Paddy McEvoy, Author and Teacher

Sir,

Why do people like Eamon Duffy persist in attempting to exculpate that old reactionary zealot Thomas More? (Letters Cromwell v More Feb 13th). Duffy blithely glosses over the matter of 'heresy' in getting to his point as to how the sainted More has been so misunderstood and misrepresented.

More regarded heresy as a cancer to be cut out. He lead an assault on Luther's influence. He instituted an Index of banned books. Was he not a Paisley-like figure who smelt sedition and heresy in anything that didn't fit in with his monolithic world-view?

No one in his custody suffered 'so much as a flip on the forehead'? Really? He obviously wasn't above being economical with the truth when it served his purpose. One wonders what Sir Thomas Hitton, burned at Maidstone in 1530, 'the devil's stinking martyr', would have made of this blithe claim?

Paddy McEvoy