Cecily Heron

Cecily Heron (née More; 1507–?), one of Thomas More's children, was part of a circle of exceptionally educated and accomplished women who exemplified "learned ladies" for the next two centuries.

Cecily Heron
Cecily Heron by Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait study of Cecily Heron at 20-years-old, pregnant with her first child, drawn by Hans Holbein the Younger, c.1527
Born
Cecily More

1507
Bucklersbury, St Stephen Walbrook parish, London, England
SpouseGiles Heron
Parent
RelativesMargaret Roper (sister)
Elizabeth Dauncey (sister)

Early life and education

Cecily More was the third child of Thomas More and his first wife, Jane Colte (1488-1511). Margaret (later Roper; 1505–1544) was the eldest; followed by Elizabeth (later Dauncey; 1506–1564), Cecily, and then John (1509-1547). Shortly after the death of his first wife, Thomas More married Alice Middleton and the family expanded to include her daughter Alice (1501-1563), as well as two young women whom Thomas More adopted: Margaret Giggs (who eventually married John Clement, a sometime tutor to the family) and Anne Cresacre (1511–1577; Cresacre eventually married Elizabeth's brother John). Cecily and her siblings were educated in the humanist tradition by More, their tutor, William Gunnell, and a series of notable intellectuals within Thomas More's orbit such as Nicholas Kratzer (1487? – 1550). The More household was a lively intellectual hub of activity, "a model of humanistic interests" and a "magnet" for Erasmus.[1] "She was educated in almost all kinds of learning in her father's house," according to biographer George Ballard. "She was a perfect mistress of the Latin tongue."[2]

Eighteenth-century poet Mary Scott wrote that the three More sisters "were all women of great talents and learning."[3] Thomas More insisted upon giving his daughters the same classical education as his son, an unusual attitude at the time.[4] He wrote that girls were "equally suited for those studies by which reason is cultivated and becomes fruitful like a ploughed land on which the seed of good lessons has been sown."[5] And Margaret More, in particular, is considered to have been one of the most learned women in sixteenth-century England.[6] Thomas More's humanistic ideas about the education of girls did not oppose existing ideas about gender roles, however, as he still felt that women should remain within the private sphere.[7]

Cecily married Giles Heron (by 1504 – August 1540), a former ward of her father's,[8] in 1525. The couple had two sons and a daughter.[9] Heron was a landowner and Member of Parliament for Thetford but politics under the Tudors were precarious and he was hanged for treason in 1540. Their eldest son, Thomas, was eventually able to reclaim part of the estate.[10] Not much else is known of the latter part of Cecily Heron's life.

Lockey, Thomas More and his family
Rowland Lockey (1565–1616), after Hans Holbein the Younger, Thomas More and his family (1592)

Legacy

A family portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Thomas More and Family (c. 1527), was destroyed in a fire in 1752, though Rowland Lockey (1565–1616) had been commissioned to paint one of several copies, in 1592. In Lockey's painting we see the embodiment of More's vision of the family as humanistic intellectual hub. Studies by Holbein for the larger portrait still exist, including one of Cecily Heron, drawn when she was pregnant. The piece was on display in 2020 at the London Foundling Museum in an exhibition entitled "Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media": "When Holbein drew Cecily Heron, Thomas More’s third and youngest daughter, during her first pregnancy in 1527, the fitted bodice of her square-necked gown, loosened to accommodate her bulging stomach, told its own story."[11]

Heron and her sisters are included in George Ballard's Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain (1752),[12] and Mary Hays's Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of All Ages and Countries (1803).[13] Mary Scott, in her laudatory poem The Female Advocate (1775), collectively described the women of the More, Seymour, and Cooke families as "a bright assemblage."[14]

See also

Notes
  1. House, Seymour Baker. "More, Sir Thomas [St Thomas More] (1478–1535), lord chancellor, humanist, and martyr." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 03. Oxford University Press. Date of access 2 Jul. 2022.
  2. Ballard, George (1752). Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their writings, or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences. Oxford: W. Jackson. p. 147. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  3. Scott, Mary (1775). The Female Advocate; a poem occasioned by reading Mr. Duncombe's Feminead. London: Joseph Johnson. p. 7. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  4. Ackroyd, Peter (1999). The Life of Thomas More. pp. 146–47. ISBN 9780385477093.
  5. St Thomas More: selected letters, ed. E. Rogers (1961, p. 122).
  6. "Jones, Mike Rodman. "Roper, Margaret", The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature, (Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr. and Alan Stewart, eds.), Blackwell, 2012, DOI:10.1111/b.9781405194495.2012.x". Archived from the original on 2018-05-18. Retrieved 2018-05-18.
  7. Goodrich, Jaime (2014). Faithful Translators: Authorship, Gender, and Religion in Early Modern England. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. pp. 34–50. ISBN 9780810129382.
  8. Members Constituencies Parliaments Surveys. "HERON, Giles (by 1504-40), of Hackney, Mdx". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
  9. "Shacklewell House". Archived from the original on 4 May 2009. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
  10. Members Constituencies Parliaments Surveys. "HERON, Giles (by 1504-40), of Hackney, Mdx". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 2012-11-17.
  11. O’Leary, Joanne. "Portraying Pregnancy: At the Foundling Museum." London Review of Books Vol. 42 No. 7 (2 April 2020) (lrb.co.uk)
  12. Ballard, George (1752). Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their writings, or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences. Oxford: W. Jackson. Archived from the original on 2 July 2022. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  13. Hays, Mary (1803). Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of All Ages and Countries. London: R. Phillips.
  14. In addition to Margaret, Elizabeth, and Cecily More, Scott refers to Anne Seymour (1538–1588), Jane Seymour (c.1541–1561), Margaret Seymour (1540 – ?), Anne Bacon (née Cooke; 1527 or 1528 – 1610), Mildred Cooke (1526–1589), Catherine Killigrew (née Cooke; c. 1530 – 1583), Elizabeth Cooke (1528–1609), and Margaret Rowlett (née Cooke; died 1558) Scott, Mary (1775). The Female Advocate; a poem occasioned by reading Mr. Duncombe's Feminead. London: Joseph Johnson. pp. 7–8. Retrieved 2 March 2015. Mary Basset, daughter of Margaret More and niece of Cecily, is frequently included in such roll-calls.

References
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