Margaret Roper
Margaret Roper (* 1505 in Cheapside, London , † 1544 in Chelsea, London ) was an English translator . Taught in the same subjects as her brother by her father, the humanist Thomas More , she was considered one of the most educated women in Europe. She was in lively correspondence with Erasmus of Rotterdam , whose commentary on the Lord's Prayer she translated. After her father was executed on the orders of Henry VIII , she managed to secure the writings and letters that he had written during his imprisonment and to keep them for posterity.
Life
Birth and childhood
Margaret was born in Bucklersbury, Cheapside, in 1505, the eldest daughter of Thomas More and Joan Colt. Her namesake was St. Margaret , patron saint of births, which, according to John Guy, together with her mother's special thanksgiving in the church, could be an indication of a difficult birth. Shortly after they were weaned, a friend of the More family, Mistress Giggs, who, as the mother of a girl of the same age, may have been Margaret's wet nurse, died. Their orphaned daughter, Margaret Giggs , was then taken in by the Mores as a foster daughter. She was to become Margaret Roper's closest friend. Biological siblings soon followed. Margaret's sister Elizabeth was born in 1506, followed a year later by another sister named Cecily. In 1509 her brother John finally saw the light of day. Margaret's mother, Joan, died just two years later. Her father married the widow Alice Middleton within a month of her death, who brought a daughter Alice, six years older than Margaret, into the marriage.
The young Margaret came into contact with European humanists from an early age. Erasmus von Rotterdam , a friend of her father's, stayed with the More family for a while on the occasion of the coronation of Henry VIII . Over the years he and Margaret developed a friendship. Her development was particularly interesting for him. While Thomas More was open to Plato's ideas of giving women education too, Erasmus remained skeptical. From his point of view, training was at best a way of passing the time for a woman, like music and handicrafts. It is possible that this contrast inspired Thomas More to experiment with promoting the education of his daughters.
Instruction and training
In about 1516 John Clement, a Page of Thomas Mores, began teaching in London as a tutor. His students also included Margaret and her siblings, whom he taught Greek and Latin. When Cardinal Wolsey got him a teaching position at Oxford, Thomas More found a new teacher for his children in William Gonnell. Margaret quickly turned out to be a talented and ambitious student, which led her father to say that even as a child she could not bear to adorn herself with strange feathers. In a letter to his daughter he wrote:
“I was delighted to receive your letter, my dearest Margaret. Later letters will be even more enjoyable when they tell me about your and your brother's studies, about your daily reading, your pleasant discussions, your essays, the rapidly passing days that become enjoyable through literary studies. Now I expect a letter from each and every one of you almost every day. I will have no excuses. Nobody prevents you from writing, on the contrary, everyone encourages you to do so. "
The children's curriculum initially consisted of reading the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers. Margaret received daily training in Latin translations, as well as poetry and writing essays, some of them also in Latin. Since her father had accepted a position as royal advisor in 1518, he was away from home for extended periods, which Gonnell used to encourage Margaret and her siblings to write letters to train their expression and style. Gradually more complex authors like Sallust and more demanding passages from the Bible soon made Margaret's written knowledge of Latin so excellent that her father wrote to her full of praise:
“There is no reason, beloved daughter, not to write to me for a day just because you fear, out of uncertainty, that your letters are so badly written that I can only read them with displeasure. My dear Margaret, your letters were so elegant and polished and gave you little reason to fear a father's indulgent judgment. "
From around 1521 Margaret was also taught mathematics, geography, and astronomy. Yet there was a crucial difference between the education of the sisters and the brother. John was also taught rhetoric to make off-the-cuff speeches that were considered improper for women. Instead, the girls learned music and handicrafts. Despite all his openness to new ideas, More was still a man of his time. For him, educating a woman was an opportunity to help her become more prudent and virtuous. More independence and public recognition for learned women, however, were by no means his goal. This attitude became evident when Margaret toyed with the idea of publishing a book of her own one day. For More, this plan was an expression of vanity and arrogance, bordering on immorality.
"Though I prefer education combined with virtue to any royal treasure, if one subtracts moral honesty, fame for education produces nothing but notorious and remarkable insolence, especially in a woman."
