Thomas and Jane

This drawing was inspired by Jean Plaidy's 1954 historical novel "Saint Thomas's Eve", which was recently reissued as "The King's Confidante". The story is about Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) and his eldest daughter Margaret More Roper (1505-1544). The drawing is from a scene early in the book, when Thomas is a 26-year-old London lawyer courting a 16-year-old country girl, Jane Colt, in 1504. Jane marries him in 1505 and lives with him in London, where she has trouble getting used to her new surroundings but gradually settles in. She gives birth to More's children Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecily, and John before dying from the plague in 1511, at the age of 22. A month later Thomas marries widow Alice Middleton and adopts her own daughter Alice as well as young orphans Margaret Giggs (called Mercy in the book) and Anne Cresacre.

I apologize for the costumes in the drawing. This is another of those small sketches that I dashed off on a piece of tracing paper before scanning it into my computer, so I did the research on the fly (and with the help of a few costume books). Enjoy!

If anyone is interested in learning about Sir Thomas More, this is the Wikipedia link: [link]