A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg
John Guy, 2008
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780618499151
Summary
With the novelistic vividness that made his National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Queen of Scots “a pure pleasure to read” (Washington Post BookWorld), John Guy brings to life Thomas More and his daughter Margaret— his confidante and collaborator who played a critical role in safeguarding his legacy.
Sir Thomas More’s life is well known: his opposition to Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, his arrest for treason, his execution and martyrdom. Yet Margaret has been largely airbrushed out of the story in which she played so important a role. John Guy restores her to her rightful place in this captivating account of their relationship.
Always her father’s favorite child, Margaret was such an accomplished scholar by age eighteen that her work earned praise from Erasmus. She remained devoted to her father after her marriage—and paid the price in estrangement from her husband. When More was thrown into the Tower of London, Margaret collaborated with him on his most famous letters from prison, smuggled them out at great personal risk, even rescued his head after his execution.
John Guy returns to original sources that have been ignored by generations of historians to create a dramatic new portrait of both Thomas More and the daughter whose devotion secured his place in history. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1949
• Where—Warragul, Australia
• Raised—UK
• Education—Cambridge University
• Awards—Whitbread Biography Award
• Currently—teaches at Cambridge
John Guy is a leading British historian and biographer.
Born in Australia in 1949, he moved to Britain with his parents in 1952. He was educated at King Edward VII School in Lytham, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read history, taking a First. At Cambridge, Guy studied under the Tudor specialist Geoffrey Rudolph Elton. He was awarded a Greene Cup by Clare College and the Yorke Prize by the University of Cambridge.
During his academic career, he has held posts at St Andrews University (where he is Honorary Professor and was sometime Vice-Principal for Research), Bristol University—and in the US: University of California at Berkeley, Rochester University and Johns Hopkins University. Guy currently teaches at Cambridge University, as a fellow of Clare College, where he teaches part-time so he can devote more time to his writing and broadcasting career.
Guy specializes in the history of Tudor England and has written extensively on the subject. His books have been critically acclaimed, My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots was awarded the 2004 Whitbread Biography Award. He is also the author of A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and His Daughter Meg, 2008. Among his current projects is a volume in the New Oxford History of England on the early Tudor period.
His style is one of re-assessment and evaluation and his works often involve him re-telling and re-evaluating history from a novel viewpoint.
He is now married to Julia Fox, a former history teacher, who has written Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
John Guy…has had the good idea of considering More and his remarkable eldest daughter, Margaret, as a pair, and examining the bond between them.... In A Daughter's Love, Guy reminds us that More was…a man who heard hellfire crackling. His absorbing, thoroughly researched book does justice to two exemplary women—and reminds us that history is full of ironies.
Claire Tomalin - New York Times
"You alone have long known the secrets to my heart," affirmed Sir Thomas More to his eldest daughter, Margaret (1505-1544), shortly before his execution for defying Henry VIII. Guy (NBCC award winner for Queen of Scots) describes the Catholic More as a witty and flawed man: a future martyr who condemned others to be burned at the stake, who educated his daughter (Erasmus himself paid tribute to her for correcting his Latin) yet warned that women should not seek recognition for their intellectual work because it resulted in "infamy." Yet Meg's deep intellectual and religious kinship with her father ultimately strengthened More while in prison despite his crushing fears of suffering. Using extensive sources, Guy provides unprecedented insight into this intense relationship. Ironically, since More segregated his private and professional lives, there is less information about his relationship with Margaret during his years of ambition in the Tudor court, but Guy reveals an invaluable perspective on Henry VIII's political and religious machinations. Because of Margaret's dedication to her father and her own intellectual endeavors, More's body of work was saved, preserving his memory, reputation and martyrdom.
Publishers Weekly
Thomas More (1478-1535), Henry VIII's lord chancellor, a humanist scholar, and a canonized Catholic saint, is remembered as a man of unwavering principle for his refusal to recognize his king as the supreme head of the English Church, an act that led to More's execution. Thomas's eldest and favorite daughter, Margaret (he called her Meg) is much less known to us. Guy (history, Clare Coll., Univ. of Cambridge, Queen of Scots) examines their relationship in this dual biography and shows that although omitted from the historical record, Margaret played a crucial role in the formation of her father's legacy by compiling a posthumous collection of his works. A renowned scholar, she was praised by the famous humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam. In his last years, Margaret was Thomas's closest confidante and supporter, and the only one to visit him regularly in the Tower. Guy does an excellent job of providing a balanced view of Thomas More, who is also remembered for his brutal persecution of Protestants—as lord chancellor he had several burned at the stake—and for his destruction of Protestant books. Although there is no shortage of books on him, this one provides a fresh and insightful view. Recommended for academic libraries and large public libraries.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
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Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Daughter's Love:
1. Describe Thomas More's attitude toward his daughter and foster-daughter, both named Meg. He educates the two young women and inspires their ambitions, yet, ultimately, how does he view a woman's role in society?
2. How did Erasmus differ from More in his attitudes toward women? What did Erasmus think of More's daughter Margaret?
3. Discuss More's view of the family?
4. How would you describe Thomas More as an individual? What were his character and personality traits and what did he most value in life? To what does Guy attribute his rise under King Henry?
5. Talk about More's daughter Margaret in the same light—what were her traits and what did she value? What affect did her devotion to her father have on her marriage? Any comments there?
6. What caused More's downfall?
6. How does John Guy present King Henry VIII? Does his portrait of the king alter or confirm your own views of Henry's reign and personage? What did you find most surprising in Guy's portrayal of Tudor England and its politics?
7. Discuss More's correspondence in the Tower to his step-daughter. He is clearly making a political statement: how does he defend himself through his writing?
8. What have you learned from reading Guy's work? Did you learn anything new about life in Tudor England...life in the court...the role of women in society...the power of absolute monarchy...the Reformation and its virulent politics of catholicism vs. protestantism?
9. What do you think of More's views of protestants and the ways in which he prosecuted them?
10. What does it say about Margaret who, while accepting her father's views of heretics, took an oath of allegiance to Henry VIII? Why did she follow that course of action?
10. Following the execution, why did Margaret seek her father's severed head? What else did she do following More's death? What did she wish to achieve?
11. Have you read other books, or seen films, about this period in English history? Most especially, have you read the 2009 Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel, published in 2009, one year after Guy's book. How does John Guy's portrait of Thomas More compare (or contrast) with the other works?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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