The Last Riddle: Advice on Living and Dying Well from the Imprisoned Saint Thomas More

On April 17, 1534, the statesman and writer Thomas More was imprisoned for refusing to take an oath declaring the new marriage of King Henry VIII lawful and implicitly making him the head of the church in England. In July of 1535, More was brought to trial, found guilty of malicious treason, and beheaded. “I die the King’s good servant,” he declared in his final words, “and God’s first.” 

But in the course of his year-long imprisonment in the Tower of London, this “man for all seasons” wrote a collection of letters, instructions, and prayers to family and friends, using coal when he had no pen or ink at his disposal. More was facing a final “riddle,” he wrote to his daughter Margaret— “a case in which a man may lose his head and yet have none harm, but instead of harm inestimable good at the hand of God.” 

In this exquisitely written book, More scholar Stephen Smith guides readers through these powerful meditations on duty, virtue, friendship, conscience, and the ultimate questions of life and death. Discover the noble mind of this great saint—a man not only of learning and character but of heroic sanctity—and how he met his dark end with integrity and good hope.