Thomas More’s prayer book

Thomas More’s prayer book is the last personal object from More’s custody to pass through Thomas Cromwell’s hands after the execution. Bearing More’s name and an underlined prayer about the sins of youth, it is sent to his daughter Meg rather than his wife, Alice, turning a small devotional book into a charged family keepsake and a record of the choices surrounding More’s death.

Recovery and Inscription

After More has been taken away from his trial, Rafe Sadler brings Cromwell the prayer book More had with him at the last. Cromwell inspects it, noting with relief that it bears no blood specks, and fans its pages open by the spine. Rafe remarks that he has already done the same. The book’s physical condition is sparely described, but its most significant marks are More’s own name and an underlined line: “Remember not the sins of my youth.”

Devotion and Political Memory

The marked prayer gives the book a meaning beyond its use in private worship. Its appeal for remembrance to be withheld places More’s final circumstances beside the language of repentance, while Cromwell’s response immediately connects that plea to More’s testimony against Richard Riche. The book therefore holds two kinds of memory at once: the devotional words More chose to mark, and the political conflict that Cromwell cannot separate from them.

Gift to Meg

Cromwell first asks whether the book should be sent to Dame Alice, but decides against it, remarking that she might think herself included among the sins. He then orders it sent to Meg, judging that More probably intended it for her. The decision respects the book as a family object while registering the strain More’s imprisonment and death have placed on his household; it also leaves the intended recipient uncertain, since Cromwell’s belief is explicitly an inference rather than a confirmed instruction from More.

Place in the Narrative

Set beside the large public machinery of trial, execution, and burial, the prayer book is a small object whose surviving details make private belief legible. Its inscription does not resolve the disagreement between More and Cromwell, but it preserves a trace of More’s own devotional attention and prompts Cromwell to act for the bereaved family. Its transfer to Meg gives the book a quiet afterlife beyond the courtroom, where political evidence and personal remembrance meet.