More's earnest character caused him while studying law to aim at the
subduing of the flesh, by wearing a hair shirt, taking a log for a
pillow, and whipping himself on Fridays. At the age of twenty-one he
entered Parliament, and soon after he had been called to the bar he was
made Under-Sheriff of London. In 1503 he opposed in the House of Commons
Henry VII.'s proposal for a subsidy on account of the marriage portion of
his daughter Margaret; and he opposed with so much energy that the House
refused to grant it. One went and told the king that a beardless boy had
disappointed all his expectations. During the last years, therefore, of
Henry VII. More was under the displeasure of the king, and had thoughts
of leaving the country.

Henry VII. died in April, 1509, when More's age was a little over thirty.
In the first years of the reign of Henry VIII. he rose to large practice
in the law courts, where it is said he refused to plead in cases which he
thought unjust, and took no fees from widows, orphans, or the poor. He
would have preferred marrying the second daughter of John Colt, of New
Hall, in Essex, but chose her elder sister, that he might not subject her
to the discredit of being passed over.

In 1513 Thomas More, still Under-Sheriff of London, is said to have
written his "History of the Life and Death of King Edward V., and of the
Usurpation of Richard III." The book, which seems to contain the
knowledge and opinions of More's patron, Morton, was not printed until
1557, when its writer had been twenty-two years dead. It was then
printed from a MS. in More's handwriting.

In the year 1515 Wolsey, Archbishop of York, was made Cardinal by Leo X.;
Henry VIII. made him Lord Chancellor, and from that year until 1523 the
King and the Cardinal ruled England with absolute authority, and called