Perhaps best known as the author of Utopia, St. Thomas More was a member of the English Parliament under Henry VIII, a lawyer, a prolific author, a wit of some reknown, a friend of Erasmus, and, finally, a martyr.
Born in London in 1478, More was educated at Oxford, admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1496, and became a barrister in 1501. Torn between a monastic calling and a sense of duty to his country, More finally chose duty and entered Parliament in 1504. He married Jane Colt, who bore him three children, shortly thereafter.
More almost immediately came into conflict with Henry VII and was forced to withdraw from public life until Henry VII's death in 1509. In 1510, he was appointed an undersheriff of London, and was much admired for his impartiality and care for the poor. His first wife died in 1511, and he remarried shortly thereafter, to Dame Alice Middleton. More served his country well, traveling to Flanders in 1515 to settle a wool-trade dispute, serving in the embassy at Calais in 1516, and assisting in putting down a 1517 London uprising directed against foreigners. In 1518 Henry VIII placed him on the Privy Council, and knighted him three years later. Utopia was composed during this busy time, reaching publication in 1516.
More became entangled in the English Reformation as Henry VIII split from Rome. He assisted Henry in writing his repudiation of Luther, Defense of the Seven Sacraments, for which labor the Pope named Henry a "Defender of the Faith". Having gained Henry's favor, More was made Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, and in that post helped to establish the Parliamentary privilege of free speech without reprise. He became High Steward of Cambridge University in 1525.
In 1527, Henry divorced Catherine of Aragon in his attempt to sire a son to take his throne. Though More refused to endorse this action, no actions were taken against him at that time, and after Thomas Wolsey fell from grace in 1529, More was named Lord Chancellor and became the first layman in that post.
More's work in the courts as Lord Chancellor was brilliant - history claims More actually cleared the entire docket, a feat that was commemorated in an English rhyme of the era - but he resigned in 1523 under pressure from Henry, who was angry that More disapproved of Henry's belief that the Church should be run nationally, with appointment powers vested in the king. More refused to attend Anne Boleyn's 1533 coronation, and in 1534 was accused in a conspiracy centered around a nun named Elizabeth Barton, meant to return England to Rome's power, but the House of Lords refused to pass the bill until More's name was removed.
In April of 1534, More refused to swear to the Act of Succession and the Oath of Supremacy, which declared Princess Mary a bastard and recognized Henry, not the Pope, as the supreme head of the Church in England, respectively. This was treason (technically, a form of treason called Praemunire, or "The offense of introducing foreign authority into England." -Webster's, 1913), and Henry had More confined to the Tower of London. He was tried and convicted; the penalty was death.
More was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His final words, spoken as he awaited the executioner's blow, were, "The King's good servant, but God's first".
His head was boiled and then placed on a stake on London Bridge for a month; a woman who knew and admired More bribed the man who threw the heads in the water after display to give her the head instead. This relic apparently survived at St. Dunstan's in Canterbury.
More was canonized as a saint in 1935, and is considered the patron saint of lawyers. He stands as a strong example of someone, knowing full well the consequences of his actions, who refused to subvert his faith to the King's political expediency or even to save his own life.