1535 Execution of Thomas More

480 years ago, on July 6, 1535, an English humanist, thinker and writer, Lord Chancellor Thomas More, author of the famous Utopia, was executed on charges of treason. His fault was that he refused to take the oath to King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the church and to recognize as legitimate his children from his marriage to Anne Boleyn.

The court sentenced More to a particularly painful execution, but the king replaced it with beheading.

In 1935, Thomas More was canonized by the Catholic Church.