It is at this moment that drama, or popular legend, enters history. In a late sixteenth-century play, Sir Thomas Moore, one long passage has been ascribed to Shakespeare; it is concerned with this confrontation between More and the crowd at the corner of St Martin’s. He steps forward and calls out to the apprentices: ‘Good masters, hear me speak.’ More then goes on to calm the people with a homily on the need for order and obedience together with a pointed reference to the fact that, if they were banished, they would become in turn ‘straingers’ in a foreign city. His entreaties succeed and the apprentices declare that ‘Weele be ruld by you master moor.’31 The evidence supports Shakespeare’s authorship of the fragment but, in any event, this dramatic episode confirms the importance of the event in London’s history and suggests the esteem in which More himself was held by its citizens; it is not often that a condemned traitor to his king is praised, some fifty years after his death, as a popular figure.
On this particular occasion, however, Shakespeare nodded. More’s attempts to calm the crowd succeeded momentarily but then some stones and clubs were hurled at the official party; one serjeant-at-arms was hit and shouted furiously, ‘Down with them!’ Thereupon a full riot ensued. The houses of foreigners were attacked and ransacked, especially those of the French, who in this period were particularly disliked, while several ‘straingers’ were injured. The sporadic violence and destruction continued until the early hours of the morning, but at five o’clock the earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey (together with other noblemen) rode through the streets of the city and restored order; three hundred were arrested and, on the following Monday, eleven were sentenced. Four prisoners were to be hanged, drawn and quartered at various sites of London (two at the Standard in Cheapside, close to More’s house) and the other seven hanged at other positions in the city.
There was an appropriately theatrical sequel to the riots of May Day. The three hundred condemned men and women, with halters around their necks, were led in to the king’s presence at Westminster Hall; Henry sat upon a raised platform and listened as Cardinal Wolsey pleaded for their lives. He refused. Then all of them fell down upon their knees crying, ‘Mercy, gracious lord, mercy!’ The queen knelt, too, and begged her husband’s forgiveness for the unhappy offenders. Wolsey himself ‘besought his Majesty most earnestly to grant them grace’32 and, eventually, Henry consented to their pardon. Wolsey announced it to them with tears in his eyes; all of them took off their halters and threw them up to the roof of the hall. ‘They jumped for extreme joy,’ according to one witness and altogether ‘it was a very fine spectacle’.33 More, dressed in black for the solemn occasion, looked on.
But he was involved in foreign, as well as domestic, adventures. The affairs of Europe were like Mahomet’s tomb, suspended between heaven and earth; there was no open warfare but there was no general peace. There were intrigues, doubtful treaties and, as always, troubling rumours. It was in this atmosphere, in the summer of 1517, that More joined a diplomatic mission to Calais to negotiate about various commercial disputes that had arisen between the merchants of both countries, and to deal with questions of piracy on the seas where English and French seem to have been equally at fault. It was not an assignment that More welcomed. He was to reside in Calais for three months, dated from the beginning of September, and was to involve himself in the complicated processes of French law. There were also reports of plague in Calais. But his role as a member of the council incurred responsibility such as this and, before he left London, he asked the Mercers to report ‘any injuries or wrongs done unto them by Frenchmen’.34 He was soon complaining of the tedium involved in the negotiations, however, and letters to the council from More and the other commissioners—even in their incomplete state—are filled with detail. There are various references to ‘provisions’ and ‘ordinaunces’, ‘complayntis’ and ‘certeficacions’, ‘communycacions’ and ’quereles’.35 The favourites of kings, as Erasmus said ironically of More’s plight, can expect such advantages.
