Kathryn, that’s an interesting article by Matthew Mehan on Thomas More, and it’s fascinating, but no surprise, to learn that More was honoured in the early years of the Soviet state. It should be remembered that, as Lord Chancellor of England, this man effectivelyreinstated the burning of heretics (there hadn’t been any for eight years). This was not someone who, even by the standards of a deplorably intolerant era, had much patience with dissidents.

To get an idea of the sort of ideological control More wanted to enforce, keep in mind that much of More’s crusade against ‘heresy’ revolved around his opposition to an English-language bible (a crusade that More himself acknowledged was controversial even at the time). Those who appreciate the beauty of the King James’ Bible would do well to acknowledge how much that lovely work owes to the earlier translation by William Tyndale, and to remember the persecution that Tyndale and his followers suffered at the hands of More. In More’s view, hellfire awaited such “wretches”, and he clearly relished the thought that they would (as he wrote) have to go through the “fyre of Smythfelde” first…

A brilliant man, certainly, but one with distinctly mixed record…