A lot of what is known and accepted has come from various biographers of Sir Thomas More’s life, as well as different letters and writings from More and his various acquaintances. More recent biographies have begun to clean the names of Jane and Alice More. Renaissance biographers like William Roper and Nicholas Harpsfield criticized Alice More in their biographies, while biographers from the early twentieth century like Percy Allen have criticized both Jane and Alice More for being disobedient and shrewish towards Sir Thomas More.
Recent historians like Retha Warnicke have sought out to distinguish the facts from these earlier sources in order to clear these two women from their early misconceptions. William Roper and Nicholas Harpsfield were one of the first biographers of Thomas More and they gave a negative viewpoint on Alice More, Thomas More’s second wife. Roper’s biography portrayed More as a saintly figure, praising him at every opportunity. This in turn gave a negative viewpoint towards Alice More since she disagreed with Thomas on various issues in his political career.
One example of this was when More was being held in the Tower of London, where she visited him and told him to agree with the others in order to regain his freedom. Roper looked down upon this action since Alice was trying to convince Thomas to go against his own views in order to please the masses. This distaste towards her is obvious in Roper’s descriptions of her has a “simple, ignorant woman…with this manner of salutation bluntly saluted him” (243).
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Harpsfield repeated many of the same stories as Roper since Harpsfield had asked him for his account of More’s life.
Harpsfield also included a few of his own stories about Alice More. Harpsfield had the same views towards Thomas More as Roper, therefore having a similar treatment towards Alice in his biography. He uses a letter from Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten to state that Thomas More had only married Alice to take care of his household and political office, not for personal love and affections. Harpsfield also mentions a conversation between Alice and Thomas where she questions his political motives, wondering why he did not try advancing himself farther as other politicans had.
I feel that Roper and Harpsfield had deliberately tried to defame her, since it was known that while she was faithful to her husband, she was against some of his views and actions, which to biographers like Roper and Harpsfield, was against their reverent viewpoitns of Sir Thomas More. Percy Allen was a biographer from the early twentieth century who gave his own thoughts on Jane and Alice More, where he agreed with the previously mentioned biographers on their viewpoint that these women were shrewish and disobedient.
He uses Erasmus’ colloquy, “Marriage,” to describe Jane More. The colloquy describes a “man of good birth and education” who wed a 17 year old girl who was unsophisticated (Warnicke, 140).
It mentions how the man tried to educate the younger women in order to get her to enjoy and understand his likes, but she eventually got bored with these lessons and threw a tantrum in order to protest them. It also mentions on how her father told the young woman how she was lucky to have gained a husband of the man’s worth.
The details upon this story was based upon led Allen to believe that these two people were Thomas and Jane More, leading to a bad outlook on Alice’s personality. Allen’s evidence against Alice stemmed from his misinterpretation of a letter between Ammonius and Erasmus. Ammonius had been complaining about his stay in England, and he described something in five Greek words, which Francis Nichols did not translate in 1905 since he had no idea what it meant or what Ammonius was referring to.
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Allen decided that Ammonius was complaining about the behavior of Alice More. His translation led to his thoughts that Ammonius was describing Alice as a harpy, who were evil creatures in Greek mythology. This perception of Alice as this creature, while obviously not true in a literal sense, had led many people after Allen’s initial idea to accept this theory on Alice More. Retha Warnicke presented the previous opinions of Jane and Alice More as a set up to her own ideas where she disputes many of the opinions that previous biographers have put forth.
One of the first points she uses in her defense of Jane More is her education. It is popular thought that she was not smart or educated, but she presents descriptions from Roper where he says “honest conversation” and “virtuous education,” which presents the idea that Jane was actually smart and educated (143).
She also mentions that Thomas More was not a person of high status when he married Jane around 1504 or 1505, which discredits both Allen and Roper who said that she was considerably lower in social status then More.
She also mentions why More would marry the older Jane instead of her younger sisters, since it was traditional that the oldest daughter get married off first, normally coming with a higher dowry as well. Warnicke also notes that Roper failed to mention that denying Jane over younger siblings would not be an insult, but would also be embarrassing for her from a social standpoint. Warnicke in the early parts of the second section on Alice More, talks about how Thomas More probably chose to marry Alice since she was experienced in running a household, and also seemed to be a religious woman.
She also talks about different theories on when Alice and Thomas More were married, since there is no hard date on when Jane passed away and when Thomas re-married. She also talks about her theories on who the harpy is that is mentioned in the letter from Ammonius to Erasmus. She thinks that the harpy may have been someone from the medical or clerical profession since Alice was likely ill in September. The fact that Erasmus expressed his dislike for these two professional groups in many writings of his supports her claim.
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She also disclaims the idea that Alice was a bad host towards More’s humanist friends, because it says in Dialogue Concerning Heresies that More’s lady wished to offer his guests hospitality and a meal. The visitor also complimented her kindness and stated that she would prefer discussing religion to eating food. Erasmus also expressed various statements of kindness about More and his wife, where he described Alice as his “delightful wife” in a particular letter (170).
Erasmus’ letter to von Hutten in 1519 also praises Alice for her loyalty and obedience to her husband.
Warnicke states in Jane More’s chapter that More was probably married to Jane for approximately 6 years until her death, in which Thomas shows his love and affection towards her. There may have been some issues due to Thomas’ ideas but she was a devoted wife. The same can be said for Alice, where Warnicke says that Alice was devoted to pleasing her husband, doing everything that he asked, despite the idea that she may not have enjoyed everything. She only seemed to care for his well-being as well as that of their family. Judging by her statements on both marriages, I would say that they were both successful.
Since little was known about these Jane and Alice More, popular opinion on them have stemmed from the negative viewpoints of early More biographers like William Roper and Nicholas Harpsfield, as well as the views of later biographers like Percy Allen. However, recent historians like Retha Warnicke have come out in defense of these two women, giving evidence and disclaiming many negative viewpoints and theories. I felt that the writings of William Roper were very propagandized, only portraying More in the highest of ways, while anyone who went against Thomas More and his ideas got a more negative style of writing when being written about.
I felt that Warnicke’s book was very good in terms of its structure, presenting the previous evidence and ideas about the previous two women before providing her own opinion and evidence against these theories. I felt that parts of her explanations deviated away from the main topic of the two women in order to invalidate other arguments surrounding Thomas More’s personal life, but I felt that her evidence overall was well supported. I would have to agree with Warnicke that these people, while possibly disagreeing with Thomas More on certain points, were good, loyal wives to him, and undeserving of their negative criticism.
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