Heretic, Papist!
Your accounts list 100 candles, Mistress Lucy.
No doubt for use in a treasonous Catholic mass.
I run a pub, Mr Greene. People like to see what they are drinking.
Hmm, very well, release her. But as an agent of Her Majesty
I cannot be too careful. The Reformed Church must be defended
- at all cost. - Personally, I was born into the Odinani faith.
However, I'm thinking of converting to the Maasai religion,
which is very beautiful and believes that in the beginning,
the sky and the earth were one. But the people had no cattle
so God sent them many cows down a bark rope, mmm-ah!
Then the Ildorobo tribe were jealous, so they cut the rope, hah!
And heaven and earth were separated for ever!
An ignorant heathen myth. One day, all the peoples of
Africa will be brought to knowledge of the true faith.
This being the faith that says God sent his son from heaven
via a miraculously-inseminated virgin?
Which is so much more logical than a string of flying cows!
Oh, do give it a rest, Greene. Just because you've managed
to oil your way into Walsingham's spy team along
with us hard guys, doesn't mean there's a Catholic terrorist
- at every table. - Oh...
Wafers and wine!
Wafers and wine, Mr Marlowe. Why, you and this cohort of
unrepentant heretics be celebrating Catholic Communion --
you will burn for it!
Wafers and wine... and cheese, Mr Greene!
It's not the Eucharist, it's a ploughman's lunch.
I do hope you're not going to be such an utter arsemungle
on the Warwickshire mission, Greene, otherwise it will get very boring.
I shall do my duty, Mr Marlowe. The Queen's life is ever-threatened
and none be above suspicion!
None!
Warwickshire mission, Kit? My neck of the woods.
Yes, another Jesuit snuck across the Channel
from English College at Douai, the Pope's private spy factory.
We've traced the swine to the Midlands.
Mm, right, better go and get the sword sharpened,
love you loads.
Jesuit spies, Papist assassins, these are dangerous times
and indeed none be above suspicion. Essex is already frozen out.
- Sussex is under a dark cloud. - Norfolk awaits a storm.
Mind you, I've heard Cornwall's lovely this time of year!
Oh... Joking... Maybe, riffing, rolling with it...
Finding, oh, the funny, ah!
Or in this case, finding the not funny.
Or, taking the not funny and pushing it to that special place
beyond the funny.
Thereby cunningly bypassing the actual funny altogether.
Yeah!
Everyone's loyalty be questioned. Even we poor players
are under constant scrutiny. Our productions must be
faultlessly patriotic, a farrago of mendacious propaganda.
Like your Richard III, Will, whom you did depict as a
- brutal psychopath. - Well, he was a bit of a psychopath.
Murdered his own nephews in the Tower, definitely not cool.
Yes, but in your play you had the hunchback king murder
- his own brother, which was a lie. - I'm prefer the phrase --
alternative fact.
You also had Richard murder his brother's wife.
And his wife's former husband and Henry VI and Henry VI's son,
Edward -- neither of which he actually did.
- And he wasn't a hunchback. - Just a bit of scoliosis.
But the Queen loved it, thus lies become truth.
Perhaps in some future age, despotic megalomaniacs will not
secure power through lies, false news
and the rewriting of history...
But for now, the bigger the porkies you tell,
the greater the power you wield...
- Gentlemen, I feel another Henry coming on! - Oh!
Henry VIII? You're going to sanitise the reputation of
- the meanest, cruellest monarch that ever lived? - Yes, I am.
I'll play it as light romantic comedy with plenty of sauce --
When Harry Met Cathy.
And Anne. Also Jane.
Another Anne.
And Two More Cathys.
One King -- Six Queens. Will he get his Hampton Court?
Mr Shakespeare, Henry VIII was a monster. You should do
Henry V, such a heroic figure.
Henry V was an utter bore and everyone knows it.
A pious, humourless killjoy who attended three masses a day,
forswore the company of women and marched round France
killing people, because apparently it was what God
really, really wanted.
It's funny how the more religious a person is, the more
- murderous they seem to get. - A brutal lesson which I learnt at school,
Bottom, where the master regularly asked God for strength
as he flayed the flesh from my botty-buttocks.
