More.—And as for the bishopryche of Durham he coude not of good congruyte but rewarde his old chappellayne, and one of the chefe of all his secretaryes with all——Tunstalle.'

These stories seem indeed to be perfect tattle and romance, but thus Sir Thomas misrepresents them.—[O 15] The practise of prelates; wherin Tindall had [O 16]went to have made speciall shewe of his highe worldly ​witte, and that men shulde have sene therein that ther wer nothing clone among princes but that he was fully advertised of all the secretes, and that so farre furthe that he knewe the privie practise made betweene the King's Highnesse and the late Lord Cardinall and the reverend father Cuthbert then Bishop of London, and me, that it was devised wilily that the Cardinall should leave the Chauncellorship to me, and the Bishopricke of Durham to my said Lord of London for a while, till he list himself to take them both againe.'

So in another place[O 17] Sir Thomas tells a story of a childe who was a servant in his house, and had by his father been set to attend upon George [O 18]Jaye or Gee otherwise called Clarke, that this George Jaye taught this childe his ungraciouse heresie against the blessed sacrament of the Aulter: and that into his house at Antwerpe the two nunnes were broughte which Jhon Byrt, otherwise called Adrian, stale out of their cloyster. But to these stories Joye, so he wrote his name, in his answer to Sir Thomas published by him next year[O 19], makes the following reply, which I shall set downe in his owne words.

[O 20]'The nonnes sayd playnely, and yet affirme it, that they came forthe lest they shulde have bene made harletts in the cloister by a vyciouse prieste called Syr Johan Larke their stewarde, whiche by theyr saynge was not mete to be chaplayne unto nonnis, nor nonnes to have siche a stewerd: and therfore came they their waye. It is a perrellous poynt for nonnes chastite to be reclused in siche a cloister ​where priestes be to familiare and bere all the rule beinge at meall tyde, bedde and borde within the place. Nether came these nonnis then unto my howse in Antwerpe I take God to recorde. And as for Dicke Purser, who attended upon me at London 8 or 9 daies, veryly the chylde lay with me that lytell whyle and fetched me meat, whom I taught to say by herte his pater Noster, Ave, and Credo yn Englyshe, wyth the two prayers folowynge in the Ortulus anime, to saye them in the morninge and evenynge, and thys, yn good faith, was all the heresie that I taught him. I had ben an undiscreit maister so sodenly in so lytell space to have taken forthe the chylde oute of his pater noster unto the sacrament of the Auter, seynge the chylde was not yet of so ful age as to come unto Goddis borde. But this lowde lye his Maister More souked owt of the boyes botickis to fede his ungracious affectis when he whipped him naked [O 21]tayd unto the tree of his trowthe.'

Sir Thomas's zeal against supposed heresie was reported to have carried him too far in his resentments against the persons of those who favoured it. His Confutation of Tindal's Answer to his Dialogues, is a proof of this: since there he tells a parcel of stories of Sir Thomas Hitton, Richard Bayfelde, George Constantine, Thomas Bylney, and——Tewksberry, most of them burnt, as serve to very little other purpose than representing those men as the weakest fools as well as the most vicious and hardned knaves.

All parties, it has been observed, have got a scurvy trick of lying for the truth. But it is not at all to be wonderd that they make no scruple of telling a lie, ​who think that even by killing their fellow creatures they do God service. This was another thing that was laid to Sir Thomas's charge. He tells us himselfe that it was said of him that whilst he was Chancellour he used to examine the protestants with torments, causing them to be bounden to a tree in his garden and there petiously beaten. But Sir Thomas solemnly declared, of very great trouthe that[O 22] 'albeit for a great robbery, or an heighnous murder or sacrilege in a churche wyth carieng awaye the pixe with the blessed sacramente, or villinously casting it out, he caused sometyme suche thinges to be done by some officers of the Marshalsye, or of some other prisons.—He never did els cause any suche thinge to be done to any of all the blessed brethren in all his life, except only the child before mentioned, and another who was mad and disturbed good people in the divine service.—That of all that ever came in his hand for heresye, as helpe him God, saving the sure keeping of them, els had never any of them any strype or stroake given them so muche as a fylyppe on the forehead.'