There were, however, genuine benefits. Soon after his arrival at Calais he received from Erasmus a diptych, which displayed painted images of Peter Gillis and of Erasmus himself on two wooden panels. It was a tribute to the friendship between the three men, which had in particular fostered the publication of Utopia, but it was also a celebration of humanist learning itself. Erasmus is the image of contemplative and scholarly life, while Gillis holds a letter from More and looks out into the world. This double portrait was painted by Quentin Matsys, then the most famous portraitist in Antwerp, whose extraordinarily delicate realism announced a profound and revolutionary change in portraiture; it was as though men and women were seeing themselves clearly for the first time. The fine nervous features of Erasmus seem momentarily at rest, as he writes with a reed pen his paraphrase of Romans;36 upon the shelf behind him is his New Testament as well as a copy of St Jerome’s Vulgate. Erasmus is indissolubly linked to that other great scholar, and the entire conception of Matsys’s portrait owes something to the orthodox images of St Jerome in his famous study (although the lion is missing). Here, in iconographic form, is the history of true scholarship. Gillis holds the letter from More in one hand, while the other rests lightly upon a copy of Antibarbari by Erasmus; volumes of Seneca and Suetonius lie on the shelves behind him. The references are clear enough, but what we also see upon the painted panels is that combination of startling realism and resonant historicism which was also characteristic of the new learning. That is what More meant when, in a set of verses, he praised Matsys as ‘Veteris nouator artis’ (‘the reviver of old art’).37
More was delighted by the gift, so timely a reminder of his ‘humanist’ world in a place and period where he was embroiled in legal and commercial matters, and at once wrote both to Erasmus and Gillis in praise of a work which would act as a perpetual token of their presence in his life; he was ‘coniunctus amore’,38 united in love with them. In the painting Erasmus wears a ring on the forefinger of his right hand; it had been presented to him by More. Indeed throughout his life More was notably generous, and his contemporaries seem delighted to have offered him gifts in return, even if they were not always so magnificent as the diptych. In this period, for example, Cuthbert Tunstall sent him a fly suspended in precious amber shaped as a heart. It was an age in which friendship between men could take elaborate forms.
While he attended the negotiations at Calais, a second edition of his Utopia emerged from the press of Gilles de Gourmont in Paris; the publication had been supervised by a young English scholar who had worked for Erasmus at Cambridge, Thomas Lupset, and seems designed to promote the work to a larger audience of clerics, administrators, scholars and lawyers. In the same period as the publication of Utopia Froben issued another edition of the Lucian translations which More and Erasmus had prepared; these include emendations and corrections, for the printer, in Erasmus’s hand. Three months later Froben issued the third edition of Utopia, together with More’s epigrams; this was also printed and published under the supervision of Erasmus. So, with the ready assistance of his friends, More’s earliest works were introduced to the world; these also became the works upon which his European reputation depended. There were to be no more written in this ironic and spirited style, since for the rest of his life he was engaged only upon texts of polemic and devotion. The young scholar and wit, the scourger of ecclesiastical and regal abuses, was to be covered by the mantle of the royal councillor and heretic hunter. There were occasions, even now, when he seemed oddly embarrassed or anxious about what we might term his secular productions. He even went to the length of lying to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, by claiming that Utopia had been printed without his knowledge; since he had sent the manuscript to Erasmus, and worried anxiously over the plans for publication, it was a bold fabrication. More may have been nervous of the prelate’s reception of this satirical text; but the episode suggests the distance that he was willing to keep from his literary pursuits. He never was a scholar or writ
er in the fashion of Erasmus or Vives; he was an occasional poet and satirist who was not in the least unwilling to turn his hand to ‘official’ publications of a more solemn nature. Here, in Calais, we may mark the transition. More is in his thirty-ninth year, and over the next few months he came to the decision which would affect the course of his life.
Yet even while he contemplated his future, an incident took place in Europe which would prove decisive for his career. In the autumn of 1517, on the eve of All Souls when relics were displayed to the faithful, Martin Luther is supposed to have nailed a placard containing ninety-five theses for debate to the castle church in Wittenberg. His questions on the doctrine of indulgences and on the remission of sins were placed upon the church door as part of what one biographer has called ‘scholastic routine’;39 certainly it was academic practice to publicise debate in this manner, but Luther’s complaints and questions were taken up by the whole of Germany and his words were quickly in the mouths of princes, merchants and populace. ‘It is mere human talk to preach that the soul flies out [of purgatory] immediately the money clinks in the collection box … All those who believe themselves certain of their own salvation because of letters of pardon, will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.’40 The significance of the Articles was such that Erasmus sent a copy of them to More in the spring of the following year. In the meantime Luther had written to a friend, declaring that he longed ‘to obtain the Utopia’.41 The two men were already aware of each other’s presence and capacities; soon they would be at each other’s throats as they struggled over the future of their Church.
