Thomas More was canonised 400 years after his death. He is a patron saint of lawyers, politicians, adopted children and difficult marriages
GETTY
On the cold Sunday morning of 17 February 1516, scholar and lawyer Thomas More sat down in his London home to pen a letter to his friend Erasmus Five miles down the Thames, at Greenwich, Queen Catherine of Aragon was in labour. More, along with the whole country, would soon be devoting prayers to the safe delivery of a son to secure the Tudor dynasty. But in the few minutes he had dedicated to himself and his work, he had other matters on his mind.
He had recently returned from a diplomatic mission on behalf of Henry VIII. The mission, More told Erasmus, had been long, expensive and professionally futile, although it had been personally productive. While away, he had found the time to begin work on the book that would become his masterpiece, Utopia. He had penned the pages about the ideal island but, upon returning to life in England, had found it difficult to finish his work. There was also another distraction: he had been offered a pension from the King.