At the beginning of A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is introduced as a deeply religious man focused on adhering to the laws of his country and his faith. As the show progresses, the audience sees More place further faith in his belief that by abiding by current laws and withholding his opinion on King Henry VIII's divorce he will be protected from prosecution. The issue arises when the King wishes to divorce his brother's wife, whom he had initially taken as his own through a special papal dispensation, in order to marry Queen Anne and produce a male heir. Furthermore, being a devoutly religious man, he realizes that this goes against the laws of the Church. He refuses to give his voluntary approval on the grounds that it is not morally or legally right. In a utopian society, where the use of reason and law could prevent innocent people from being punished, More would not have been executed. However, this comedy is based on realistic human nature. Contrary to humanistic thinking that all people are fundamentally “good,” the reality is that people are selfish and driven by their own desires. Corruption and personal desires almost always take precedence over what is morally or legally right. More's fatal flaw is his naive belief that the law would protect him from any undeserved action of the king. He mistakenly thought that by not openly denying or confirming his position on the King's divorce he would be "released" from all charges. Countless times throughout the play More states that he believes he is protected. “I'm not on the wrong side of any statue or any common law. I did not disobey my sovereign. I truly believe that no man in England is more confident than I am. -Sir Thomas More, page 68“No-Alice, it's a p...... half of paper...... dispensation initially granted by the Pope of the Catholic Church. Throughout this play, there is a recurring lesson: Don't put full faith or trust in something. Most people, just like Richard Rich and King Henry VIII, act for their own benefit, accepting bribes and lives just to satisfy their own selfish needs. It all comes down to morals and personal standards. More chose to remain faithful to his faith and accept his fate as an innocent man. He did the noble thing and died with his pride intact. More realized that his overconfident faith in the law was not reasonable. You take something that has the intention of protecting it and you put it in people's hands, and its honest intention sometimes gets corrupted. The lesson is to never trust naively and so deeply in something that is in the hands of others, because you cannot always trust others..