What If Thomas More Had Just Signed? (My Hair and I Discuss)

About this episode

The episode explores the implications of Thomas More signing the Oath of Supremacy and its potential impact on the English Reformation and historical events.

What if Thomas More had just signed the Oath of Supremacy? He could have. Plenty of people did. Cranmer signed it. Cromwell signed it. So why didn't More, and what would have changed if he had? In this week's What If Thought Experiment, we're looking at one of the Tudor period's most interesting counterfactuals. Henry VIII didn't need More's signature legally, he wanted it because More was the gold standard of European humanist credibility. Getting More to sign meant something. And More refused to give him that. We talk about what a living More might have meant for the trajectory of the English Reformation, whether Mary I's reign might have looked different without the brutal martyrdoms of the 1530s setting the tone, and the woman at the center of it all: Margaret Roper, who bribed a guard, lied to the King's Council, and was buried holding her father's pickled head nine years later. I have complicated feelings about Thomas More. Come have them with me. 🔗 Links mentioned:My Katherine of Aragon video, where I talk about similar frustrations: https://youtu.be/WDF3Cs3P3IY More What If Thought Experiments: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyxR5N2MPwbxZEmGg22jn-da5cpCIJ2Qt…

People in this episode

Host: Heather Teysko

Topics covered

• Thomas More
• Oath of Supremacy
• Tudor period
• English Reformation
• counterfactual history
• Margaret Roper

Keywords

• Thomas More
• Oath of Supremacy
• Henry VIII
• Tudor history
• English Reformation
• Margaret Roper
• counterfactuals
• Cranmer
• Cromwell
• Mary I

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