Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, RIP

On May 4th I attended and read my parts in one of the quarterly Shakespeare meetings I asked to join a year ago. We read Shakespeare's History/Tragedy, Richard III. Today, the 25th of June is the anniversary of the execution in 1483 of Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, on the orders of Richard, Duke of Gloucester at Pontefract or Pomfret, as it's named in Act III, Scene 3. Richard is arranging everything from murders to kidnappings to marriages so that he may take the throne after Edward IV has died, and he has to get rid of Queen Elizabeth's family, including her brother Lord Rivers, and her son, Sir Richard Grey, and another close associate of the Queen and her son Edward V, Sir Thomas Vaughan--and of course her sons, the Princes in the Tower.

Rivers recalls that Richard II was murdered at Pontefract/Pomfret:

O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls,
Richard the Second here was hacked to death,
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.

Rivers and Grey look back on the curses of Queen Margaret, King Henry VI's widow in Act I, Scene 3 and realize they are being fulfilled:

GREY
Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,
When she exclaimed on Hastings, you, and I,
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.

RIVERS
Then cursed she Richard. Then cursed she
Buckingham.
Then cursed she Hastings. O, remember, God,
To hear her prayer for them as now for us!
And for my sister and her princely sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.

RATCLIFFE
Make haste. The hour of death is expiate.

RIVERS
Come, Grey. Come, Vaughan. Let us here embrace.
Farewell until we meet again in heaven.

They exit to their beheadings . . . offstage.

But when you read his biography in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica you realize he was much more than the Queen's brother, her son's guardian, and Gloucester's enemy, for he was a:

statesman and patron of literature, and author of the first book printed on English soil, was born probably in 1442. He was the son of Richard de Wydeville and his wife, Jacquetta de Luxemburg, duchess of Bedford. His father was raised to the peerage in his son's infancy, and was made earl of Rivers in 1466. Anthony, who was knighted before he became of age, and fought at Towton in 1461, married the daughter of Lord Scales, and became a peer jure uxoris in 1462, two years after the death of that nobleman. . . . His father and brother were beheaded after the battle of Edgecot, and he succeeded in August of that year to the earldom. He accompanied Edward in his temporary flight to the Continent, and on his return to England had a share in the victory of Barnet and Tewkesbury and defended London from the Lancastrians. In 1473 he became guardian and governor to the young prince of Wales, and for the next few years there was no man in England of greater responsibility or enjoying more considerable honours in the royal service.

Then the biography turns to his literary pursuits, followed by a poignant line:

His mother, the duchess, died in 1472, and his first wife in 1473; in 1475 and the following year he went on pilgrimage to the holy places of Italy; from this time forth there was a strong tincture of serious reflection thrown over his character; he was now, as we learn from Caxton, nominated “Defender and Director of the Siege Apostolic for the Pope in England.” Caxton had in 1476 rented a shop in the Sanctuary at Westminster, and here had set up a printing-press. The first MS. which he undertook in London was one sent to him by “the noble and puissant lord, Lord Antone, Erle of Ryvyers,” consisting of a translation “into right good and fayr Englyssh” of Jean de Teonville's French version of a Latin work, “a glorious fair mirror to all good Christian people.” In 1477 Caxton brought out this book, as Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophers, and it is illustrious as the first production of an English printing-press. To this succeeded the Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan, in verse, in 1478, and a Cordial, in prose, in 1479. The original productions of Lord Rivers, and, in particular, his Balades against the Seven Deadly Sins, are lost. . . .

The poignant line: 

Rivers began to perceive that it was possible to rise too high for the safety of a subject, and he is now described to us as one who “conceiveth well the mutability and the unstableness of this life.” After the death of Edward IV., he became the object of Richard III.'s peculiar enmity, and was beheaded by his orders at Pontefract on the 25th of June 1483.

Edmund William Gosse concludes:

Lord Rivers is spoken of by Commines as “un très-gentil chevalier,” and by Sir Thomas More as “a right honourable man, as valiant of hand as politic in counsel.” [In More's English version of The History of King Richard III]. His protection and encouragement of Caxton were of inestimable value to English literature, and in the preface to the Dictes the printer gives an account of his own relations with the statesman which illustrates the dignity and modesty of Lord Rivers in a very agreeable way. Rivers was one of the purest writers of English prose of his time.

