Letter to His Daughter
A letter to his daughter Margaret – written from prison by Saint Thomas More, Martyr (1477-1535)
With good hope I shall commit myself wholly to God
Narrated by Frank Dugan, Huntington Beach, California
Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me until now and made me content to loose goods, land, and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience. God’s grace has given the king a gracious frame of mind toward me, so that as yet he has taken from me nothing but my liberty. In doing this His Majesty has done me such great good with respect to spiritual profit that I trust that among all the great benefits he has heaped so abundantly upon me I count my imprisonment the very greatest. I cannot, therefore, mistrust the grace of God. Either he shall keep the king in that gracious frame of mind to continue to do me no harm, or else, if it be his pleasure that for my other sins I suffer in this case as I shall not deserve, then his grace shall give me the strength to bear it patiently, and perhaps even gladly.
By the merits of his bitter passion joined to mine and far surpassing in merit for me all that I can suffer myself, his bounteous goodness shall release me from the pains of purgatory and shall increase my reward in heaven besides.
I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray to him for help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.
And if he permits me to play Saint Peter further and to fall to the ground and to swear and forswear, may God our Lord in his tender mercy keep me from this, and let me lose if it so happen, and never win thereby! Still, if this should happen, afterward I trust that in his goodness he will look on me with pity as he did upon Saint Peter, and make me stand up again and confess the truth of my conscience afresh and endure here the shame and harm of my own fault.
And finally, Margaret, I know this well: that without my fault he will not let me be lost. I shall, therefore, with good hope commit myself wholly to him. And if he permits me to perish for my faults, then I shall serve as praise for his justice. But in good faith, Meg, I trust that his tender pity shall keep my poor soul safe and make me commend his mercy.
And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Thomas More
Saint Thomas More was born in London in 1477, son of a lawyer and a judge. He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn at Oxford and was admitted to the bar in 1501 and entered Parliament in 1504 and married Jane Holt in 1505. Their home became the center of medieval and Renaissance culture in England, and he became one of the leading intellectual figures of his time. He was noted for his learning, intellect, and wit and became one of England’s outstanding scholars. He wrote poetry, history, treatises against Protestantism, and devotional books and prayers. His Utopia, (1515-16), an account of an imaginary society ruled by reason, has become a classic. When Henry became King he sent More on several diplomatic missions to France and appointed him to the Royal Council in 1517, and knighted him in 1521.
More was selected speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, the same year he wrote his Vindication of Henry Against Luther which was a spirited defense of King Henry VIII, whom he had tutored. He was appointed High Steward of Cambridge in 1525 and succeeded Cardinal Woolsey as Lord Chancellor in 1529, despite his grave misgivings about Henry’s defiance of the Pope in divorcing Catherine of Aragon. Moore’s silence about the matter disturbed Henry, who was angered when More refused to sign a petition to the Pope requesting permission for Henry to divorce Catherine.
After opposing a series of measures against the Church More resigned the chancellorship and retired, penniless, to his home in Chelsea in 1532 to write. When he refused to sign the oath in the Act of Succession recognizing the offspring of Henry and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, as heir to the throne, declaring that Henry’s first marriage to Catherine, was not a true marriage and repudiating the Pope, he was arrested in 1534 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He remained there for fifteen months until July 1, 1525, and when asked by Cromwell to comment on the Act of Supremacy, he remained silent; whereupon he was accused of treason.
Despite his refusal to break his silence, he was convicted of treason, and five days later, on July 6, was beheaded. As he mounted the scaffold, he proclaimed that he was “the King’s good servant but God’s first.” He was canonized in 1935 and is known as a patron of lawyers. While detained in prison, he wrote this moving letter to his daughter Margaret.