Paul Scofield as Thomas More
December 12, 1966: The film A Man for All Seasons premieres. Directed by Fred Zinneman, it is based on the play by Robert Bolt, who also wrote the screenplay. Paul Scofield starred in the play, as Sir Thomas More, winning a Tony Award. He reprised his role in the film: Columbia Pictures didn't think he was big enough of a name, and wanted Richard Burton, but he turned the part down, and Zinneman, already the director of High Noon, From Here to Eternity, and the film version of the musical Oklahoma!, insisted upon Scofield.
More was born on February 7, 1478 in London, and rose to become the finest lawyer in early 16th Century England. In 1516, he wrote Utopia, describing the political system of an imaginary island state. The word means "no place," and has come to mean any idealized place. But since the expression had not yet come into use in the time of King Richard II, William Shakespeare couldn't use it in John of Gaunt's description of England as "this other Eden, demi-paradise," and so forth.
In 1520, Robert Whittington, a noted grammarian of the time, write, "More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvellous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons."
More became an advisor to King Henry VIII, who appointed him Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Like Henry, he opposed the Protestant Reformation, writing polemics against Martin Luther of Germany, Huldrych Zwingli of Switzerland, and William Tyndale, who had published the 1st known English translation of the Bible. More's polemics pleased Henry.
What did not please Henry was More's opposition to his desire to get a divorce from his 1st wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn, and give himself a better chance at producing a male heir. This is where the film begins.
Henry is played by Robert Shaw; Anne by Vanessa Redgrave; and Catherine does not appear as a character in the film. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (played by Orson Welles), Henry's closest advisor and England's Lord Chancellor -- effectively, the Minister of Justice, equivalent in America to the Attorney General -- tries to talk More into supporting the scheme, suggesting that its success would avoid a succession crisis and another conflict like the Wars of the Roses, which ended with Henry's father defeating King Richard III, becoming King Henry VII, and establishing the rule of the House of Tudor.
More refuses to accept this. Listening in on their conversation is Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern, who went on to play another famous English lawyer, Horace Rumpole of the Bailey). Cromwell, another aide to Henry VIII, would turn out to be the great-great-granduncle of Oliver Cromwell, who turned out to be an even worse tyrant than Henry VIII.
The film is a little off with the timeline: In real life, Henry fired Wolsey on October 26, 1529, for not granting the annulment, and More was appointed the new Lord Chancellor. Wolsey died in disgrace on November 29, 1530: In his play Henry VIII, Shakespeare has him say, "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!"
On February 11, 1531, Henry went before Parliament, and declared himself "Supreme Head of the English Church and Clergy," essentially founding his own Church, and declaring himself its Pope, excommunicating Pope Clement VII, who had warned him about divorcing Catherine and breaking with Rome.
In the film, it appears as though More resigned immediately; in fact, he did not resign until May 16, 1532. Henry divorces Catherine. Cromwell tells More than all will be forgiven if he attends Henry's wedding to Anne. He refuses.
On November 3, 1534, on Henry's order, Parliament established an Oath of Supremacy: Any person taking public or church office in the Kingdom of England had to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church, and failure to do so would be considered treason. The modern Church of England considers this to be its founding.
More refused to take the Oath, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Being a lawyer who knew all the legal loopholes of the time, he said he could not be convicted of treason because he had not openly denied the King's supremacy. But a former friend, Richard Rich (John Hurt), testifies that More had told him that Parliament did not have the authority to make the monarch the head of the church. More denies saying that, openly accusing Rich of perjury.
Under a direct order from Cromwell, the jury convicts More, without even leaving the courtroom to deliberate. But as the judges begin to pronounce the death penalty, More, his legal mind still at work, interrupts and reminds them that prisoners are to be asked before sentencing if they have anything to say. Upon being so asked by the judges, More declares that he does.
With nothing more to lose, More calls Parliament's Act of Supremacy repugnant to every legal precedent and institution in all the history of Christendom. He cites the Biblical foundation for the authority of the Papacy, rather than national governments, over the Church. Furthermore, he declares that the Church's freedom from state control and interference is guaranteed both in the Magna Carta and in the King's own coronation oath. The judges don't buy it, and they sentence More to death.
On July 6, 1535, before kneeling at the block at the Tower, he delivers his last words: "I die his Majesty's good servant, but God's first." The film does not show the axe cutting off his head. He was 57 years old.
In the epilogue, a narrator describes the aftermath and the fates of those involved in More's downfall, and they don't end up much better: Thomas Cromwell was himself beheaded for treason five years later, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (Cyril Luckham) was burned at the stake, and the Duke of Norfolk (Nigel Davenport) narrowly avoided his own execution due to Henry's death on January 28, 1547, which the film says was from syphilis. (Historians dismiss this, but don't agree on the actual cause.) The only exception is Richard Rich, who "became Chancellor of England, and died in his bed."
Also of note in the film: Wendy Hiller played More's wife Alice, Susannah York played their daughter Margaret, Vanessa Redgrave's brother Corin Redgrave played Margaret's husband Sir William Roper (himself a prominent lawyer of the era), and future Space: 1999 castmember Nick Tate as a Master at Arms.
The film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, winning 6, including Best Picture, Best Director for Zinneman, Best Actor for Scofield, and Best Screen play for Bolt. Shaw and Hiller were nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, but did not win.
More was canonized by the Catholic Church, and named the patron saint of lawyers and politicians. His friend, the Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus, defended his character as "more pure than any snow," and described his genius as "such as England never had and never again will have."
The real More, as painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1527
Charles V was then the head of the House of Habsburg, and thus the Holy Roman Emperor, the Archduke of Austria, the King of Spain (as Charles I) and thus also Lord of the Netherlands, the King of Sicily and Naples, and the Duke of Burgundy (as Charles II). Upon learning of More's execution, he said, "Had we been master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy councillor."
Jonathan Swift, an 18th Century Anglican from Ireland, wrote that More was "a person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced," and he put More in the company of Socrates, Brutus, Epaminondas and Junius.
G.K. Chesterton, an early 20th Century English novelist, and a Catholic convert from the Church of England, predicted More "may come to be counted the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history." He wrote "the mind of More was like a diamond that a tyrant threw away into a ditch, because he could not break it."
The 20th Century English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, a collateral descendant of Sir William Roper, called More "the first great Englishman whom we feel that we know, the most saintly of humanists, the most human of saints, the universal man of our cool northern renaissance."
But in 1995, More biographer Richard Marius wrote:
The film provided viewers with the comfortable feeling that they knew all about More. He became a Catholic Abraham Lincoln, an icon of purity and principle who provoked reverence and affection...
Nowhere do we see the historical More who produced hundreds of pages of ugly polemics shrieking for the blood of Protestants. He wanted to destroy heresy by fire... When heretics were burned, More gloated... Nowhere in the film is the More who intended that his hatred for heretics be inscribed on his tomb.
The film was remade for cable network TNT in 1998, with Charlton Heston as More, Vanessa Redgrave "promoted" to his wife Alice, Martin Chamberlain as Henry VIII, John Gielgud as Wolsey, and Benjamin Whitrow as Thomas Cromwell.
Scofield declined Queen Elizabeth's offer of a knighthood 3 times, and lived until 2008.
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December 12, 1966 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. And no games were scheduled for the NBA or the NHL. So there were no scores on this day.
