Cold Open

It’s late in the evening on April 30th, 1517, in St. Martin’s Le Grand, a district of London, England, home to many foreign-born immigrants.

As a group of angry young men storm the streets, 39-year-old deputy sheriff Thomas More tries to hide his fear.

Tension has been building in the city, as Londoners suffer from hunger and harsh weather conditions that have ruined their crops. Since spring began, the country has gone weeks without rain, and there’s no end in sight to the drought. But many residents don’t blame the weather for their misery. Instead, they focus their rage on the city’s immigrants, who they blame for the lack of jobs and food. Now armed with clubs and ready to take out their frustrations on the city’s foreigners, angry Londoners have taken to the streets. Now, it’s Thomas’s job to restore order.

Thomas plants his feet in the roadway, the crowd halts before him, as he raises his hands, showing he’s unarmed. One of the riot’s leaders approaches threateningly with his club, but Thomas is a good negotiator. He smiles to put the man at ease, before engaging him in conversation. Thomas tells the rioter that he’s a member of the king’s Privy Council, and he will take the rioters’ grievances directly to Henry VIII. In return, the leader promises to disperse the rioters.

But as the two men shake hands to seal the deal, a rock comes hurtling from a window overlooking the street, falling into the crowd with a crash.

Frightened residents in nearby houses join in, throwing rocks, bricks, and hot water at the mob below. Ignoring their leader's calls, the enraged rioters smash windows and attempt to break into the homes’ barricaded doors.

Realizing that a peaceful resolution is no longer possible, Thomas abandons negotiations and rushes to retreat from the chaos; his only goal now is to escape unharmed.

The Evil May Day Riots, as this anti-immigrant violence will come to be known, is Thomas More’s first serious encounter with England's growing internal strife. But it will not be his last. Over the next two decades, the Protestant Reformation will sweep the kingdom, dividing communities along religious lines. And as it does, Thomas will thrive, rising to high office as a trusted servant of Henry VIII. But a sudden change in the king’s attitude to the Catholic Church will force Thomas to face persecution himself, with his religious conviction leading to his execution on July 6th, 1535.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is July 6th, 1535: The Execution of Thomas More.

Act One

It’s May 12th, 1521 around a bonfire outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London, four years after the Evil May Day Riot.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey picks up a book and holds it at arm’s length. With distaste clear on his face, he addresses the gathered crowd and denounces the book’s author: Martin Luther.

A few months after the Evil May Day Riot, German academic and monk Martin Luther nailed a list of grievances against the Catholic Church to the door of a chapel in Germany. These grievances, his 95 Theses, kickstarted the Reformation, a movement that has created a new form of Protestant Christianity separate from the Catholic Church.

But, even as Protestant ideas swept across Europe, England’s King Henry VIII has stood firmly behind his Catholic faith, mainly because of Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey isn’t just the senior Catholic clergyman in the country, he’s also the king’s Lord Chancellor, making him the most important political figure in the kingdom. Today, Wolsey has wielded his influence to publicly declare Martin Luther as a heretic and signal that his Protestant ideas will not be tolerated in England.

With a captive audience looking on, Wolsey tosses Luther’s book into a roaring fire. Then, he stands back as the cathedral clergy follow suit, each picking up other Protestant tracts and casting them into the fire. Once the heretical texts have been burned to ashes, Wolsey nods at a messenger, cueing him to spread the news of this demonstration.

The messenger mounts a horse and swiftly rides through the streets of London to Whitehall Palace. There, he delivers a note to the now-influential Thomas More.

Despite his failure to quell the violence of the Evil May Day Riot four years ago, Thomas’s career has gone from strength to strength. After undertaking a successful diplomatic mission to the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany, Thomas earned a knighthood upon his return. He was also appointed Master of Requests—an important position in the royal court that grants Thomas close proximity to the king. The Master of Requests is responsible for being an intermediary who gets to decide which messages are conveyed to the monarch and which are ignored. It means Thomas is regularly at the king’s side, allowing him to become one of Henry’s most valued personal advisors.

