Born: 1505, United Kingdom
Died: 25 December 1544
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Margaret More
The following is excerpted from The Learned Lady in England 1650-1760 by Myra Reynolds, published in 1920.
There is in the realm of education no single picture more entertaining and attractive than that of Sir Thomas More and his daughters. Our knowledge of this family comes from various sources, the chief of which are a description written by Erasmus in a letter to John Faber, and the letters written by Sir Thomas to the tutors and to his daughters, especially to his daughter Margaret.25 Sir Thomas could not see why learning was not as suitable for girls as for boys. In a letter to Gunnel he wrote:
Neither is there anie difference in harvest time, whether it was man or woman, that sowed first the corne: for both of them beare name of a reasonable creature equally, whose nature reason only doth distinguish from bruite beastes, and therefore I do not see why learning in like manner may not equally agree with both sexes; for by it, reason is cultivated, and (as a fielde) sowed with wholesome precepts, it bringeth excellent fruit. But if the soyle of woman’s braine be of its own nature bad, and apter to beare fearne then corne (by which saying manie doe terrifye women from learning) I am of opinion therefore that a woman’s witt is the more diligently by good instructions and learning to be manured, to the ende, the defect of nature may be redressed by industrie.
In describing the ideal wife he said: “May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so,” and he gave the same training to Margaret and her sisters as to his son John. The fame of these daughters went far. Symon Grinæus, in dedicating his Plato to John, speaks of the young man’s sisters as those “whom a divine heat of the spirit, to the admiration and a new example of this our age, hath driven into the sea of learning so far, and so happily, that they see no learning to be above their reach, no disputation of philosophy above their capacity.”28 Margaret, the daughter “most like her father both in favour and wit,” and “a rare woman for learning, sanctity, and secrecy,”29 was especially the source of his pride. His delight in her overflows in his charming response to a letter from her asking for money: “You aske monye, deare Megg, too shamefully and fearefully of your father, who is both desirous to giue it you, and your letter hath deserued it, which I could find in my heart to recompence, not as Alexander did by Cherilus, giuing him for every verse a Philipine of golde; but if my abilities were answerable to my will, I would bestowe two Crownes of pure golde for euery sillable thereof.”30 He found her Latin letters written in so pure a style that “Momus, his censure though never so teastie,” could find no fault in them. Sir Thomas took occasion to show these letters and other compositions by Margaret to the Bishop of Exeter and to Reginald Pole, both good judges of any literary performance; and Margaret’s attainments seemed to both “as a miracle.” Of Mr. Pole’s amazement Sir Thomas wrote:
I could scarce make him believe, but that you had some help from your maister, until I told him seriously that you had not only never a maister in your house, but also never another man, that needed not your help rather in writing anie thing, than you needed his. In the mean time I thought with myself how true I found that now, which once I remember I spoke unto you in jeaste, when I pittied your hard happe, that men that read your writings would suspect you to have had help from some other man therein; which would derrogate somewhat from the praises due to your workes; seeing that you of all others deserve least to have such a suspition had of you, for that you never could abide to be decked with the plumes of other birds.31
But sweet Meg is praised because she studies for love of learning, not for fame, and contents herself with her husband and father as a sufficient audience. When Margaret married the best wish her father could make was that her children should be most like to herself, “except only in sex,” yet he adds that a daughter who could imitate her mother’s learning and virtues would be of more worth than “three boys.”32
Margaret had three sons and two daughters and she took the same care of their education as had been taken of hers. Dr. John Morwen, a noted Greek scholar, was preceptor in Greek and Latin to her daughter Mary. Other tutors were Dr. Cole and Dr. Christopherson, also famous for Greek. Mary seems to have followed in her mother’s footsteps so far as attention to learned pursuits is concerned, but without her mother’s ability and charm. Her Latin orations were, however, so much admired that her tutor, Dr. Morwen, translated them into English. Sir Thomas More’s other daughters, Elizabeth Dancy (b. 1509) and Cecilia Heron (b. 1510), and Margaret, a talented kinswoman who married her tutor, Dr. John Clement, in 1531, were given the same educational advantages as Margaret.
Erasmus and Sir Thomas More were close friends and it was through this friendship that Erasmus was converted to the idea of advanced studies for women. In his The Abbot and the Learned Woman, Magdalia defends learning against the Abbot Antronius. The monk uses the well-worn argument that woman’s place is in the home, that it is her business to conduct the affairs of the family and to instruct the children. Magdalia does not contest this position, but urges that so weighty a business needs all possible wisdom and that through books she gains wisdom. In a sharp attack on the ignorance of the monks she says: “In Spain and Italy there are not a few women belonging to the noblest families who are a match for any man. In England there are the Mores; in Germany the Pirckheimers and the Blaurers. And if you don’t take care, it will soon come to this, that we shall preside in the schools of divinity, preach in the churches, and take possession of your mitres…. If you go on as you are doing it is more likely that the geese will begin to preach than that such dumb shepherds as you will be any longer endured.”34 Antronius is reduced to the weak argument that popular opinion does not favor Latin for women, and Magdalia closes the discussion with the classic defense of new ideas: “Why do you tell me of popular opinion, which is the worst example in the world to be followed? What have I to do with custom, that is the mistress of all evil practices? We ought to accustom ourselves to the best things, and by that means that which was uncustomary would become habitual, and that which was unpleasant would become pleasant, and that which seemed unbecoming would look graceful.”
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
Eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More, was a woman of fine mind and charming disposition, the delight and comfort of her celebrated father. The greatest care was taken in her education; and she became learned in Greek, Latin, many of the sciences, and music. Erasmus wrote a letter to her, As a woman famous not only for virtue and piety, but for solid learning. Cardinal Pope was so delighted with the elegance of her Latin style, that he could not believe it was the production of a woman. She married William Roper, Esq., of Well-hall, in the parish of Eltham, in Kent; she died in 1544, and was buried at St. Dunstan’s church, in Canterbury, with her father’s head in her arms; for she had procured it after it had remained fourteen days on London bridge, and had preserved it in a leaden box, till there was an opportunity of conveying it to Canterbury, to the burial-place of the Ropers. She had five children, one of whom, Mary, was nearly as famous as herself.
Mrs. Roper wrote, in reply to Quintilian, an oration in defence of the rich man, whom he accuses of having poisoned, by venomous flowers in his garden, the poor man’s bees. This performance, is said to have rivalled Quintilian’s in eloquence. She also wrote two declamations, and translated them into Latin, and composed a treatise “Of the Four Last Things,” in which she showed so much strong reasoning and justness of thought, as obliged Sir Thomas to confess its superiority to a discourse which he was himself composing on the same subject. The ecclesiastical history of Eusebius was translated by this lady from the Greek into Latin.