47 pages • 1 hour read
Robert BoltA Man For All Seasons
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act I, Pages 73-106Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Act I, Pages 73-80 Summary
Alice, Margaret, and Norfolk are looking for More. King Henry is about to arrive for a surprise visit, and More is nowhere to be found. Eventually, they find him returning from vespers. Norfolk and Alice scold More for not being ready for the King’s visit. King Henry enters and insists on no ceremony; his visit is informal, just “a passing fancy” (77). He has sailed his own boat down the river. More introduces Henry to Margaret. Henry has heard that Margaret is a scholar and speaks to her in Latin. Margaret’s Latin is better than Henry’s. He boasts that he is an excellent dancer and playfully threatens to wrestle Norfolk. Alice tells Henry that they will have a simple supper, and Henry is enthusiastic. He tells Margaret about some music he has composed. He and Margaret discuss Henry’s book, The Defence of the Seven Sacraments. Henry admits that More “had a hand in that” (79); More insists that he played a minor role in helping Henry with the book. Alice, Margaret, and Norfolk exit to prepare for dinner, leaving Henry and More to talk.
Act I, Pages 80-89 Summary
Henry is glad that More, his trusted friend, is his chancellor. He tells More that Wolsey named More his successor as chancellor before he died. He laments that Wolsey failed him and suggests Wolsey failed because he hoped to become Pope. Henry asks More if he has given any more thought to the matter of his divorce. More admits that he cannot help Henry divorce Catherine. Henry is upset, and More reminds him that when he agreed to be chancellor, he asked Henry to leave him out of the discussions about his divorce. Henry argues that a Bible verse, Leviticus 18:16, supports his position that he should not have married his brother’s wife. More counters that Deuteronomy says differently, but Henry is dissatisfied with Deuteronomy’s ambiguity. They argue about the necessity of a Pope.
More asks Henry why he wants his support so badly. Henry values More’s honesty and sincerity. They discuss Henry’s music composition, and More gives his honest opinion on it. Henry remarks that he “chose the right man for Chancellor” (85). Henry is pensive for a moment, then tells More that he does not want any opposition to his divorce. He warns More that he will not tolerate any writing against him: More is to publish no pamphlets or letters criticizing him. He reminds More that people who say that Catherine is his wife are traitors. The bell rings eight o’clock and Henry realizes that he cannot stay for dinner: he must leave now or the tide will be against him. Alice appears and Henry gives her his regrets that he cannot stay. He leaves.
Alice asks More if he angered Henry. More admits that he did, a little, and Alice is frustrated. She has ordered the kitchen to put together an elaborate supper for the King, and now he has left without eating it. She tells More that if he does not want to rule Henry, he must let himself be ruled by him. She reminds More that he is standing between Henry and Lady Anne Boleyn, the woman Henry wishes to marry. More counters that “the sacrament of the Church” is what actually stands between them (88).
Act I, Pages 89-98 Summary
Roper arrives and begs More’s advice. He has been offered a seat in Parliament and wonders whether he should take it. More says that since he is in favor of the Reformation, he might have a lot of influence in Parliament. Roper admits that his opinions on the Church have shifted; while he still believes that the Catholic Church is corrupt, he also feels that an attack on the Church is an attack on God. More cautions him to be wary of who he says this to. As chancellor, he cannot hear Roper say these things, as what Roper says may be construed as treason.
Matthew enters and announces the arrival of Richard Rich. Rich tells More that Cromwell is asking questions about him and using people like Matthew to inform on him. More knows all this, and Rich is worried that More sees him as an enemy. He begs More to employ him; More refuses. Rich leaves, and Roper urges More to have Rich arrested. More argues that there is no law against being “bad,” and he and Roper argue over the difference between what is right and what is legal. Roper accuses More of following the law more than he follows God; More insists that he follows God, but that God is too subtle for More to presume he knows what God wants. He sticks to the law instead, saying that those who hunt him can find him in “the thickets of the law” (96). He has broken no laws, nor disobeyed his sovereign by refusing to talk about Henry’s divorce. He believes that he is safe.
Act I, Pages 98-106 Summary
The Common Man dons the costume of a publican (someone who runs a pub). He remarks that More is a deep person and that someone like him “can hardly be expected to follow the processes of a man like that” (98). The Publican invites Cromwell into a private room. Cromwell asks the Publican if he knows who he is; the Publican does not. Cromwell dismisses the Publican and invites Rich inside. Cromwell has just become secretary to the Council. Rich promises not to repeat this to anyone; he would never repeat anything told to him in friendship and confidence. Cromwell questions this claim until Rich admits that it would depend on what he was offered in return for information. Cromwell commends him for this admission; Rich says that surely there are “some things one wouldn’t do for anything” (101), but Cromwell is skeptical.
