by Sylvia Lacoski. From THE REFORMER, March/April 2001

The Protestant Alliance, 77 Ampthill Rd., Flitwick, Bedford, MK45 1BD, England

When Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher were canonized (a declaration by a pope that a person is in Heaven and worthy of veneration) in 1935, the British press filled their columns with superstitious accounts of the lives of these men.

Similarly, last year, when it was made known that the present Pope, John Paul II , was to make Thomas More "patron saint of politicians" it was given considerable coverage in the press, and of course, by the BBC!

John Gummer, former Anglican who went over to Rome, was delighted and was reported as saying he could not think of any section of the community which needed one more, while the TIMES of 4th November 2000 gave a glowing report of the Rev. Cormac Murphy O'Connor, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, and his plans to attend the ceremony along with twenty-five (misguided) Members of Parliament.

Letters too appeared in the press, not all favourable. One "learned" doctor of Magdalene College Cambridge, excused More's persecution of Protestants at his house at Chelsea as "Pure invention" and that More regarded "heretics as we regard drug-pushers and poisoners of society" today!

Thomas More - Implacable Enemy of the Reformers

From the time of Wycliffe the Roman Church held the translation and reading of the Scriptures in English a crime and punishable by death. Erasmus, the illustrious Dutchman, boldly avowed his wish for an open Bible "that even the weakest woman might read the Gospels and Epistles" (History of English People J.R. Green) and when William Tyndale was to echo the noble words of Erasmus it led to bitter persecution and death.

More's praises may be read in every history of England; he was the ideal of Catholicism of this period. "He had, like the Romish system, two poles - worldliness and asceticism, which although contrary, often meet together. He sacrificed the accessories of his fallen nature to save that same nature" (Reformation in England d'Aubigne). With all the charms of his eloquence, his love of music, his keen intellect and love of jest at the superstitions of the monks of his day he "wore a hair shirt next to his skin, and schooled himself by penances" (History of English People J.R. Green).

Sir Thomas More, as Chancellor of England and guardian of her laws, sanctioned the imprisonment, torture and death of English subjects.

The toleration and charity he maintained in his "Utopia" was to give way to intolerance - "His understanding was passing from ascetic practices to fanaticism, and the humanist turning into an inquisitor" (Reformation in England d'Aubigne).

Encouraged by Bishop Tunstall who denounced Tyndale's New Testament, More entered the lists as champion of a "failing church" and if Thomas More could not defend the "church" nothing but the rack and stake could! (William Tyndale Robert Demaus).

Persecution and Death of Bilney and Bainham Thomas Bilney, the Cambridge scholar converted to Christ through the reading of the New Testament, was seized while distributing New Testaments. A writ for his burning was quickly procured from More, who despatched Bilney to the flames with a heartless joke remarking the proper course would have been to "burn him first and procure a writ afterwards"(Hugh Latimer R. Demaus). Bilney was burnt at the Lollards Pit near the gate of the City of Norwich in 1531.

"The Lord forgive Sir Thomas More" James Bainham was the son of a Gloucestershire Knight. He was a man well read in the classics and a distinguished lawyer of Middle Temple. He was too an earnest reader of Scripture. He was arrested by order of More, taken to his house in Chelsea, tied to the "tree of truth" where More caused him to be whipped in the hope of discovering other "heretics". He was taken to the Tower where he was racked until he was lamed. When he was taken to the stake at Smithfield on 30th April 1531, he said "I die for having said it is lawful for every man and woman to have God's book . . ..that the true key of Heaven is not that of the bishop of Rome, but the preaching of the Gospel." At the stake, as the train of gunpowder ran towards him, Bainham lifted up his eyes towards Heaven and cried "God forgive thee and show thee more mercy than thou showest to me! The Lord forgive Sir Thomas More."

"Husbandmen, artists, tradespeople and even noblemen felt the cruel fangs of the clergy and of Sir Thomas More" (Merle d'Aubigne).

William Tyndale considered Thomas More the great enemy of the free circulation of the Scriptures in the English tongue.

More had singled him out by name on the very title-page of The Dialogue in which he attacks Tyndale's New Testament and the Reformers. Tyndale had not sought controversy, but More's book left him no alternative but to reply, and in Tyndale's Answer, he tackles in a straightforward manner the real essence of the controversy between the Roman Church and the Reformers. In More's Confutation however, More defiles his pen by heaping abuse upon Tyndale. Tyndale is no longer a "heretic swollen with pride"- he is "a beast discharging filthy foam of blasphemies out of his brutish beastly mouth "- a "railing ribald" - a "drowsy drudge that has drunken deep in the devil's dregs" and so on. Tyndale was certainly fierce in his attack on the Roman Church with consideration given to an exile persecuted for his faith and translation of the Scriptures, but he never defiled his pen with such Billingsgate as this (William Tyndale, R. Demaus). In Thomas More's opinion, the burning of heretics was just and necessary. (More's Works - A Dialogue concerning Heresies). In 1529 Bishop John Fisher of Rochester had Thomas Hitton arrested for bringing New Testaments into the Country. He was cruelly tortured and burnt at the stake at Maidstone on 20th February 1530. Three years later Bishop Fisher urged the Spanish Emperor to send an armed force to invade England (Spanish State Papers).

Death of More and Fisher 1535

When More and Fisher were put to death for treason and upholding the Pope's supremacy in England the anger at Rome was extreme and Pope Paul III lost no time in sanctioning a Bull. Henry VIII was deprived of his Kingdom, absolving his subjects from their allegiance and placing the Kingdom under an interdict .

King Henry VIII was certainly no paragon of virtue, but "pot" and "kettle" spring to mind in considering the lives of the contemporary pontiffs !

Pope Paul III was the father of four illegitimate children bestowing on his unscrupulous son Pier-Luigi Farnese the cities of Parma and Piacenza, with the title of Duke of Parma! (History of the Italian People, Janet Penrose Trevelyan).

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church and has recently branded the Church of England and other Protestant Churches as defective and not Churches in the proper sense and yet the Roman Church dishonours God in its worship of and prayers to "saints" and its departure from Scripture.

Since Medieval times the Roman Church has provided saints for every need and situation "ready to intercede for struggling mortals who have called on them for aid - St. Osyth patron saint for women who had lost their keys, or St Apollonia for those with toothache, or St. Gall if ones chickens were lost" etc. (Set in a Silver Sea, A. Bryant A History of England and the British People).

There is only one intercessor in Scripture the Lord Jesus Christ who "... ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25).

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See alsoThomas More and Heretics