When one reads the play "A Man for All Seasons" one learns about a man named Sir Thomas More. He stood up for his belifes and didn't let others bend him to their will. It is a story of one mans struggle between his country and his conscious.
The trouble began for Thomas and others in England when Henry the eighth wanted to break from the Cathlic church because the Pope wouldn't grant him a divorce from Cathrine of Aragon, his Spanish wife (pg. 54, "You must consider, Thomas, that I stand in peril of my soul. It was no marriage; she was my brothers widow. Leviticus: "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brothers wife"". The reason why he wanted to divorce her was because she had not beard him a son that lived (pg.54, " does a man need a Pope to tell him when he has sinned? It was a sin, Thomas; I admit it; I repent. And God has punished me; I have no son Son after son she's brone me, Thomas, all dead at birth or dead within the month; I never saw the hand of God so clear in anything I have a doughter, she's a good child, a well-set child- But I have no son. It is my bounded duty to put away the Queen, and all the Pops back to St. Peter shall not come between me and my duty!" .
As the situation progressed Sit Thomas knew how he felt and couldn't give the king his support. Indstead he remained silent. He didn't agree with what the king was doing by denouncing the Pope and the Cathlic church. .
He held on to his life as long as he could in the loopholes of the law (pg. 66, " The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing I can't navigate. I"m no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I"m a forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God- He had stuck with his decsion of silence. When he was at his trial he explained the law to his favor to the jury (pg 152, " the maxim is "qui tacet consentire." The maxim of the law is "Silence gives consent.