And once Thomas learns of Wolsey’s book burning, he’s eager to relay it to the king, relishing the opportunity to deliver news he’s sure will please Henry VIII. He rushes to the king’s room, nodding at the guard stationed outside, before quickly entering and joyfully announcing that Cardinal Wolsey has just declared Martin Luther a heretic.

King Henry claps his hands in glee, before inviting Thomas to take a seat. To commemorate the occasion, he wants them to take one last look at his own manuscript refuting Martin Luther's Protestant arguments, a work he’s calling the Defense of the Seven Sacraments. This book is a very special project for Henry who has already devoted two years to writing it. As a devout Catholic with a good understanding of theology, Thomas is one of the few people the king will allow to critique the manuscript.

So together, Thomas and Henry read through the text, engaging in occasional discussions and clarifications. And once finished with their revisions, Henry hands over the entire manuscript to Thomas. He declares that his labor of love is complete—and there’s no better occasion to send it to the printer than the day Martin Luther has been officially outlawed by the Catholic Church in England.

Henry’s book is met with a warm reception. When Pope Leo X reads it a few months later, he awards the English king the title of Fidei Defensor, or Defender of the Faith. But Henry’s zeal for the Catholic Church begins to wane after he receives the papal honor.

As his long marriage to Catherine of Aragon fails to produce a male heir, the king begins to wonder if their lack of a son is a sign of divine disfavor in his choice of bride. Eventually, Henry seeks an annulment, which the pope denies. Upset, Henry channels his disdain toward Cardinal Wolsey who is unable to persuade the pope to grant Henry’s divorce request, and quickly falls from the king’s favor.

But that is good news for Thomas, who is appointed Lord Chancellor in his place, and also replaces Wolsey as the king’s most trusted counselor. But Thomas will not enjoy this new status as the country’s premier statesman for long. Still furious with the pope, Henry will soon take an unprecedented step that will transform England into a Protestant country. But Thomas will fail to follow the king’s example, refusing to repudiate his Catholic faith, a defiance that will spell the end of not just Thomas’s career but his life.

Act Two

It’s May 16th, 1532, at Thomas More’s house in London, three years after he was appointed Lord Chancellor by King Henry VIII.

Sitting at a table, Thomas composes a letter, pausing every so often to think carefully about his next words. This is the most important document he’s ever had to write. Thomas suspects his opponents will pore over the meaning of every word, scrutinizing it for any evidence of treason—because this note is Thomas’s letter of resignation.

Almost as soon as he became Lord Chancellor, Thomas and King Henry VIII began to clash over the king’s approach to religion. Fed up with the pope’s refusal to grant him a divorce, Henry wanted to create a new, Protestant church with himself as the head. This deeply troubled Thomas who could not countenance such a move, believing the king was risking his eternal soul for political reasons.

But Henry ignored Thomas’s doubts and established the new Church of England anyway. Then, a few days ago, came the event that sparked Thomas’s resignation: at a meeting of English clergymen, most of the country’s priests decided to break with the Catholic Church, swearing an oath acknowledging Henry as Supreme Head of the newly created Church of England. But Thomas refuses to fall in line. He can’t bear the thought of renouncing his loyalty to the pope and the Catholic Church. So, Thomas is determined to resign from his post before he too is required to take an oath.

He knows that defying the king will leave him in a precarious position. So, rather than give his true reason for quitting, Thomas blames ill health for his resignation. He assures Henry of his ongoing loyalty and professes his wish for a quiet retirement, though Thomas already knows he’s unlikely to be left alone for long.

Henry’s inner circle is now composed of Protestants who are determined to seize control of the Catholic Church’s substantial assets and fortune. Thomas suspects they’ll see through his claims of poor health and regard him as a potential leader of Catholic opposition. But, Thomas’s carefully worded resignation letter gives his opponents no immediate excuse to arrest him.

