My post about Michael Monyelle provoked a lot of comments, almost uniformly negative, as I expected. I am reminded of this passage from Robert Bolt’s play about Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons:

Meg: Father, that man’s bad!

More: There’s no law against that!

Roper: There is, God’s law!

More: Then let God arrest him!

Alice: While you talk he’s gone!

More: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

Roper: So now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down (and you’re just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?

Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!