Sir Thomas More and Martyrdom

[Music] hello today i am going to do another answer to a member's question the member in question is rory he begins with a nice little observation which i'm going to repeat he says i am much enjoying your talks on youtube thank you for these paradoxically since your cancellation rory says i seem to have had more not less opportunity to listen to your history talks which rory and everybody else was precisely the idea of the youtube channel right his question is as follows do you think sir thomas moore was in any way influenced by the similarity between his clash with henry viii and that between another thomas and another henry ending with the martyrdom of beckett in other words the clash between thomas beckett and and henry ii with the famous death of the famous murder in the cathedral the king's repentance and the triumphant assertion of the power of the church over the state could that have strengthened that's that whole extraordinary episode of beckett which becomes absolutely central to the self-perception of the english church beckett uh for a long time the greatest pilgrimage site in england and one of the greatest pilgrimage sites in europe of course the the center of chaucer's canterbury tales and so on could that could that extraordinary incident strengthen moore's determination to defy henry tudor or rory concludes do you think he was simply acting from principle well the position with more is clear we know absolutely more sensitivity to the parallel between himself and beckett we know it very movingly from his last letter to his daughter margaret roper and he is condemned he is awaiting execution there is still the issue of the actual day of his death and more expresses to his daughter after this very tender series of farewells expresses to his daughter the hope depot passionate hope that he will be executed on the 6th of july and he explains that 6th of july 1535 and this is because the day is associated with two for him important feast days anniversaries the first is the 6th of july is the eve of one of the feasts of saint thomas beckett it's the eve of his translatio the translation of his relics into what becomes the site of his great tomb that great center a pilgrimage which of course henry would destroy conspicuously determined to destroy because beckett stood for everything that he opposed it stood for the triumph of the church over the state he was determined to impose kingship on church so it's the the eve of the feast of the translation which takes place on the 7th of july but it's also it looks back to something else it's the utas it's the octave of the feast of saint peter and saint paul which takes place on the 29th of june so there are two saints that are seen as vital by more at this key moment this this moment when he's about to meet his god one is beckett why beckett exactly as rory says because beckett was the symbol of the defiance of the church against the power of the state moore believes that that the church has finally to maintain its supremacy its authenticity its inviolability against the state and then the second is saint peter why the utas why the octave of the feast of saint peter because moore finally comes to believe that the only guarantor of the continuity of the unity of the authenticity of the catholicity of the church is the papacy the institution built according to the medieval understanding of christ's phrase upon the rock of saint peter so these twin saints clearly at the forefront of moore's mind as he prepares for the agony of death thomas beckett and saint peter anderson peter as the representative if you like the pre-figure of the papal monarchy the papal magisterium over the church that's absolutely certain we have moore's own words for it on the other hand i think it would be hard to find a pattern of behavior more different than that between thomas moore and thomas beckett beckett actively seeks out martyrdom his conflict with henry ii is flamboyant and he's a beck it's an extraordinary flamboyant character there's a sort of passionate assertion there's an actual quest for death becky guarantees his own martyrdom by his behavior thomas more behaves in completely and opposite fashion moore uses all his skills as a lawyer not to seek condemnation not to seek martyrdom but to try to avoid it i don't think this is at all in fact it certainly is not because of cowardice it is i think for two reasons more remember is a layman he's married layman he's somebody who has been involved actively for most of his career in the in business the business of the city of london the business of the tudor state and the business of law or the business of of the what we call the persecution of heresy what he would call the holy repression of heresy he has been involved in the world which means he's sinned in the world moore is extraordinarily aware of his own sinfulness to court martyrdom well the great lines in the play great line um in the play that uh that that t.s eliot wrote about the other thomas thomas beckett to do the right deed for the wrong reason to seek martyrdom that itself can be a sin of pride that itself can be a sin of arrogance that can be all the things that moore doesn't believe in so more is not questing for martyrdom completely unlike beckett moore takes a very different view more is determined clearly never to acknowledge the king as supreme head of the church that is the breaking point between henry and moore and remember we've talked about the relationship between henry viii and more a lot it's not just a relationship of king and counsellor however intimate it's not just a relationship that begins when they're adults they've known each other for so long henry knew more as a boy as i've been trying to argue in earlier videos more is one of the key influences on henry's for reasons we do not fully understand he's one of the key influences on henry's upbringing he's responsible for the for the choice of his second second principal tutor and