“Guilty, My Lord”
September 15, 2022
HERE IS the scene from “A Man for All Seasons,” the 1966 historical drama, in which Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII is convicted of treason and sentenced to death. More, played here by Paul Scofield, refused to recognize Henry VIII’s marriage to Ann Boleyn and take an Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church of England.
More stated:
I am the King’s true subject, and I pray for him and all the realm. I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. If this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live.
The scene takes place in Westminster Hall, where Queen Elizabeth II lay in state this week.
Westminster Hall, a reader points out, was also “where Edmund Campion and his fellow defendants were tried, and during which he declared: ‘In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors, all our ancient bishops and kings, all that was once the glory of England — the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.'”