A Man Born Again

A Novel Based on the Life of Saint Thomas More

John Edward Beahn

• Publisher: TAN Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780967597867
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Status and wealth, power and fame: St. Thomas More had them all. As a wise and popular statesman, internationally recognized scholar, and Lord Chancellor of England, More was perhaps the most highly respected Englishman of his day until his conscience required that he lay down his life for his Catholic faith. A generation ago, the American Catholic novelist John Edward Beahn retold More's life story as a biographical novel, A Man Born Again: A Novel Based on the Life of St. Thomas More, published in 1954. Making ample use of the rich historical records of sixteenth-century England, Beahn lays out the convoluted political landscape of the period, which set the scene for the disastrous efforts of King Henry VIII to divorce his queen and marry his mistress—while demanding that the Church grant him sanction for his immorality. Alongside the political complexities, Beahn traces the development of More's interior landscape. Family conflicts, vocational perplexities, personal tragedies, and forthright acquaintances all played their part in shaping his soul. These influences, converging with the political developments that relentlessly pressed in on him, forged a remarkable character that combined brilliant intellect, moral integrity, and deep devotion to Christ and His Church. In the end, More chose to give his life rather than compromise his convictions under coercion from the state. No doubt a second generation of readers will welcome this TAN Legend edition of A Man Born Again: A Novel Based on the Life of St. Thomas More, as twenty-first-century political trends call for heroic Catholic resistance to government assault upon the Church.

BOOK II

1

I WENT to Master Middleton, as I had promised, to begin work on the first law case assigned to me in more than a year. I was not happy at the prospect of applying myself strenuously again to the law; but I cherished a hope that perhaps some greater attention to legal business and less attention to writing was the sacrifice God asked of me.

The case entrusted to me by Master Middleton inaugurated a new era. I won judgment without difficulty and in such manner that the Sheriff himself complimented me from his high bench, thereby causing more discussion of the case than it deserved. Master Middleton was delighted and demanded that, thereafter, I represent all his interests before the court. Then, genial and grateful man that he was, he praised me so highly to his fellow merchants that he convinced them to assign their interests also to my care.

My fortune improved steadily with my newly regained fame. Cases flowed into my hands from Master Middleton and other merchants in increasing number. Most of them required presentation only in the Sheriff’s Court, where I was invariably successful. Those cases that must be presented in the King’s Court I delivered to lawyers reputed to enjoy the King’s favor.

Jane was happier and more content than she had ever been in London; our new friends, the merchants whom I represented in the court, seemed more agreeable to her as though more nearly like the people she had known in the country. The major cause of her happiness, however, was her friendship with Mistress Alice and the older woman’s affection for her and the children. When Cecily, our third child, was born in January of 1508, Mistress Alice took Margaret and Elizabeth to her own home, relieving Jane of their care and me of an unwelcome responsibility.

Between Mistress Alice and myself there existed more respect than friendship. My respect for her increased during the weeks that she cared for the two children. She was not a stranger to them, but neither was she such a familiar as to explain their contentment and the manner in which she consoled their separation from Jane. I could discern few external indications of her affection for the children, but they seemed never to doubt it.

Even so, I was not happy. I disliked the law as much as ever I had. Multiplication of the number of cases referred to me evidenced my success in the eyes of others but meant to me only that I was becoming ever more entangled in an activity I disliked with increasing intensity. The improvement of my fortune, derived from law, was not and never could be sufficient to compensate for the lost pleasure of writing. I was forced so to reduce the time allotted to writing the history of King Richard III that I might as well have discontinued it altogether, so small was my progress. As weeks passed, my hope that greater attention to legal duties was the sacrifice God asked of me slowly evaporated; the fears that had taken root in me while I rode the stage from Reardon to Coventry continued. I was conscious, every moment of the day, of God’s power, of His displeasure with a proud man, of my own pride so often demonstrated. My efforts to attend to law and ignore writing brought me no closer to that glimpse of God’s mercy Father Paul had promised.

In June of that year, 1508, while the Middletons were visiting us, Jane told them our plans to visit Newhall during the summer and invited them to accompany us. Mistress Alice’s shrewd eyes turned immediately and briefly on me, reviving the discomfort I had felt when I had first met her and from which I had never completely recovered. She made me conscious of the turmoil raging within me, a conflict I had hidden from Jane and wished to hide from all others.

“Master Thomas would do well to enjoy a vacation alone,” she answered Jane. “With his legal business, his writing, and the children to disturb him, he should have time away from all three.”

“He should,” Jane agreed immediately, as I think she would have agreed to whatever Mistress Alice suggested. “You should have a vacation all your own, dear,” she urged me.

