Richard Morison, Official Apologist for Henry VIII

Abstract

Before the theory that early English humanism suffered an arrest at the death of More and Fisher hardens into dogma, it may be well to draw attention to the importance of a small group of English scholars who under the patronage of Henry VIII and Cromwell pursued classical studies in the household of Reginald Pole in Italy during the second decade of the sixteenth century, and who later put their learning to use in the king's service in England. One of that group, Richard Morison, deserves more than the scanty notice he has heretofore received. Drafted at a critical moment after the outbreak of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, he was advanced literally overnight to a position of strategic importance as official propagandist against the rebels. The four tracts which he wrote in 1536 and 1539 in support of the government's action, together with his unpublished writings, constitute the largest single body of evidence, though by no means the only evidence, for the persistence of the humanistic tradition in the period immediately after More's death. Moreover, they reveal a hitherto unsuspected acquaintance with the political works of Machiavelli, whose influence in Cromwellian political policy has recently been denied. The present description of the literary career of Morison is therefore of importance for its bearing on the history both of humanism and of political ideas in early Tudor England.