The scene is Blackfriars. Parliament is sitting, as the mace laid on top of the table shows (this was before St Stephen's Chapel had been granted the Commons as a permanent Chamber). To the right of the table is Sir Thomas More: facing him the ample form of Henry VIII's Chief Minister Wolsey, proud in the gorgeous crimson robes of a Cardinal.

The year is 1523. The false dawn of peace which had seemed to be promised at the Field of the Cloth of Gold had come to nothing - as Wolsey intended that it should. England is at war with France, and the enormous sums needed for the war have to be raised. This provoked a crisis with Parliament, which was made worse by Wolsey's doubtfully-legal methods of extortion. In 1523 Sir Thomas More gave him Parliament's answer, that monies could not be seized in anticipation of Parliament's due debate and assent.

In this story More played a conciliatory role - indeed, he was rewarded by the king for his help. It was in striking contrast with his steadfastness in the matter of Henry's later divorce from Catherine of Aragon - and with an incident from earlier in More's career, when, as a very junior MP, he had successfully argued against an enormous subsidy to Henry VII. On that occasion, his father Sir John More was imprisoned in reprisal.

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Sir Thomas More refusing to grant Wolsey a subsidy