Stuart C. Henry - "A Man for All Seasons" (February 10, 1963)
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- | Purity within which we can do our daily work | 0:18 |
and be the person's God intended us to be. | 0:23 | |
Is there not a lesson here of how even our religion, | 0:27 | |
we turn to darkness in the effort to escape | 0:31 | |
that pure demanding white light of Jesus Christ? | 0:35 | |
But how even in that darkness, light keeps breaking through. | 0:41 | |
Are we not daily in our experiences | 0:47 | |
with family and roommates, yes, even professors or students? | 0:52 | |
Are we not daily conscious of the divine visitation, | 0:57 | |
darkness exposed to be sure, but light also there? | 1:03 | |
Is this not characteristic of our human sin? | 1:09 | |
that God will not let us get (indistinct) | 1:14 | |
And give us this day our daily bread, | 1:19 | |
forgive us our (indistinct), | 1:22 | |
our season so joyous, and the time so festive | 1:26 | |
that all the world seemed happy. | 1:33 | |
London was glittering with that golden sunlight | 1:38 | |
that only England can know in May. | 1:41 | |
The streets of the city were fresh covered with new gravel | 1:45 | |
and casement windows were flung open, | 1:49 | |
and out them tumbled hangings of silk | 1:52 | |
and fine embroidered linen, | 1:54 | |
thick pinned with fresh flowers, | 1:55 | |
tumbling toward the crowds below. | 1:58 | |
And it was as if all Christendom move toward the tents. | 2:01 | |
Never had the river seen barges so strange and marvelous. | 2:07 | |
Decked with color and accompanied with string music. | 2:13 | |
For it was the coronation day of Ann Berlin. | 2:18 | |
And if the crowds did not always cheer, | 2:23 | |
and if all did not uncover their heads, all watched. | 2:27 | |
they watched as the procession left the tower | 2:33 | |
and moved slowly to Westminster. | 2:36 | |
They watched, and their coolness could not destroy the | 2:40 | |
solemnity of so grand a ceremony. | 2:44 | |
All London had gone out after Ann. | 2:48 | |
Nobles and common folk. | 2:52 | |
Soldiers of fortune and men of rank. | 2:56 | |
Jugglers and gypsies, Cavaliers, and ladies, | 3:00 | |
and only, sir Thomas Moore. | 3:05 | |
Alone in his garden in Chelsea, | 3:08 | |
wearing an old robe, | 3:12 | |
and musing doubtless upon an invitation, he had refused. | 3:13 | |
Only he did not attend. | 3:19 | |
Now these materials, | 3:24 | |
Robert Bolt has fashioned the play, | 3:25 | |
of the marriage of Henry, the eighth to Anne, | 3:26 | |
and the clever, the brilliant, the daring, | 3:27 | |
and of a thousand days of his marriage to Anne, | 3:28 | |
after his divorce from Catherine. | 3:42 | |
And of sir Thomas Moore's inflexible refusal to approve | 3:45 | |
of what Henry had done. | 3:50 | |
Now, ordinarily these would not be materials for a play, | 3:53 | |
but this was no ordinary situation. | 3:58 | |
Henry was a king. | 4:01 | |
And so his divorce as complex and as pitiable as such | 4:05 | |
matters often are, was no private affair. | 4:10 | |
And his marriage could be no common matter. | 4:16 | |
Henry was a king, | 4:19 | |
and Thomas was, or he had been, | 4:22 | |
chancellor to the King. | 4:25 | |
Moreover, he was known far and wide is a great and good man. | 4:28 | |
When he was elevated to his office, | 4:32 | |
the celebrated harassment sent from Europe, | 4:34 | |
his congratulations to England for, as he wrote, | 4:37 | |
no better are holy a judge could be found in all the world | 4:40 | |
and there at home is it comes to this, | 4:47 | |
the common people in compliment chanted the dog row of how | 4:49 | |
he had discharged his office so faithfully, | 4:54 | |
that his life never more was found. | 4:57 | |
So for sir Thomas to remain silent, as he did, | 5:02 | |