“Memoirs of Anthony, Earl Rivers” are comprised in the Historical Illustrations of the Reign of Edward the Fourth (ed. W. H. B[lack]). (E.G.)

Another biography of Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers by Alexander Chalmers may be found here.

At the beginning of August, we'll read the last of Shakespeare's English History plays, The Life Of Henry VIII (which isn't). I don't think I can convince the hosts to accept Sir Thomas More as a Shakespeare History play, even though three pages of the single manuscript are accepted as being in Shakespeare's hand by the British Library!

Illustration credit (Public Domain): Presentation miniature from Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, the first printed book in the English language, translated by en:Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, younger brother of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, and printed by William Caxton. The miniature shows Rivers presenting the book to his brother-in-law King Edward IV, accompanied by his consort Queen Elizabeth Woodville and her son Edward, Prince of Wales. Lambeth Palace Library, MS 265. Rivers displays on his tabard arms quarterly of 6: 1: Argent, a fess and a canton conjoined gules (Woodville) 2: Gules, a lion/griffin rampant or 3: Barry of ten argent and azure, a lion rampant gules armed langued and crowned or (Grand Dukes of Luxemburg) 4: Gules, a star of sixteen points argent (Baux) 5: Gules, an eagle ? displayed or 6: Vair (Beauchamp of Hatch, Somerset)

Robert Southey: The Three Bears and Sir Thomas More

“In the name of God,” I exclaimed, “who are you, and wherefore are you come?” 

“Be not alarmed,” he replied.  “Your reason, which has shown you the possibility of such an appearance as you now witness, must have convinced you also that it would never be permitted for an evil end.  Examine my features well, and see if you do not recognise them.  Hans Holbein was excellent at a likeness.” 

I had now for the first time in my life a distinct sense of that sort of porcupinish motion over the whole scalp which is so frequently described by the Latin poets.  It was considerably allayed by the benignity of his countenance and the manner of his speech, and after looking him steadily in the face I ventured to say, for the likeness had previously struck me, “Is it Sir Thomas More?” 

“The same,” he made answer, and lifting up his chin, displayed a circle round the neck brighter in colour than the ruby.  “The marks of martyrdom,” he continued, “are our insignia of honour.  Fisher and I have the purple collar, as Friar Forrest and Cranmer have the robe of fire.” 

A mingled feeling of fear and veneration kept me silent, till I perceived by his look that he expected and encouraged me to speak; and collecting my spirits as well as I could, I asked him wherefore he had thought proper to appear, and why to me rather than to any other person?--from Sir Thomas More, or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society

Today is the anniversary in 1774 of the birth of Robert Southey, the Romantic Poet who at first embraced the spirit of the French Revolution and then like William Wordsworth and other Lake Poets became more conservative: from Radical to Tory! As the Poetry Foundation notes:

Of his fellow Romantics he was perhaps the most versatile, as well as one of the most prolific. As poet—and eventually poet laureate—he produced epics, romances, and metrical tales, ballads, plays, monodramas, odes, eclogues, sonnets, and miscellaneous lyrics. His prose works include histories, biographies, essays, reviews, translations, travelogues, semi-fictional journalism, polemical dialogues, and a farraginous work of fiction, autobiography, anecdote, and omnium-gatherum that defies classification. His bent was inherently encyclopedic; and, while his writings lack both moral profundity (as distinct from moral fervor) and “natural magic,” they compensate by their vigor and abundance for their dearth of genius. Coleridge rightly called him the complete man of letters.

Among those encyclopedic works are two wonderful inventions: the story of The Three Bears and his imaginary dialogue with Sir Thomas More, cited above.

Southey wrote a narrative version of a well-known fairy story and published it in his 1837 volume, The Doctor. Instead of  girl named Goldilocks entering the three bears's house, "an impudent, bad old woman . . . set[s] about helping herself" and says wicked words when the chairs, porridge, and beds don't suit her.

