Thomas More Executed

July 6, 1535

Sir Thomas More, former Lord Chancellor and author of Utopia, climbed the Tower Hill scaffold and joked with his executioner to help him up. He swore he died the King's good servant, but God's first. His head was parboiled and mounted on London Bridge. His refusal to swear the Oath of Supremacy made him a Catholic martyr whose canonization in 1935 honored fidelity to conscience.