William Roper ( – 4 January 1578) was an English lawyer and member of Parliament. The son of a Kentish gentleman, he married

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...

, daughter of Sir

Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

. He wrote a highly regarded biography of his father-in-law.

Life

William Roper the second was the eldest son of John Roper (d. 1524),

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

, and his wife Jane (died c.1544), daughter and coheir of Sir John Fyneux, Chief Justice of

King's Bench The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions. * Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court court of commo ...

. The Ropers were an ancient

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

ish family, owners of the manor of St Dunstan outside the West Gate of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

, since known as the Roper Gate. He was educated at one of the English universities and the studied law at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

, being

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1525. He was appointed Clerk of the Pleas in the

Court of King's Bench The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions. * Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court court of common ...

, a post previously held by his father, holding the post until shortly before his death. Aged about twenty-three it is thought he joined the household of Sir Thomas More, marrying Margaret, More's eldest daughter, in 1521. They lived together in

Well Hall Well Hall is a place to the north of Eltham in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in southeast London, England, with no present formal boundaries and located east-southeast of Charing Cross.Eltham Eltham ( ) is a district of southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three wards of Elt ...

, Kent.

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

, who knew More and his family well, described Roper as a young man "who is wealthy, of excellent and modest character and not unacquainted with literature". Roper became a convert to the

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

doctrine of

Justification by Faith ''Justificatio sola fide'' (or simply ''sola fide''), meaning justification by faith alone, is a soteriological doctrine in Christian theology commonly held to distinguish the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, among others, f ...

and spoke so freely of his belief that he was summoned to appear before

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figur ...

on an accusation of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

. More often disputed with Roper over his belief. He said to his daughter, To these prayers by More, Roper attributed his return to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Roper and his wife took in

Margaret Throckmorton Margaret Throckmorton later Magdelan (religious name) (1591 – 26 October 1668) was an English prioress of St Monica's convent in Leuven. It was one of seven religious communities on the continent of English nuns escaping discrimination in England ...

. She would become the prioress of St Monica in Leuven. He was a member of various Parliaments (as MP for several constituencies including Rochester and Canterbury) between 1529 and 1558 and appointed

High Sheriff of Kent The high sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown (prior to 1974 the office previously known as sheriff)."Sheriffs appointed for a county or Greater London shall be known as high sheriffs, and any reference in any enactment or instrum ...

for 1554–55. Although he remained a Roman Catholic, he was permitted to retain his office of

prothonotary The word prothonotary is recorded in English since 1447, as "principal clerk of a court," from L.L. ''prothonotarius'' ( c. 400), from Greek ''protonotarios'' "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the B ...

of the

after the accession of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

. However, his diatribe against Elizabeth's late mother,

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key ...

, in his biography of More earned him the enmity of many Elizabethan loyalists and Protestants. His biography of Sir Thomas More was written during the reign of

Mary I Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain from January 1556 until her death in 1558. Sh ...

nearly twenty years after More's death, but was not printed until 1626, when it became a primary source for More's earliest biographers because of Roper's intimate knowledge of his father-in-law.

In popular culture

Roper is an important character in

Robert Bolt Robert Oxton Bolt (15 August 1924 – 20 February 1995) was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays for ''Lawrence of Arabia'', ''Doctor Zhivago'', and '' A Man for All Seasons'', ...

's play '' A Man for All Seasons'', portrayed as a contrarian, somewhat thick-headed man who always opposes whatever doctrine is the established one. After arguing theology with Roper, More says, "They're a cantankerous lot, the Ropers, always swimming against the stream. Old Roper was the same." In the 1966 film adaptation Roper was portrayed by

Corin Redgrave Corin William Redgrave (16 July 19396 April 2010) was an English actor and left-wing socialist activist. Early life Redgrave was born on 16 July 1939 in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kem ...

References

External links

Full text of Roper's ''The Life of Sir Thomas More''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roper, William 1496 births 1578 deaths 15th-century English people 16th-century biographers 16th-century English MPs 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 16th-century Roman Catholics English biographers English Lutherans English Roman Catholics High Sheriffs of Kent More family Prothonotaries