There is thus a crucial difference between this quarrel and that later quarrel between Henry VIII and Thomas More in which what is in dispute is precisely how events are to be interpreted. Henry II and Thomas Becket inhabit a single narrative structure; Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell on the one hand and Thomas More and Reginald Pole on the other inhabit rival conceptual worlds and tell, as they act and after they act, different and incompatible stories about what they do. In the medieval quarrel agreement in narrative understanding is manifested also in agreement about the virtues and vices;
...more
