The Heart of Virtue by Donald DeMarco

Author:Donald DeMarco [DeMarco, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898705683
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2011-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

LOYALTY

HE WAS A MAN of refined and diverse abilities. His eloquence in Latin, as well as in English, was incomparable, and he had mastered Greek. He was an imaginative writer, a poet, a musician, a translator, a lecturer, and a lawyer of exceptional quality. During his illustrious political career he was Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Chancellor of England. But Sir Thomas More is remembered and honored more for his virtues than for his virtuosity, particularly for the loyalty he held to his God and his Church when his life was on the line.

Samuel Johnson said of him that “he was the person of the greatest virtue these islands ever produced.”1 Joseph Addison stated that “his death was a piece with his life. . . . He did not look upon the severing of his head from his body as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind.”2

When More was a member of Parliament, early in his career, he brashly and successfully opposed the large and unjust sums of money that King Henry VII was exacting from his subjects. It was an act that previewed things to come. More was later informed by one of the king’s tax collectors that he would have lost his head except for the fact that he had not attacked the king in person. He remained conscious of the possibility of losing his head while he served King Henry VIII, even during that period when his relationship with the Crown was most cordial. “If my head should win him a castle in Prance,” he told Roper, his son-in-law and biographer, “it should not fail to go.”3

More was an adept diplomat and never went out of his way to invite trouble. When Henry VIII declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, More proferred his resignation. But Henry was determined to obtain More’s allegiance and issued the Act of Succession that required all who should be called to take an oath that honored Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn and repudiated the papacy. When More was summoned by the king to take the oath, he refused. More was then charged with treason and sent to prison. He was executed the following year.

Robert Bolt, who wrote the immensely successful play about Thomas More A Man for All Seasons, asks himself the question: “Why do I take for my hero a man who brings about his own death because he can’t put his hand on an old black book and tell an ordinary lie?”4 His answer, essentially, is that the virtue that More lives (and dies) by, his loyalty to his primary commitment, is a testimony that he has a self, an inner personal reality that cannot be denied or swept aside by fears or inducements. More proves he is a self because he stands by his word. The vacillating, backtracking individual who switches loyalties whenever it is convenient does not reveal the presence of a self. Such a person seems to be indistinguishable from the external forces that mold him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.