and to withhold his approval of the marriage, | 5:07 | |
was very grave indeed. | 5:10 | |
So here them, | 5:14 | |
it is a play about a contest betwixt Henry, | 5:15 | |
and sir Thomas Moore. | 5:18 | |
But actually though Henry is in the play. | 5:22 | |
It is really Thomas's drama. | 5:26 | |
For he is, as he himself said, | 5:29 | |
that King's good servant but God's first. | 5:31 | |
And so it is a play of how he will not compromise, | 5:37 | |
and how he will not go against his conscience. | 5:42 | |
He is described as being a man of all seasons. | 5:46 | |
And indeed he is this and here is a play about the man of | 5:51 | |
all seasons, | 5:55 | |
but it is also a play about men. | 5:58 | |
About you and me for it takes a situation that is common to | 6:02 | |
us all, multiplies it by every man, | 6:07 | |
sets it upon a stage amid his Tarik prop and trappings, | 6:12 | |
and lights it with truth | 6:18 | |
so that as we watch the drama unfold, | 6:20 | |
we see and understand something about ourselves. | 6:24 | |
Will you hear me then as we see the lesson | 6:29 | |
in a man for all seasons? | 6:32 | |
For your time and for mine? | 6:35 | |
Oh do not make a mistake. | 6:38 | |
This is not a play about a man who is gloomy and withdrawn, | 6:40 | |
An early sets his face to execution. | 6:44 | |
Moore was a man of an angels wit, | 6:48 | |
and of a marvelous mirth. | 6:52 | |
It was said that even the birds from miles around, | 6:55 | |
flocked to his place to be fed of him, | 6:58 | |
and his country home was simply overrun with | 7:01 | |
laughing children and animals of all sorts, even a monkey. | 7:04 | |
And as for his guests, artists, writers, | 7:09 | |
the great minds of his time, | 7:13 | |
all came to see him for many came and Moore wrote. | 7:16 | |
Even Henry himself used to descend, | 7:22 | |
uninvited to have dinner with Moore | 7:25 | |
and to be charmed with his talk. | 7:27 | |
And that wit never ever deserted him | 7:30 | |
during the long days of his bitter imprisonment, | 7:34 | |
or even at the very hour of his death. | 7:39 | |
When he lay in jail and his wife berated him | 7:42 | |
for staying obstinately, as she thought in the filthy prison | 7:46 | |
he asked about gently, mistress Alice, | 7:50 | |
do you not feel that this place is quite as near to heaven | 7:54 | |
as Chelsea? | 7:58 | |
Well near to heaven it might have been, | 8:00 | |
but damp surely was. | 8:02 | |
And lady Moore's comment about the cell was, | 8:04 | |
it drips. | 8:07 | |
And so it took its toll of Thomas. | 8:09 | |
And when after many days and nights he left it, | 8:11 | |
feeble of frame to go to his own death. | 8:15 | |
When he came to mount the scaffold, he faltered, | 8:18 | |
through bodily weakness, | 8:22 | |
not through any infirmity of will, | 8:24 | |
and then turning to the sheriff, he said, | 8:27 | |
I pray you master Lieutenant, | 8:31 | |
will you see me safe up? And that's not coming down, | 8:34 | |
I will shift for myself. | 8:38 | |
How could it not happen that a man of such charm and whit, | 8:41 | |
a man of such grace and composure, | 8:46 | |
should've had all the world running to him, | 8:49 | |
and they did. | 8:52 | |
But there was more to him than a capacity for life. | 8:54 | |
Henry comes to see him and finds him fascinating, | 8:57 | |
instructive and disturbing. | 9:01 | |
Busting hell bounds onto the stage, | 9:04 | |
all tricked out in cloth of gold, | 9:07 | |
playing at the business of being a pilot of a barge. | 9:10 | |
And he visits with him and presses him about the matter of | 9:14 | |
approving the marriage. | 9:17 | |
Thomas is courteous but firm, | 9:21 | |
and Henry rages, | 9:25 | |
for he is not pleased. | 9:26 | |
Will you not see? he asked. | 9:28 | |