A woman should deepen her education to develop spiritually, not to brag about it in public. Only her immediate family should enjoy her works. So, while under her father's tutelage, Margaret had to put her literary plans and ambitions aside.
Relationship with her father
Despite his strictness about her writing ambitions, Margaret had a very warm, intimate relationship with her father. In his letters he often called her "Meg" or "Beloved Daughter" and he was full of pride and emotion about her progress. The education of his daughters was important to him.
“I assure you, before I allow my children to be idle and lazy, I would sacrifice wealth and leave other worries and activities in order to devote myself to my children and family, none of which I prefer to be you, mine beloved daughter. "
Her remarkable achievements made Thomas More so proud that he bragged about his clever daughter in a very subtle way in front of his friends. One method was to "accidentally" find a letter from Margaret while talking to friends and show it to the friend. In this way, Margaret's effusions also came into the hands of Reginald Pole , who hardly wanted to be convinced by More that a young woman had written something like this without the help of a teacher. His doubts made More understand that his daughter's talents received little recognition in contemporary society, largely because the thought of educated women was still so new and unusual.
“People's disbelief robs you of the praise that you so honestly deserve with your efforts, for they will never believe, when they read what you have written, that you do not seek help on a regular basis, even though you have these suspicions from all authors least deserve. "
How much More cared his eldest daughter was shown by his reaction when she became seriously ill. English sweat ravaged the country in 1528, killing innumerable lives. Margaret Roper was also affected by the disease. It was already known that patients who fell asleep while the disease progressed would eventually die, so doctors tried to keep them awake. However, Margaret's condition deteriorated and her father prayed desperately for her life. Margaret's husband, William Roper, wrote in his biography Life of Sir Thomas More :
“Her father, who loved her dearly and was deeply concerned for her, sought a cure for her in prayer to God. As he always did, he knelt down in his chapel and implored Almighty God with tears, if it were His will to grant him his humble request. In the meantime, it occurred to him that an enema was the only way to help her. When he told the doctors, they gradually admitted that it was indeed the best method, amazed that they hadn't thought of it sooner. It was immediately administered to her in her sleep. Against all odds, she miraculously recovered from her father's fervent prayers, it was believed, and eventually regained her health. Her father said that if God had liked to accept her into his grace at the time, he would never again have interfered in worldly affairs. "
Over time, Margaret became her father's closest confidante. She was one of the few people who knew he was wearing a silicon , a fact that he kept a secret from his second wife for a long time. According to William Roper's biography Thomas Mores, Margaret was the one who entrusted her father with the silicon for washing. Once, Roper said, More's ward and future daughter-in-law Anne Cresacre had seen him wear the silicon, which made her laugh. Margaret, who found out about it, told her father in private, who then took great care not to let anyone see it. Shortly before his execution he sent it to her so that no one would see it on the scaffold.
Marriage to William Roper
In the summer of 1521 Margaret married William Roper , the eldest son of an acquaintance of her father, at St. Stephen Church . Since a war with France was looming at this time and Thomas More could be recalled at any minute, he had obtained special permission for a quick marriage. The two families could not agree on the dowry for a long time until More finally made a proposal that everyone found acceptable. Margaret and William were given free boarding and lodging at Bucklersbury for five years and the dowry, along with Margaret's lands, would be paid out at a later date. It is likely that from now on William Roper attended “School” with his wife Thomas More, because Thomas More wrote to Margaret: “I am glad that your husband has taken up the same studies as you. I will always try, you to convince him to give in to him in everything, but now I give you my express permission to surpass him in astronomy! "
The marriage with William Roper was to be quite turbulent in places. William was involved in a long legal battle with his father, who showed little interest in bequeathing all of his property to his eldest son. In addition, William Roper began to develop an increasing interest in the Reformation and the ideas of Martin Luther . Interestingly enough, Thomas More had written a diatribe against Luther in the name of the king and despised the reformers as heretics who, in his opinion, deserved the harshest treatment if they were not revoked. He and his son-in-law argued long and long over religious principles, but Thomas More did not want to succeed in convincing William. Perhaps it was Margaret's influence that induced her husband to return to the Catholic faith. In 1529 her father and William Roper were apparently reconciled, because Thomas More, now Lord Chancellor of England, gave William a seat in Parliament. The care of the young family - the first daughter Elizabeth was born in 1523 - was temporarily secured.