Cromwell tells Rich that he is going to make him collector of revenues for the York Diocese. Rich is suspicious at first and asks what he has to do for the position. Cromwell says that he does not have to do anything but insinuates that Rich has to help him secure a divorce for Henry. He brings up the silver cup that More gave to Rich. He asks Rich where More got the cup; Rich tells him that it was a bribe from a litigant whose case was in the Court of Requests. Cromwell wants to use this information to scare More into doing what he wants. Rich warns Cromwell that Thomas More is an “innocent” and that he does not know how to be frightened. Cromwell argues that everyone can be frightened. He holds Rich’s hand to a candle flame to prove his point.
Act I, Pages 73-106 Analysis
Once again, the play takes some liberties with history in this section. Most notably, Thomas Cromwell tells Richard Rich that he is now secretary to the Council because Sir Thomas Paget is retiring. In reality, Cromwell held many roles in his life, but “secretary to the Council” was not one of them. He was principal secretary to the King, but he did not hold that post until 1534, and this part of the play is still set in 1530 or 1531. Cromwell never succeeded a Sir Thomas Paget at any point in his career. While there are several men named Thomas Paget in English history, none of them were alive at the right time to have been in Henry VIII’s employ in the early 1530s, and none of them held the same posts as Cromwell. There was a man named William Paget who took over some of Cromwell’s duties after his execution, however.
In an important scene, Margaret meets Henry and impresses him with her Latin. The real Margaret More did have excellent Latin: More insisted that his daughters receive the same quality of education as his son, which was very unusual for the time. The play’s decision to make Margaret’s Latin better than Henry’s carries a controversial implication. Henry wrote The Defence of the Seven Sacraments in Latin, and More provided some degree of assistance. Some historians believe that More had only a passing influence on Henry’s writing, while others believe More penned part or all of the book himself. By suggesting that Henry’s Latin is not particularly good, the play implies that More was the mind responsible for Henry’s notable anti-Lutheran work. This implication dovetails with the play’s depiction of Henry as an immature and careless leader. Historians are not in agreement about Henry’s personality, but many do believe that at least at this point in his reign, he was a capable statesman.
The Power of the Law is central to many discussions in this part of the play. Henry and More debate the relative strengths of passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy in determining whether Henry ought to get a divorce. At this point in European history, it was standard practice to derive laws directly from scripture. In More’s view, sacraments and laws are not just inseparable: They are the same thing. It is difficult for More to determine God’s will, but he feels confident that by following the law, he will end up following God. It gets much more difficult for him to hold this belief as England moves away from Catholic law and toward a Protestant interpretation of the law and the Bible. In many instances, More resolves this conflict by remaining politically silent. He refuses to discuss Henry’s divorce instead of giving an opinion the King would not like to hear. When Roper speaks his mind too freely, More cautions him to be silent so that he can remain safe. Speaking out against the King is treason, and treason is a serious crime: At this time in England, a charge of treason usually carried the death penalty.
The characters are no closer to resolving the differences between Catholic and Protestant Beliefs. Henry and More briefly debate the necessity of a Pope, which was one of the central conflicts between Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation. Catholics maintained that the Pope was the necessary head of the Church and a direct link between God and everyone else. Protestants saw the Pope as a bishop with limited authority and no direct link to God.
The play also highlights opposing viewpoints within Catholicism through the juxtaposition of More and Wolsey. For More, Catholic beliefs are not just theoretical. He incorporates religion into his daily life, even when doing so exasperates his family, and attending vespers is more important to him than meeting with Henry. Wolsey is also portrayed as sincere in his Catholic convictions. However, whereas Wolsey’s faith goes hand in hand with his desire for political advancement (namely, his desire to become Pope), More is less willing to see religion as an opportunity to advance his career or enrich himself.
Although the Common Man is not as present in this section, the play continues to explore The Role of the Common Man. Common people are often invisible, but their contributions are still easy to see. For example, Alice puts on a lavish supper for the King (which he does not eat), but she does not make the food herself. Her cooks, who are ordinary people, labor for the benefit of their sovereign, but they go unappreciated. Matthew and the Publican (both played by the Common Man), are instrumental to the political movement of the country, even if those in power take little notice of them. They are the ones who record and share valuable information, provide spaces for powerful men to talk in private, and watch the world change around them without being able to do much to stop it. The Common Man’s absence is as telling as his presence; it speaks to the common people’s lack of agency in a society that nonetheless couldn’t function without them.