His friend Erasmus said of him, that he hated the seditious tenets with which the world was then miserably disturbed: that this he no way dissembled, nor desired should be a secret. Yet this was a sufficient argument of a certain excellent clemency, that whilst he was Chancellor no one was put to death for his disapproved opinions. In a letter of his to Erasmus Sir Thomas very freely owns, that he so far hated that sort of men called hereticks, that unless they repented he would be as troublesome to them as ​he could: and that this he had declared in his epitaph out of ambition. To the same purpose he expresses himself concerning them elsewhere. [O 23]'As touching heretickes, I hate that vice of theirs and not their persons, and very faine would I that the tone were destroied, and the tother saved.' But then he adds: 'Whoso be deeply grounded in malice to the harme of his owne soule and other men's to, and so set upon the sowing of sediciouse heresies that no good meanes that men may use unto him can pull that maliciouse folly oute of his poysoned, proude, obstinate heart, I would rather be content that he were gone in time than over long to tarry to the destruccion of other.'

The truth is there were so many persons of corrupt minds and ill principles who abused the Reformation to serve their own vile purposes, that it is not to be at all wondred at that Sir Thomas as well as others entertained very strong prejudices against it. In Germany all was in an uproar; the boors and common people seem'd to act as if all was their own, and that they were now at liberty to plunder whom they pleased. Erasmus, who was on the spot, thus represents their behaviour. 'Who knows not, (sais he) how many light and seditious people are ready on this pretence of reformation, for a loose to all sorts of crimes if the severity of the magistrates does not restrain their glowing rashness. Which if they had not done, the Pseudo-Gospellers had long since broke into the cellars and cabinets of the rich, and every one would have been a papist who had any thing to lose.' But then Sir Thomas seems to have ​carried his fears too far, in representing all, without exception, who favoured the Reformation as thus seditious, nay even the principles of the reformers as factious and rebellions. But to such a hatred of Luther, Tindall, &c. had this great man wrought himself, that he reckon'd the followers of Luther a great part of those ungracyous people which late entred into [O 24]Rome with the Duke of Bourbon[O 25], and layd the whole[O 26] blame of the barbarities then committed on them, representing them as beasts more hot, and more busy then would the great Turk, and from howre to howre embruying their hands in blood, and that in such wise as any Turke or Saracene would have pitied or abhorred. He adds, that the unhappy deeds of that secte must needs be imputed to the secte it selfe, while the doctrine therof teacheth and giveth occasion to their evil deedes.

In the same manner had Sir Thomas wrought himself up in the point of the Pope's primacy. This he tells Mr. Secretary Cromwel he was, by reading the King's book against Luther, brought to believe was begun by the institution of God. And yet in his answer to Tindall[O 27], he says he never did put the Pope for part of the definition of the Church, defining the church to be the common known congregation of all christen nations under one head the Pope. Thus, says he, did I never define the church, but ​purposely declined therfrom. For which lie gives the following reason. Because he would not intricate and entangle the matter with two questions at once. For he wist very well that the church being proved this common known catholike congregation of all christen nations abiding together in one faith, neither fain off nor cut off, there might be peradventure made a second question after that, Whether over all that Catholike Church the Pope must needes he head and chief governour or chiefe spirituall shepherd? Or else that, the union of faith standing among them all, every province might have their own chief spiritual governour over it self; without any recourse unto the Pope, or any superioritie recognised to any other outward person. But now these could be no questions, if the Pope's primacy, or his being head, and chief governor, or chief spiritual shepherd of the Catholike church was provided by God, or begun by his institution.

However, we here see the ground of this excellent person's opposition to the King's primacy or supremacy. By head or chief governour he understood the being chief spiritual shepherd, as if the King was enacted to have power to administer the sacraments, and particularly to ordain bishops and priests, &c. And therfore he scrupled owning the King to be supreme head of the church of England, as not thinking him qualified to be the chief spiritual shepherd because he was a lay-man. Thus has the regal supremacy been since misrepresented, in spite of all that has been said or done by that prince, his parliaments, and his clergy to the contrary, who all declared that by supreme head they did not mean a ​spiritual, but a civil head or pastor as K. Saul is stiled head of the tribes of Israel[O 28], and his successor King David is said to feed Jacob and Israel.

