A Man for All Seasons

I was sick most of the weekend with what I can only describe as a queasy stomach. I’m not sure if it was something I ate on Friday or a virus making itself at home. It was annoying, and left me with little ambition to do much, so I boob tubed a fair amount of the weekend away. The only saving grace was that the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) channel was nearing the climax of its 31 days of Oscar marathon and was airing consecutive Best Picture winners. That gave me the opportunity to catch Paul Schofield in “A Man for All Seasons” Saturday night.

The movie is a fictionalized account of the conflict between Sir Thomas More, lawyer, philosophy and theologian, and Henry VIII in regard to Henry’s desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

The movie paints More as an altogether sympathetic character standing up for his principles while, as a loyal subject, trying to avoid an open confrontation with his king. In other words, to a large extent More is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t work, and eventually his enemies manage to get him convicted of treason through the use of perjured testimony.

Overall More is painted as an honest, courageous man of high principle and I remember taking that impression away from the movie as a conclusion the last time I’d seen it many years ago.

Well, either I’ve gotten smarter or more cynical because, after thinking about it a little bit, that’s not the conclusion I came away with this time. As I observed before, More is sort of trying to have his cake and eat it too. By not openly supporting Henry he’s making it clear that he disapproves, but by being silent he’s trying to avoid the consequences of that disapproval. I’m not sure I would call that courageous and highly principled. Is a man who tries to avoid the consequences of his convictions really acting in a courageous manner? Learn this young Padawan, if you decide to take a stand on principle, first be certain that you understand the potential consequences of that stand and, second, be certain that you are willing to accept those consequences.

I had to ask myself WHY does More refuse to accept the king’s marriage? Ostensibly it’s because the king’s actions deny the authority of the Pope which More, as a staunch Catholic, can’t condone. Typically one gets around this type of impasse by agreeing to disagree. I don’t agree with your actions but I recognize your right to decide what those actions should be. This would probably have been more than enough to satisfy Henry but More couldn’t bring himself to go even that far.

Why? Because he was a man of principle that wouldn’t give an inch on what he felt was wrong? Nope, I don’t think so. I think it was simply that More was more afraid of what would happen to him in what he was sure was the next life, than he was afraid of anything Henry could do to him in this life. More quotes Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul,” to the man whose perjury sends him to the headsman’s axe and I think this sort of sums up his whole attitude.

More is afraid to support the king because he thinks that’s going to send him to hell. He’s also afraid to openly criticize the king because he’s afraid that’s going to get him a very short haircut. Therefore he tries to tread a middle ground through the quagmire disapproving of the king’s actions in his own mind, in order to save his place in heaven, while never saying anything to anyone expressing his opinion in order to avoid facing the consequences here on earth. I’d call that more the actions of a slippery weasel than a man that should be held up as an icon of courage and principle.

But he was right to be appalled at Henry’s discarding Catherine for the cute little snippet Anne Boleyn wasn’t he? I mean, Henry must have been a real cad to discard a loving wife for a younger woman right?

WRONG. Henry had a real problem, and the decision to divorce Catherine probably had little or nothing to do with Anne. You see Henry needed a son to continue his dynasty and avoid a resumption of the civil strife that had plagued England for 30 years during the War of the Roses. It had only been about 40 years since the battle of Bosworth field had ended the dynastic warfare. With good reason the peers, and the king, of England had nightmares about a resumption of the chaos. The only surviving child of Henry and Catherine was Mary, born in 1516, but England was still considered far too contentious a throne for a woman, so Henry desperately needed a son and the aging Catherine was unlikely to provide one.

Balanced against the threat of the resumption of war, blood and destruction was the observance of an obscure piece of church dogma. About the only reason the Pope didn’t issue a divorce decree instantaneously was that he was the virtual prisoner of Charles I of Spain, who just happened to be Catherine’s nephew! In the final analysis there wasn’t a whole lot of foundation for a stand on principle.

In the movie More is played as a simple, quiet, sympathetic, even liberal man. In reality he was something of a religious nutcase. In his work Utopia, while advocating universal religious tolerance, More advocated the outlawing of atheism. As Chancellor of England, More had a nasty penchant for burning what he believed were heretics at the stake.

Bottom line, I could be wrong, but I don’t think Thomas More was a very admirable guy at least not by modern standards. He was probably a man of his time and class, arrogant, ignorant and intolerant. This sort of makes it quite appropriate that the Thomas More Center, a conservative law front that has defended such things as Intelligent Design in the biology classroom, is named after him.