Free The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd

where the dangers of unintelligibility are continually emphasised. It was ‘a treatise in logic’ rather than a philosophical hymn. 29 As a late twentieth-century commentatorhas put it,
Parmenides
is filled with deliberate mistakes and ‘multiple contradictions’; the challenge for the reader is ‘not simply to notice errors but to diagnose them’. 30 This is precisely the challenge which More established in
Utopia.
    So we may place More’s treatise firmly in the context of Plato and his Renaissance interpreters—within, that is, the context of humanist discourse. The very form of
Utopia
may have been modelled upon
Parmenides.
In a sense More always needed the safety of an inherited model. Just as his history of Richard III had been in part based upon Sallust, so this more accomplished production seems to rest upon Plato. The very nature of More’s genius can be glimpsed here, in his ability to reformulate the classical tradition on his own terms while at the same time employing all the ironies and ambiguities of his own nature.
    This in turn heralds the most interesting and significant aspect of his imaginary dialogue with Hythlodaeus, when the two men argue over the merits of royal service. Hythlodaeus rejects any suggestion that he might advise a king, on the grounds that only flattery and hypocrisy succeed in such councils; a good man is either scorned or betrayed, with his virtues acting as a cover for the activities of more vicious men. The character of More, presented in the dialogue, disagrees with this analysis and argues instead for the necessity of practical philosophy and pragmatic guidance as an arbiter of public good. This was a matter of pressing import to More, since in this period he was actually considering whether to join the king’s council. Yet it is a measure of his innate caution and distance that he is able to play with the arguments on both sides as if indeed it were a drama of which he is the spectator. But Hythlodaeus is in many respects portrayed as a blusterer, mixing specious argument with impractical fantasy, and the plain fact that the traveller opposes royal service may be the single most important reason for entering it. That is, exactly, what More now proceeded to do.

CHAPTER XXXII
CALL FORTH SIR THOMAS MORE

    IR Thomas More, you are charged with attempting to deprive the king of his lawful title as supreme head of the Church in England, which is treason. You did refuse to accept the royal supremacy in front of His Grace’s commissioners on 7 May. You were in collusion with a convicted traitor, John Fisher, and it is known that letters passed between you. You again maintained your silence on the matter of the supremacy, when formally questioned in the Tower of London on 3 June. In a conversation with the Solicitor-General, Sir Richard Rich, you denied that the parliament had the authority to declare His Grace the head of the Church in England.
    Duke of Norfolk
: Sir Thomas More, ye see that ye haue heynously offended the Kinges Maiestie; howbeit we are in very good hope (such is his great bountie, benignitie and clemencie) that if you will forethinke and repent your selfe, if you will reuoke and reforme your wilfull, obstinate opinion that you haue so wrongfully mainteyned and so longe dwelt in, that ye shall taste of his gratious pardon.
    Thomas More
: My Lordes, I doo most humbly thanke your honours of your great good will towardes me. Howbeit, I make this my boone and petition vnto God as heartily as I may, that he will vouchsafe this my good, honest and vpright minde to norishe, mainteyne and vpholde in me euen to the last howre and extreme moment that euer I shall liue. Concerning nowe the matters you charge and challenge me withall, the articles are so prolixe and longe that I feare, what for my longe imprisonment, what for my longe lingring disease, what for my present weaknes and debilitie, that neyther my witt, nor my memorie, nor yetmy voice, will serue to make so full,