This picture encapsulates part of my fascination with St. Thomas More. While never for a moment turning from God, he managed to remain a man of the law (nearly unbelievable in itself--particularly given the time) and a devoted Father and Husband. The image above portrays St. Thomas More's farewell to his daughter. It was painted in the nineteenth century by Edward Matthew Ward. To my mind it captures perfectly the tenderness, deep regard, and concern that St. Thomas More lavished on his family until the day of his death.
I have always been fond of Thomas More, and his story was one of the many things that pulled me out of being an Anglican.
"I never liked your manner towards me better than when you kissed me last," St. Thomas wrote his daughter Margaret the day before his execution, "for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to look to worldly courtesy."
I'd bet he didn't look much like Holbein's Lord Chancellor after a year in the Tower, though. For one thing, he had a beard he didn't want the executioner to cut.