the the the man called holt and who had been responsible for inculcating henry into the fine latin he's an intimate of somebody else who is so closely associated and so much an observer of the early henry of of erasmus and especially of the man who was henry's companion of studies the the great shaper of this whole pattern of youthful experience not simply in the classroom but court on on the tilt yard everywhere and lord mount joy and william blunt lawn mount joy so moore is at the center had been at the center of henry's life he'd been quasi family and i think both parties find the rupture extraordinarily brutal they react in very different ways henry if somebody puts a loyalty to anything above him love turns to hatred i think i'm sure with more on the other hand there's that sense of i think lingering regret remember moore had actually hailed henry at the moment of his accession way back in 1509 as the great liberator king after the tyranny the ruthless exactions of his father moore i think never forgets that but break indeed he does it comes dramatically the moment the uh the the clerical parliament uh the the moment the convocation of canterbury uh in 1532 formerly recognizes henry's claim to be supreme head of the church without condition without the earlier conditions which had been imposed largely by moore's friend john fisher insofar as the law of god allows which of course made the title completely redundant the moment henry is declared and is accepted without condition as supreme head of the church moore resigns his office as lord chancellor he knows he can conscientiously that word that rory uh the question of conscience that that word that rory mentions he can conscientiously no longer hold office under the king who requires that but more equally doesn't want makes no attempt i think to persuade others at all he makes no attempt to turn his position into one of propaganda he adopts no public position on the matter at all apart from silence he refuses to take the oaths well he says he will actually take the oath to the berlin marriage he passionately disapproves of it but as far as he is concerned who is queen of england the consequences for the english succession these are a matter which the state which the kingdom which the parliament of the kingdom can properly determine but for more the state the kingdom the king the parliament cannot determine who is head of the church however rory moore never ever formally says that formerly to say that from the act of supremacy from the act of treason and so on it it actually does become treason to assert that moore never deliberately condemns himself out of his own mouth the condemnation that is produced at his trial in 1535 is by the twisting of words the the the the the the famous and the twisting of words we'll talk about the trial separately we won't do it here um the the famous twisting of the words that that that that that leads the jury finally to convict him and it's only at that moment it's only at the moment once more has actually been convicted if we believe the account of his trial uh by william roper that's the the husband and that's that's moore's son-in-law the husband of margaret that point once he is a dead man only then does more speak out and what he does is something very remarkable he challenges the verdict at that point in in in law and remember moore is a very great lawyer you were entitled after you had been condemned to appeal to the court to traverse the verdict you could explain why the law was wrong and of course more as the greatest lawyer of the day does so in brilliant terms he explains to the court that the decision of parliament the decision of parliament that the king was head of the church was one which parliament simply could not take and he explains it in the following fashion he remember had begun his career within the city of london he'd been sheriff within the city of london and an important legal and administrative officer within the city he's clearly reflecting that experience in what he says to the court he says that the the the parliament of england could no more determine that the king was head of the church than the city of london could take a decision that bound the whole of england because the parliament of england was subordinate it was only a part it was only if you like the uses effectively the term a parochial council the real council the body of consent was the consent of the whole of christendom it was a general counsel of the church only a general counsel of the church could determine whether the king or the pope was the head of the church the part could not determine for the whole and it's that passionate belief of more of course he explains it the uh the uh chancellor ordly and and who who hears who is presiding over the tribunal and is is deeply concerned he can't answer more he turns to the lord chief justice who is present and the lord chief justice today moore's produced this elaborate argument that this is beyond its ultraviolet it's beyond the competence of parliament because parliament is merely one part of england is just one part of christendom and the english parliament is just an assembly for that subordinate part of christendom and the part cannot bind the whole how does uh how does the law of chief justice deal with it well he does so by a piece of absolutely classic english legal positivism he says if it's an act of parliament it's good enough classic position of english common law that there is nothing that an act of parliament cannot do even make the king supreme head of the church so that if you like is more finished but it's also fundamentally more begun because remember this position of the vital importance of the pope's head of the church is not one that moore had passionately held for most of his life and it's again very important to understand that moore had another thomas another saint thomas that i think he was much more attached to than beckett and that other saint thomas is of course