Of Sir Thomas More, or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, the Poetry Foundation opines:

More’s historical Catholicism, in fact, gets in the way—Southey turns him into an embryonic Protestant—and the fiction of a visitation by and dialogue with a ghost becomes bizarre after the first encounter and irritating after the second or third. The work has often been praised for its limpid prose style. But that style is generally at its best in the numerous descriptive and anecdotal digressions—about local scenery, local legends, or Southey’s library holdings—interspersed with the more portentous dialogues, rather than in the dialogues themselves.

Southey died on March 21, 1843, having been appointed Poet Laureate of England in 1813; William Wordsworth succeeded him the next month.

"Love You More" Photo copyright Stephanie A. Mann, February 14, 2015.

Who Josephine Tey Really Was (and Richard III)

The Wall Street Journal published a review by Carl Rollyson of a new biography of Josephine Tey by Jennifer Morag Henderson. "Josephine Tey" was one of two pseudonyms of Elizabeth MacKintosh. She also used the nom-de-plume "Gordon Daviot" when writing for the stage. Her most famous book, The Daughter of Time, about King Richard III and the murder of the Princes in the Tower is featured prominently in the review:

Mention the name Josephine Tey to a reader of detective novels, and you may be told she is in the same class as Agatha Christie—although the novels of Tey (1896–1952) are nothing like her contemporary’s plot-driven whodunits. Mention her name to a historian, though, and you may get a discussion of one particular novel, “The Daughter of Time,” Tey’s exhilarating critique of the historical profession, which too often has relied on the words of the victorious, like those of Henry VII and his Tudor dynasty, which vilified Richard III. Never mind that Tey’s defense of the Yorkist ruler was almost certainly wrong; her brilliant dramatization of historical method led the British Crime Writers Association, in 1990, to select the 1951 book as the greatest mystery novel of all time.

Tey cared less about clues and puzzles than about characters and the parameters of human nature. The core of her achievement consists of six mysteries she wrote about detective Alan Grant—“The Man in the Queue” (1929), “A Shilling for Candles” (1936), “The Franchise Affair” (1948), “To Love and Be Wise” (1950), “The Daughter of Time” and “The Singing Sands" (1952). Grant is nothing like the hardboiled heroes of Dashiell Hammett’s and Raymond Chandler’s novels, or like the gentleman sleuths that people theDorothy Sayers school. He is not an intellectual, but he is a profound skeptic. In “The Daughter of Time,” he takes one look at a portrait of Richard III and sees a complex human being who has been traduced by Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare. More, on whom Shakespeare relied, was simply passing on Tudor propaganda, as Grant learns after he employs an aggressive American researcher, Brent Carradine, who discovers a lively set of revisionist biographies rehabilitating the crookback king. What you get in Tey is a moving and profound exploration of human psychology, of what it means to be human, attuned to mankind’s troubles yet making the world a better place at great personal cost.

Rollyson goes on to summarize some of Henderson's achievements in this biography, which many thought couldn't be written because MacKintosh was so reclusive and private: she lived in Scotland, taking care of her father, while writing plays and novels.

In The New Yorker last year, during the Richard III reburial excitement, Sara Polsky interviewed Henderson for her article about how Tey's The Daughter of Time "sparked mass interest in Richard [III]’s redemption." Polsky notes that MacKintosh had researched the history of Richard III after her success with a play about Richard II (Richard of  Bordeaux) starring John Gielgud, and had written a play titled Dickon:

As an attempt to sway the public, though, the play was a failure: it was neither performed nor published during Tey’s lifetime. But even if it had been produced “Dickon” probably would not have drawn audiences to the Ricardian cause—it’s too confusing. Jennifer Morag Henderson, whose biography of Tey will be published this November, says, “If you didn’t know the controversy about the Princes in the Tower, it would be quite difficult to understand.”

