Thomas More

1499 - Meets Erasmus for the first time (22)

1501-1504 - Frequents Charterhouse (Carthusians) (24-27)

1501 - Lectures on St. Augustine's City of God; begins Greek (24)

1503-1506 - Reader at Furnival's Inn (26-29)

1504 - Elected to Parliament (27)

1505 - Marries Jane Colt; Margaret born (28)

1506 - Studies intensely; visits Coventry; Elizabeth born (29)

1507 - Financial secretary of Lincoln's Inn; Cecily born (30)

1508 - Visits universities at Paris and Louvain (31)

1509 - Member of Mercers' Guild; John born; Henry VIII crowned (32)

1510 - Elected to Parliament (33)

1510-1518 - Undersheriff of London (33-41)

1511 - After Jane's death, marries Alice Middleton; Autumn Reader at Lincoln's Inn (34)

1512 - Governor and treasurer of Lincoln's Inn (35)

1513 - Henry VIII leads an army against France; to Henry, Erasmus dedicates his translation of Plutarch's essay on flattery (36)

1514 - Elected to Doctors' Common; serves on sewers commission (37)

1515 - Embassy to Bruges and Antwerp for commercial treaties; Lenten Reader at Lincoln's Inn; refuses royal pension (38)

1516 - Continues to study history and political philosophy (39)

1517 - Embassy to Calais; counsel to pope's ambassador in England; Evil May Day; Wolsey's Treaty of Universal Peace; Luther's "Ninety-five Theses" (40)

1518 - Joins King Henry's service; Master of Requests (41)

1520 - Field of Cloth of Cold: peace with France (43)

1521 - Knighted; undertreasurer; ambassador to Bruges and Calais; cautions Henry not to exaggerate the pope's secular authority; Margaret marries Roper; Buckingham executed (44)

1522 - Gives public oration welcoming Emperor Charles V; serves as Henry's secretary and cautions against war; war with France resumed (45)

1523 - Speaker of the House of Commons, proposes free speech; leases Crosby Hall; truce with France (46)

1524 - High Steward, Oxford; moves to Chelsea; war with France resumes: "If my head could win [the King] a castle in France, . . . it would not fail to go." (47)