One of the most educated women in Europe
Even as a married woman, Margaret maintained correspondence with Erasmus. The anecdote from this time led Erasmus to describe her as one of the most educated women in Europe. While reading Saint Cyprian's letters, which Erasmus had edited, Margaret noticed, thanks to her knowledge of Latin, an error by Erasmus which seriously changed the meaning of a sentence. At the same time, she discovered that the letter in question was not from Cyprian, but from Novatian , who was condemned as a heretic and schismatic. Erasmus, a little embarrassed about the mistake, was deeply impressed by Margaret's abilities and wrote as a hidden praise a religious talk in which a foolish abbot named Antronius is exposed in a dialogue with the intelligent Magdalia because of his misogynous attitude as a simpleton.
Another friend of Margaret was Juan Luis Vives , who was later to publish an important work on the education of women and a textbook for the young Princess Maria on behalf of Queen Catherine of Aragón .
In 1525 Margaret and her sisters Elizabeth and Cecily were invited to the royal court for the first and only time for the Christmas holidays. In fact, they were supposed to show their talents, since the king was always interested in education. His illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy had already been taught Latin and the question arose whether he should learn Greek as well. Since the sisters had been taught in this language from an early age, Henry VIII wanted to see for himself whether Greek was really suitable for sharpening the young mind. Before the royal court, Margaret, Cecily and Elizabeth argued and presented their arguments on various tricky legal cases in which they stood up for different sides. A contemporary who saw Margaret's notes stated: "The more difficult such a defense is, the greater the power of its eloquence and wit."
Publication as an author
Margaret's scholarship sometimes pushed her to the limit of heresy, at least in England's religiously troubled climate. By the age of nineteen she had translated Erasmus' Precatio dominica into English, emphasizing that the text could be read aloud and hit the author's tone: “I tried to translate the same style and effect into English, as precisely as the seriousness and importance of such an important story demand. "
With the help of her father's doctor, Richard Hyrde, Margaret found a publisher named Thomas Berthelet. Due to the prevailing moral standards, however, it would have been improper to publish her book under her real name. It was published under the title A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, made first in Latin by the most famous doctor Master Erasmus Roterodamus, and turned into English by a young, virtuous and well-learned gentlewoman of xix years of age . However, one could guess from the preface the true identity of the author.
When the first edition of the book was out of print in 1526 and a reprint became necessary, it turned out that, contrary to valid regulations, it had not been submitted to the church for approval. Margaret's publisher Berthelet received a request from Bishop Richard Foxford to answer for the sale of “a certain work called The Treatise of the Pater Noster , translated by Master Roper's wife”. In this situation, Richard Hyrde helped her, who, through his friend Stephen Gardiner , the secretary of Cardinal Wolsey, persuaded him to approve the new edition within a very short time and even to decorate the print with his personal coat of arms to demonstrate his support.
Friend and confidante of the father
The family's situation deteriorated rapidly when Henry VIII claimed the title of head of the English Church in 1532. Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor and stayed away from Anne Boleyn's coronation celebrations . Since Margaret and William continued to live at Thomas More's house, they spent a little over a year in increasing poverty. When the new queen gave birth to her only daughter Elisabeth in 1534 , Heinrich immediately set about changing the succession to the throne in Elisabeth's favor with a new law. The 1st Act of Succession included a. an oath from each subject that the reorganization of the succession to the throne and Heinrich's marriage to Anne Boleyn was final. Shortly before the law went into effect, Thomas More signed the Butts Close property, part of his Chelsea estate, to Margaret and William. Having your own house was in the worst case, i. H. the confiscation of More's property for treason, at least the future of the Ropers secured. A little later, More was imprisoned in the Tower for refusing to take the oath .
During the months of his captivity, Margaret became Thomas More's only connection with the outside world. Thanks to his servant John Wood, he managed to smuggle letters to his daughter, whom she not only answered, but also collected. Unlike him, Margaret had taken the oath, which allowed her to visit him. Thomas Cromwell still had hope that Thomas More could still be convinced, which is why he allowed Margaret unrestricted visits during the day. His work A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation was created during her visits and exchanges with her father . Margaret also wrote a letter to her stepsister Alice that included a dialogue between her and her father. In this dialogue, Margaret took the side of those who had taken the oath while Thomas More made his point. Since Margaret and her siblings used letterwriting from an early age to introduce and discuss topics, historians have suggested that part of the dialogue is fictional to make it more literarily dramatic. It cannot, therefore, be said with complete certainty that Margaret tried at all costs to convince her father to take the oath.
