More, Thomas

(1477/8–1535)

English lawyer, writer and saint. More was born and educated at London, and enjoyed a brilliant career at the Bar, giving him the leisure to enjoy literary and political pursuits. He became Lord Chancellor in 1529, but resigned in 1532 and lived for some time in retirement. After Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine in 1534, More's principled refusal to take any oath impugning the authority of the Pope led to his execution a year later. He is remembered philosophically partly as a friend of Erasmus and a key figure of the Renaissance in England, but also as the author of Utopia (1516), a description of the quest for a political ideal that is satisfied by a system of communism, national education, and free toleration of religion.