More left Calais in December, but before returning home he rode north to Bruges to meet Richard Pace. Pace had been in the vicinity for several months, his principal task being to create or finance a military alliance against France. What was the purpose, then, of More’s journey to Bruges? It is likely that he brought secret news of the negotiations with France, which might compromise Pace’s own activities. But it may be that they had other business to discuss—in the following year they would both be working closely and directly with the king.
It was Erasmus who first noted the change. More, he wrote in the spring of the following year, is now ‘totus … aulicus’,42 wholly a courtier, and attending continually upon Henry. In the next sentence he hints that Richard Pace may have been partly responsible for his change of status. More had moved from the position of councillor in the Star Chamber to that of councillor attendant—literally attendant upon ‘His Majesty’s Honourable Person’, part of the travelling court which followed Henry from palace to palace, and de facto a member of the Privy Chamber.43 He always contended that he accepted his new post reluctantly—‘invitissimus’44—and mentioned that even the king joked with him about his initial unwillingness. Erasmus, in letters to friends, gives the impression that More was practically forced to take the position. That is an overstatement, but there are reasons why More would have had misgivings about his new appointment. He was forsaking the life of law and, unlike his father, he would never move forward to the posts of serjeant-at-law or judge. He was also giving up his position in City politics and City administration, while at the same time suffering from possible loss of earnings. But, perhaps more importantly, his position as councillor attendant meant that he had much less time for his family and that he would be apart from them when he followed his master to Windsor, or Ampthill, or further afield.
His constant proximity to the king meant that he became a figure of much authority and power, but there were more significant reasons for royal service. He truly believed the king to be divinely ordained, the proper source of the harmony and blessings of the ‘commonwelth’. Henry represented spiritual, almost magical, power. In that sense it became More’s duty to serve him. Perhaps the element of sacrifice in the choice, made it all the more pleasing to him; once more he could subdue his own inclinations, just as he subdued his flesh, in the service of a higher order. Yet he knew himself well enough to know that he might serve as a counsellor to his monarch and, a few years later, declared it necessary that every man of ‘good mynde’ should give ‘good aduyce towarde his prynce and his countrey’.45 It is fair to take this as a measure of More’s own feelings on becoming a councillor attendant: he would be in the very best position to advise and persuade the king to follow his own highest instincts and better judgements. He could only have been heartened when, on his entering the king’s service, Henry himself told him that he should serve God first and his master second.
His first role in Henry’s court was as a hearer of ‘poor men’s suits’; this was a relatively old office by means of which the ‘poor’ (the term was somewhat elastic) could sue for justice without facing the costs of formal litigation. Thus More, normally with one other councillor, would receive petitions or ‘requests’ on such matters as enclosures, wardships, contracts, marriage settlements, and the whole paraphernalia of early sixteenth-century English life. More’s reputation for fair and swift justice made him the obvious choice for such a post. As the court moved on in 1518 through Windsor, Newhall, Hampton Court, Richmond, Abingdon, Woodstock, Southampton, Greenwich and Eltham, More heard from suitors who had been cheated or oppressed, deprived of land or inheritance, prevented from enjoying customary rights or unlawfully expelled from ward or guild. Within a year, however, Wolsey had established a committee in Whitehall to hear these suits of ‘poor men’, so great was the press of business, and More was released to assume more complex and sensitive duties.
