William Roper, The Mirrour of Virtue.

Thomas remained only two years at Oxford, for old Sir John, fearing he was learning too much Greek and literature and not enough law, called his son home and sent him to study law in London.  It must have been a disappointment to the boy to be taken from the clever friends he had made in Oxford, and from the books and studies that he loved, to be set instead to read dry law-books.  But Thomas More was most sunny-tempered.  Nothing made him sulky or cross.  So now he settled down quietly to his new life, and in a very short time became a famous and learned lawyer.

In was after More left Oxford that he met the man who became his dearest friend.  This was Desiderius Erasmus, a learned Dutchman.  He was eleven years older than More and he could speak no English, but that did not prevent them becoming friends, as they both could speak Latin easily and well.  They had much in common.  Erasmus was of the same lively, merry wit as More, they both loved literature and the Greek learning, and so the two became fast friends.  And it helps us to understand the power which Latin still held over our literature, and indeed over all the literature of Europe, when we remember that these two friends spoke to each other and wrote and jested in Latin as easily as they might have done in English.  Erasmus was one of the most famous men of his time.  He was one who did much in his day to free men’s minds, one who helped men to think for themselves.  So although he had directly perhaps little to do with English literature, it is well to remember him as the friend of More.  “My affection for the man is so great,” wrote Erasmus once, “that if he bade me dance a hornpipe, I should do at once what he bid me.”

Although More was so merry and witty, religion got a strong hold upon him, and at one time he thought of becoming a monk.  But his friends persuaded him to give up that idea, and after a time he decided to marry.  He chose his wife in a somewhat quaint manner.  Among his friends there was a gentleman who had three daughters.  More liked the second one best, “for that he thought her the fairest and best favoured."* But he married the eldest because it seemed to him “that it would be both great grief and some shame also to the oldest to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage.  He then, of a certain pity, framed his fancy toward her, and soon after married her."*

W.  Roper.

Although he chose his wife so quaintly More’s home was a very happy one.  He loved nothing better than to live a simple family life with his wife and children round him.  After six years his wife died, but he quickly married again.  And although his second wife was “a simple ignorant woman and somewhat worldly too,” with a sharp tongue and short temper, she was kind to her step-children and the home was still a happy one.