The late Jeremy Collier (whom I never think of but with concern for his prostituting such excellent parts and line learning to serve a party, even to the descending to assert the most shameful falshoods and to indulge the grossest partialities, as he has done in his Ecclesiastical History) has been pleased to translate into English a long passage from Calvin's Comment on the Prophet Amos, on purpose to expose the regal supremacy. But this he could not but know Bellarmine and others of the same stamp had done before him, and for the very same end. To them our learned prelates Andrews and Bilson returned proper answers long before Mr. Collier was born. Which answers, I believe, every sincere lover of truth will think ought to have been remembred in his history, so long as it was thought proper to place the objection there.

The Jesuits having published a pamphlet entituled, An Apologie and true Declaration of the Institution and Indeavours of the two English Colleges, viz. of Doway and Rheims, in which they most of all spurn'd at the Royal supremacy; among other things which they alledged against it was the authority of Calvin the learned French reformer at Geneva, who in his comment on the seventh chapter of the prophecy of Amos says, 6 They were blasphemers who called K. Henry VIII. supreme head of the church under Christ.' To this Bp. Bilson replyed, that [O 29]'These ​indeed are his words: but that what goeth before and followeth after shews in what sense Calvin took the word supreme.' 'At this day, (saith Calvin) where Poperie continueth, how many are there who load the King with all the right and power they can, [O 30]that there should be no disputing of religion, but this autboritie should rest in the King alone, to appoint at his pleasure what he list, and that to stand without contradiction. They that first so highly advanced King Henry of England were inconsiderate, they gave him supreme power of all things, and that was it which always wounded me.' Then says the Bp. to the Jesuits, succeede your words and withall a particular exemplification howe Steven Gardiner alleaged and constred the King's stile in Germanie. 'That jugler who after was Chancellor, I mean the Bishop of Winchester when he was at Rentzburge neither would stand to reason the matter, nor greatly cared for any testimonies of the scriptures, but said it was at the King's discretion to abrogate that which was in use, and appoint new: that the King might forbid priests marriage, might bar the people from the cup in the Lord's Supper, might determine this or that in his kingdome. And why? Forsooth the King had supreme power. This sacrilege hath taken hold on us, in Germanie whiles princes thinke they cannot reigne, excepte they abolish all the authority of the church, and be themselves supreme judges as well in doctrine as in all spiritual regiment.'

​'This, (says the Bp.) was the sense which Calvin affirmed to be sacrilegious and blasphemous for princes to professe themselves supreme judges of doctrine and discipline, and indeed it is the blasphemie which all godlie hearts reject and abomine in the Bishop of Rome. Neither did King Henry take any such thing on him for ought that we can learn; but this was Gardiner's stratagem to convey the reproach and shame of the sixe articles from himselfe and his felowes that were the authors of them, and to cast it on the King's supreme power. Had Calvin been told that supreme was first received to declare the prince to be superior to the [O 31]prelates, who exempted themselves from the King's authoritie by their church liberties and immunities, as well as to the lay-men of this realme, and not to be subject to the Pope, who claimed a jurisdiction over all princes and countries, the word would never have offended him: but as this wily foxe framed his answere when the Germans communed with him about the matter, we blame not Calvin for mistaking, but the Bishop of Winchester, for perverting the King's stile, and wresting it to that sense which all good men abhor.'

The Bp. further observes, that 'Our princes by their stile of supreme heads of the church, do not challenge power to debate, decide, or determine any point of faith or matter of religion, much lesse to be ​supreme judges or governors of all doctrine and discipline: but if in their realm we will have the assistance of the magistrates sworde to settle the truth and prohibite error, and by wholesome punishments to prevent the disorders of all degrees, that authorise lieth neither in prelate nor pope, but only in the prince: and therfore in his dominions we can neither establish doctrine nor discipline by publick laws without the prince's consent: that indeed with the regiment of the church wherof Christ is head, viz. his mysticall bodie, princes have nothing to do, yea many times they be scant members of it, and the church in each country may stand without princes, as in persecution it doth, and yet they not headless.'