He was quite simply the most terrifying childcare
professional since King Herod opened the Bethlehem creche.
His name was Simon Hunt, so you can imagine what we called him.
- Open goal! - Don't you think it's deeply revealing
and rather depressing that when wishing to express angry contempt,
men use imagery relating to the female sexual anatomy?
Kate, the man's name was Simon Hunt -- what would you have had us
call him?
If his name had been Bertie Venus, we would have called him Spurty...
Yes!
- But it wouldn't have been as potent, would it? - I don't follow.
Well, think about it. In the lexicon of male abuse,
is any cod-dangle word ever as powerful an expression
of hatred as a term that hails from the tufted lady grotto?
I have absolutely no idea what you're on about.
But I bet you'd like to tell that old bastible
what you think of him now, wouldn't you, master?
Yes, I would, Bottom, I'd slaughter him with one of my
brilliant insults. How about that cracker from Richard III?
"Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog!"
You got anything stronger?
Well, there's that one from my Titus Andronicus...
- "Villain, I have done thy mother." - Oh!
That'll hurt.
And once again we see that for a really powerful insult,
men must needs resort to sexually degrading images
- of women. - I still don't know what you're talking about, Kate.
Maybe we should look this Hunt up, if we go to Stratters,
- see if he's still living. - He may still be living
but not in Stratford. He refused to recant the old religion
and left England in 1575. I hardly think an avowed Papist
is likely to turn up, with Liz on the throne.
Not unless he's planning to assassinate her!
Darling, I'm home!
- Mwah! - Mwah! - And if you want to know why I wasn't home yesterday,
blame the Pope for turning every Catholic in Britain
into a suspected terrorist.
We were delayed half a day when some dung-brained arsemungle
on my coach claimed another passenger looked a bit Italian...
And he thought he heard him muttering Latin under his breath.
Turned out, the man was Welsh and that his suspected lethal weapon
was a particularly knobbly leek!
- Still, lovely to have you home. - Yes, I'm returned to
write my latest play, it is to be a history and Kate has
- come as my research assistant. - Morning, Mrs S, Mr S,
Mrs S, Miss S -- where do you want the bags?
I presume I'm in with the cow.
Don't be so bloody cheeky. Where would I sleep? Ha-ha-ha!
I do not find that funny, John Shakespeare.
- She does, she loves it. - I do not love it, I tolerate it
- cos I feel sorry for you. - Sorry for me? Why would
you feel sorry for me? I'm a right roister-doister.
You think you are but you're not. You've turned the whole
town against you. Nobody will drink with him any more
because of his lies and cheating and scrounging money.
Oh, they used to find him amusing with his saucy tales and
drunken japes but all be sick of it. They call him Foulstuff --
John Foulstuff. It's why he wants that coat of arms --
thinks it will make him friends again but it won't.
I expect you're all famished after your long journey.
Well, there's a fine stew on the fire,
- Bottom, will you dish up? - I suppose I'd better had do.
Whoever it was who coined the phrase
"a change is as good as a rest" obviously wasn't a servant.
That was me, wasn't it?
Yes, I think that's definitely one of mine.
So when my gran used to say that to me when I was a tiny, tiny
lad, she was quoting you, then, was she?
You really have got to stop taking well-known sayings
and claiming you wrote them, Will. You're better than that,
- you know you are. - So, what's this new historical crap
you're writing, then, Will?
- I'm going for the biggie, Dad, Henry VIII. - Henry VIII?
I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch dramas about him
or any of the Tudors.
That devil destroyed the one true faith.
Mum, we do not call Catholicism the one true faith.
It was the one true faith under the last queen.
Under the current crazed harridan, it is Satanic heresy.
Do try and keep up.
I don't think Mr Shakespeare should cover Henry VIII either,
Mrs Shakespeare -- the man's life was one long catalogue
of religious hypocrisy, domestic violence and murders of
- convenience. - Sounds like my kind of play!
I'm sure he had a good side. Some redeeming features?
Dad, he cut off two of his wives' heads.
- I am aware, my sweet. - He didn't just say,
"Oh, you don't really get me any more,
"we need to give each other space."
He cut off their heads!
Well, sometimes, with relationships, it's better to
make a clean break...
