Sir Thomas More is a prominent English statesman, author of Utopia, a work of political fiction depicting an ideal classless society, and a leading Renaissance humanist, and Renaissance philosopher who became Lord Chancellor of Henry VIII, who was ultimately executed for refusing to recognize the King as head of the Church of England, refusing to divorce his wife, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and maintaining his loyalty to the Pope. His death made him a saint to the Catholic Church, which revered him as a model of moral integrity and loyalty to the faith above all else and made him a Catholic martyr who refused to go against his conscience for the sake of political power.