But, with “The Daughter of Time,” Tey found an approach to the story that would make more sense to the uninitiated: she gave the mystery of Richard to a detective. The Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant first appeared in her 1929 novel, “The Man in the Queue,” and is the protagonist of five of Tey’s books. When “The Daughter of Time,” the fourth of these, begins, Grant is out of work with a broken leg—the result of “the absolute in humiliation,” a fall through a trap door during a chase. His active mind has exhausted the entertainment value of his hospital room by mapping the cracks on the ceiling and profiling his nurses, whom he dubs the Midget and the Amazon. He has no patience for the formulaic novels that people have sent him. To quiet his “prickles of boredom,” an actress friend brings him a collection of portraits attached to historical controversies: Grant, after years in the police force, has a fascination with faces. His eye catches on a portrait of Richard III, who has the reputation of a monster but the face, Grant thinks, of a judge. “Someone used to great responsibility, and responsible in his authority. Someone too conscientious. A worrier; perhaps a perfectionist.”

Alan Grant is pretty hard on Thomas More, even though he "was a martyr and a Great Mind" and rejects his The History of Richard III absolutely. Somehow, Grant and Tey both missed that More did not finish this book, nor publish it in his lifetime.

May 16, 1532: Convocation Submits and More Resigns

On May 16, 1532, the Convocation of Bishops submitted to Henry VIII, accepting his terms for the future of the Church in England:

We your most humble subjects, daily orators and bedes­men of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion, and also in your learning, far exceed­ing, in our judgment, the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and daily increase in your majesty­-

First, do offer and promise, in verbo sacerdotii, here unto your highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the same, that we will never from henceforth [enact], put in ure, promulge, or execute, any [new canons or constitutions provincial, or any other new ordinance, provincial or synodal], in our Convocation [or synod] in time coming, which Convocation is, always has been, and must be, assembled only by your highness' commandment of writ, unless your highness by your royal assent shall license us to [assemble our Convocation, and] to make, promulge, and execute [such constitutions and ordinances as shall be made in] the same; and thereto give your royal assent and authority.

Secondly, that whereas divers [of the] constitutions, [ordinances,] and canons, provincial [or synodal,] which have been heretofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial to your prerogative royal, but also overmuch onerous to your highness' subjects, [your clergy aforesaid is contented, if it may stand so with your highness' pleasure, that ] it be committed to the examination and judgment [of your grace, and] of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether house of the temporalty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all to be chosen and appointed by your [most noble grace]. So that, finally, whichsoever of the said constitutions, [ordinances, or canons, provincial or synodal,] shall be thought and determined by [your grace and by] the most part of the said thirty-two persons [not to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, the same] to be abrogated and [taken away by your grace and the clergy; and such of them as shall be seen by your grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, to stand with God's laws and the laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your grace's most royal assent and authority] once impetrate and fully given to the same.

On the same day, Sir Thomas More resigned as Chancellor of England, succeeded by Thomas Audley, another layman. While More had never been involved in Henry VIII's efforts to obtain a decree of nullity for his marriage to Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn, More saw the direction things were going with the Submission of Clergy, as it was evident that Henry was dividing England from the universal Church. He would be called upon to introduce bills in Parliament that would make that separation law, so he resigned all his offices.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

The office dates back to Edward the Confessor (1042–66), who followed the model of the Carolingian court when he appointed a chancellor. Until the 14th century the chancellor was invariably a priest and served as royal chaplain, the king’s secretary in secular matters, and keeper of the royal seal. All of the secretarial work of the royal household was handled by the chancellor and his staff of chaplains; the accounts were kept under the justiciar and treasurer, writs were drawn up and sealed, and the royal correspondence was carried out. This combination of duties, characteristic of the primitive administrative systems of the early Middle Ages, remained with the chancellorship into the early 21st century, although most of the office’s power, exemplified in the administrations of such great chancellors as Thomas Becket (d. 1170) and Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (d. 1530), ceased to exist centuries ago.

Much of the reason that the English chancellor did not develop into the head of government, as did his counterpart in the Holy Roman Empire, lies in the growth of his judicial duties. All petitions addressed to the king passed through the chancellor’s hands, and by the reign of Henry II (1154–89) the chancellor’s time was already largely taken up with judicial work. The office acquired a more definitely judicial character in the reign of Edward III (1327–77), when the chancellor’s court ceased to follow the king. The chancellor’s court was the direct precursor of the Court of Chancery, which was fused into the High Court of Justice in the Judicature Act of 1873. The Chancery Division of the latter is primarily responsible for equitable jurisdiction.

