What to Do With a Glove Full of Angels
Henry VIII and his mistress Anne Boleyn were disappointed once again in their hopes of catching Thomas More with his fingers in the till.
1533
King Henry VIII 1509-1547
Henry VIII and his mistress Anne Boleyn were disappointed once again in their hopes of catching Thomas More with his fingers in the till.
1533
King Henry VIII 1509-1547
After the breakdown of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the King and his new love Anne Boleyn explored every avenue to the removal of Henry’s Chancellor Thomas More, who was the country’s chief judge and Catherine’s most outspoken champion. William Roper tells us that they hoped to catch him out in accepting some bribe, however small, but were never able to do so.
abridged
FAR from accepting of any previous gift, which might have biased his judgment in the decision, the result invariably proved, that he had refused the most trifling token of gratitude from those whom his equity had righted. A lady, in whose favour he had made a decree in chancery against a nobleman of rank, having, as a token of her gratitude, presented him with a pair of gloves, and in them forty pounds in angels,* as a new year’s gift, More took the gloves; but, pouring out the money, and returning it, said with a smile, “Since it would be contrary to good manners to refuse a new year’s gift from a lady, I am content to take your gloves; but as for the lining, I utterly refuse it.”
abridged
* An ‘angel’ was a gold coin of the period. See a picture at The British Museum. They were just over an inch in diameter, roughly the same as today’s £2 coin, but thinner and as light as a 20p piece, weighing only 80 grains (a little less than ⅕oz or about 5.18g). The first order to strike them came under Edward IV in 1465, and when they appeared a few years later the angel was equivalent to 6s 8d; by Henry VIII’s time it was worth 7s 6d, and in Elizabeth I’s day 10s (half a pound sterling). On one side it depicted the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, and on the other was a ship with a Cross-shaped mast and the inscription (in Latin) ‘By thy Cross save us, Christ Redeemer’. According to The National Archives the sum of forty pounds would be equivalent to some £17,650 in 2017, and Sir Thomas might have bought eight horses with his ‘lining’ — had he kept it.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Henry VIII wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Sir Thomas would not let him.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IFrustrate. IIPermit. IIIStand.