View source for William Roper

{{Short description|English lawyer and member of Parliament}}
{{about||the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention|William L. Roper|the fictional character|Willy Roper|those of a similar name|Bill Roper (disambiguation)}}
{{EngvarB|date=June 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name = Sir William Roper
| honorific-suffix = 
| image = Hans Holbein the Younger - William Roper (Metropolitan Museum of Art).JPG
| imagesize = 220px
| office = [[High Sheriff of Kent]]
| term_start = 1554
| term_end = 1555
| monarch = [[Mary I of England|Mary I]]
| preceded = [[Robert Southwell (lawyer)|Robert Southwell]]
| succeeded = Sir Thomas Kempe
| office1 = 
| term_start1 = 
| term_end1 = 
| monarch1 = 
| preceded1 = 
| succeeded1 = 
| office2 = 
| term_start2 = 
| term_end2 = 
| monarch2 = 
| preceded2 = 
| succeeded2 = 
| birth_date = {{c.|1496}}
| death_date = 4 January 1578 (aged 81-82)
| birth_place = 
| death_place = 
| restingplace = 
| restingplacecoordinates = 
| spouse = {{Marriage|[[Margaret Roper|Margaret More]]|1521}}
| children = Elizabeth<br />Margaret<br />Thomas<br />[[Mary Basset|Mary]]<br />Anthony
| alma_mater = [[Lincoln's Inn]]
| signature = 
}}
'''William Roper''' ({{c.|1496}} – 4 January 1578) was an English lawyer and member of Parliament. The son of a Kentish gentleman, he married [[Margaret Roper|Margaret]], daughter of Sir [[Thomas More]]. He wrote a highly regarded biography of his father-in-law.<ref name=cath>{{cite CE1913|wstitle=William Roper|first=Francis Fortescue |last=Urquhart|volume=13}}</ref>

==Life==
William Roper the second was the eldest son of John Roper (d. 1524), [[Attorney-General#United Kingdom|Attorney-General]] to [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]], and his wife Jane (died c.1544), daughter and coheir of [[John Fyneux|Sir John Fyneux]], Chief Justice of [[Court of King's Bench (England)|King's Bench]]. The Ropers were an ancient [[Kent]]ish family, owners of the manor of St Dunstan outside the West Gate of [[Canterbury]], since known as the Roper Gate.<ref name="DNB">{{cite ODNB|id=24074|title=Roper, William (1495x8–1578)}}</ref> He was educated at one of the English universities and then studied law at [[Lincoln's Inn]], being [[called to the bar]] in 1525. He was appointed Clerk of the Pleas in the [[Court of King's Bench (England)|Court of King's Bench]], a post previously held by his father, holding the post until shortly before his death. Aged about twenty-three it is thought he joined the household of Sir Thomas More, marrying Margaret, More's eldest daughter, in 1521.<ref name=cath/> They lived together in [[Well Hall]] in [[Eltham]], Kent.<ref name="BHeltham">{{cite book|first=Daniel |last=Lysons|chapter=Eltham|title=The Environs of London|volume= 4, Counties of Herts, Essex and Kent|location=London|date= 1796|pages=394–421|via=[[British History Online]] |chapter-url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-environs/vol4/pp394-421}}</ref>

[[Desiderius Erasmus|Erasmus]], who knew More and his family well, described Roper as a young man "who is wealthy, of excellent and modest character and not unacquainted with literature".<ref name=cath/> Roper became a convert to the [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] doctrine of [[Justification (theology)|Justification by Faith]] and spoke so freely of his belief that he was summoned to appear before [[Thomas Wolsey|Cardinal Wolsey]] on an accusation of [[heresy]]. More often disputed with Roper over his belief. He said to his daughter, {{blockquote|Meg, I have borne a long time with thy husband; I have reasoned and argued with him in these points of religion, and still given to him my poor fatherly counsel, but I perceive none of all this able to call him home; and therefore, Meg, I will no longer dispute with him, but will clean give him over and get me to God and pray for him.}} To these prayers by More, Roper attributed his return to [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholicism]].<ref name=cath/>

Roper and his wife took in [[Margaret Throckmorton]]. She would become the prioress of St Monica in Leuven.<ref name=maggy>{{Cite ODNB|title=Throckmorton, Margaret [name in religion Magdalen] (1591–1668), prioress of St Monica's, Louvain|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-106107|access-date=2021-01-30|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/106107|isbn = 9780198614111}}</ref>

He was a member of various Parliaments (as MP for several constituencies including Rochester and Canterbury) between 1529 and 1558 and appointed [[High Sheriff of Kent]] for 1554–55.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/roper-william-149596-1578| title= ROPER, William (1495/96–1578), of St Dunstan's, Canterbury and Eltham, Kent and Chelsea, Mdx.|website= History of Parliament Online|access-date = 19 June 2013}}</ref> Although he remained a Roman Catholic, he was permitted to retain his office of [[prothonotary]] of the [[Court of King's Bench (England)|Court of King's Bench]] after the accession of [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]]. However, his diatribe against Elizabeth's late mother, [[Anne Boleyn]], in his biography of More earned him the enmity of many Elizabethan loyalists and Protestants.

His biography of Sir Thomas More was written during the reign of [[Mary I of England|Mary I]] nearly twenty years after More's death, but was not printed until 1626, when it became a primary source for More's earliest biographers because of Roper's intimate knowledge of his father-in-law.

==In popular culture==
Roper is an important character in [[Robert Bolt]]'s play ''[[A Man for All Seasons (play)|A Man for All Seasons]]'', portrayed as a contrarian who changes his views after arguing with More in order to marry his daughter. (In fact he had married Margaret More some years before the events depicted in the play and film.) After arguing theology with Roper, More says, "They're a cantankerous lot, the Ropers, always swimming against the stream. Old Roper was the same."

In the [[A Man for All Seasons (1966 film)|1966 film adaptation]], Roper was portrayed by [[Corin Redgrave]].<ref>{{IMDb title|qid=Q218999|id=tt0060665|title= A Man for All Seasons}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

*{{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline|William Roper (biographer)}}
*{{wikisource author-inline}}
*[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/16croper-more.html Full text of Roper's ''The Life of Sir Thomas More'']

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roper, William}}
[[Category:1490s births]]
[[Category:1578 deaths]]
[[Category:16th-century English biographers]]
[[Category:16th-century English MPs]]
[[Category:16th-century English writers]]
[[Category:16th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:16th-century Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:English biographers]]
[[Category:English Lutherans]]
[[Category:English Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:High sheriffs of Kent]]
[[Category:House of Roper|William]]
[[Category:More family]]
[[Category:Prothonotaries]]