I smiled casually to avoid agreement or disagreement. I knew that Mistress Alice was telling me I could not continue application to both law and writing. She was telling me that my ambitions to write were vain, that I should look objectively at the folly of continuing, should appreciate my talents as a lawyer, should be grateful for the life my family could enjoy because of my success at law. I must choose between the two. She was challenging me as both man and father.

I did not want to make that choice. I wanted to struggle longer with the law only to support my family; I wanted to write to sustain my spirits. I did not want to look objectively at the folly of pursuing two careers. If I knew, in my heart, the impossibility of continuing both, I did not want to perceive it with my mind. I wanted to delay decision, to continue major application to law only until God revealed His satisfaction with my sacrifice by relieving me of my fears. That relief would signal that I might again give greater attention to my writing.

Jane continued urging the course Mistress Alice proposed. I saw clearly that refusal would cause disappointment to her, that it would also cause loss of Mistress Alice’s respect. I allowed Jane to persuade me, pretending to weigh the matter before agreeing while, within me, a new hope arose that a journey might distract me from my fears. At length, we agreed that I should accompany Jane and the children to Newhall but depart immediately for my own vacation on the Continent.

I went first to the university at Paris, to steep myself in that atmosphere of literature and learning and thus forget my fears. I found no relief there but persisted for three weeks before journeying to Louvain. As at Paris, neither the aura of learning nor strangeness of surroundings dissipated my dread. At the end of the second week, news arrived that London was seized by an epidemic of sickness that was devastating the city. I had found neither relief from my fears nor solution to the conflict between law and literature; to these was added worry about Jane and the children, and I slept only fitfully through the four days of traveling.

A London acquaintance, encountered as I debarked from the vessel at Dover, stilled my fears. Jane and the children were still well and safe at Newhall. Then he informed me that Master Middleton had been seized by the illness and succumbed. My relief at the safety of my family was countered by this information of Mistress Alice’s grief.

I let one London stage depart, then another, without attempting to board them. I could do nothing of value for Mistress Alice, I assured myself, and would only endanger my own life by venturing into the city. I should guard my life and health for the sake of my own wife and children. I should board the small river boat that would discharge me on the shore of the river in Essex. At that point, I could board a stage to Reardon without once exposing myself to the danger in London.

I watched the boat prepare and leave. I could not ignore the claims of Mistress Alice; nor would Jane accept readily whatever explanation or excuse I offered for failure to help Mistress Alice. I must go directly to London.

London was a strangely silent city. The crowds had disappeared from the streets, seeking safety within their houses despite the stifling September heat. Funeral processions—a few acolytes preceding a shrouded form on a cart, with a priest following—seemed everywhere. I crowded into doorways to avoid contamination whenever I encountered these groups. The silence of my home where I deposited my luggage accentuated my cowardice. I hurried to the Middletons so that I would not surrender to the impulse to board the stage from the city.

Mistress Alice seemed to be two persons in one. She was the same shrewd woman I had always known; her eyes had lost none of their penetration. She was also a woman rendered helpless—a woman most unlike the purposeful woman I knew. Her expression lighted immediately when the servant quietly admitted me, and I was glad that I had not fled from the city.

“You should not have come to London, Master More,” she said, lapsing again into her practical nature.

“I thought I might be of help,” I offered.

She nodded. “You might convince my husband’s chief clerk that he can release funds to me from the business without a court order.” Her voice faltered when she referred to Master Middleton, but she forced it to regain a normal tone. Her lifetime habit of practicality was helping her to surmount her suffering.

“Master Middleton left no will?”

She shook her head briefly. She seemed about to say more, then decided against it.

“May I handle his affairs and yours, Mistress Alice?”

“Thank you, Master More. I am sorry you will have so much trouble.”

It would be troublesome, I knew. Employees of Master Middleton’s firm would delay proceedings in order to delay termination of their employment. Courts would delay. Other relatives might seek to claim shares of the estate. It was a sufficiently troublesome matter that I would not have offered my services except for my gratitude and, more especially, Jane’s affection for her. Such matters were tedious, time-consuming, and unrewarding.

I did receive immediate compensation in the form of a letter from Jane, in which she extolled so much my courage and goodness in going to London that I was shamed by remembering the day of indecision at Dover. Something much greater, however, must have been granted me during the weeks and months that followed, some favor greater than the admiration of a loving wife, for the actual experience of attending matters pertaining to Master Middleton’s estate was even more wearying than I had expected. Little legal talent was required for the work, but much attention to details. The monotonous regularity conflicted with my personal tendencies to avoid such uninteresting work.

