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More had become the equivalent of Henry’s oratorical wrestling partner, engaging the king in debate on matters of law, diplomacy, philosophy and theology, much to the sovereign’s intellectual delight. Unlike others in the royal circle, More had proven himself to be the king’s mental equal, and as a result a subtle kinship was fostered between the precocious ruler and the ascetic lawyer. More than associates or royal and subject, the two actually became friends…at least for a time.

Others in his circle were continually disappointing the king. Even his lord chancellor Cardinal Wolsey had failed to reach an acceptable settlement with the pope concerning the king’s desired divorce.

Henry knew he needed someone he could trust.

Henry knew he needed someone who could argue on his behalf.

Henry needed a friend and he needed a lawyer, and in Thomas More he saw the solution to all of his problems.

So in 1529, Wolsey was out and More was in, despite the fact that it was totally unconventional to appoint a layperson to that particular office. More’s lay status might even be a plus in some of the negotiations that lay ahead, or at least so the king thought.

Henry’s problem with the pope was simple: the state had arranged a dispensation for him to marry his brother’s widow, and now he needed an annulment so that he could marry Anne Boleyn in hopes of securing a male heir to the throne. The problem was that Rome saw this as problematic, as from a canon law position it was tantamount to them saying they were wrong to have granted the first dispensation. As a result, given Wolsey’s failure to win the church over to Henry’s way of thinking, church and state were at loggerheads, and neither side would budge.

As detailed in “One Dispensation Too Many” (from It Seemed Like a Good Idea, the prequel to this volume), Henry came up with an outside-of-the-box solution to the pesky inconvenience of being excommunicated — namely, forming the Church of England.

One can easily see where Henry’s choice of More as Wolsey’s successor might have seemed like an ideal solution, since More’s lay affiliation easily circumvented such spiritual matters as vows of obedience and sovereignty of the pope as required of members of the clergy.

Unfortunately, Henry misjudged More.

Not only did Sir Thomas oppose in principle the king’s “blasphemous” deed (probably due to More’s still strong monastic streak, which was probably more of a dominant part of his life than that of his predecessors in the position, despite their clerical affiliations), but he considered it equally bad to appear as if he condoned the action in any way, going so far as failing to attend the king’s coronation of Anne as his queen.

Moreover, the sharp legal mind that the king had assumed was going to be used on his behalf was instead preoccupied with the parsing of the matter at hand in such a way as to benefit/protect the chancellor himself rather than to support the king’s desired position. As a result, More soon fell out of favor, and he resigned his office in hopes of avoiding the need to personally confront this issue any longer.

Henry could not tolerate such lawyerly disloyalty and enacted “the Act of Succession” and “the Oath of Supremacy,” which legally codified his position, securing it and preventing any lawyer from ever saying he was less than the rightful king.

More, though he did not publicly refute or denounce the act and oath, refused to swear and affirm it by using lawyerly weasel language that yet again neither lent support to the king’s position nor incriminated himself as a traitor.

Eventually, though, even lawyers run out of tricks, and Thomas More was convicted of treason in a very ugly trial and executed, all because he refused to affirm the king’s position over Rome.

Unlike Wolsey, who had tried to argue a means to the desired end in the tradition of most amoral lawyers, More refused to subvert his craft in the aiding and abetting of the subversion of the beliefs that he held dear.

When Henry appointed