Thomas More

Thomas More was an English Renaissance humanist, statesman, and martyr who served as Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII. His Utopia imagined an ideal commonwealth founded on reason, communal property, and religious tolerance — coining the word that would define an entire literary genre.

More's Utopia is a work of deliberate ambiguity: it is unclear whether the author endorses the society he describes or uses it as a mirror to critique Tudor England. His refusal to swear the Oath of Supremacy, which would have acknowledged Henry VIII as head of the Church, led to his execution and eventual canonisation.