UTOPIA


INTRODUCTION


Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King's Bench, was
born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier
education at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed,
as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of
Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth
or influence and sons of good families to be so established together in a
relation of patron and client. The youth wore his patron's livery, and
added to his state. The patron used, afterwards, his wealth or influence
in helping his young client forward in the world. Cardinal Morton had
been in earlier days that Bishop of Ely whom Richard III. sent to the
Tower; was busy afterwards in hostility to Richard; and was a chief
adviser of Henry VII., who in 1486 made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and
nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor. Cardinal Morton--of talk at
whose table there are recollections in "Utopia"--delighted in the quick
wit of young Thomas More. He once said, "Whoever shall live to try it,
shall see this child here waiting at table prove a notable and rare man."

At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury College,
Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men who brought
Greek studies from Italy to England--William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre.
Linacre, a physician, who afterwards took orders, was also the founder of
the College of Physicians. In 1499, More left Oxford to study law in
London, at Lincoln's Inn, and in the next year Archbishop Morton died.