A Man for All Seasons

Sir Thomas More:
You threaten like a dockside bully.

Thomas Cromwell:
How should I threaten?

More:
Like a minister of state, with justice.

Cromwell:
Oh, justice is what you're threatened with.

More:
Then I am not threatened.

Alice More:
Arrest him!

More:
Why, what has he done?

Margaret More:
He's bad!

More:
There is no law against that.

Will Roper:
There is! God's law!

More:
Then God can arrest him.

Alice:
While you talk, he's gone!

More:
And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

Roper:
So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More:
Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper:
I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast– man's laws, not God's– and if you cut them down—and you're just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.

Alice:
What's this? You crossed him.

More:
Somewhat.

Alice:
Why?

More:
I couldn't find the other way.

Alice:
You're too nice altogether, Thomas!

More:
Woman, mind your house!

Alice:
I am minding my house!

Cromwell:
Yet how can this be? Because this silence betokened, nay, this silence was, not silence at all, but most eloquent denial!

More:
Not so. Not so, Master Secretary. The maxim is "Qui tacet consentire"; the maxim of the law is "Silence gives consent". If, therefore, you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented, not that I denied.

Cromwell:
Is that in fact what the world construes from it? Do you pretend that is what you wish the world to construe from it?

More:
The world must construe according to its wits; this court must construe according to the law.

The Duke of Norfolk:
Oh confound all this. I'm not a scholar, I don't know whether the marriage was lawful or not but– dammit, Thomas, look at these names! Why can't you do as I did and come with us, for fellowship!

More:
And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

More:
Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher, perhaps a great one.

Richard Rich:
If I was, who would know it?

More:
You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that.

King Henry VIII:
Oh, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas! Does a man need a Pope to tell him where he's sinned? It was a sin. God's punished me. I have no son. Son after son she's borne me– all dead at birth or dead within the month. Never saw the hand of God so clear in anything. It's my bounden duty to put away the Queen and all the popes back to Peter shall not come between me and my duty! How is it that you cannot see? Everyone else does.

More:
Then why does your Grace need my poor support?

King:
Because you're honest... and what is more to the purpose, you're known to be honest. There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown, those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I'm their tiger, there's a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves. And then there's you.

More:
I am sick to think how much I must displease your Grace.

King:
No, Thomas, I respect your sincerity. But respect—man, that's water in the desert.