Tuesday, June 22, 2010

AND WHEN THE LAST LAW WAS DOWN...

Today is the feast of Ss Thomas More and John Fisher, martyrs of conscience under King Henry VIII in 1535.

It is worth noting that the punishment they risked was not simple beheading—they faced the penalty for treason: hanging, drawing and quartering. It is a punishment disgusting in its depravity and the pain intended to inflict; the end of the movie Braveheart gives only a shadow of an incomplete version of this execution. More’s and Fisher’s deaths were commuted to simple beheading at the last minute: More’s by the King as an act of “friendship”; Fisher’s because he was too feeble to endure anything else.

To celebrate these great men, enjoy another clip from Robert Bolt’s adaptation of his play A Man For All Seasons, with Paul Scofield as Thomas More…




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