Thus did this learned prelate state and defend the regale or King's snpremacie: and it is easy to shew that his Lordship spoke the true sense and meaning of King Henry himself, his bishops and clergy, and their successors. And yet the learned Mr. Collier is pleased to argue against it as the Jesuits did[O 32], as if princes by their supremacy were to settle controversies of faith, or decide debates concerning belief: that by the Act 26, Henry VIII, cap. 1. our kings are made judges in matters of faith, and are authorised to manage the government of the church at pleasure, so that the very being of the christian religion lies at their mercy. Which a later writer chooses thus to express in a sort of fanatic rage.[O 33] 'The commission (says he) which our Saviour had granted to his apostles and their successors was ​set aside by an humane law, and the authority they derived from heaven transfer'd upon the state. The care of souls was made to devolve upon the civil power, and the being of Christianity to depend upon the will of the magistrate.'

Much the same reply to this passage of Calvin's was made by Bp. Andrews. [O 34]'Calvin's invective (says he) against those who called Hen. VIII. head of the church was occasioned by a mistake of the matter of fact. For he thought they had not removed the Pope, but only changed him, the King being transubstantiated into a pope. But, says he to Bellarmine, we do not attribute that to the King which you do to the Pope; nor would the King accept of it, should we ascribe it to him.'

But to return to Sir Thomas More. As strongly prejudiced as he was against the King's primacy or supremacy, it appears by the following account of his life, that he was not so extravagant in his notions of the Papal power as some others were. I've before observed that he tells Tyndall that he never put the Pope for part of the definition of the church, [O 35]defining it to be the common known congregation of all christian nations under one head the Pope. Nay, he affirms that a general council is above the Pope, and that 'there are orders in Christ's church by which a pope may be both admonished and amended, and hath been for incorrigible mind and lack of amendment finally deposed and changed.' Which is the very same conclusion that Dr. Wiclif maintained, and which was condemned by the Council of Con​stance. Sir Thomas seems to have thought that a pope was not of the essence of the visible church, which might subsist without a pope under the government of provincial patriarchs, or archbishops.

I beg leave to add one particular more concerning Sir Thomas, as a proof of his great integrity. His friend Erasmus observes that he stood but on ill terms with the Cardinal the King's prime Minister of State. The Cardinal, says he, when he was alive, was far from being favourable to More, and rather feared than loved him. Somewhat of this is intimated in the following life. It seems Sir Thomas had courage enough to oppose him both in the Parliament and at the Council Board. To this latter Sir Thomas himself seems to refer in the story he tells us of the Cardinal's project of our taking the Emperor's part in the war he was engaged in against France, being there opposed by some of the council. [O 36]'Some (says he) thought it wisdome that we should sit still and let them alone: but evermore against that way my Lord used the fable of those wise men that because they would not be washed with the rayne that shold make all the people fools went themself in caves and hid them under the ground: but when the rayne had once made all the remenaunt fooles, and that they came out of their caves and wold utter their wisdome, the fooles agreed together against them and there all to beat them. And so, said his Grace, that if we wold be so wise that we wold sit in peace while the fools fought, they would not fail after to make peace and agree, and fall at length all upon us. This fable, adds Sir Thomas, ​for his parte, did in his dayes help the King and the realme to spend many a fayre penny.'

To the Cardinal's vanity and influence Sir Thomas imputed the gay and pompous dress and apparel then in fashion among the bishops and clergy, which he disliked himself, and which gave great offence to other serious and well-disposed people.—— [O 37]'for oughte (says he) that I can see, a greate parte of the proude and pompous apparaile that many priestes [used] in years not long paste, they were by the pride and oversyght of some few forced in a maner agaynst their own willes to weare.——I wote well it is worne out with manye whiche intende hereafter to bye no more suche agayne.'

As to the present edition of this Life of Sir Thomas, I assure the reader it's an exact copy of a MS. of it which I had from a neighbouring gentleman. It is very fairly written in the hand in common use in K. Henry VIII. and Q. Elizabeth's reign, about the beginning of which it seems to have been composed by M. Roper, who was then about 65 years old. I've compared it with the late edition of this Life by Mr. Hearne from his [O 38]Non-pareil MS. and excepting in two places, where that MS. seems to claim the preference, it's very plain, that this is much more complete and perfect than the other, as representing intelligibly what in Hearne's edition[O 39] is downright nonsense. I'll only give two or three instances out ​of near an hundred that might be produced for this purpose.

