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About a century ago, 1929, G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any other moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years’ time.”

“Thomas More died the death of a traitor for defying absolute monarchy; in the strict sense of treating monarchy as an absolute. He was willing, and even eager, to respect it as a relative thing, but not as an absolute thing. The heresy that had just raised its head in his own time was the heresy called the Divine Right of Kings. In that form it is now regarded as an old superstition; but it has already reappeared as a very new superstition, in the form of the Divine Right of Dictators.”

Chesterton went on to speak of the checks on kings leading up to the reign of Henry VIII and then added, “But most certainly medieval men thought of the king as ruling sub deo et lege; rightly translated, ‘under God and the law,’ but also involving something atmospheric that might more vaguely be called, ‘under the morality implied in all our institutions.’ Kings were excommunicated, were deposed, were assassinated, were dealt with in all sorts of defensible and indefensible ways; but nobody thought the whole commonwealth fell with the king, or that he alone had ultimate authority there. The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school. There was an idea of refuge, which was generally an idea of sanctuary. In short, in a hundred strange and subtle ways, as we should think them, there was a sort of escape upwards. There were limits to Caesar; and there was liberty with God.”

In those few words, Chesterton explains a great deal to us of Fisher and More, of Henry and the Popes, for we are too much given to think of God as controlling us and secular government as establishing our freedom, when only the opposite is true.

The Law, before Jeremy Bentham and John Austin was sacred and difficult to change even in its human expression (changing Natural Law is never possible). It has become the instrument of the government to control those without power. It was not always so. The so-called progressive movement has made it that “more effective instrument for social engineering” that Justice Holmes wanted. In every just society, it was as much a limit on the powerful as it was a guide to the humble. We do well to note that Henry did not simply decree the death of More and Fisher for treason. He followed a long and complicated process that took years because there was, at least, a fear of the appearance of impropriety. He manipulated, cajoled, and reigned in dissidents to make them carry out a mockery of the process of law.

More never became cynical about this manipulation of the legal process even though he was apparently aware that his skills could not save him. He, along with his good friend Bishop Fisher, lamented the cowardice of the English bishops in not bringing truth to bear on the process. More and Fisher knew that the bishops’ resistance would have prevented the fall of England. Threatened with prosecution for premunire, obeying a foreign authority, the Bishops of those days surrendered to Henry’s Act of Supremacy. Bishop Fisher said, the fort is betrayed even by those who should have defended it. The day after they clergy surrendered, More resigned as Chancellor. When More saw Henry upon delivering his resignation, he spoke with composure and a piercing gaze that made Henry avert his eyes. In that moment, St. Thomas saw that Henry’s conscience was still operative and More never ceased appealing to it until the day of his death by beheading. (See, Wegemer, Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage, Princeton).

The Cathechism tells us, “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey…For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths. 1776

Chesterton must have foreseen the tyranny of relativism and the rise of lawlessness that would engender the turmoil in our times. In Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, in an exchange between Cardinal Wolsey and St Thomas, the author captures the truth within Chesterton’s words in a way that characterizes this current state of insanity. Wolsey tries to convince Thomas to drop his objections to Henry’s plotting, telling More that the realm needs a remedy. England needed an heir. More tells him to pray. The scene goes like this:

• WOLSEY (After a pause, rather gently) I believe you believe that. (Here he is referring to the fact that he prays for the good order in England.) You’re a constant regret to me, Thomas. If you could just see facts flat on, without that horrible moral squint; with just a little common sense, you could have been a statesman.
• MORE (After a little pause) Oh, Your Grace flatters me. (Pause)
• MORE I’ve already expressed my opinion on this-
• WOLSEY Then, good night! Oh, your conscience is your own affair; but you’re a statesman! Do you remember the Yorkist Wars?
• MORE Very clearly.
• WOLSEY Let him die without an heir and we’ll have them back again. Let him die without an heir and this “peace” you think so much of will go out like that! (He extinguishes the candle) Very well then . . . England needs an heir; certain measures, perhaps regrettable, perhaps not- (Pompous) there is much in the Church that needs reformation, Thomas- (MORE smiles) All right, regrettable! But necessary, to get us an heir! Now explain how you as Councilor of England can obstruct those measures for the sake of your own, private, conscience.
• MORE Well . . . I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties . . . they lead their country by a short route to chaos. (During this speech he relights the candle with another) And we shall have my prayers to fall back on.