The position of the chancellor as speaker, or prolocutor, of the House of Lords dated from the time of the English Norman kings, when the ministers of the Curia Regis (“King’s Court”) sat ex officio in the commune concilium (“great council”) and Parliament. When the other officials ceased to attend Parliament, the chancellor continued to do so. He attended by virtue of his office, but since the early 18th century he has invariably been a peer. As speaker of the House of Lords, he differed considerably in his powers and duties from the speaker of the House of Commons. Although he put the question (i.e., call for a vote), he had no power to rule upon points of order. Unlike the speaker of the House of Commons, he often took part in debates.

Before Sir Thomas More's tenure as Chancellor, most of the holders of that office had been clerics (Archdeacons, Canons, Deans, Bishops, Archbishops). Like Audley, other laymen served in the office until toward the end of Edward VI's reign when Thomas Goodrich, the Bishop of Ely became Chancellor. He was removed from office when Mary I came to the throne, and then Stephen Gardiner, being freed from the Tower of London, resumed his office as Bishop of Winchester and became Lord Chancellor. When he died in 1555, Nicholas Heath, the Archbishop of York (just as Thomas Wolsey, More's immediate predecessor, had been!) was appointed; when Elizabeth succeeded, she removed him from that office, and a layman, Nicholas Bacon took the post. The office of Lord Chancellor changed drastically when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, losing its judicial responsibilities and transferring from the House of Lords to the Commons. More information about the office now here.

Defending "Utopia"

December 2016 will mark the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More's Utopia. In History Today, Joanne Paul writes about the place of Utopia in More's reputation as a statesman:

It may be time, however, to reassess the place of More’s Utopia in this litany of his shortcomings. This year we have an opportunity to do so, as it marks the quincentenary of the publication of Utopia in Louvain in December 1516.

Guy suggests that More’s imaginary country is ‘totalitarian par excellence’, citing its lack of pubs, brothels and ‘secret meeting place[s]’, as well as the mandate against discussion of public policy outside of the popular assembly. This totalitarianism, Guy suggests, lies at the heart of More’s later attitude towards heretics and suggests that his ‘repressive discipline’ against them was similar to the ‘totalitarianism of Utopia’.

Describing Utopia as totalitarian (a 20th-century term) paves over what More was attempting to do in his text, which was to remind his readers of the importance of community. For More, the prioritisation of self-interest had the effect of tearing apart the bonds that ought to unite people. To use examples from Utopia: land-owners who enclosed common land for sheep-grazing, or greedy kings who overstretched themselves in their conquest of new lands both tore apart the unity of the commonwealth. The island of Utopia becomes the inverse of such tendencies. Homes are allocated to families for only a decade at a time, there are no locked doors and no personal possessions.

Rather than totalitarian, Utopia is fundamentally republican. Like property, political power is shared, reflecting More’s belief that authority resides in the body of the people. Within Utopia’s cities, households elect representatives who, in turn, elect both the councillors and their prince. Council and prince together make decisions in regular consultation with the people. The country as a whole is ruled by a general council, the members of which are, once again, elected directly by the people. Thus, although discussing public matters outside the public forum is punishable by death, for fear of the division and distortion of public opinion, the people are directly involved in every political decision made on the island.

Read the rest there.

More lived in a kingdom ruled by a monarch and he served that monarch while also representing the people as a member of Parliament. He wanted his prince, Henry VIII, to make decisions for the kingdom in consultation with Parliament, and therefore he defended Parliament's right to free speech in debating the king's policies and voting on the funding of the same. The Center for Thomas More Studies offers many tools for the interpretation of Utopia here.

