The Analysis of Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons
             The Reformation of the Church of England was an act of state. The direct cause for England's break with the Catholic Church was when Pop Clement VII refused to annul King Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The king wanted to marry Anne Boleyn because he thought that she would produce a male heir for him, since his first wife could not. Also Henry thought that his marriage had displeased God, since in the Biblical text (Leviticus 18:16) it said that marriage to a dead brother's widow was forbidden. So Henry ordered his chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, to go to the papacy for a decree that the marriage was invalid and that Henry was free to marry again. A divorce trial was held in London in 1529 and was adjourned without a decision. In anger at the delay, Henry dismissed Wolsey. By 1532 Henry had found a new chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, who proposed that England break with the papacy so that the archbishop of Canterbury, the highest officer in the English church, could grant the divorce. Legislation to this effect was passed by Parliament in 1532. As a result Henry was free to marry Anne, and the Church of England was established as an independent national church, no longer associated with the Roman Catholic Church or the Pope. An oath of supremacy, promising loyalty to the king as head of the church, was required of all subjects; and those who refused to take it, like Sir Thomas More, could be executed. Robert Bolt's, A Man for All Seasons, is an historic play which stresses the portrayal of protagonist who refuses to renounce his religion and beliefs at the insistence of the king, as well as the author trying to tell a message throughout the play.
             Bolt uses actually figures from history in the play. For example, the protagonist of the play is Thomas More, who was actually based on the historical Sir Thomas More. "Bolt accounts the life of Si...