When Parliament reassembled on November 3, 1534, Margaret was forbidden from further visits and More's detention conditions were tightened. Nevertheless, a secret correspondence continued between them and Margaret sent her father a self-composed prayer, which prompted him to say the touched words:
“Your loving letter, my beloved child, was and is to me, as I assure you, a greater inner consolation than my pen can express, especially since God in His great goodness gives you the grace to grasp the incomparable difference between the wretched Existence in this life and the richness of life that comes to those who die in God. "
On July 1, 1535 Thomas More was sentenced to death. On his way back to the Tower Margaret fought her way through the soldiers to her father and hugged and kissed him one last time. He smuggled his last work De Tristitia Christi from the Tower to Margaret with the words that he had now revealed to her the deepest part of his heart. In a final letter to her, More wrote:
"Dear Meg, I have never liked your behavior to me better than in the moment when you kissed me for the last time, because I love it when daughterly love and good mercy don't care about worldly etiquette. Farewell my dear child and pray for me, as I will for you and all your friends, that we will see each other happily in heaven. I thank you for your great sacrifice. "
The memory of the father
In August 1535, a month after her father's execution, Margaret Roper and her maid, Dorothy Colley, went to London Bridge , where the heads of convicted criminals were on display. They usually stayed there between two and six weeks and were thrown into the Thames after that time. Margaret managed to bribe the bridge master and save her father's head. Instead of being thrown into the Thames, it was given to Margaret, who took it to Chelsea and seasoned it there to keep it from rotting.
In October she was called to Cromwell, who asked her if she was promoting a cult with the severed head and if she was hiding her father's papers. Margaret calmly replied:
"I saved my father's head from being devoured by the fish because I wanted to bury it, and I have hardly any books or papers other than a few personal letters, and I humbly ask your permission to keep them."
Margaret had already collected her father's letters during his lifetime and now she set about editing his works so that one day they would be published. She received help in this task from her father's former secretary, John Harris, from her foster sister Margaret Giggs (now after their marriage Margaret Clement) and from Geoffrey Pole , brother Reginald Poles and son Margaret Poles . When Cromwell was interrogating Pole in the wake of the Exeter Conspiracy , he angrily asked him:
“How often have you met Mrs. Roper or Mrs. Clement in the past twelve months or two years, and where did you meet them? What communication was there between you and them regarding Sir Thomas More's death and others, and the reasons for it? Have you heard of any letters, papers, or books that have been sent to you or your friends? What was the content of these letters? "
Once again Margaret got away with a sharp warning, but when her sister Cecily's husband was executed on a false accusation as a traitor in 1540, she had to realize that the manuscript could not be published during Henry VIII's lifetime. Instead, she focused on the upbringing and education of her own children, which she taught along the lines of her father's "school".
death
Pressure on the family increased when William Roper was imprisoned in the Tower in 1544 on suspicion of scheming against Thomas Cranmer . Margaret fell seriously ill before the end of the year. She died during the Christmas celebrations at the age of 39 and was buried in Chelsea Parish Church with her father's head. Her daughter Mary and her foster sister Margaret Giggs finally managed, under the reign of Mary I , to realize Margaret Roper's dream and to publish her father's collected works. In 1557 it appeared under the title The Works of Sir Thomas More, Knight, Sometime Lord Chancellor of England, written by him in the English tongue . After William Roper's death in 1578, Margaret's coffin was transferred to Roper's tomb in St. Dunstan's , Canterbury , so that the couple were ultimately buried side by side.
Children and offspring
Margaret's marriage to William Roper produced a total of 5 children:
- Elizabeth (1523–1560), 1st marriage to John Stevenson, 2nd marriage to Sir Edward Bray
- Mary (died 1572), childless marriage to Stephen Clarke, 2nd marriage to James Basset (sons Philip and Charles)
- Thomas (1534–1598), married to Lucy Browne, sister of the first Viscount Montague (son Sir William and 5 daughters)
- Margaret (ca.1530 - ca.1580), married to William Dawtrey (son William)
- Antony, married to Anne Cotton (sons Sir Antony and Henry, daughter Jane)
After Margaret's death, William Roper remained unmarried for the rest of his life.