doubting thomas it's thomas the apostle who doubts and moore is devoted to the idea of that saint thomas he is aware of doubt he is aware of the uncertainty of faith he is aware of the insecurity of the christian against the inscrutable judicial majesty of god so more and again more had had direct experience of this and direct experience of managing henry through all of this because remember there's a peculiar way not a peculiar way there's a direct way in which henry and moore actually reverse position on this way back but not all that way back in 1535 only 14 years before in 1521 and in the immediate aftermath of the great performance of of luther at the dart of vance and henry decides after receiving a report from moore's close friend and who had been his ambassador henry's ambassador at the dart of and cuthbert tunstall after receiving a report from cuthbert tunstall as to the effect of luther's latest book the babylonian captivity and its attack on the the doctrine of the seven sacraments and the reduction of them really just just to two to baptism and and to and to the mass and henry decides to launch that fundamental attack on luther the assertion of the seven sacraments and equally the assertion of the papal supremacy over the church which luther of course had fundamentally challenged from 1517 onwards and it is more more at this point who is acting as kind of henry's um editor i imagine yes acting very much as as editor comes senior researcher in in bringing together uh henry's text i think henry does write um the bulk of the assertio um but it's more who who helps to organize it to to put it together working again i'm sure with with with john fisher and to to turn the text into an actual quite impressive assertion of the case but more warns henry she goes back to rory to beckett and henry ii he says you know is it really very sensible for a king of england to be making such a passionate assertion of the unchallenged people's supremacy over the church after all he sort of said do remember one of your predecessors who was also called henry did have a problem uh with the church and you know it was beckett so what happens is in that intervening 14 years henry persuades himself absolutely that he'd been wrong in 1521 that he'd been wrong even more wrong the beginning of his reign in 1513 when he actually waged a war in the name of the papal monarchy on behalf of julius ii his campaign against france in in 1513 astonishingly he is a paper captain um the the the the pope had condemned uh henry's enemy louis the twelfth of france uh because louis the twelfth believe it or not was divorced oh heaven's sake and louis xii had also um assaulted the papal armies in bologna um in in in in italy um uh uh and and so on uh so and and indeed had summoned isn't it wonderful had summoned the schismatic council of the church to threaten uh to um dethrone uh to to dethrone pope julius so this henry was acting as a papal captain against this wicked heretical schismatic king of france who'd got divorced that's the young henry of 1513 and of course he has to explain later on after 1532 and after he persuaded himself and been persuaded by the extraordinary accumulation of texts from 1529 onwards that he really was the head of the church he had to explain these earlier positions because well he said i was young and i was the victim effectively of persuasion and lies by the bishops more on the other hand embarks on completely the opposite journey remember the younger more closely associated with erasmus was profoundly skeptical of the papacy after all the pope was that pope julius ii named after julius caesar for heaven's sake and his predecessor was alexander vi the the borgia pope named after alexander the great these were popes who poisoned these were popes who waged war these were popes and who consciously draped themselves in robes of a roman emperor these were popes who erasmus says in the famous julius exclusives were anti-christian and more and erasmus pour the weight of satire of contempt of skepticism that's you know that's the beginning of moore's journey in the name of course moore and erasmus of a return to a fundamental and honest christianity of christianity that reflects the life the teaching the actual words of jesus in the gospel of the old testament uh which thomas more uh which which uh which um uh erasmus and very much aided by tonstall uh really uh put center stage with his new edition of the greek the greek t of the greek new testament and the edition published in 1516 with a new and radical that in translation and which to which erasmus gives that extraordinary striking name the novum instrumentum the new instrument i've talked about a lot that a lot in in the video that i did on thomas lineker who with his work on medicine and the rediscovery and publication of the texts of galen is doing something very similar or trying to do something very similar with medicine so more is associated with all of that what is it that brings about the change well it is precisely moore's experience of trying to enforce and uniformity trying to resist the lutheran heresy and in that period from 1521 onwards more not only acts and as as henry's fact totem as henry's editor and and senior researcher in the production of the text of the assertio september sacramentorum he also i think i think he clearly acts as minister of police and against the the the beginnings of the lutheran heresy the importation of lutheran books the the influence of the german merchants of the steel yard uh the great trading center the hansa trading center on the banks of the thames and which was one of the great centers of the diffusion for obvious reasons german uh books in german got contacts across the north sea and to to to the port to the to the ports on on the north sea and the baltic and that that it acts as one of the great centers for the importation of lutheran books and lutheran ideas and more is is in charge at the center of the attempted repression of all