Margaret More Roper

Margaret More Roper (b. 1505–d. 1544) was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More and Jane Colt, More’s first wife. More was a vocal proponent of humanism, and he set up a school in his home to teach his four children—Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John—Latin and Greek as well as arithmetic, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. While More’s commitment to educating his daughters was truly pioneering, it did not reflect a proto-feminist commitment to women’s equality. Rather, More aimed to enhance all of his children’s piety, and to prepare his daughters in particular for their domestic roles as wives and mothers. By all accounts, Roper was the star pupil of this school, and she gained a national and even international reputation as one of the foremost learned women in England. Roper exchanged letters with the prominent humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who dedicated to her his commentary on two hymns by Prudentius (1523). Perhaps in response to this compliment, Roper translated Erasmus’s treatise on the Lord’s Prayer (A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, 1524) from Latin into English. Published quasi-anonymously, this text popularized Erasmian piety in the vernacular while also advocating for the value of women’s education according to humanist tenets. Roper also drew on her classical learning to compose a number of works in Latin that have since been lost: letters to her father and Erasmus, declamations, and poetry. In 1521 she married William Roper, a lawyer and a friend of her father, and she soon became a mother, giving birth to five children: Elizabeth, Mary, Thomas, Margaret, and Anthony. Like her father, Margaret Roper educated her children according to humanist standards, and her daughter Mary Basset became known in her own right for her English translations of Latin and Greek works. As Thomas More’s favorite daughter, Roper also played an important role in his personal piety and his final years. She alone washed the hair shirt that More wore for devotional purposes, and only she was allowed to visit him after he was imprisoned in the Tower for refusing to accept Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Three of the English letters that she wrote during his incarceration are extant, including the important Alington letter, which dramatically recounts her unsuccessful efforts to persuade More to change his mind. After More’s execution, she preserved his writings and his severed head, safeguarding his legacy until her own death in 1544.