The young King Henry VIII became deeply interested in More because of his brilliancy of intellect, his successful conduct of affairs, his sterling character and, above all, for his wit and humor. He wanted to have him as a member of his Court, but this More long resisted. He preferred independence to a courtier's life, and in spite of the urging of Wolsey, who had been made a Cardinal by Leo X in 1515, and alleged how dear his service would be to his majesty, continued to refuse. After an embassy to Flanders, however, on which he went with Cuthbert Tunstal to confer with the ambassadors of Charles V, who was then, however, only Archduke of Austria, upon a renewal of the alliance with the English Monarch and a further embassy of the same kind in 1516, { 232} More consented to enter the Royal Court. On his embassy in Flanders he had probably taken the leisure to write out his "Utopia" in Latin, and it was published on the Continent, though not published in England until nearly twenty years after his death. The contact with Erasmus woke More's literary spirit, and Erasmus felt that there were magnificent possibilities for literature in More's intellect. Erasmus bewailed his becoming a courtier and says in his letters "the King really dragged him to his Court. No one ever strove more eagerly to gain admission there than More did to avoid it."
More's literary reputation rests more particularly on his "Utopia," written when he was thirty-seven years of age, during his absence from England on the commission in the Low Countries with Cuthbert Tunstal. That absence was but for six months, and this will give some idea of More's industry. At home he was deep in his law practice, and now when he had leisure from social and ambassadorial demands he found time to write one of the most interesting contributions to the science of government from the social side that probably has ever been written. It was written in Latin and was first printed at Louvain late in 1516 under the editorship of Erasmus, Peter Giles, sometimes known under his Latin name as AEgidius, and others of More's literary friends in Flanders. It was subsequently revised by More and printed by Frobinius at Basel in November, 1518. The book became popular on the Continent and was reprinted at Paris and Vienna, but was not published in England during More's lifetime. More evidently feared that it might be misunderstood there, though he had been very careful in the course of the book to make whatever might seem to reflect upon England appear to be directly referred to some other country.