St. Thomas More of London (Vision Books)

This book is a wonderful introduction into the life of St Thomas More. Thomas More served his king, but first and foremost he served God. He was a brilliant and important man, but he always had time for even the lowest of people. He was kind and generous to all. He, of course, could not and would not support King Henry VIII, who wished to divorce his wife and be the head of the Church of England, leaving the Catholic Church. Thomas More gave everything to God, even his very life.After reading this, I would recommend the DVD, A Man for All Seasons (Special Edition) .

awesome! highly recommend this!

Easy to read. Good for a teenage reader.

My 10-year-old son loves this series!

Great

I thought this book was great and I really enjoyed reading about the life of the wonderful St. Thomas More. It is well written and very easy to read. There are quite a few drawn pictures in this book, which are located at the start of each chapter. The book details many aspects of his life including his early life at home, his days spent at Lambeth Palace, his time at Oxford where he became a scholar of great repute and details the time he spent learning to be a lawyer following in his fathers footsteps.This book in many ways is quite revealing because it details many of the issues that were going on in England and Europe at the time. Above all though Thomas was a family man but work often kept him away from his beloved wife and family. This seemed to increase as the King often sent him on missions to Europe for the good of England. Thomas always accepted these as he had a gift for reconciling opposing views. These skills ultimately led him to be appointed as the King's Lord Chancellor.After accepting this post Thomas became increasingly uneasy at the way the King was governing the country and he decided to resign his post as Lord Chancellor. Thomas was then able to spend all his time with his loving family but the King pursued him relentlessly to approve of his divorce to the current Queen. This he never did so the King produced an Act of Succession and every citizen over the age of twenty-one had to sign an oath swearing they agreed with everything in the Act. Thomas could not do this and as a result he was arrested. He spent many months in jail in the Tower of London. During this time Thomas, as he had done throughout his life, put all his faith in God's will. At his trial the skill of Thomas, as a gifted lawyer, was supreme and yet he was still convicted of treason by the jury. He was to suffer a most cruel and painful death by being hanged, drawn and quartered but the King relented at the last minute and Thomas was beheaded on 6th July 1535, the Octave of the feast of Saints Peter & Paul. It was said by Thomas More that he was the King's loyal servant but God's first.