Margaret Roper
The story so far…
Week 6: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 1)
Meg is More’s favourite. She reads a passage of scripture in Greek at the start of the meal at Chelsea, a reminder of how Anne Cromwell was learning Greek.
Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)
She is translating from Greek “in a drone barely audible” when Cromwell turns up at Chelsea. “Leave us, daughter,” says More. “I won’t have you in this devil’s company.” But she doesn’t leave and stays to see what the devil has to say.
Week 15: Supremacy
Thomas More’s family take the oath.
Meg to Cromwell: “My father has spoken very warmly of you. Of how you have been courteous to him and how you have been vehement — which he accounts no less a favour. He says he believes you understand him. As he understands you.”
Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)
Cromwell brings Meg to see her father at the Tower. He hopes his family will exert pressure. But the policy backfires. Alice More complains, “He doesn’t write to me. It’s all her, her, his darling Meg.”
Week 17: The Map of Christendom (Part 2) / To Wolf Hall
I always forget, he thinks , how More neither pities himself nor takes pity on others. Because I would have protected my own girls from such a sigh, I think he would too. But he uses Meg to harden his resolve. If she will not give way, he cannot; and she will not give way.
When they collect More’s prayer book afterwards, they send it to Meg. “He probably meant it for her anyway.”
Week 18: Falcons
Thomas More’s daughter has got his head back off London Bridge and is keeping it, God knows, in a dish or bowl, and saying her prayers to it.