Saw Tragic Times

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6626, 12 August 1931, Page 10

Saw Tragic Times

Who: MARGARET (MORE) ROPER. Where: England. When: Sixteenth century. Why famous: Eldest and most devoted daughter of Sir Thomas More, nearly always seen in retrospect close by her father's side. The Lord (Jhancellor dwelt in his stately house at Chelsea, on the outskirts of London, where his elaborate gardens bordered the Thames. Aside from having the most happy surroundings for their play, his children wero carefully educated by the most skilful tutors. There is extant a letter which Sir Thomas wrote to one of the tutors in which he begged that his daughters might hear passages read from the works of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. Moreover, Margaret was encouraged to send daily letters to her father when he was away from home, for the purpose of perfecting her style. It was later said of her that: “No woman that could speak so well did speake so little; her secrcsie was such, that her trusted her with his most important affairs.'' So necessary was she to her father, and he to Margaret, that, even after her marriage to William Roper, a clerk of the Court of the King's Bench, the pair continued their life at Chelsea. While holding the Lord Chancellor in high favour, Henry VIII used to come sometimes to Chelsea, where he and his host would stroll in the gardens or amuse themselves with the animals in the family menagerie. But the day came when Sir Thomas's conscience did not permit of .his submission to all the King’s decrees; hence in 1533 he resigned the Great Seal of England. All tho rest is sadness. More's imprisonment in the Tower where Margaret visited him and they read Psalms together; the trial which condemned one of the noblest of England's public servants; aud tho execution which followed. It was after the trial, which had resulted unfavourably to her father that (according to one version of the incident) Margaret Roper broke through the crowd and, embracing her father, cried: “They have condemned you and you are innocent!" Then her father's quiet reply: “Aud would you have mo die guilty?” Margaret Roper seems to have been a worthy daughter to such a father.