Representation in art
Margaret's unusually deep relationship with her father inspired various adaptations of the material. The painter Ford Madox Brown dedicated a picture to her in which she saves her father's head. Edward Matthew Ward painted Margaret the last time she hugged her father. John Rogers Herbert shows her in the Tower, visiting her father in his cell.
In the 1966 film A Man for Every Season , Susannah York played the role of Margaret Roper. During the course of the film she marries William Roper and is portrayed as a close confidante of her father, which sometimes leads to jealousy attacks in her stepmother Alice. Shortly before his execution, Thomas More advises Margaret, William Roper and Alice to leave England on separate ships, which cannot be proven historically.
In the first season of the television series The Tudors , Kerry O'Sullivan played Margaret Roper. The character appears only fleetingly in the first season, during the family prayer and in a philosophical conversation with Thomas More. In the second season Gemma Reeves took over the part. While Margaret is very young in the first season, she is happily married to William Roper in the second season and has a daughter. Her close relationship with her father is shown in several conversations with him about the meaning of martyrdom and the role of one's own conscience. Her visits to the Tower are discussed, as is her attempt to negotiate with Thomas Cromwell when her stepmother is forced to sell her own belongings while Thomas More is imprisoned. The series lets Margaret hug her father one last time, but skips the memorable episode with Thomas More's head.
literature
- George Ballard : Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their writings, or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences . Printed by W. Jackson, for the author, Oxford 1752, pp. 38ff .
Web links
Individual evidence
- (Guy)
- John A. Guy: A Daughter's Love. Thomas & Margaret More . Harper Perennial, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-00-719232-8 .
- ↑ p. 14
- ↑ a b p. 68
- ↑ p. 25
- ↑ p. 62: “I was delighted to receive your letter, my dearest Margaret. Later letters will be even more delightful if they told me of the studies you and your brother are engaged in, of your daily reading, your pleasant discussions, your essays, of the swift passage of the days made joyous by literary pursuits. [...] Now I expect from each of you a letter almost every day. I will not admit excuses [...] No one hinders you from writing, but, on the contrary, all are urging you to do it. "
- ↑ p. 61
- ↑ P. 64 - 65: "Though I prefer learning joined with virtue to all the treasure of kings, yet renown for learning, if you take away moral probity, brings nothing else but notorius and noteworthy infamy, especially in a woman."
- ↑ p. 63
- ↑ p. 70
- ↑ p. 133
- ↑ p. 134
- ↑ p. 190
- ↑ a b p. 142
- ^ P. 157: "The more difficult such a defense is, the greater the scope for [her] eloquence and wit."
- ↑ p. 150
- ↑ p. 156
- ↑ p. 236
- ↑ p. 239
- ↑ p. 249
- ↑ p. 264
- ↑ a b p. 4
- ↑ p. 267
- ↑ p. 270
- (Roper)
- William Roper: The Life Of Sir Thomas More . Burns & Oats 1905
- ↑ p. 13: [...] her father, as he that most entirely tendered her, being in no small heaviness for her, by prayer at God ‟s hand sought to get her remedy. Whereupon going up, after his usual manner, into [...] his chapel on his knees with tears most devoutly besought Almighty God that it would like His goodness, unto whom nothing was impossible, if it were His blessed will [... ], to vouchsafe graciously to hear his humble petition. Where in-continent came into his mind that a glister should be the only way to help her. Which when he told the physicians, they by and by confessed that if there were any hope of health that was the very best help indeed; much marveling of themselves that they had not before remembered it. Then was it immediately administered to her sleeping [...] she, contrary to all their expectations, was, as it was thought, by her father ‟s most fervent prayers miraculously recovered, and at length again to perfect health restored; whom, if it had pleased God at that time to have taken to His mercy, her father said he would never have meddled with worldly matters more. ‟
- ↑ p. 22
- ↑ p. 35
- ↑ p. 44
- ↑ p. 45
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Roper, Margaret |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | More, Margaret (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English translator and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | between August 1505 and October 1505 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cheapside, London |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 1544 |
| Place of death | London |