Hearn's edit. p. 4, runs thus. Who ere ever he had beene reader in court: whereas here it is, before ever he had read in the innes of court.

P.9. In all your heigh courts of param. Here it is, in your high court of parliament.

———it could not faile to lett and put to silence from the givinge of theire advice and counsell many of your discrete commons we are utterly discharged———Of this Hearn himself did not know what to make and therfore puts his sic in the margin: but here the sentence is plain, it could not faile to let and put to silence from the givinge of their advice and counsell many of your discrete commons, to the great hindrance of the common affaires, except that everie one of your commons were utterly discharged———.

P. 12.—he began to talke of that gallery at Hampton-Court.——but here it is, he began to talk of the gallery, [at Whitehall where the Cardinal and he were walking] sayinge, I like this gallerie of your's much better than your gallerie at Hampton-Court.

Li. 18. Hearne attempts a correction of the blunder allweit. Sic, sais he, pro albeit. But here we are shewn it should be all-weare-it.

P. 19. He besough his grace of sufficient respect advised to consider of it, which is nonsense; but here it is right, he besought his grace of sufficient respite to consider of it advisedlie.

P. 18. Cardinal Woolsey waxed so wooe therewith. Where is the sense of this? But here it is as it should be, Cardinal Woolsey, I say, waxed so woodd therewith: or so mad therwith.

​For the case, as I thought, of the reader, it is I who have divided this Life into sections, which in the MS. from which I copied it, is one continued narrative without any distinction of paragraphs, &c.—I have also added such passages in the margin taken from Erasmus and Sir Thomas's own works as seemed to me to give light to this history: and at the end of all I've placed by themselves the copies of several letters of Sir Thomas's, printed by Mr. Justice Rastall, his sister's son, to some of which Mr. Roper has referr'd his reader, the book in which they are being now very scarce and not to be come at but with difficultie.

J. LEWIS.

The Mirrour of Virtue in Worldly Greatnes; or, The Life of Syr Thomas More, sometime Lord Chancellour of England, at Paris, MDCXXVI. 12mo.

