Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King’s Bench, wasborn in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earliereducation at St. Anthony’s School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed,as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterburyand Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence andsons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron andclient. The youth wore his patron’s livery, and added to his state. Thepatron used, afterwards, his wealth or influence in helping his young clientforward in the world. Cardinal Morton had been in earlier days that Bishop ofEly whom Richard III. sent to the Tower; was busy afterwards in hostility toRichard; and was a chief adviser of Henry VII., who in 1486 made him Archbishopof Canterbury, and nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor. CardinalMorton—of talk at whose table there are recollections in“Utopia”—delighted in the quick wit of young Thomas More. Heonce said, “Whoever shall live to try it, shall see this child herewaiting at table prove a notable and rare man.”
At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury College,Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men who brought Greekstudies from Italy to England—William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. Linacre,a physician, who afterwards took orders, was also the founder of the College ofPhysicians. In 1499, More left Oxford to study law in London, atLincoln’s Inn, and in the next year Archbishop Morton died.
More’s earnest character caused him while studying law to aim at thesubduing of the flesh, by wearing a hair shirt, taking a log for a pillow, andwhipping himself on Fridays. At the age of twenty-one he entered Parliament,and soon after he had been called to the bar he was made Under-Sheriff ofLondon. In 1503 he opposed in the House of Commons Henry VII.’s proposalfor a subsidy on account of the marriage portion of his daughter Margaret; andhe opposed with so much energy that the House refused to grant it. One went andtold the king that a beardless boy had disappointed all his expectations.During the last years, therefore, of Henry VII. More was under the displeasureof the king, and had thoughts of leaving the country.
Henry VII. died in April, 1509, when More’s age was a little over thirty.In the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. he rose to large practice in thelaw courts, where it is said he refused to plead in cases which he thoughtunjust, and took no fees from widows, orphans, o