It had been in many respects a difficult year. He had arrived at court with Richard Pace, who had returned to take up his post as the king’s secretary. Henry had welcomed them with ‘very wise and substantial precepts’,46 but More was actually not paid until the following summer; only after he presented a petition to Henry was his salary of £100 a year honoured and backdated to the autumn. He formally resigned as under-sheriff of London only after he had received payment; his last official duty for his old city was to greet the papal legate, in Cheapside, with a brief Latin oration. His resignation as under-sheriff at this time suggests, perhaps, that even at this late stage More did not consider his post at court to be safe or permanent. Certainly his position does not seem to have been altogether assured, since Richard Pace was obliged to write to Wolsey on his behalf requesting him to make sure that More received from the household staff ‘daily such allowance of meat and drink as the king’s Grace hath granted’.47 More was being forced to buy meat in town for his servants, which was ‘intolerable’.48 There is a picturesque vignette of More and Pace sitting down to eat, surrounded by others carding or dicing, and, later, pitching arrows over the screens in the Hall.49 It is reminiscent of a description by Erasmus of the foolish courtiers who ‘go to Dice, Tables, Cards, or entertain themselves with Jesters, Fools, Gambolls, and Horse-tricks’.50 It seems likely that Wolsey (with the help of Pace) had been responsible for More’s transition to this sportive court; the young lawyer was reliable, industrious, clever and, perhaps most important, apparently without ambition on his own account. He could be trusted, in other words, to remain loyal to Wolsey while faithfully fulfilling his duties to the king. Soon enough, then, he was at the centre of affairs.
CHAPTER XVIII
HE SAT UPON A THRONE OF GOLD
HE image of Henry VIII is preserved for ever in the portraits of Hans Holbein. The legs are set firmly apart, subduing the ground upon which he stands, as if he could straddle the world; the confident forward stance is amplified by the right arm beside his hip, while the left hand rests lightly by his dagger; the full and rubicund face gazes outward, challenging spectators to avert their eyes. It is a picture of majesty, eliciting both awe and fear; the slightly etherealised and religiose portraits of earlier English kings have been replaced by the robust presence of one whose physical body is itself an image of a prospering body politic. Henry wished to be viewed in the absolute fullness of health and majesty, the confidence of his whole posture matched only by his fabulously
bejewelled robes. He sat upon a throne of gold, beneath a golden canopy.1 He was dressed entirely in scarlet, purple, crimson and white—a doublet of white and crimson satin, hose of scarlet and a vast mantle of purple velvet with white satin lining. His cap of crimson was looped with gold, his mantle had a great golden cord with golden ornaments upon it; around his neck was a gold collar, with a diamond the size of a walnut; another gold necklace, encrusted with smaller diamonds, was draped over his shoulders. And his fingers were covered with rings. No Roman or Egyptian ruler could rival such magnificence. Here was another Apollo, covered in gold.
Henry also prided himself upon his legs and, in a typical scene from his court, once demanded of the Venetian ambassador if the king of France had such good limbs. Then he opened the front of his doublet and, placing his hand upon his thigh, exclaimed, ‘Look here! and I also have a good calf to my leg.’2 That most of his portraits show those legs is not simply a matter of personal vanity. The vitality and beauty of the king are necessary aspects of his magnificence and of his divine status; just as in the Timaeus Plato extols the combination of physical and mental beauty as an image of the divine harmony of the universe, so the splendour of God’s anointed is revealed by his bearing in the world. That is why Henry placed so much emphasis upon fencing, dancing and jousting as the games of court. There may also be a further connotation; the emphasis upon the size of the legs may reflect upon that of an adjacent member, and thus be a token of the king’s virility. The evidence of Henry’s armour, however, demonstrates that the painter felt obliged to lengthen them.
But there are other aspects to Holbein’s art. In the painting known as the ‘Thyssen portrait’, Henry is given a sardonic and almost guileful expression. His eyes are slightly averted, his somewhat thin lips compressed, but at the same time he evinces a confidence and hauteur that seem to give an added lustre to the pearls and jewels with which his robes are encrusted. There is a wilfulness and ruthlessness in the pose of the head—an effect that only a master such as Holbein could achieve. Those qualities are depicted with less refinement in an engraving by Cornelius Matsys, the son of the man who painted Erasmus and Peter Gillis; in this engraving, published only after Henry’s death, the king has been deliberately portrayed as porcine, devious and malevolent. It is the king of whom Thomas More spoke one evening, as he walked in his garden with his son-in-law after a visit from Henry—‘If my head could win him a castle in France … it should not fail to go.’3 More was displaying his usual shrewdness, since all of the portraits depicting Henry’s wilful magnificence were completed after More’s execution.
The Life of Thomas More Page 24