Born Milk Street. In conflict with Henry VIII over religion he was imprisoned in the tower, found guilty of treason and beheaded on Tower Hill. Final words: "The King's good servant, but God's First."
From his marriage in 1505 he lived in Bucklersbury in the City. In 1525 he moved from there to Chelsea to a house he had built, (later known as) Beaufort House. In 1529 he was made Lord Chancellor.
A very good friend of Erasmus who often stayed with More in Beaufort House.
As a traitor, his head was displayed on a pike at London Bridge for a month. His daughter, Margaret, later rescued the severed head and it is believed to rest in the Roper Vault of St Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. Alternatively it may be buried within the tomb erected for More in Chelsea Old Church. A third, unlikely, story is that John Donne's mother, Elizabeth, who was a great-niece of Thomas More, carried his head around with her.
2025: confirmed that Margaret "was buried with the head following her death in 1544. It was moved with her remains when they were transferred to the Roper family vault more than 30 years later." And "The Church of England is weighing plans to exhume and enshrine the head of St. Thomas More ... it wants to exhume the skull so it can be venerated by pilgrims. ... to exhume and conserve what remains of the relic, which will take several years to dry out and stabilize. 'We could just put it back in the vault, maybe in a reliquary of some kind, or we could place the reliquary in some sort of shrine or carved stone pillar above ground in the Roper chapel, which is what many of our visitors have requested.' "
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