Private collection
Date: 1873
Technique: Oil on canvas, 63 x 49 cm
Margaret Roper (née More) (1505–1544) was an English writer and translator, probably the most learned woman of sixteenth century England. She was the daughter of Thomas More and Jane Colt, who probably died of childbirth. Margaret, "Meg" as her father used to call her, married William Roper. During More's imprisonment in the Tower of London, she was a frequent visitor to his cell.
Margaret married William Roper in 1521 in Eltham, Kent. They had five children together: Thomas (1533-98), Margaret (1526-88), Mary (d. 1572), Elizabeth (1523-60) and Anthony (1544-1597).
After Thomas More was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to accept the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Succession (1534) of Henry VIII of England and swear to Henry as head of the English Church, his head was displayed on a pike at London Bridge for a month. At the end of that period, Roper bribed the man whose business it was to throw the head into the river, to give it to her instead. She preserved it by pickling it in spices until her own death at the age of 39 in 1544. After her death, her husband William Roper took charge of the head, and it is buried with him.
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