On This Day in History

On May 16, 1532 Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England. This was done because he could not condone either the divorce of King Henry VIII from Catherine or the marriage of Henry to Anny Boleyn.
Thomas More (1478 - 1535) was the leading anti-Protestant in England at the time of the Reformation. More spoke vehemently against Luther and his views. He held a number of offices in English politics as he worked his way up to being Lord Chancellor.
In 1530, however, he had refused to sign a letter asking the Papacy for an annulment of the marriage of Henry to Catherine. This put a serious wedge between the monarchy and More. The decision of the monarchy to terminate the Roman Catholic Church and institute the Church of England with the king as the head did not sit well with More. Whereupon, in 1531 he refused to take an oath demonstrating loyalty to the king as the Head of the Church of England.
In 1532, following several attempts, More was finally allowed to resign when it became clear that no reunion between the King and More was going to take place. The next year when More refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as the Queen of England, Henry had More arrested on charges of accepting bribes and high treason, although no evidence existed for either crime.
In 1534 More appeared before a parliamentary commission and accepted that Parliament had the right to declare Anne the legitimate queen of England but refused to swear an oath himself to that effect. More's problem was not with the Act of Succession, but with the language in it that declared the Parliament had more right that the Pope to legislate in matters of religion.
More was imprisoned in the Tower of London. In 1535 he was brought to trial for denying the validity of the Act of Succession, which he did not do. More maintained he could not be convicted of denial of the Act if he did not actually deny the Act. He refused to answer questions related to the King's authority as Head of the Church or any of his opinions on the subject.
Nevertheless, the jury convicted him of the crime of high treason based on testimony of other witnesses. More was executed on July 6, 1535 by decapitation.
More was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1886.
A fantastic film version of his life and trial exists in the adaption of A Man for All Seasons.