Margaret Roper

By E. E. Reynolds Margaret Roper’s résumé is nothing if not impressive: a woman of wit and intelligence, a diligent student and competent scholar in the liberal arts, a faithful wife, mother, and Christian, and the favorite child of a saint and martyr, Thomas More. With this moving portrait of More’s “mine own dear daughter” (originally published in 1960), E. E. Reynolds remedies a deficiency in both Christian biography and English history by providing a separate account of the life, thought, and legacy of Margaret Roper. From her childhood at the Barge at Bucklersbury and her education and interactions with Erasmus and other prominent figures of the day, to her marriage with William Roper and their family life in Chelsea, to her accompaniment of her father through his ordeal in the Tower of London up to his martyrdom, Reynolds establishes Margaret Roper as a personality in her own right and a fascinating figure of history. A smaller man might have resisted the efforts of a Cromwell;