Lord High Chancellor of England, was the son of Sir John More, knight, one of the judges of the King's Bench, and born in the year 1480, in Milk Street, London. He was first sent to a school at St Anthony's, in Threadneedle Street, and afterwards introduced into the family of Cardinal Moreton, who in 1497 sent him to Canterbury College, Oxford. During his residence at the university he constantly attended the prelections of Linacre and Grocinus, upon the Greek and Latin languages. Having in about two years made considerable proficiency in academical learning, he came to New Inn, in London, to study the law; and, after some time, he removed thence to Lincoln's Inn, of which his father was a member. Notwithstanding his application to the law, however, being now about the age of twenty, he was so attached to monkish discipline, that he wore a hair shirt next his skin, practised frequent fastings, and often slept on a bare plank. In the year 1503, being then a burgess in parliament, he distinguished himself in the house, in opposition to the motion for granting a subsidy and three fifteenths for the marriage of Henry VII.'s eldest daughter, Margaret, to the king of Scotland. The motion was rejected, and the king was so highly offended at this opposition from a beardless boy, that he revenged himself on More's father, by sending him, on a frivolous pretence, to the Tower, and obliging him to pay L100 for his liberty. Being now called to the bar, More was appointed law-reader at Furnival's Inn, which place he held during three years; but about this time he also delivered, with great applause, a public lecture in the Church of St Lawrence, Old Jewry, upon St Augustine's treatise De Civitate Dei. He had, indeed, formed a design of becoming a Franciscan friar, but he was dissuaded from carrying it into effect; and, by the advice of Dr Colet, he married Jane, the eldest daughter of Mr John Colt of Newhall, in the county of Essex. In 1508 he was appointed judge of the Sheriff's Court in the city of London, was made a justice of the peace, and became eminent at the bar. In 1516 he went to Flanders in the retinue of Bishop Tonstal and Dr Knight, who were sent by Henry VIII. to renew the alliance with the archduke of Austria, afterwards Charles V. On his return, Cardinal Wolsey wished to engage More in the service of the crown, and offered him a pension, which he refused. Nevertheless, it was not long before he accepted the place of master of the requests, was created a knight, admitted of the privy council, and in 1520 made treasurer of the exchequer. About this time he built a house on the banks of the Thames, at Chelsea, and married a second wife. This lady, by name Middleton, and a widow, was old, ill tempered, and covetous; nevertheless, Erasmus says, he was as fond of her as if she had been a young maid.

In the fourteenth year of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas More was made speaker of the House of Commons, and in this capacity he had the resolution to oppose the then powerful minister, Wolsey, in his demand of an oppressive subsidy; but notwithstanding this, it was not long before he became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and was treated by the king with singular familiarity. The king having once dined with Sir Thomas at Chelsea, walked with him nearly an hour in the garden, with his arm round his neck. After he was gone, Mr Roper, Sir Thomas's son-in-law, observed how happy he was to be so familiarly treated by the king. To this Sir Thomas replied, "I thank our lord, son Roper, I find his grace my very good lord indeed, and believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject within this realm; howbeit, I must tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win him a castle in France, it would not fail to go off." From this anecdote it appears that Sir Thomas fully appreciated the king's real character.