Why can you not see? Everybody else does. | 9:30 | |
Then why does your grace want my poor support? Asked Thomas. | 9:35 | |
But cause explodes Henry, | 9:39 | |
you are honest and more to the purpose, | 9:41 | |
You are known to be honest. | 9:45 | |
Oh, there are plenty who follow me. | 9:48 | |
There are men like Norfolk who follow me | 9:50 | |
because I wear the crown. | 9:52 | |
And there are men like master Cromwell who follow me because | 9:54 | |
they're jackals with sharp teeth, | 9:58 | |
and I am their lion. | 10:00 | |
And there is a mass who follow me because they | 10:01 | |
follow anything that moves. | 10:04 | |
And there is you. | 10:06 | |
For it seems to the king, even as to all others | 10:09 | |
who are amazed that this man | 10:12 | |
of quiet rectitude, that he knows a secret, | 10:14 | |
that there is a strong adamantine core of his character, | 10:18 | |
which they cannot understand. | 10:22 | |
And his secret from them not because it is hidden, | 10:24 | |
but because they do not participate in it, | 10:27 | |
and because they do not understand | 10:31 | |
what makes the man what he is. | 10:33 | |
And so Thomas who mystifies and frustrates others | 10:37 | |
because he looks beyond himself, | 10:42 | |
and so does not operate as those about him, | 10:45 | |
is never consequently fooled by them. | 10:49 | |
When his son-in-law, after seeing Thomas | 10:52 | |
strolling informally with the king, | 10:55 | |
indeed with the King's arm around him, | 10:59 | |
remarks on the monarch fondness for Thomas, | 11:02 | |
the man says to him, | 11:05 | |
"If my head would win him a castle in France, | 11:09 | |
it should surely go, and so it would." | 11:13 | |
Now then the play moves quickly, recklessly. | 11:19 | |
So that one catches his breath and the heart beats faster. | 11:23 | |
And the clouds of misunderstanding and subtlety and the | 11:28 | |
vagueness of insinuation are dispelled in the white hot heat | 11:32 | |
of flaming tempers and of harsh charges. | 11:37 | |
And ever clearer, Thomas begins | 11:41 | |
to see the profile of his destiny. | 11:44 | |
but he does not doubt, and he does not waver. | 11:47 | |
For his duty is a simple thing, | 11:51 | |
simple but not easy. | 11:54 | |
The King has asked him to do that, | 11:57 | |
which he cannot in good conscience do. | 12:00 | |
The King has asked him to perjure himself | 12:03 | |
and this he cannot do, | 12:06 | |
that is simple. | 12:09 | |
And it will mean his death, | 12:10 | |
and that is not easy. | 12:13 | |
But it is plain, plain and simple. | 12:15 | |
Or will you not give in a friend in treat sin. | 12:19 | |
You are acting like a fool. | 12:23 | |
you are not acting like a gentlemen, | 12:24 | |
give in Thomas. | 12:27 | |
I cannot, Howard. | 12:29 | |
You might as soon asked a man | 12:32 | |
to change the color of his eyes. | 12:34 | |
I cannot, I cannot. | 12:37 | |
So his property is confiscated, | 12:41 | |
his freedom is snatched away from him, | 12:43 | |
books are denied him. | 12:45 | |
He is threatened. | 12:47 | |
Death is close beside him, but he is firm. | 12:48 | |
See him alone, | 12:53 | |
uncertain about the calendar, | 12:55 | |
but not of the course of the future. | 12:57 | |
And then they send his wife to see him. | 13:00 | |
"Mr. Moore" she fumes. | 13:05 | |
"I'm at a loss to understand why you should | 13:07 | |
so thus play the fool, | 13:09 | |
and lie here in this close and narrow and filthy | 13:11 | |
prison and be content to associate with mice and rats, | 13:14 | |
when you might go abroad at your liberty, | 13:17 | |
I and with the goodwill of the King and up the council, | 13:20 | |
if you would do as all the bishops have done. | 13:24 | |
