Sir Robert Bolt`s A Man for All Seasons (the motion picture which won 6 Academy Awards in 1966, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay [Bolt], Best Actor [Paul Scofield], and Best Director [Fred Zinneman]) is a familiar story to English history afficianados, but Bolt`s telling of it is fresher than ever as today`s headlines spotlight issues of integrity, perjury, and, "the rule of law."
As the GOP tried to impeach Bill Clinton, I was offended by the injustices Kenneth Starr and David Schipper had done to history and to this great work by screenwriter Robert Bolt and Director Fred Zinneman. The GOP may be excuse for an occasional misquote but I found intolerable that the GOP had construed from from this great play so mistakenly. I was reminded of More himself who said: "The world must construe according to its wits. This Court must construe according to the law." Clearly --the GOP had construed! But not according to the law.
Case in point -- the following excerpt from Starr`s interview with Diane Sawyer:Kenneth Starr: Well, I love the letter and the spirit of the law, but it`s the letter of the law that protects us all. And, you know, St. Thomas Moore, Sir Thomas Moore put it so elegantly, you know, in A Man For All Seasons. He took the law very seriously and said, `That`s what protects us. It`s not the will of a human being. It`s not Henry VIII`s will. Henry VIII is under the law. We are all equal under the law.`Nowhere in the play A Man For All Seasons did the character of Sir Thomas More say anything remotely resembling that. In fact, More defended the obedience to "...man`s law, not God`s" and never made reference to either Henry VIII`s law by name or description -- or to the concept of "equality under the law" as we have come to under that concept. The actual exchange that both David Schipper and Starr are both so fond of misquoting is as follows:
Roper: So now you`d give the Devil benefit of law!Sir Thomas More was brought to trial and charged for his refusal to recognize the Act of Supremacy which required of every citizen an oath. That More refused to sign an oath recognizing the Act of Supremacy is the real reason for his execution by decapitation.More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get at the Devil?
Roper: I`d cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh! (advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you --where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country`s planted thick with laws --man`s laws, not God`s (emphasis mine, LH)--and if you cut them down --and you`re just the man to do it --d`you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I`d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety`s sake.
Leading to his execution, More had been repeatedly grilled by bodies roughly equivalent to our own Federal Grand Juries. More lacked the protections of our Bill of Rights -- only the precedents of English common law.
The law is a blunt instrument of State Power. Abused, it can oppress and repress. The State Power that hacked up Sir Thomas More was entirely legal, but its motivation and application was entirely partisan and wrong. Now America has laws to protect us from that kind of state power. These laws are called the Bill of Rights -- the first 10 amendments to the Constitution -- penned by James Madison who had not trusted anyone else to do the job correctly.
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