In 1526 he was sent with Cardinal Wolsey and others on a joint embassy to France, and in 1529 accompanied Bishop Tonstal to Cambrai. The king, it seems, was so well satisfied with his services on these occasions, that in the following year, when Wolsey fell into disgrace, he made him chancellor; a circumstance which seems the more extraordinary, as we are informed that Sir Thomas had repeatedly declared his disapprobation of that divorce, upon which the great Defender of the Faith was then so earnestly bent. Having executed the office of chancellor for about three years, with equal wisdom and integrity, he resigned the seals in 1533, probably to avoid the danger of a refusal to confirm the king's divorce. He now retired to his house at Chelsea, dismissed many of his servants, sent his children with their respective families to their own houses (for hitherto he had, it seems, maintained all his children, with their families, in his own house, in the true style of an ancient patriarch), and spent his time in study and devotion. But the capricious tyrant would not permit him to enjoy tranquillity. Though now reduced to a private station, and even to indigence, his opinion of the legality of the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn was deemed of so much importance, that various means were tried to procure his approbation; but all persuasion having proved ineffectual, he was, with some others, attainted of misprision of treason, for encouraging Elizabeth Burton, the nun of Kent, in her treasonable practices. His innocence in this affair appeared so clearly, however, that they were obliged to strike his name out of the bill. He was then accused of other crimes, but with the same effect; until, refusing to take the oath enjoined by the act of supremacy, he was committed to the Tower, and, after fifteen months' imprisonment, brought to trial at the bar of the King's Bench for high treason, in denying the king's supremacy. The proof rested solely on the evidence of Rich the solicitor-general, whom Sir Thomas, in his defence, sufficiently discredited; nevertheless the jury brought him in guilty, and he was condemned to suffer death as a traitor. The merciful Henry, however, indulged him with simple decollation; and he was accordingly beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 5th of July 1535. His body, which was first interred in the Tower, was begged by his daughter Margaret, and deposited in the chancel of the church at Chelsea, where a monument, with an inscription written by himself, had been erected some time before. This monument, with the inscription, is still to be seen in that church. The same daughter, Margaret, also procured his head after it had remained fourteen days upon London Bridge, and placed it in a vault belonging to the Roper family, under a chapel adjoining to St Dunstan's Church, in Canterbury. Sir Thomas More was a man of great learning, and an upright judge; austere in religion, yet cheerful, and even affectedly witty. Piety was a principal ingredient in his character, and he was equally devout and exemplary in all his conduct. In his hours of relaxation he had recourse to music, and had always a person to read to him whilst he sat at table, in order to prevent improper conversation before his children and servants. He lived in habits of intimacy with the most learned men of his time, particularly Erasmus, who held the first place in his affections, and deserved his esteem; nor was he less respected and admired abroad. When the Emperor Charles V. heard of his death, he said to the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Elliot, "I understand that the king, your master, has put to death his faithful servant and wise counsellor Sir Thomas More." The ambassador answered that he had heard nothing of the matter. "It is too true," replied the emperor; "and this I will say, that if I had been master of such a servant, of whose abilities I have, these many years, had no little experience, I would rather have lost the best city in my dominions than so worthy a counsellor." It is even said that the ruthless tyrant, who had pursued him with inflexible perseverance to the scaffold, felt some compunctious visitings of remorse when the thirst of vengeance had ceased to operate; and, upon receiving the news of his execution, observed to Anne Boleyn, "Thou art the cause of this man's death;" after which he hastily withdrew, and shut himself up in an adjoining chamber.

Sir Thomas More was the author of various works, both in English and in Latin, of which the best known and most generally esteemed is his *Utopia*. His English works were collected and published by order of Queen Mary in 1557; his Latin works appeared at Basil in 1563, and at Louvain in 1566; and both show that he was thoroughly conversant with every branch of polite learning. For a minute account of his works, the reader is referred to Oldys's *Librarian*, and preface to Dibdin's edition of the *Utopia*. The best, because the most discriminating and judicious character of More, is that drawn by Sir James Mackintosh in his *History of England* (vol. ii. p. 177, et seq.), to which the reader is referred. "He was the first Englishman who signalised himself as an orator, the first writer of prose which is still intelligible, and probably the first layman since the beginning of authentic history who was chancellor of England, a magistracy which has been filled by as many memorable men as any office of a civilized community."

This excellent person left one son and three daughters; of whom Margaret, the eldest, was remarkable for her knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. She married Mr Roper of Wellhall, in Kent, whose life of Sir Thomas More was published by Mr Hearne at Oxford in 1716. Mrs Roper died in 1544, and was buried in the vault of St Dunstan's in Canterbury, with her father's head in her arms.