Henry Tudor, better known as Henry VIII, the king with all those wives, has spawned historical novels, biographies, histories, movies, and TV series. One of the most interesting figures from his court and government is the subject of this biography.

Thomas More, who met much good fortune, but encountered great misfortune at the end of his life, has been lucky in this biographer. Peter Ackroyd has written many successful novels (Hawkmoor, Chatterton) and biographies (T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, William Blake). He is wellversed in English history and seems to care about his subject.

He begins, appropriately for such an important religious figure, with More's baptism. The Roman Catholic Church was central to Thomas More. Even when he was socializing with kings and nobles and directing government himself, he wore a hair shirt to remind himself of his duty to God. He was seven years old when Henry VII won the last battle of the War of the Roses. His father had served Edward IV and received a coat of arms. Though not of the nobility, the Mores were wealthy merchants and civic leaders.

Thomas More received a good education for the day and when he was 12, he became a page in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England. Morton became a mentor to him, especially interesting since More would become Lord Chancellor himself many years later. Both men were known for their astuteness and efficiency.

Thomas More was brilliant and humorous and formed lasting friendships with men like Erasmus and John Colet. He was a successful lawyer on his way to impressive positions. The Law and the church were the focus of his thinking and his life. He was also a poet and wrote the political fantasy that gave a name to a worldview, Utopia. "More's spiritual preoccupations did not inhibit his work in the world, and it is important to recognize that throughout these formative years he was playing an active role in the social, administrative, and institutional affairs of London."

He considered becoming a monk but realized that women were too important to him. He married twice (his first wife died after having several children), and his children revered him. He believed the king to be divinely ordained, and that it was his duty to serve him. Such belief, of course, made it very difficult to defy Henry's wishes. Ackroyd's scholarship and sympathetic understanding of the time and the issues help the reader to understand what happened.

More became a friend and adviser to Henry VIII and admired his defense of the Faith against Martin Luther. However, when Henry had a new desire and planned to sever the English Church from the Pope's control, More had conflicting loyalties. In his position as Lord Chancellor, he hunted heretics and sent many to be burned. His own turn would come. This is a moving account of his life and last days, even knowing the inevitable outcome, the reader hopes that another solution might be found.

The Life of Thomas More, an outstanding biography, is available at the Mary Willis Library.