Henry promoted More until More became Lord Chancellor. As such he was master of equity law and of the Court of Chancery, the most powerful judicial office in the land. But, in 1532, when he saw that King Henry was determined to marry Anne Boleyn and that divorce was in the air, rather than stay in the King's cabinet, he claimed ill health and was allowed to retire from the bench.

Sir Thomas More was no more.

Anne Boleyn was beheaded eleven months after More, on charges of adultery. Henry the 8th went on to marry four more wives, another of which was also beheaded. Henry died in 1547. During his rein, there had been an average of 120 executions a month in England. More was named a Catholic saint in 1866.

1477, Feb. 7 - Born in London to John and Agnes More

1484-1489 - Attends St. Anthony's School, London (More's age: 7-12)

1489-1491 - Page for Archbishop and Chancellor Morton (12-14)

1491-1493 - Student at Oxford (14-16)

1493-1495 - Pre-law student, New Inn, London (16-18)

1496-1501 - Law student, Lincoln's Inn; called to bar (18-23)

1499 - Meets Erasmus for the first time (22)

1501-1504 - Frequents Charterhouse (Carthusians) (24-27)

1503-1506 - Reader at Furnival's Inn (26-29)

1504 - Elected to Parliament (27)

1505 - Marries Jane Colt; Margaret born (28)

1507 - Financial secretary of Lincoln's Inn; Cecily born (30)

1508 - Visits universities at Paris and Louvain (31)

1509 - Member of Mercers' Guild; John born; Henry VIII crowned (32)

1510 - Elected to Parliament (33)

1511 - After Jane's death, marries Alice Middleton; Autumn Reader at Lincoln's Inn (34)

1514 - Elected to Doctors' Common; serves on sewers commission (37)

1516 - Continues to study history and political philosophy (39)

1520 - Field of Cloth of Cold: peace with France (43)

1527 - Accompanies Wolsey to France; sack of Rome; Henry consults More about divorce; More's daughters' dispute before Henry; Holbein paints the More family (50)

1528 - Tunstall asks More to defend Church in English; Margaret almost dies; More chosen as alternate Master of Revels, Lincoln's Inn; More's three great wishes (51)

1530 - More almost dismissed for his opposition to Henry; Cranmer completes his defense of caesaropapism (53)

1531 - Henry declared Supreme Head of the Church in England (54)

English poems (c. 1496-1504)

Correspondence (Latin and English, 1499-1535)

Latin verses to Holt's Lac Puerorum (c. 1500)

"Letter to John Colet" (c. 1504)

Latin poems, Epigrammata (1496-1516; published 1518)

Coronation ode (1509)

Epigrams on Brixius (1513)

The History of King Richard III (c. 1513-1518)

"Letter to Dorp" (1515)

Utopia (1516)

Poem and letters to his children, and letter to their tutor (1517-1522)

Letters to Oxford (1518), to a Monk (1519), and to Brixius (1520)

Quattuor Novissima (The Four Last Things] (c. 1522)

Responsio ad Lutherum (1523)

"Letter to Bugenhagen" (1526; published 1568)

A Dialogue Concerning Heresies (June 1529)

Supplication of Souls (September 1529)

A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, 2nd edition (May 1531)

Confutation of Tyndale's Answer I-III (March 1532)

Confutation of Tyndale IV-VIII (Spring 1533)

The Apology of Sir Thomas More (April 1533)

The Debellation of Salem and Bizance (October 1533)

The Answer to a Poisoned Book (December 1533)

"A Devout Prayer [before Dying]" (July 1535)