From One Thomas to Another, to Another

On May 16, 1532, Sir Thomas More resigned as Chancellor of England and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, succeeded by Thomas Audley in those offices--the latter on May 20, 1532 and the former on January 26, 1533. He would also succeed Thomas More as Speaker of the House of Commons when Parliament met again. His biography in the History of Parliament notes the delay in naming a Chancellor after More resigned:

The initial withholding of the office and title of chancellor from Audley, when he was named keeper of the great seal in May 1532, has yet to be explained. On 26 Jan. 1533, however, with the new parliamentary session only ten days away, he was made chancellor, and as soon as it opened he was succeeded as Speaker by Humphrey Wingfield. From then until the end of this Parliament, and at its successor of June 1536, Audley conducted business in the Lords, as More had done before him, without being a peer or having a vote. The most important Acts which passed the Upper House under his presidency also owed not a little to his legal skill: thus in the seventh session, the second to be held in 1534, the Act for first fruits and tenths (26 Hen. VIII, c.3) and that on murder and felonies in Wales (26 Hen. VIII, c.6) may have been largely his, and he polished, if he did not draft, the Treason Act (26 Hen. VIII, c.13). He was, however, not impeccable as is shown by the shortcomings in the bill he drafted for the suspension of Poynings’ Law, which required amendment shortly after its enactment in 1536 by the Irish Parliament; it may also have been through his negligence that the same Parliament had to pass a second subsidy Act. In 1539 he introduced, among others, bills for the law reform which, although rejected or allowed to lapse then, were to pass a year later as the Acts for wills (32 Hen. VIII, c.1), limiting prescriptions (32 Hen. VIII, c.2) and for shortening of the Trinity term (32 Hen. VIII, c.21). He also presented a memorial to the Lords in 1540 outlining several reforms, from which emerged Acts for lessees of lands (32 Hen. VIII, c.28) and against wrongful disseisin (32 Hen. VIII, c.33). After Cromwell’s fall the devising of government legislation became Audley’s undivided responsibility.

The same biography notes his participation in several trials, including that of Thomas More, and some confusion about his religious beliefs (was Audley a Catholic or a Protestant?):

If his knightly status exempted Audley from the trial of Anne Boleyn in 1536 (it was not he but John, 8th Lord Audley, who took part in this), he was involved in all the other state trials of these years. His conduct in these trials, and especially in More’s, has been much criticized but it deserves to be judged in the light of Audley’s own beliefs concerning the rights of the sovereign and the duties of the subject. No such criticism, despite occasional and clearly prejudiced charges of favouritism and corruption, can be levelled against his conduct as an equity judge, and even in cases of treason his attitude is illustrated by his advice in 1536 that the Duke of Suffolk should be armed against the Lincolnshire rebels with a commission to try cases of treason, showing that he took for granted, even in such circumstances, the necessity of a trial at common law.11

Audley’s religious position is difficult to assess. A correspondent of Melanchthon named him with Cromwell and Cranmer as friends to Protestantism but, if he was, the friendship was always qualified by his allegiance to the King whose policies he faithfully carried out, a course which in general gives an impression of conservatism. Thus an anonymous enthusiast for the Act of Six Articles (31 Hen. VIII, c.14) again linked Audley with Cromwell as two men who, this time in contrast to Cranmer and to other bishops, had been ‘as good as we can desire’ in the furtherance of the measure. Audley was equally content to follow Cromwell’s lead and what few clashes there were between them arose largely out of minor questions of patronage.12

Whatever Audley owed to Cromwell for his success, he served Henry VIII to coordinate the Attainder and condemnation of the Earl of Essex in 1542. Audley died in 1544 without a male heir and his baronetcy was extinct at this death. He was buried in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Saffron Walden. Audley had purchased Walden Abbey and built his home there as Baron Audley of Walden. His Audley End was replaced, however, by the Jacobean manor house built by his grandson, Thomas Howard, the 1st Earl of Suffolk; it is now an English Heritage site.

Audley's daughter Margaret married first Lord Henry Dudley, the youngest son of John Dudley, the Earl of Northumberland who was executed during the reign of Mary I and then Thomas Howard, the 4th Duke of Norfolk who was executed during reign of Elizabeth I (but after Margaret had died in 1564). When she died, their son Thomas Howard inherited Audley End and the other properties at Saffron Walden--and yes, the name does refer to the valuable spice saffron as the saffron crocus was grown in the area, and is again today. 