and there's all the learned men of the realm have already | 13:27 | |
done in God's name, a muse that you should so fondly, | 13:31 | |
and so lately the carry here." | 13:35 | |
But it does not move him. | 13:38 | |
Not Thomas. | 13:41 | |
For he is determined that he will not falter in his duty | 13:43 | |
as he sees it, even if he die for it. | 13:47 | |
As indeed, he does, but not yet. | 13:52 | |
Now do not misunderstand. | 13:56 | |
Thomas was not a man who courted death. | 13:58 | |
True he wore a hair shirt literally, | 14:01 | |
but under a robe, so loose fitted, but almost no one knew | 14:05 | |
except when the blood stained through, | 14:10 | |
and when the hour of his execution approached, | 14:13 | |
he can try out secretly to send his shirt | 14:16 | |
and his scourge to his favorite daughter, Margaret, | 14:19 | |
that the scornful might not know. | 14:23 | |
Indeed he strove in every way to escape death, | 14:26 | |
if honorably, he might. | 14:30 | |
Now you listen Will, and you listen Meg too. | 14:32 | |
He is speaking to his daughter and her husband. | 14:36 | |
You know, I know you, well. | 14:39 | |
God made the angels for his thunder, | 14:41 | |
even as he made the animals for their innocence | 14:45 | |
and plants for their simplicity. | 14:49 | |
But man, he made to serve him wittily . | 14:52 | |
And if he suffers us to come to such a case | 14:57 | |
that there is no escaping. | 15:00 | |
Then we must stand by our tackle as best we can. | 15:02 | |
And surely it delight God to discover splendor | 15:08 | |
where he looked only for complexity, | 15:12 | |
but make no mistake Meg nor you Will. | 15:15 | |
It is God's part and not men's to bring us | 15:18 | |
to that point of no escaping. | 15:23 | |
No Thomas did not court death. | 15:26 | |
It was simply that his duty was plain and simple before him. | 15:30 | |
And when he saw his duty simply, however difficult, | 15:34 | |
there was no choice for him. | 15:38 | |
No choice when the path of duty | 15:41 | |
was plainly outlined before him. | 15:44 | |
And so he continued to promise to do his duty | 15:47 | |
and do his duty indeed he would. | 15:51 | |
Now surely this is the sort of thing that makes him the man | 15:55 | |
that he was, oh, he did not pretend, | 15:58 | |
but it was a reasonable thing. | 16:01 | |
This is the wild, outrageous, faithfulness | 16:04 | |
of a man who knows that the God can deliver him | 16:07 | |
out of the hands of the King | 16:13 | |
and out of the fiery furnace, that he can. | 16:14 | |
That indeed he may. | 16:18 | |
But that if he does not, if he does not, | 16:20 | |
there is no choice for him. | 16:24 | |
For, he said, surely if we lived in a state, | 16:27 | |
where it was sensible to be good, | 16:30 | |
where virtue were rewarded, | 16:34 | |
then all of us indeed | 16:37 | |
would be good for our own self sake. | 16:39 | |
And greed would make us think. | 16:42 | |
But as it happens, | 16:44 | |
we see too often | 16:46 | |
that avarice and pride and lust, | 16:49 | |
are more profitable than humility or learning. | 16:52 | |
And so a man, even to the human, | 16:56 | |
must choose a little, and Thomas chooses | 16:59 | |
and they knew this of him, his wife, who it is true, | 17:03 | |
berated him but ever so gently | 17:08 | |
and admitted that indeed he was the kindest, | 17:12 | |
the gently the best man that she ever knew. | 17:16 | |
Shortly before his death | 17:20 | |
wrote desperately to the King, | 17:21 | |
asking for her husbands pardon, | 17:24 | |
and pointing out that his offense was not, | 17:26 | |
She said of malice. | 17:28 | |
Indeed, your grace. It arises from so long, continued, | 17:31 | |
And so deep rooted a scruple, | 17:37 | |
that passes his power to avoid or put away. | 17:41 | |