N. B. This is printed from either a faulty MS. of Mr. Roper's, or else is altered by the editor T. P. See p. 3, among the notes where his book is said by mistake to be 8vo. 1616.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Sir Thomas More's Life written by Mr. Justice Rastall. Sir Thomas's Sister Elizabeth's son, MS.
    The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, Knt. Lord High Chancellour of England, 4to., 1627. This is More's Life of Sir Thomas More, which was again printed with notes in 1726, 8 vo. s.w.s.
    De tribus Thomis auctore Thomæ Stapletono. Col. Agrip. 1612. 8vo.
    Historia aliquot nostri seculi Martyrum, viz. Thomæ Mori, Joan. Fischeri, &c. 4to. 1550.
    The Mirrour of Virtue in worldly greatness, 8vo. Paris, 1616.
    The History of the Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, Lord High Chancellour of England in King Henry the Eight's time. Collected by J. H[oddesdon.] Gent. 8vo. London, 1652.
  2. ↑ By this it seems as if Mr. Roper lived in Sir Thomas's family some time before he married his daughter.
  3. ↑ Is —— ego sum quem ante aliquot annos mater tua Margareta Ropera, femina et illo tanto patre et te tali filia dignissima, ex Academia Cantabrigiensi accersivit ad se ad ædes domini Ægidij Alingtoni[I 1] necessarij vestri, rogavitque ut te reliquosque suos liberos, Græca, Latinaque lingua institurem; sed tum ego nulli conditionibus ab Academia civelli me patiebar.
  4. ↑ Perhaps they were on brass fastened to their several tombstones which might be broken and defaced when they were taken up to make the vault. For the inscription of Edmund Roper, who died 1433, which was to be seen there in brass under his effigies, 1717, is now quite gone with a part of the stone, and of the brass effigies. So little regard do too many of the present age pay to the memory of either their own ancestors or of the ancestors of others.
  5. ↑ Dexter humerus paulo videtur eminentior lævo, præsertim cum incedit, id quod illi non accidit natura sed assuetudine.—Erasmi Epist. See also Ascham's Scholemaster.
  6. ↑ In Moro mihi videor extinctus.
  7. ↑ A manne well learned in the tongues and also in the common lawe, whose wytte was fyne and full of imaginacyons, by reason wherof he was too much given to mocking, whiche was to his gravitie a great blemish.—Hall Chron.
  8. ↑ —— Sic addictus Pietati ut si in alterutram partem aliquantulum inclinet momentum, Superstitioni quam impietati vicinior esse videatur.
    Veræ Pietatis non indiligens cultor est, etiamsi ab omni Superstitione alienissimus.
  9. ↑ Bishop Atterbury's Considerations, &c.
  10. ↑ Mayster Martin Luther himself beyng specially borne agayne and new created of the Spirit, whom God in many places of holy Scripture hath commanded to keep his vowe made of chastity——so farre contrary therunto toke out of religion a spouse of Christ wedded her himselfe in reproche of wedlocke called her his wife and made her his harlot, and, in double desire of marriage and religion both, liveth with her openlie, and lyeth with her nightlye in shameful incest and abominable bycherie.—English Works, p. 360. col. 1.
  11. ↑ English Works, p. 864, col. 1.
  12. ↑ English Works, p. 865, col. 1.
  13. ↑ The subversion of More's false foundation whereupon he sweteth to set faste and shove under his shameles shoris to underproppe the Popis Churche: made by George Joye.
    More is become a vayn lyer in his owne resoning and arguments: and his folyshe harte is blynded. Where he beleved to have done moste wysely, there hath he shewed himself a starke foole. Moros in Greke is stultus in Latyn, a foole in Englyshe.—Emdon, 1534.
  14. ↑ The Practyse of Prelates, ed. 1530.
  15. ↑ English Works, p. 342, col. 1.
  16. ↑ Thought.
  17. ↑ English Works, p. 901, col. 1.
  18. ↑ Joye.
  19. ↑ 1534.
  20. ↑ The Subversion of More's false foundacion, &c.
  21. ↑ Tied.
  22. ↑ English Works, p. 901, col 1.
  23. ↑ English Works, p. 925, col. 2.
  24. ↑ This sacking of Rome was but 9 years after Luther first began to oppose the Pope; so that it is very improbable that any of his followers should be a great part or any part at all of the army that then did so great cruelties. No, these beasts were all professed catholics.
  25. ↑ 1526.
  26. ↑ Dialogues.
  27. ↑ English Works, p. 614, col. 1.
  28. ↑ Psalm 78.
  29. ↑ The true difference betwene Christian Subjection and unchristian rebellion. Part III. p. 294, 295.
  30. ↑ Mr. Collier in his translation of this comment of Calvin's omits these important words. This is one of his artifices to seduce the unwary reader to his party: and is therfore often made use of by him, particularly in his abridgement of K. Henry's book against Luther.—Eccles. Hist. Vol. II. p. 12, 285.
  31. ↑ We thought that the clergie of our realme had bene our subjects wholly, but now we have well perceived that they bee but halfe our subjects, yea and scarce our subjectes: for all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the Pope clene contrary to the othe that they make to us. So that they seem to be his subjects and not ours.—K. Henry VIII. Speech to the Commons, 1533.
  32. ↑ Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. p. 610, col. 2, p. 88, col 1.
  33. ↑ Preface to the Life of Sir T. More, by his Grandson, 1726.
  34. ↑ Ad. C. Bellarmi: Apologi respon. c. 1.
  35. ↑ English Works, p. 614, col. 2.
  36. ↑ Letters at the end of his English Works.
  37. ↑ English Works, p. 892, col. 1.
  38. ↑ At the beginning of it, Hearne tells us, is this little note, in hoc ‡ signo vinces; this he critically observes is a sufficient proof that it was either copied from the original or from some copy of great note.———— risum teneatis?
  39. ↑ 1716.

Footnotes to footnotes

  1. ↑ Sir Giles Alington who married Sir T. More's second lady's daughter.

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