My infatuation with Thomas More continues. I’ve spent much of this week in the rare book room at the British Library — ohhh, glory. Musty, delicate glory in fine secretary black-letter (thank you, Master Rastell). More on this later.

For now, a belated Despondent Humanist instalment. Nobody else likes them, but I do. So they stay.

Further to my last post, good reader, riddle me this: why is it that I cannot, absolutely cannot, encounter anything to do with More’s eldest and favorite daughter, Margaret, without weeping my bloody eyes out? The biographies are cheesy propaganda — still, I weep. I’ve read his last letter to her at least a dozen times. Still, I weep. Monday in the café, over my yogurt and coffee, weeping. Today in the reading room near closing time, typing my notes, weeping. Why?

I reproduce that final letter in full after the jump.

The 1557 English Works appends this preface:

Syr Thomas More was behedded at the Tower hyll in London on Tewesdaye the syxte daye of July in the yere of oure Lorde 1535, and in the .xxvii. yere of the raign of King Henry theyght. And on the day nexte before, beynge Mundaye and the fyfte day of July, he wrote with a cole a letter to his doughter Maystresse Roper, and sente it to her, (whiche was the laste thynge that euer he wrote). The copye whereof here foloweth.

The copye whereof:

Owr Lorde blisse you goode dowghter and your goode husbande and your litle boye and all yours and all my children and all my godchildren and all owr freindis. Recommende me whan you maye to my goode doughter Cecilye, whom I beseche owr Lorde to comforte, and I sende her my blessinge and to all her children and pray her to praye for me. I sende her an handekercher and God comforte my goode sonne her husbande. My goode dowghter Daunce hath the picture in parchemente that yow deliuered me from my Ladie Coniars, her name is on the back side. Shewe her that I hertely pray her that you maye sende it in my name to her agayne for a token from me to praye for me.

I like speciall well Dorithe Coly, I praye you be good vnto her. I woulde wytte whether this be she that yow wrote me of. If not I praye yow be goode to the tother, as yow maye in her affliction and to my good doughter Jone Aleyne to giue her I pray yow some kynde aunswere, for she sued hither to me this daye to pray you be goode to her.

I cumber you goode Margaret muche, but I woulde be sorye, if it shoulde be any lenger than to morrowe, for it is S. Thomas evin, and the vtas of Sainte Peter and therefore to morowe longe I to goe to God, it were a daye very meete and conveniente for me. I neuer liked your maner towarde me better than when you kissed me laste for I loue when doughterly loue and deere charitie hathe no laisor to looke to worldely curtesye.

Fare well my deere childe and praye for me, and I shall for you and all your freindes that we maie merily meete in heauen. I thanke you for your greate coaste.

I sende nowe vnto my goode dowghter Clemente her algorisme stone and I sende her and my goode sonne and all hers Goddes blissinge and myne.

I praye yow at tyme conveniente recommende me to my goode sonne Johan More. I liked well his naturall fashion. Owre LOrde blisse him and his goode wife my louinge doughter, to whom I praye him be goode, as he hathe greate cause, and that if the lande of myne come to his hande, he breake not my will concerning his sister Daunce. And our Lorde blisse Thomas and Austen and all that thei shall haue.

Nicholas Harpsfield, in his 1550’s Life, tells a tale, told to him in turn second-hand by William Roper, Margaret’s husband, of Margaret paying no heed to the crowd at Thomas’ last trip back into the tower “when he came from judgement” — how she threw herself not once but twice on him, begging his blessing and kissing him indecorously. A marginal note to this letter in the 1557 edition claims that John, Thomas’ son, similarly disregarded decorum in order to ask his father’s blessing on the same occasion.

This is to say nothing of the subtler (and so more powerful) tenderness of a letter of dubious authorship (Thomas? Margaret? we can’t know), written while More was in the Tower awaiting trial: the playful, spirited, eminently Morean dialogue on conscience known as the “Roper-Alington” letter. The More of this letter is constantly smiling indulgently at his despairing daughter, teasingly calling her “Maistres Eue” for tempting him to swear the unconscionable oath whose refusal cost him his life, and her her father. It positively fucking destroys me.

Harpsfield, Roper, William Rastell, and the rest of the Marian More-producing gang have won the history game. They built a sentimental monument to a martyr, with the intention of making young Moredolators weep and cry “Amen” for hundreds of years to come. And here I am.

Cheers, you bunch of crazy bastards. Well done. Now, Nick, about all those roasting Prots…