Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Moore and John Fisher. St. Thomas Moore is the patron saint of statesmen and politicians. During his lifetime, he was recognized as a leading Renaissance humanist. He was a brilliant man, a doting father, an author, influential in English government, an important counselor to King Henry VIII and was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in England in 1523. He was a "knight" and during his later years, the Lord Chancellor of England. Above all these achievements, he was a Catholic through and through.
He coined the word, "Utopia," a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island whose political system he described in his novel, " UTOPIA." It was in Latin and published in 1516. He also wrote " A Dialogue Concerning Heresies," (1528) in which he asserted that the Catholic Church was the true church whose authority has been established by Christ and the Apostles and that its traditions and practices were valid.
After refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England, he was arrested and imprisoned at the Tower of London. While in prison, he wrote a devotional, "Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation," along with others on the Passion of Christ.
He was sentenced to die on July 6, 1535. His last words on the scaffold were, "I die, the king's good servant but God's first." After being beheaded, his head was fixed on a pike over London Bridge for a month while his body was buried in the Tower of London in an unmarked grave.
London is a fascinating place to visit because of the historic places so well described in history books and the aura of sophistication of kings and queens, and royalty as a whole. I enjoyed watching the "Changing of Guard" right at the Buckingham Palace and even had a picture taken with one of the guards in full regalia. I did not expect him to smile because he was the sentry at the Palace outpost. Actually, he may not even have wanted to pose with me but the tourists who unceremoniously step
by his side for a photo were numerous. I found Windsor Castle elegant in its beauty and Hampton Court Palace so magnificently an experience of the splendor of the court. Its Great Hall is a feast for the eyes with the large and splendid tapestries, truly England's last and greatest medieval hall. The Parliament by the river Thames is something to behold with Big Ben towering behind.
The Tower of London is one of the world's major tourist attractions and a World Heritage Site. As early as 1590, the Tower of London allowed paying tourists to visit it. By 1901, the end of Queen Victoria, over 500,000 visitors came a year. Today, around two million people come yearly. It is located near the famous London Bridge. No, the bridge was not falling down as the kindergarten song says, when I saw it.
It is with William The Conqueror (1066-87) that the history of the tower begins. Its primary function was a fortress stronghold, a role that remained unchanged right up to the 19th Century. It earned a reputation as a place of torture and death. People including kings and nobility who were condemned to die were imprisoned in the tower and had the luxury (?) of the topmost room the night before execution. St. Thomas Moore used it, too. Being a formidable fortress, it later also became a place for important valuable and papers of the throne. In fact, the Crown Jewels, the various multi-filligreed, diamond encrusted crowns of all kings and queens England ever had are on display in a special area of the Tower. I looked at the dazzling crowns open-mouthed with wonder at the amazing incalculable wealth each had and the pressure of its weight on the monarch's head. How were they able to endure such "burden" during the coronation rites which, I imagined, must have taken, ceremoniously, a long time?
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