Off with their blinkered heads

By Julian Delasantellis

The Quaker adage to "speak truth to power" can frequently seem easier in theory than in practice. If you doubt that, ask Sir Thomas Moore. For most of his life he was King Henry VIII's teacher and guide to the disciplines we now call the enlightenment, but after Sir Thomas refused to go along with Henry's creation of the Church of England in order that the monarch could legally marry Anne Boleyn, it was off with Tommy's head, on July 6, 1535.

But that was 475 years ago, before the execution of Charles I for treason in 1649, before the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that made England forevermore a parliamentary democracy. Surely, in this enlightened time, a courtier can offer a true and heartfelt opinion, within the bounds of good taste and propriety, and not have to worry about those hard to remove bloodstains from his shirtcollar.