Sir Thomas More by Munday, Shakespeare, et al.

Sir Thomas More by Munday, Shakespeare, Dekker, et al. 1600

            The play dramatizes the rise and fall of Sir Thomas More as a sheriff and, later, counselor to King Henry VIII. When some members of the laboring class start a riot because of their mistreatment at the hands of foreign Lombardi’s who were given sanctuary by the King, More steps in and eloquently stops the riot and saves the lives of the rioters and armed forces sent to stop them with a speech about tolerance and imaginative empathy. One rioter, Lincoln, is hung before the pardon can come from the king, but More is rewarded for his work with being knighted and made a member of the privy council. All of the “downfall” of More happens off stage though as the king never makes an appearance in the play, but true to life, the King sentences More to death for refusing to sign the Articles recognizing King Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England.

The play has some interesting interludes and metatheatricality where one of More’s servants, Randall, pretends to be More during a meeting with Erasmus, but Erasmus sees through the disguise almost immediately. There’s also a play within a play called The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, where More plays Good Counsel to Wit when the actor doesn’t come back in time with Wit’s beard. The play is left unfinished though after More’s part is done.

A lot of the play seems to deal with what scholars have seen as anti-alien sentiment, but there’s a strong undercurrent of class difference as well. The riots are technically against the treatment of the lower classes by the French Lombardy, but much of the dialogue about the riots surrounds how the nobles have not taken care of their servants and allowed the Lombardy to mistreat them.