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(Recognized as a Saint in the Roman Catholic church).
"So far as the Law of Christ allows" is a frase that was introduced by this man in 1531 at a Convocation on the subject of the role of the Monarch.
He was trying to save lives and lessen the cataclysm which sadly was to come!
Sadly this great filosofer, scholar and humanist met an unfitting end.
He completely REFUSED to accept the "ACT OF SUPREMACY" of 1534 - as did so many others.
For this and since attempts to do good were too much for the King, he was perpetually imprisoned and eventually executed.
His head was placed on London Bridge then thrown in the Thames and his remains buried without ceremony at All Hallows churchyard in Barking, Essex.
I was unaware of this Yorkshireman of principle who shares his Feast Day with Saint Thomas More.
He was the First (Lady Margaret) Professor of Divinity at my "alma mater" of a kind - Cambridge University.
He was also a Renaissance humanist like More - in the sense that he believed in studying the Classical languages.
He was also summarily murdered by Henry 8th King of England at Tower Hill - once again on the simple point that he could not accept a law stating that the Monarch was the spiritual Head of the Christian Church in England.
When I read about him today I was moved.
The thing is it was in the second paragraph of the account of his life and it seemed so brusque - straight away one was reading of his last moments and what he said.
Along with the fact that English people simply don't seem to appreciate their own history.
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