Author Description

Laicorum hominum decus et ornamentum—“the glory and ornament of the laity”: thus did Pope Pius XI define St. Thomas More. In this accomplished study of “the king’s good servant, but God’s first,” E. E. Reynolds demonstrates the aptness of that epithet. Placing the primary emphasis on Thomas More’s religious significance, but without neglecting his political and literary legacy, Reynolds produces a richly detailed portrait of this husband and father, lawyer and statesman, and servant to and martyr for Jesus Christ and his Church. To assist in his interpretations and analyses, Reynolds gathers the many threads of previous scholarship on More by T. E. Bridgett, A. F. Pollard, and R. W. Chambers (to name but a few). Especially valuable is the generous provision throughout the book of primary-source material from More’s own works and correspondence, with the spellings modernized for comfortable reading. In his Preface, Reynolds ascribes the beginning of his interest in Thomas More to Sidney Lee’s Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century and his description of “the great paradox of More’s life: here was an enlightened scholar dying for ‘what seems, in the dry light of reason, to be superstition.’” Saint Thomas More: His Life and Works gainsays the very existence of such a paradox: More’s faith in Christ’s Church “is the key to his life and death and glory.”