Sir Thomas More

Nine years ago, Red Baron read an article in The Guardian that fascinated him, but he never found the time to write a blog.

 

This is the last surviving script handwritten by William Shakespeare, in which he imagines Sir Thomas More making an impassioned plea for the humane treatment of refugees. The theater piece about the life of Henry VIII's councillor and lord chancellor was not staged because of fears it might incite unrest.

British scholars found out that Shakespeare wrote the play "Sir Thomas More" actually in collaboration with Henry Chettle, Anthony Munday, and others in 1592. It survived only in fragmentary form after being censored by Edmund Tylney, Master of the Revels, in the government of Queen Elizabeth I.

Here is the powerful scene, featuring More challenging anti-immigration rioters in London against the number of French Protestants (Huguenots) seeking asylum in the capital.

 
"You'll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in lyam
To slip him like a hound.
Alas, alas! Say now the King
As he is clement if th'offender mourn,
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you: whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, Spain, or Portugal,
Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England:
Why, you must needs be strangers."

In two cases, Red Baron needed some help with the English: "And lead the majesty of law in lyam" translates to "keep the authority of the law under restraint," and "Why, you must needs be strangers" reads in modern English as "Well then, you must necessarily be foreigners."

Thomas's powerful rhetoric urges the crowds to empathise with the immigrants. He is asking the rioters to imagine what it would be like if they went to Spain, Portugal, or German provinces*, they would then be strangers. Thomas is pleading for empathy.

*Provinces, indeed. Germany was founded as late as 1871.

Wasn't it always, and isn't it still like this with strangers seeking protection and peace?

With greetings from Bethlehem, a Merry Christmas to all my readers.

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