What Did Thomas More Mean in "Utopia"?

Stephen Smith looks at Thomas More's Utopia in The Wall Street Journal, in its weekly Masterpiece column:

For some, "Utopia" provides a witty education in human nature for citizens and leaders, especially those who want to be "well and wisely trained." For others, "Utopia" heralds the glorious liberty of communism to come, or so the makers of Moscow's Memorial Obelisk thought when they engraved More's name there in 1918. In More's own words, Utopia is "a truly golden book, no less profitable than delightful," but what kind of education does this book really offer? While the word "Utopia" has long been shorthand for any ideal world, a careful reading of More's book offers a complex, and better, view.

Born in London in 1478, More distinguished himself in family life and friendship, in professional work and politics. Called by Erasmus "the only true genius in England," More published "Utopia" in Latin in 1516. He then entered King Henry VIII's service, and eventually became Lord Chancellor. During his maturity, the drama of Henry's divorce and the Reformation engulfed England. A supporter of neither, and a defender of English law, ancient liberty and the Catholic faith, More resigned his public office in 1532 after a controversial tenure. Later imprisoned, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death in 1535. His last words—"I die the king's good servant, and God's first"—attest that he had served his old friend Henry with integrity throughout the storms.

Smith, a professor in English Literature at Hillsdale College, provides a summary of the conversation at the heart of Utopia and then concludes:

Surprisingly, "Utopia" concludes not with a cross-examination of Raphael, but with More thinking to himself that Utopia sounds "really absurd," a point often missed by those who wish to embrace its radical policies. Unsure that Raphael can "take contradiction in these matters," More decides to lead him to dinner instead. For Raphael, Utopia is over, and he may have placed himself beyond the reach of friendship, though More's charity creates hope. For readers, we are left with the challenge of responding to Raphael's claims and examining the sources of our own thoughts and first principles—and indeed, the clarity of our own self-knowledge. For Thomas More, his truly golden meditation on service and Utopia would meet its end only years later, alone atop a scaffold on Tower Hill.

Read the rest here. That last paragraph reminded me of Pope Benedict XVI's address to Politicians, Diplomats, Academics and Business Leaders in Westminster Hall, City of Westminster, on Friday,  September 17, 2010:

In particular, I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose “good servant” he was, because he chose to serve God first. The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process. . .  .

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

Not Shakespeare's Moor, but His More

The role of More, six times the length of the second-biggest part, is one of the largest in the entire repertoire of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. It calls for an actor of great versatility: we see him commanding both a crowd and a council chamber, meditating in soliloquy and taking rapid action, philosophising and philanthropising. He is a prankster, a Christian and a voice of reason, truly the wisest fool in Christendom (though it is disappointing that his encounter with his great fellow philosopher and wit, Erasmus of Rotterdam, comes to so little). If, as seems likely, the Shakespearean intervention in the script was intended for a production by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, then one can see why they wanted to stage the play: it would have been a magnificent showcase for their lead tragedian and Shakespeare’s intimate friend Richard Burbage.

Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen write about Shakespeare's colloboration on a play titled Sir Thomas More:

As a tragedy, Sir Thomas More belongs beside the Chamberlain’s Men’s Thomas Lord Cromwell and Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII as the story of the rise and fall of a royal counsellor in the turbulent time of the English Reformation. More ascends from Sheriff of London to Lord Chancellor, but falls from the king’s favour when he refuses to participate in the process of enacting the break from Rome. It’s a satisfying arc: we get a full ascendancy, a brief period of power and favour, and then a slow descent to the execution. The moments of More’s career chosen to illustrate this movement are well chosen, oscillating between his most public appearances (the May Day riots, his execution) and private ones (his conversation with Erasmus, his defence of his position to his family). In balancing character and plot, the dramatists create a coherent portrait that, ultimately, goes to show the fickleness of favour and the cost of piety. In the closing scenes, we see him preparing for death with dignity and grace. Whereas the usual scenario in such dramas places the condemned man alone in his cell, sometimes in conversation with his keeper, here we also witness More’s farewell to his family. He is seen as a husband and parent, not just a holy man and a politician.

