The Life of Sir Thomas More
The memoir of Thomas More by his son-in-law William Roper, who lived in More’s household. It is a narrative source, from within the family, for his refusal of the oath, his trial and his death in 1535.
Roper married More’s eldest daughter and, as he says at the opening, lived in his house for sixteen years and more. He wrote in the reign of Mary I, some twenty years after More’s death, from what he could then call to mind, and he admits that much had slipped from his memory. He was not at the trial in Westminster Hall and names the men whose report of it he follows.
The Life is primary for what More’s own family remembered and believed. It is written to honour him, and it is not exact about dates: the printed text gives 1537 for his execution, which the contemporary chronicle of Charles Wriothesley places on 6 July 1535.
Cited in
- 1534, firm date