And this is Thomas who says himself, | 17:46 | |
what matters is not whether it's true or not, | 17:49 | |
but that I believe it to be true. | 17:54 | |
And it is not so much that I believe it, | 17:56 | |
but that I believe it. | 18:00 | |
Thomas was no perfect man. | 18:04 | |
Thomas was a man of his age, | 18:06 | |
and his age was a cruel and a dreadful age. | 18:08 | |
For in his day when condemned man had their | 18:14 | |
heads chopped from their bodies, | 18:17 | |
If they did not suffer a worst fate, | 18:19 | |
their heads were often exhibited as Thomas's was | 18:22 | |
upon a pike on London bridge. | 18:25 | |
Now it was this very punishment which Thomas with equanimity | 18:28 | |
could see meet it out to those whom | 18:33 | |
he thought justly to deserve it. | 18:36 | |
For he wrote that when every effort fail | 18:39 | |
to pull out malicious folly from a prideful poisonous heart, | 18:42 | |
then it was better that the heretic should die, | 18:49 | |
than that he'd be snapping to live and to seduce others. | 18:52 | |
They tell of how Thomas | 18:57 | |
had a lad in his own service whipped for heresy | 18:59 | |
and more darkly and with truth of how he sent | 19:04 | |
some men to be racked in the tower | 19:07 | |
and how he approved of the burning of some Protestants | 19:10 | |
who was sentenced to the stake. | 19:14 | |
No, the point is not that Thomas was perfect, | 19:16 | |
but the point is that Thomas was himself | 19:21 | |
faithful to duty as he saw it. | 19:23 | |
And it was not possible for him to say the word, compromise. | 19:27 | |
He was not free from fear. He was not free from fright. | 19:32 | |
Listen, Meg, | 19:37 | |
He tells his daughter, my whole nature | 19:39 | |
struggled against the thought of suffering, | 19:42 | |
yet in spite of all the terror, | 19:44 | |
it has never come to me | 19:48 | |
that I should go against my conscience. | 19:50 | |
So he does not. | 19:54 | |
And when the day comes, that death is ready for him | 19:56 | |
then he is able again to say to his daughter, | 20:01 | |
have patience, Margaret, | 20:04 | |
death waits for us all | 20:07 | |
At our birth, death only steps aside like a little, | 20:10 | |
And then he waits for us day after day, | 20:15 | |
musing towards us, | 20:19 | |
whether it will be this day or the next | 20:21 | |
that he will come near. | 20:25 | |
This was the disarming chilling tender, | 20:27 | |
which had frightened his judges when he stood before them, | 20:30 | |
and witch it enabled him | 20:33 | |
to score on their threats of torture and of death. | 20:35 | |
But death comes to all, oh my Lord, he told them. | 20:39 | |
Death comes even to Kings. | 20:43 | |
And when he comes to them, | 20:47 | |
he does not kneel nor make them any reference, | 20:49 | |
nor call them pleasantly to follow after them. | 20:53 | |
But he ta kith them roughly by the breasts | 20:57 | |
and shakes them until they rattle and are stark dead. | 21:01 | |
So this man who knew death and life, | 21:08 | |
for what they were | 21:11 | |
could with a bland face, | 21:13 | |
bid his executioner to have no fear, | 21:16 | |
but to do his business quickly. | 21:20 | |
For, he said, | 21:22 | |
you send me to God and then he answered, | 21:23 | |
surely he will not hesitate to except one | 21:27 | |
who comes so gladly to him. | 21:31 | |
And surely he would not. | 21:35 | |
For thus it was with the man of all seasons | 21:37 | |
who in season and out | 21:41 | |
had set his space, | 21:43 | |
towards the inflexible path of duty | 21:46 | |
and did found that on that faithful way | 21:48 | |
there was nothing to be feared. | 21:52 | |
For The wellspring of his action | 21:55 | |
was not within himself, but in God, | 21:57 | |
and his love for God. | 22:00 | |