of this and it is an awareness of what heresy what large-scale heresy means which converts luther which converts thomas more rather which converts thomas more to the view that luther and his works and tyndale and the the native for the native follower william dindale luther's native follower in england that their works have to be resisted absolutely because he sees that what heresy will do and here is a here more is his prophet he sees that the rejection of papal authority the assertion of that individualistic interpretation of the bible will lead to a rupture it will lead to a fragmentation of christianity and and the tearing the part of of the body of the church splitting into a thousand fragments which of course is in fact exactly what happens so more finally becomes converted to the need to the absolute the irresistible need of a papal supremacy over the church to the point at which he is actually prepared finally though postponing it as long as possible to die for it this as i've said is completely this whole sort of trajectory uh this this this thoughtfulness this debate with himself is completely unlike beckett it's completely unlike the the passionate assertion the flamboyance the display put it more simply the arrogance of beckett moore is not arrogant in this absolutely the opposite now here again i think it's important to ask another question how do moore's contemporaries those most closely associated with him behave in this this period this extraordinary period when english polity that the english polity henry viii himself turns on a pins head on the matter of religion on either side of the 1st of january 1527 which is i've argued and i will argue and i'll present the arguments here quite fully on that day is the day that henry viii and berlin agree that they will marry and around that day the entire religious policy of henry viii reign turns up to that moment henry is the great advocate of the papal supremacy he is the great advocate of orthodoxy he is the great resistor of heresy from that point onwards henry begins on that long journey that will take him first to the supremacy and then to that series of increasing bitings away of the the the structure of the of of the church of the middle ages of which he had been that great and passionate defender oh for instance does john fisher the man who had acted very much as coagulator uh with uh with with thomas moore in that campaign of the 1520s against heresy how does he react fischer was the outstanding english theologian he is the bishop of rochester um he had been uh the great preacher against heresy so so woolsey in from 1521 woolsey does the flamboyant stuff and as papal legate thomas moore does the dirty as a kind of minister of police and fisher acts as the ideologue and the great preacher of sermons how does fischer react at that great moment of challenge of 1527 well how fisher reacts is dramatically different from more more remember as late as 1529 the fall of warsim is prepared to assume the office of lord chancellor he specifically negotiates with henry says i'm not going to have anything to do with the divorce but i believe he says you know you henry still hate heresy you still believe in the papal supremacy i will work to continue my task of suppressing heresy of keeping england within the universe of church and whatever fisher totally the opposite fisher is the first to be consulted on the actual theology and the first as it were to be formally consulted henry of course at the moment he and anne berlin have decided that they they really do want to marry henry immediately sets the secret machinery uh of of of a divorce of a of a declaration of nullity which is what it really amounts to in motion but there is the formal consultation of fischer as the preeminent theologian fischer immediately comes out against henry that he's he he sees the issue he sees he denies that the king has got a case and the the the papal dispensation for his marriage to catherine of aragon was wrong that's to say because catherine had been married before to arthur he argues that the pope has got absolute full right to make that dispensation he also argues that the case that henry finds himself in that arthur had been childless and that had also been a question about whether or not the marriage had been consummated means that actually wasn't all that much to be dispensed anyway and that the pope was fully right to give the dispensation and therefore henry was irretrievably indissolubly married to catherine and from that point onwards fischer is perfectly clear as henry does everything to challenge that position he is quite clear that henry must be resisted and resisted by if need be and he gets to this person very quickly by overtly political means see i think we get i'm going to talk about fischer much more later on i think we get fisher absolutely wrong traditionally he's read backwards he's read backwards from his martyrdom you know that that that and there is like that wonderful holbein drawing of him with the with the with with the uh with with the the haggard face you know that sense of a body of mere flesh and bone this deeply holy man which clearly he was but what we forget of course is what fisher had been fisher had been the star he'd been the star academic and star academic politician at cambridge he was the most successful vice chancellor he is the man of course who becomes the intimate of the great he becomes confessor to lady margaret beauford lady margaret beaufort submits herself to fisher in a way that she does to no other human being including i think her son and fisher enjoys this extraordinary access to political power and it is fisher through his association with lady margaret beaufort and as her confessor and also his friendship with henry the seven's last confessor a man called stephen barron you have the two royal confessors working together to secure enormous funding for the church and um at windsor at the westminster abbey and more particularly at