# More resigns the great seal on 16 May 1532 after the Submission of the Clergy

Date: 1532

## The fact

On 16 May 1532, the day after Convocation’s Submission of the Clergy, More resigned as Lord Chancellor and returned the great seal. It is not the 1534 oath refusal as a twin, though both are conscience acts.

It is one event.

## Context

History of Parliament Online and Britannica independently date 16 May 1532. Chapuys reported public concern. Heresy enforcement of the prior years stays on its cost row. Do not wash 1530 with 1532.

[Thomas More](/people/thomas-more)’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Conventional years are 1478–1535. Surviving public files are later parliamentary biographies, TNA calendars, HRP Tower pages, the Yale More tradition, and encyclopedias. More did not typeset those later pages. 1935 canonisation is posthumous and is not a Fact.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

History of Parliament Online and Britannica independently date the 16 May 1532 resignation.

Official or archival record: History of Parliament — MORE, Thomas I (1477/78–1535) (https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/node/51193/; History of Parliament Trust).

## Significance

Rights-offset path. High confidence on the date.

## What is established and what is not

Established: More resigned on 16 May 1532. Not established: that the resignation repealed any statute.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Thomas More.

They are not a public rating.

The driver `protection-of-minority-rights` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. Thomas More did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct. A resignation is not a 1535 death. Keep July as the killing. Keep the carrier date of later English distinct from the received historical year stored in the date field. Do not read a later English edition as a recovered autograph of Thomas More.

## People

- Thomas More: https://factrail.ai/people/thomas-more

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-More-English-humanist-and-statesman
- https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/node/51193/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/tm-resignation-1532