In the coming months, he watches from the sidelines as the Protestant Church of England supplants the Catholic Church as the nation’s official religion. And a year after Thomas resigns, Protestant Archbishop Thomas Cranmer convenes a special court and declares that Henry and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage is annulled. Archbishop Cranmer then announces that Henry has already married a courtier named Anne Boleyn and that their marriage is perfectly valid and legal in the eyes of God. But Thomas refuses to attend Anne’s hastily arranged coronation, and his absence is widely interpreted as a snub toward the king and his new wife.

But Thomas isn't the only one upset by the king’s new marriage, a Catholic nun also draws attention for rebuking the union after she’s arrested on charges of treason for predicting the king’s imminent death. During this controversy, Thomas meets with the nun, only to advise her against making statements about political matters. This small decision proves more fateful than Thomas could have imagined though. The very act of meeting with the nun suddenly leaves Thomas vulnerable to accusations of consorting with traitors, and the king’s Protestant advisors take advantage of the opening.

Determined to bring Thomas down, they summon him to court where he faces claims that he accepted bribes and connived with traitors. The trumped-up charges are eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence, but Thomas’s opponents don’t give up, soon one of them devises a new plan to obtain irrefutable proof of his disloyalty.

Thomas is again summoned to appear before a commission and asked to swear the Oath of Succession, which repudiates the authority of the pope in England, and declares that any children from Henry’s marriage to Anne will be Henry’s legitimate heirs. It puts Thomas in an impossible position, forcing him to admit his loyalty to the Catholic Church or disavow his faith. In the end, Thomas indicates that he’s willing to accept the right of Henry and Anne’s children to take the English throne, but he refuses to swear the Oath.

Thomas is subsequently arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. During his trial, he tries to defend himself with a technical argument. Although he refused to take the oath, he has not explicitly spoken against it and therefore has not committed any wrong against the King. But the jury is unconvinced. They deliberate for a mere fifteen minutes, before finding Thomas guilty of treason.

Thomas will face the usual sentence afforded to traitors: death by hanging, drawing, and quartering. The king will show leniency by commuting it to execution by beheading. But it will make little difference to Thomas. Regardless of the method, within days of his trial, Thomas's life as Henry's loyal servant, unwillingly transformed into a figurehead of opposition, will come to an end.

Act Three

It’s July 6th, 1535, on Tower Hill in London, five days after the conclusion of Thomas More’s trial.

27-year-old Margaret Clement dabs her eyes with a handkerchief as soldiers escort Thomas More through a raucous crowd. As a child, Margaret was adopted by Thomas, and he raised her alongside his own children. Today, she’s the only member of the family who dares show her face at the execution of her adopted father.

Thomas doesn’t come close to Margaret though. They’ve already said their emotional goodbyes to each other and are confident they’ll meet again in Heaven. But Margaret still feels helpless as Thomas climbs the steps to a rickety wooden platform, where an executioner stands with a gleaming ax.

As he stares death in the face, Thomas addresses the crowd, declaring that he is “the King’s good servant—but God’s first.” Margaret gives a wan smile, admiring Thomas’s unwavering bravery and his refusal to renounce their shared to Catholic faith. But her grin soon drops as the executioner swings his ax.

Margaret ensures that her father’s headless corpse is given a Christian burial in an unmarked grave in the Tower of London’s chapel. Thomas’s head, however, receives the usual treatment reserved for traitors – it is displayed on a pike on London Bridge. But after a month, Margaret arranges for its removal and secret burial.

Although the exact location of Thomas More’s remains are now lost to history, his name lives on. While he may have died a disgraced figure, Thomas will be canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church in 1935, and Pope John Paul II will declare him the patron saint of statesmen and politicians in the year 2000. Thomas will also be canonized by the Church of England in 1980, ensuring he is now venerated by the two sides that battled for religious supremacy during the Reformation—a blood-stained period of English history that cost Thomas More his life on July 6th, 1535.

Outro

Next on History Daily. July 7th, 2011. A phone hacking scandal forces Rupert Murdoch to shut down his long-running News of the World.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.