Imperfectly understood | 22:03 | |
and inadequately expressed. | 22:05 | |
Improperly adored and yet never, ever forgotten | 22:08 | |
as he worshiped God and walked the way of duty | 22:12 | |
and of responsibility as he saw it. | 22:17 | |
Robert Whitington said of him, | 22:22 | |
Thomas Moore is a man of an angels wit | 22:25 | |
and singular learning. | 22:30 | |
I know not his fellow. | 22:33 | |
He is indeed a man of marvelous, mercy and pastime. | 22:36 | |
Where is there the man of such gentleness, | 22:43 | |
lowliness and affability? | 22:46 | |
And the time of sad gravity. | 22:50 | |
Truly he is a man for all seasons | 22:53 | |
and truly he was, | 22:57 | |
and it was faithfulness that made him so. | 23:00 | |
For with him as with any man of all seasons. | 23:02 | |
His wit was never cruel | 23:07 | |
nor his learning put to base account. | 23:09 | |
For he knew the ultimate to be beyond himself. | 23:12 | |
His loneliness was honest | 23:16 | |
and he was affable to all. | 23:18 | |
For he knew how frightened and how pitiful men be. | 23:22 | |
Well then, | 23:28 | |
here is the point for Moore, | 23:30 | |
and here is the point of the man for all seasons. | 23:34 | |
And where is the point for you? | 23:39 | |
And for me? | 23:41 | |
Shall I tell you? | 23:44 | |
Beyond all our piety and pretense and wit, | 23:47 | |
there is for us in this world, | 23:52 | |
the pedestrian chronic problem of doing our duty. | 23:55 | |
There is not much glamor and no glory to it, | 24:01 | |
but each mans conscience speaks to him in the language | 24:06 | |
that he knows. | 24:09 | |
And each man's duty will search him out | 24:11 | |
and show the way to him. | 24:15 | |
And it will come to us in a guise commensurate | 24:17 | |
with our own abilities, | 24:20 | |
even as Moore's was commensurate for his. | 24:23 | |
And so it should be that in season and out. | 24:27 | |
in fair days and in foul, | 24:31 | |
the men who will do their duty will find | 24:34 | |
that the councils cannot frighten. | 24:38 | |
and that the debt cannot kill. | 24:41 | |
And certainly our duty, faithfully accepted | 24:44 | |
and courageously discharged | 24:48 | |
will make, even of us, men of all seasons. | 24:51 | |
While there is a mercy out of sight | 24:56 | |
that can take out feeble and pitiful efforts | 24:59 | |
and redeem them so that they become transparent | 25:02 | |
to the eternal truth of God. | 25:06 | |
One does not speak to say that | 25:11 | |
he can exhaust the notion of God. | 25:13 | |
Indeed he is hesitant to speak of God at all, | 25:16 | |
but he can speak of duty. | 25:20 | |
For there remains plainly for all to see, | 25:23 | |
obligation and duty and responsibility | 25:26 | |
and faithfulness and promise. | 25:31 | |
Surely in the circumstances of our mortal life, | 25:36 | |
little and pathetic man | 25:43 | |
doubtless can attempt no more than to do his duty, | 25:46 | |
but no man calling himself a Christian, | 25:50 | |
there ever attempts to do less. | 25:55 | |
Almighty God, | 26:09 | |
who hath given us grace at this time with one accord, | 26:11 | |
to make our common supplication under thee. | 26:14 | |
Fulfill now the desires and petitions of | 26:18 | |
thy servants as may be most expedient for them. | 26:22 | |
Granting us in this world, | 26:26 | |
knowledge of thy peace. | 26:27 | |
And in the world has come, | 26:29 | |
life everlasting. | 26:32 | |
The Lord bless you and keep you. | 26:35 | |
The Lord make his face to shine upon you | 26:38 | |
and be gracious unto you. | 26:40 | |
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you | 26:42 | |
and give you peace. | 26:44 | |
Both now and in the life everlasting. | 26:46 | |
(choir music) | 26:54 |
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