These were the words of sir Thomas More to his favourite daughter when she came to him in prison, urging him to do as his friends had done, and swear to acknowledge the king as head of the church instead of the pope. All his life he had 'carried' his own soul himself, and that was no small thing to be able to say in the reign of Henry VIII., when men's hearts failed them for fear, not knowing from day to day what the tyrant might demand of them.
Thomas More came of a family bred to the law, and his father, afterwards made a knight and a judge, seems to have been kindly and pleasant, and like his son in many ways, especially in his fondness for children. He set great store by books and learning, and taught Thomas to love them too. The boy was born when the Wars of the Roses were just over, and the country was beginning to settle down again. In London king Edward IV. was still the favourite of the people, and after his death, in 1483, Thomas, then five years old, happened to overhear a gentleman telling his father that it was prophesied duke Richard of Gloucester would be king. When the prophecy came to pass, and Richard snatched the crown for himself, many besides little Thomas were filled with wonder. For Richard had played his part so well that few guessed at what he really was, or that the murder of his nephews would be nothing to him, if he could mount the throne on their bodies.
At that period boys were sent early to school, and after careful inquiries, John More decided to put his son under the charge of one Nicholas Holt, headmaster of St. Anthony's in Threadneedle Street, a school founded by Henry VI. Here Thomas spent most of his time in learning Latin, which it was necessary for a gentleman to know. Foreign languages were very little studied; instead, Latin was used; hence ambassadors addressed each other in that tongue, and in it men wrote letters, and often books. Thomas, who had been accustomed all his life to hear Latin quoted by his father and the lawyers who came to his house in Milk Street, soon mastered most of the difficulties, knowing well that he would be considered stupid and ignorant if when he left school he should ever make a mistake in his declensions, or forget the gender of a noun.
When John More was satisfied with his son's progress in Latin, he got leave for him to enter, as was the custom, the house of cardinal Morton as a sort of page. Thomas was then about twelve, quick and observant, and though fond of joking, good-tempered and prudent, taking care to hurt the feelings of nobody. Morton was both a clever and a learned man, a good speaker and excellent lawyer, and the king, Henry VII., frequently took counsel with him and profited by his experience. On his side, Morton took a fancy to the boy, whose sharp answers amused him. His keen eyes noticed that Thomas, who, with the other pages, waited at dinner upon the cardinal and his guests, listened to all that was being said, while never neglecting his own especial duties.
'This child will prove a marvellous man,' Morton one day whispered to his neighbour, and the neighbour lived to prove the truth of his words.
Thomas greatly enjoyed the two years he passed in Morton's house, and made many friends, both amongst his companions and with the older men. There was always something going on which pleased and interested him, for he was very sociable, and liked, above everything, a 'good argument.' At Christmas time all kinds of shows and pageants were to take place, and the young pages could hardly sleep for excitement, though their appetites never failed, and the huge pieces of pasty put on their wooden or pewter plates disappeared surprisingly quick. Of course they had no forks to help themselves with, but each boy possessed a knife of his own, in which he took great pride, and a spoon made either of horn or pewter. At Christmas they were given plenty of good things as a treat, and the cardinal, like other great men, flung open his doors, and feasted the poor as well as the rich. Then companies of strolling players would come by, and beg permission to amuse the guests by their acting. On this Christmas Day in 1490 the play was in full swing when young Thomas suddenly appeared on the stage in the great hall, and began to 'make a part of his own, never studying for the matter, which made the lookers-on more sport than all the players beside.' It must have been rather difficult for the poor actors to go on with their parts when they did not know what the boy was going to say next; but Thomas seems to have been as clever as he was impudent, and the play ended in applause and laughter.
In those days boys grew into young men much earlier than they do now, and set about earning their living, and even getting married, at an age when to-day they would probably just be leaving a public school. So we are not surprised at hearing that when Thomas was only fourteen he was sent by cardinal Morton to Canterbury Hall, Oxford, a college which afterwards became part of Christ Church, founded by Wolsey. The elder More was a poor man, and Thomas was not his only child; five others had been born to him, but, as far as we can gather, three of these died when they were still babies. Thomas had been brought up from his earliest years to do without many things which must have seemed necessaries to the richer boys in Morton's house. But he cared little that his dress was so much plainer than theirs, and that when he went home he had what food was needful and no more. As long as he had books, and somebody to talk to about them, he was quite happy, but even he found the fare of an Oxford scholar rather hard to digest. However, throughout his life he always made the best of things, and if he ever went to bed hungry, well, nobody but himself was any the wiser. Law was the study his father wished him specially to follow, but he was eager too to learn Greek, which had lately been introduced into the University, and to improve his Latin style. He also wrote verses, as was beginning to be the fashion with young men, and worked out problems in arithmetic and geometry, while, after his regular work was done, he would carry a French or Latin chronicle to his small window, and pore over the history of bygone times. In his spare moments he would play some old music on the flute or practise on the viol.