The plague passed. Jane returned with the children and gave her attention to Mistress Alice as Mistress Alice had given to us. I forced myself to attend my self appointed task. At times I looked longingly at my desk and the undisturbed papers of the history of King Richard III; but I had not sufficient strength remaining at the end of a day to resume writing. The months passed. Not until March of 1509 was I able to conclude the matter of Master Middleton’s estate and give Mistress Alice the last of the papers.

I enjoyed that evening a sensation of freedom from the multiplicity of detail that had claimed my attention for such an extended period.

“You are enjoying the satisfaction of work well done,” Jane said smiling.

I shook my head. “A clerk would have done that type of work as well as or even better than I. I can’t force myself to like such monotonous work.”

“But you did it,” Jane insisted. “You weren’t doing the work you like…”

I did not hear the remainder of her words. What she had said awoke both memory and consciousness—memory of Father Paul’s words—“Leaving all things means that you do something for God when you would rather devote your time and efforts to some interest of your own”—and consciousness that I was free of much more than the details of Master Middleton’s estate. I was free of my fears! The discovery burst within me. God had lifted that trial from my heart! Timidly and reluctantly as I had returned to London to help Mistress Alice, grudgingly as I had pursued the matter, God had accepted my efforts as though I had done all for Him—God had let me glimpse His infinite mercy to balance that glimpse of His immutable justice. And by that glimpse, my fears had been dispelled.

2

FREED of my fears, I was as a man freed from chains. That God had imposed those fears, I did not doubt; no other could have perceived the gigantic stature of my pride nor measured as accurately the weight required to crush it. Similarly, the relief pervading my whole being—heart, mind, soul, and body—was of God also; no other could imbue me with such lightness of spirit, energy of body, wit and quickness of mind. I exulted in the knowledge that I had suffered a great trial by God, had remained faithful to Him, and was now being rewarded by Him.

All things joined toward my well-being and happiness. King Henry VII, as though symbolizing the end of my travail, died in April of that year, 1509. None pretended grief at the death of the man who had ruled his realm with the same force with which he had won it. Some said that he had ruled well in that he had suppressed the nobles, whose warring with each other had held the whole country in turmoil for the thirty years preceding his reign; he brought peace to all England, they said. What they said may have been true; I admired the courage of any who were willing to speak good of the dead King to the people. Bishop Fisher, when he preached at the funeral, spoke but little of the King’s life but emphasized that King Henry VII had been repentant at death—a more prudent and more beneficial observation than any pertaining to the King’s acts during life.

England rejoiced—and I more than most others—that the eighth King Henry was, in all things, unlike his father. The seventh had been avaricious, autocratic, vengeful, and shrewd. The eighth was gracious, personable, athletic, genial, and learned. Our cup of joy filled and overflowed; we were as a nation inebriated. When the eighteen-year-old King Henry married Princess Catherine, widow of his own brother, the people of London celebrated through that day and all through the night. On the day of their coronation, the same people so filled the streets that the horsemen and the royal coach traversed a narrow aisle of cheering subjects.

Relieved of my fears and rejoicing in the accession of our new king and his queen, I poured out my own feelings in odes and sonnets, hailing the advent of our Golden Age. Erasmus hurried again to England from the Continent, summoned by a letter from one of his pupils, who wrote poetically and imaginatively, “The heavens laugh, the earth exults, all things are full of milk, of honey, of nectar! Avarice is expelled from the country. Liberality scatters wealth with a bounteous hand. Our king does not desire gold or gems or precious metals but virtue, glory, immortality.” England—all England—rejoiced as though a long winter had passed and spring had returned to warm the land and the hearts of men.

My personal fortune increased more rapidly than before with the change of kings. The disfavor I had suffered from King Henry VII and his courts was past. All knew that an era of guile and craft was ended; an era of learning and generosity was beginning. The virtue of the new king was assurance that I and all others would enjoy fairness in his courts. Those who had been my friends, who had abandoned me, who had withheld their legal matters from me, now assigned their cases to me, such was the reputation I had gained by my work for the merchants in the Sheriff’s Court. I accepted the work without enthusiasm; my business with the merchants was sufficiently prosperous, and the new era, combined with my new lightness of heart, promised that I might now achieve greater success as a writer.

Unrelated to other events of the day, but certainly a part of my own happiness and good fortune, was the birth of our fourth child and first son, John. Despite the recent bereavement she had suffered, Mistress Alice insisted that she care for the other children as she had before during Jane’s confinement. Margaret and Elizabeth shr...

Table of contents

• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Book I
• Book-II
• Back cover