THOMAS MORE
Mantel’s More is cruel, ‘fussily pious’, enjoys flogging beggars in his garden and sending people to the stake. Perhaps this is how Cromwell saw the man who would change neither his religion, nor his loyalty to the woman he considered to be queen, Katherine. But certainly Mantel’s More has polarized opinion – for many he is almost unrecognizable from the traditional interpretation, especially in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons. Perhaps that is the issue – Mantel’s More is quite unlike the Thomas More of Robert Bolt’s play, but that More is also a fictional construct, perched at the other end of the spectrum. Somewhere in between the fanatic and saint lies the real Thomas More. Of course, in Wolf Hall what Mantel has done is to capture some critical elements of the real More – from his use of profanity in his pamphlets against Luther:
You would not think that such words would proceed from Thomas More, but they do. No one has rendered the Latin tongue more obscene.
To his uncompromising approach to scripture:
He would chain you up, for a mistranslation. He would, for a difference in your Greek, kill you.
More was born in 1477, the same year as Thomas Boleyn. The son of John More, an attorney who later became a judge, More benefitted from his father’s influence, and at the age of 12, More served as a page in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent More to Oxford at the age of 14.
It is in Morton’s household that Mantel imagines Cromwell and More meeting. Cromwell helped his uncle, who served in the kitchens of Bishop Morton’s palace at Lambeth. Cromwell, only a young boy, had heard of the child prodigy about to leave for Oxford, and serves the 14-year-old More wheat bread. More has a book open, which arouses Cromwell’s curiosity, and he asks what is in the book, to which the young More replies with a slightly patronizing smile, ‘Words, words, just words.’ For his part, More has no memory of the event, but Cromwell will not forget it.
Like Cromwell, More trained as a lawyer, working at the New Inn, as opposed to Gray’s Inn where Cromwell was a member. More was torn between professions – he had a passion for literature and religious scripture and also entertained the notion of becoming a monk. Mantel’s Cromwell speculates that he decided not to, however, for:
More would have been a priest, but human flesh called to him with its inconvenient demands.
It may be that More simply opted for a career in civil service. More entered Parliament in 1504, and began to work his way up. In 1514, he was elevated to Henry’s Privy Council, and then to secretary and advisor to the king. Wolsey also helped facilitate his career, recommending that More be elected as Speaker in the House of Commons. During this time he wrote his famed Utopia, establishing himself as a scholar, but he was also an exceptional negotiator, and was part of a delegation dispatched to Bruges and Antwerp by Henry VIII to the court of Charles V, to secure protection for English merchants, and by 1521, More held the important post of Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer. Historically, More was well respected at court, was deeply liked and admired by many who considered him a friend and had a tremendous influence on Henry’s own spiritual ideology (until More’s ideology favoured Katherine) – we see More’s influence in Henry’s strongly worded rebuke of Martin Luther’s teachings.
More married Jane Colt in 1505, and together they had four children. Unfortunately Jane died in 1511, and with peculiar speed, More married Alice Middleton a month later. More had no children from this second marriage, but he raised Alice’s daughter from her previous marriage (also named Alice) as his own. More gave the girls the same classical education as his son, which was unusual for the time, and is a decision that can only be admired. He was immensely proud of his children, and Margaret in particular, whose command of Greek and Latin delighted her father, who boasted of her linguistic skills. Mantel draws on the family theme, but it is somewhat twisted to suit her portrait of More. This More invites his guests to mock his wife and daughter-in-law, Anne, to the embarrassment of his guests, insulting his wife’s looks and character, and also patronizing his children. But from the surviving correspondence between More and his children it is clear that they were a close-knit family.
Historically, More enjoyed the same close relationship with Henry that Wolsey did, though there is not the same degree of friction between More and Cromwell as is shown in Wolf Hall, nor is it clear how the real Cromwell felt about him – Mantel has fleshed out their relationship. Mantel’s Cromwell dines with More on occasion, once both as guests at the house of their mutual friend, the Italian merchant, Antonio Bonvisi. The scene is tense, not just because fish is the only item on the Lenten menu, but because More was one of the prime movers against the Cardinal. Historically, More was highly critical of the Cardinal, addressing Parliament shortly after Wolsey’s fall. In his address, More described Henry as a good shepherd and the Cardinal as a castrated male sheep, fraudulent and crafty. Apart from sending evangelicals to the stake, More has been accused of zealously torturing and flogging countless individuals he deemed as heretics. He denied such claims, and they cannot be substantiated, though Mantel’s Cromwell believes it.
Later, Cromwell visits More at his house in Chelsea. As he enters he notes the now famous portrait of More and his
