Thomas More (1478 - 1535), English humanist and martyr, was a lawyer and a member of Parliament who became Lord Chancellor in 1529 under King Henry VIII but would not recognise the annulment of Henry's marriage to Katherine of Aragon and so retired from public life. In 1534 after the monarch's break with the Catholic Church, More refused to repudiate papal authority. He was placed in the Tower and, in the following year, executed, declaring that he died 'the King's good servant but God's first'.
More wrote a number of important works, probably the most notable of which is 'Utopia'.
More and his family were painted and drawn by Holbein.