蜜芽传媒

This week, a new production of the celebrated play 鈥楢 Man For All Seasons鈥� opened in the West End, starring Martin Shaw as Thomas More. The play, written by Robert Bolt, recounts how More, Lord Chancellor and friend to Henry VIII, was forced to choose between his loyalty to the King and his beliefs over Henry鈥檚 desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

The play and the Oscar-winning movie version captured the public imagination in the 1960s, which seems somewhat surprising, given that the Sixties was an era when people pushed boundaries over Christian conventions.

But Robert Bolt, who described himself as an agnostic, saw something in More that the 1960s audience would find appealing 鈥� that he was a man of conscience, an individual who resisted Henry鈥檚 demands. Rather than swear an oath of loyalty to Henry, More refused to cave into pressure 鈥� even if it cost him his life.

And yet in recent times, More hasn鈥檛 been quite the hero that he was when Bolt wrote his play. Rather than be perceived as someone who won鈥檛 compromise, there has been renewed focus on how he served Henry VIII for years, by often sending others to their deaths.

Instead, thanks to Hilary Mantel鈥檚 novel Wolf Hall, the Tudor hero of our time has been Thomas Cromwell, with his pragmatic efforts to do Henry VIII鈥檚 bidding. In Wolf Hall, Cromwell denounces More as a blood-soaked hypocrite 鈥� the judgement of a 21st century version of Cromwell, for whom hypocrisy is one of the greatest of sins.

Thomas More, in the hands of Robert Bolt, is a far more attractive character, what Bolt called 鈥渁 hero of self-hood鈥�. But it seems to me that isn鈥檛 quite right either.

When More was canonised a saint by the Catholic Church in 1935, there was a focus on something else: More鈥檚 sacrifice wasn鈥檛 about stubbornly holding on to his own
private notion. It was due to a principle he shared with others, his fellow believers, and he was duty bound to defend it. Giving up his life was, yes, a highly individual act, but what was at stake was staying true to shared principles, not taking on something new to save your skin.

In the year 2000, the Catholic Church declared More to be the patron saints of statesmen 鈥� not because being a good statesman 鈥� or woman 鈥� means you must make the ultimate sacrifice. Rather, this patron saint is for the Church a symbol of standing up for shared beliefs, rather than anything more individualistic. The greatest statesmen and women, not just in sixteenth century England but today too, represent something greater than themselves.

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