cambridge it is it is undoubtedly fisher that secures the gigantic sums from henry vii which complete the building of king's college chapel in record time so fischer is yes he's holy yes he's highly learned but he is a brilliant both academic and real politician and i would argue something else we'll have an entire video at least one on this it is fisher and it is it is stephen barron the two of them is the two royal confessors who it is clear manage the deathbed of henry vii and i would argue manage the deathbed of henry vii so that empson and dudley are destroyed so you get fisher as an ecclesiastical politician making sure that a pair a pair of lawyers a pair of lawyer financiers who have launched a serious attack upon the wealth and the power of the church and fisher would argue of course of risked the soul of the king because they have introduced him to avarice to the oppression of the poor and so on and so forth he brings them down he i think without a shadow of doubt willed their deaths enabled their deaths fisher has that certainty that iron certainty which more of the debater the the doubtful the man who attached so much importance to thomas the doubter didn't there is that clarity so fischer is much much nearer in other words to beckett he's much nearer in the passion the openness the force of his opposition to henry and his willingness to recruit others and his willingness to i'm going to say dabble actually much more than that his willingness to commit actual treason to associate himself with domestic resistance and to invoke foreign powers that's essentially to invoke the the habsburgs against henry so whereas we have thomas moore despite the name in fact he's called thomas very very remote from the behavior of beckett we have fisher well actually very close to the behavior of beckett finally there's a third figure the figure of william warren the archbishop of canterbury their survive he of course is the person who acts as the the kind of what's the word i want the kind of tortoise-like figure his slowness in dying his determination to hang on is finally the great obstacle to henry uh moving rapidly coming up with any complete solution to the divorce at all because his only ones warren dies in 1532 that henry can change archbishops of canterbury can uh maneuver thomas cranmer into the position and then cranmer of course moves way forward swiftly with the blind marriage and everything else but worm had been he'd been a kind of sleeper he once again i th he's often condemned um jack skarisbrick writes of him that he should have been a becket there is in fact a speech that is written by warren um in which is a speech that he that would have been written to have been delivered in parliament in which he does take the line of beckett in saying the king has gone too far the supremacy is wrong and wicked we must resist uh i know that my only fate is martyrdom but he never delivers that speech are we to condemn him obviously some would a serious passionate catholic uh like jack skyrisbrick would the rest of us i think we can see the difficulty warren was a passionate believer in the churches it stood he's uh he's he's a princely and learned and serious archbishop of canterbury but he's also of course the king's servant there is too little i think interpreted and hell's herald's parliament role it's for the parliament of 1512 and of course the principal fake one of the principal figures in that is archbishop warren as chancellor he's fully vested in robert you know with with with mitre and and magnificent cope and all the rest of it but when you actually look at it you see on the shoulders here are the royal arms of england so he's not simply the head of the english church the head of the english church is wrong he's not simply the primate of all england he is also the king's servant and it is this balance this this what is the relationship between being a king's servant and a royal servant against a king's servant a royal servant and god's servant and god's subject the king's subject and god stopped it it is the relationship of those two positions that everybody at this time this is the terrible test the test off of fire and the axe that is imposed on the whole english elite arguably on everybody in england by the events of the reign of henry viii how do you balance those two things loyalty to the king loyalty to god duty to the king duty to god for fisher it's easy he's god's for woolsey it had been easy he was the kings for more there is that exquisite balance that he again summarizes in precisely these terms of service he was the king's good servant but finally god's first again so different from beckett who once he'd ceased to be the servant of henry henry ii and once he become the primate of the church he is simply the church nothing else for more there is always that straddling that straddling between politics and religion between royal service and his absolute sense of christian duty is catholic duty and it's that straddling it's precisely that lack of certainty which makes more so interesting and finally i think so great hello and thank you for watching david starkey talks if as i very much hope you're enjoying them why not become more actively involved and join my members club as a member you'll be able to take part in the members only weekly question and answer session suggest topics for forthcoming videos and have priority booking for my forthcoming live events and while you're at it why not have a look at the store page on my website davidstarkey.com there you can purchase t-shirts and other merchandise buy signed copies of my books and if you're feeling brave and a bit flush even arrange to take me out to lunch thank you once again for watching i look forward to hearing from you and to welcoming you to my members club [Music] you

Channel: David Starkey Talks

Views: 48,461

Keywords: David Starkey, History

Id: gmGIxWKsPew

Length: 40min 4sec (2404 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 14 2022