St. Thomas More, speaking of Protestant heretics: “Where they find the fault that I handle these folk so foul, how could I other do? For while I declare and show their writing to be such (as I needs must or leave the most necessary points of all the matter untouched) it were very hard for me to handle it in such wise as when I plainly prove them abominable heretics and against God and his sacraments and saints, very blasphemous fools they should discern that I speak them fair. I am a simple plain body For though Tindall and Frilh in their writings call me a poet, it is but of their own courtesy, undeserved on my part, For I can neither so much poetry nor so much rhetoric neither as to find good names for evil things, but even as the Macedonians could not call a traitor but a traitor, so can I not call a fool but a fool, nor a heretic but an heretic.” (Quoted in “The Life of Sir Thomas More” in “Lewis’ Preface”, pub. 1626, the English modernized and edited by myself.)