"Grant Them Removed!"

Shakespeare in 2026

The English really know how to do Shakespeare. Better than anyone. It must be something in the air, the water, the sceptred isle. But the English do Shakespeare so well.

So much so that on four occasions when I have visited London I have made a pilgrimage to the South Bank to see Shakespeare at the Globe. And the performances have been brilliant.

But in addition to the “Canon” Shakespeare collaborated with others on a number of plays – some well known, some lesser. Those that can be verified have been put together in the volume of collaborative plays published by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I have it on my shelf.

One of the plays upon which Will collaborated was Sir Thomas More. It was never printed in Shakespeare’s day and survives only in manuscript now held at the British Library. The presence of seven hands has been identified in the manuscript.

The play was not staged but there have been modern revivials – at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1964 with a young Ian McKellen in the title role. The play has also been staged in Bristol and London in 1980 by a company called the Poor Players and in 2005 on the stage of the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon

The play begins on the street, nastily. It is 1517 when London witnessed the worst race riot of the age. A mob of over a thousand angry young mean and women gathered near St Paul’s and tore through the City destroying property and assaulting anyone who stood in their path. Most were labourers and apprentices. They broke into Newgate prison, freeing inmates who had been detailed for attacking foreigners. The riot was brought to a temporary halt when the charismatic Under-Sheriff of London, Thomas More, confronted the crowd.

There are some who would say that studying a sixteenth\seventeenth century playwright has little relevance in the twenty-first century. But Shakespeare is still relevant in his examination, throughout his plays, of the human condition.

And there are passages in Shakespeare that, even after four hundred years, still speak in a voice that we can understand and speak to us about our times, confounding those who argue that Shakespeare is irrelevant and has no place in our educational system.

Recently Ian McKellen appeared on the Late Show in the USA with Stephen Colbert – yes, the same Ian McKellen who was Magneto in the X-Men and Gandalf in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. And the same McKellen who revived More in 1964.

His appearance on The Late Show offered a rare treat: McKellen performing a monologue from a Shakespearean play he originated over 60 years ago. When the lights go down, Colbert’s audience completely locks in, and McKellen delivers.

And he delivers Shakespeare as only an English actor – and one of the very best – can. He calls for a cue from the audience and as the segment below demonstrates he effortlessly steps into role. The reading is sublime.

I shall leave it to you, dear reader, to find what message for today that you will.

For those who are really keen, the full text of More’s speech is below from Act 2 Sc. 4. McKellen edited it a little but the impact is not lost.

MORE.

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise

Hath chid down all the majesty of England;

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,

Plodding to th’ ports and costs for transportation,

And that you sit as kings in your desires,

Authority quite silent by your brawl,

And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;

What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught

How insolence and strong hand should prevail,

How order should be quelled; and by this pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,

Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another.

DOLL.

Before God, that’s as true as the Gospel.

LINCOLN.

Nay, this is a sound fellow, I tell you: let’s mark him.

MORE.

Let me set up before your thoughts, good friends,

On supposition; which if you will mark,

You shall perceive how horrible a shape

Your innovation bears: first, tis a sin

Which oft the apostle did forewarn us of,

Urging obedience to authority;

And twere no error, if I told you all,

You were in arms against your God himself.

ALL.

Marry, God forbid that!

MORE.

Nay, certainly you are;

For to the king God hath his office lent

Of dread, of justice, power and command,

Hath bid him rule, and willed you to obey;

And, to add ampler majesty to this,

He hath not only lent the king his figure,

His throne and sword, but given him his own name,

Calls him a god on earth. What do you, then,

Rising gainst him that God himself installs,

But rise against God? what do you to your souls

In doing this? O, desperate as you are,

Wash your foul minds with tears, and those same hands,

That you like rebels lift against the peace,

Lift up for peace, and your unreverent knees,

Make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven!

Tell me but this: what rebel captain,

As mutinies are incident, by his name

Can still the rout? who will obey a traitor?

Or how can well that proclamation sound,

When there is no addition but a rebel

To qualify a rebel? You’ll put down strangers,

Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,

And lead the majesty of law in line,

To slip him like a hound. Say now the king

(As he is clement, if th’ offender mourn)

Should so much come to short of your great trespass

As but to banish you, whether would you go?

What country, by the nature of your error,

Should give you harbor? go you to France or Flanders,

To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,

Nay, any where that not adheres to England,—

Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased

To find a nation of such barbarous temper,

That, breaking out in hideous violence,

Would not afford you an abode on earth,

Whet their detested knives against your throats,

Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God

Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants

Were not all appropriate to your comforts,

But chartered unto them, what would you think

To be thus used? this is the strangers case;

And this your mountanish inhumanity.