They also discuss a manuscript with Shakespeare's handwriting:

The exact circumstances in which Shakespeare made his contribution to Sir Thomas More will never be known, though scholars now lean strongly to the view that he did so when at the height of his powers in the early 1600s, not in a prior stage of his career, as was once supposed. But, whatever the date and context, an overwhelming body of internal evidence, in the form of unique marks of orthography, spelling, vocabulary and literary technique, attests that the so-called “Hand D” in the manuscript is truly his. This is Shakespeare in the act of composition, writing rapidly, occasionally changing a word or scratching out a line, mining his capacious imagination and minting his incomparable poetic imagery. But it is also Shakespeare the collaborator, building on the work of other dramatists and contributing to a magnificent team effort.

Read the rest here.

From the play, More's farewell to his family:

Be comforted, good wife, to live and love my children;
For with thee leave I all my care of them.—
Son Roper, for my sake that have loved thee well,
And for her virtue's sake, cherish my child.—
Girl, be not proud, but of thy husband's love;
Ever retain thy virtuous modesty;
That modesty is such a comely garment
As it is never out of fashion, sits as fair
upon the meaner woman as the empress;
No stuff that gold can buy is half so rich,
Nor ornament that so becomes a woman.
Live all and love together, and thereby
You give your father a rich obsequy.

And his execution scene--wit writ in prose:

My Lords of Surrey and Shrewsbury, give me your hands. Yet before we….ye see, though it pleaseth the king to raise me thus high, yet I am not proud, for the higher I mount, the better I can see my friends about me. I am now on a far voyage, and this strange wooden horse must bear me thither; yet I perceive by your looks you like my bargain so ill, that there's not one of ye all dare enter with me. Truly, here's a most sweet gallery; [Walking.] I like the air of it better than my garden at Chelsea. By your patience, good people, that have pressed thus into my bedchamber, if you'll not trouble me, I'll take a sound sleep here.

SHREWSBURY.
My lord, twere good you'ld publish to the world
Your great offence unto his majesty.

MORE. My lord, I'll bequeath this legacy to the hangman, [Gives him his gown.] and do it instantly. I confess, his majesty hath been ever good to me; and my offence to his highness makes me of a state pleader a stage player (though I am old, and have a bad voice), to act this last scene of my tragedy. I'll send him (for my trespass) a reverend head, somewhat bald; for it is not requisite any head should stand covered to so high majesty: if that content him not, because I think my body will then do me small pleasure, let him but bury it, and take it.

SURREY.
My lord, my lord, hold conference with your soul;
You see, my lord, the time of life is short.

MORE. I see it, my good lord; I dispatched that business the last night. I come hither only to be let blood; my doctor here tells me it is good for the headache.

HANGMAN.
I beseech thee, my lord, forgive me!

MORE.
Forgive thee, honest fellow! why?

HANGMAN.
For your death, my lord.

MORE. O, my death? I had rather it were in thy power to forgive me, for thou hast the sharpest action against me; the law, my honest friend, lies in thy hands now: here's thy fee [His purse.]; and, my good fellow, let my suit be dispatched presently; for tis all one pain, to die a lingering death, and to live in the continual mill of a lawsuit. But I can tell thee, my neck is so short, that, if thou shouldst behead an hundred noblemen like myself, thou wouldst ne'er get credit by it; therefore (look ye, sir), do it handsomely, or, of my word, thou shalt never deal with me hereafter.

 

HANGMAN.
I'll take an order for that, my lord.

MORE. One thing more; take heed thou cutst not off my beard: oh, I forgot; execution passed upon that last night, and the body of it lies buried in the Tower.—Stay; ist not possible to make a scape from all this strong guard? it is. There is a thing within me, that will raise And elevate my better part bove sight Of these same weaker eyes; and, Master Shrieves, For all this troop of steel that tends my death, I shall break from you, and fly up to heaven. Let's seek the means for this.