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Stapleton, Thomas (1535-1598) Tres Thomae seu De S. Thomae Apostolie Rebus Gestis. De S. Thoma Archiepeiscopo Cantuariensi & Martyre. D. Thomae Mori Angliae quondam Cancellarii Vita.
Douai: Jean Bogard, 1588.
First edition, octavo, three parts in one volume, illustrated with an engraved portrait of Thomas More facing the first page of his biography; bound in limp parchment, neatly rebacked (reimboitage?), new endleaves, contents very good, 6 3/8 x 4 1/4 in.
Stapleton was an English controversial theologian who became Canon of Chichester under Mary Tudor. He was forced out of England when Elizabeth I ascended to the throne and began requiring clergy to swear the Oath of Supremacy, avowing allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. As a Catholic, such an oath would be considered heretical, and Stapleton refused, and moved to the continent as an exile. Philip II of Spain awarded him a chair in theology in Louvain in 1590. In this work, the three Thomases in question are Thomas the Apostle; Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1119-1170); and Thomas More (1478-1535), whose section takes up two-thirds of the book. Stories of British Catholic martyrs make Stapleton's case in strong terms.
