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The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future:
Paul, Joanne (2025). Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England. Random House. ISBN978-1-4059-5363-4.
Text or other creative content from Thomas More was copied or moved into Beaufort House (Chelsea). The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.
Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I won't judge the sources because I don't read English history or histories of the Reformation. However, the Legacy section is written in this glowing, heroic air rather than a dispassionate list of achievements and boils down to other Catholics singing his praises. In fact, I wrote a Unitarian's feelings on More's canonisation that someone undid almost immediately. Shushimnotrealstooge (talk) 23:44, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree that some of the sections do read somewhat as hagiographies, but including lists of non-Catholics with an opposing point of view, as in your edit here, doesn't seem the way to go about fixing it—the point it's making wouldn't be obvious.
Just for interest: in response to your [Which university?] tag, AFAICS only University of Cambridge sent a delegate to Rome, and they actually publicly disowned him afterwards (according to the London Times), so the list of institutions that didn't go would be a long one. The tag requesting this isn't appropriate. AntientNestor (talk) 06:48, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've had another go at taking this out. The twentieth-century primary source sought "gleefully" to attack the Catholic Church because More's satire Utopia advocated euthanasia.[1] It was satire. WP:TOPIC applies.
References
↑Dowbiggin, Ian Robert (2003). A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America (1sted.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.92. ISBN9780195154436.
Latest comment: 5 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
The assertion that Wolsey also had heretics burned at the stake is cited coming from Ackroyd, Peter (1999). The Life of Thomas More. p.299-306. However, I do not find such statements in my review of the book. Conversely in Thomas Cromwell. A Life (2018) by Diarmaid MacCulloch, it states Wolsey did not burn heretics. Additionally in Tudor Times it states: "Wolsey, however, seems to have been disinclined to severe punishments for heretics. Whilst he was active in the searching out and burning of heretical works, primarily those coming in from Europe containing Lutheran ideas, he seems to have confined his punishments of heretics to either penance and forgiveness, or a whipping." Dash.wiki.IF (talk) 13:38, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
You are right. Wolsey was notably merciful towards heretics, releasing them on parole for a chance to show repentance. Your quote from Tudor Times (is this a blog, BTW?) seems to sum up well. The statement should be deleted. AntientNestor (talk) 10:50, 7 April 2026 (UTC).Reply
↑Gunn, Steven J. Cardinal Wolsey church, state and art. Cambridge University Press. p.231. ISBN0 521 37568 1. In spite of strong and repeated hints from Rome, he never sent a heretic to the stake.
My initial intent was to simply remove what appeared to be an erroneous statement "the same rate as under Wolsey". But that seemed too presumptuous without at least some commentary. But figuring out a reference was complicated for a negative, so I instead went with a footnote (which I removed and placed here in TALK). Subsequent discussion seems to support my observation that the statement about Wolsey was not factual and should be removed. But should it just be deleted (and the edit referred to this discussion), or remained in a qualified manner? After all, this topic is about Thomas More, not Wolsey. But Wolsey is referred to six times in this Thomas More Wikipedia entry. Relevant to this discussion, "note 8" says in part "from the Wolsey/John Fisher approach of persuasion, ...to More's brief approach of capital punishment" thus supporting that Wolsey did not burn heretics. I will go with Plan A and just delete "the same rate as under Wolsey" and put in the explanation line that this statement is unsupported and to see this discussion in TALK under "Did Wolsey have heretics burned at the stake like Thomas More?".
Tudor Times does appear to be a blog, created 2014
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