Today in 1529 Thomas More became the Lord Chancellor after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. His rise made the Catholic traditionalists happy as he supported Queen Catherine over Anne Boleyn in Henry VIII’s divorce proceedings.
While More was a humanist and favored reform of the church from within, he fought against the Protestant Reformation. He originally aided Cardinal Wolsey in suppressing Protestant literature including Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament.
Once he was Lord Chancellor, he took this work even more seriously and he approved of burning heretics thinking that they were cancer on the church.
More would resign in 1532 as the clergy was under more and more pressure from Henry to recognize him as the Supreme Head of the Church, and More could not abide by that. He would eventually refuse to take an oath against the Act of Succession, and he was executed in 1535.
That’s your Tudor minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
Suggested links:
Episode 055: Tudor Times on Thomas More
Episode 009: A Tale of Two Thomases Part I (Wolsey & More)
From the shop:
Thomas More Thug Life Shirt
Ps. All products are made on-demand and can take a few weeks to ship.
(Tudor Thug Life)
Want more Tudor in your life? Join the Tudor Learning Circle - the only social network devoted solely to Tudor History. Sign up free at TudorLearningCircle.com! And why not Tudorfy your YouTube algorithm by getting exclusive videos and content on Heather's YouTube channel!
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.