Now, come on, everyone,
we're looking for King Harry's positive points.
Well, he made Wales and England into one kingdom.
Mm, I think I'll leave that out.
Not making any friends on either side there.
Although, of course, the union did make sound economic sense --
promoting growth by breaking down trade barriers
and allowing free movement of goods, services and labour.
Mm, yes, Kate but if there's one thing we know
about the British, be we Welsh, Scottish
or, pardon me for living, English,
it's that when it comes to a choice between sound economic sense
and bloody-minded petty nationalism, then the world can get
stufflingtonned because we want our countries back,
no matter how small, cold, wet or utterly impoverished they may be.
- Anything else? - He wrote Greensleeves.
He did not write Greensleeves. That is a common misconception,
which no doubt will be corrected with time.
He was a great scholar, for all his boorish, violent ways.
He wrote Assertio Septem Sacramentorum --
a staunch defence of Catholicism, for which Pope Leo X
gave him the title "Defender of the Faith".
Mm, this would be the faith that a week later he started
burning people for believing in.
- The one true one! - No, Mum -- Satanic heresy, you've got to try
and get your head round that.
- Anything else? - Plenty, but none of it very nice.
He passed the succession law, which declared his own daughters
- illegitimate. - Yes, not a good look. One thing calling your
kids a couple of little bastibles, we all do that,
but it's another to make it an Act of Parliament.
This is going to be tougher than I thought.
I'm telling you, Mr Shakespeare, do Henry V --
- the hero of Agincourt! - And I'm telling you, Kate,
he was a self-righteous bore. If I wrote a play about him
I'd have to come up with some other really memorable character
to draw focus. Some gross and bawdy, but ultimately pathetic
figure who could lead Prince Hal astray, thus mitigating
his piety and creating a good dynamic for when Hal becomes
king and must renounce his gadsome ways.
- That sounds promising! - Yes, but what form would this character take?
- Who could I base it on? - Here, Bottom, look at my parsnip!
It's like a giant cod-dangle with a couple of hairy bollingbrooks!
Ha-ha-ha! Brilliant!
Yeah...
Who can that be, at this hour?
Oh, my goodness, I don't believe it. It's the old town schoolmaster.
Simon Hunt?! Here?!
- At our door? - Yes.
What a bit of luck! Here's your chance to call him
an abortive, rooting hog and say you've done his mum!
Like you said you would.
Is my collar clean? My shoes, my fingernails?
Oh, my God, I must scrub my fingernails!
Ahh! Shakespeare!
Is it you?
Turn around and bend over.
Yes, that's you.
Er, yes, Sir. Please, Sir, i-it's me, Sir.
May I ask, Sir, what brings you here, Sir?
- I have come for a visit. - A visit? You-you want to stay?
Will... This be Hunt. Many stories have you told me
about his cruelty. Send him packing.
Yes, absolutely. I will. I'll tell him to get out
of my house right now!
I can't believe you gave him our bed.
I know -- but I'm emotionally scarred. I can't stand up to him.
The wounds run too deep.
I'm sure he'll leave soon and he hasn't been any trouble so far.
~
What's that?
"What's that?" Why... 'Tis a sound that's ne'er been heard
in England since the glory days of good Queen Mary!
Oh, my God...
He's celebrating mass!
Oh, God, she's off. Once a bleeding Catholic...
She's eating the wafer.
- They burn you for eating a wafer. - She'll be insisting
on having marital conjugations through a hole in the sheet
again, before you know it -- like on our wedding night.
I was so arsemungles, I couldn't find the hole.
Ended up rogering the pocket of my puffling pants.
If we're discovered, we will be burned alive.
Not me -- it's your house, son, he's your old teacher.
That's your wife on her knees drinking a nice fruity red
with shades of walnut and vanilla
and, oh, just a hint of Christ's blood on the back of the palate.
You've got to stand up to him, you've got to get rid of him.
Obviously, I have. Or else, live a coward in thine own esteem.
Letting I dare not wait upon I would --
like the poor cat in the adage.
Will, there is no time for obscure blank verse.
How can you say that? There is always time
for obscure blank verse, or my whole life is a lie!
Well, are you going to chuck him out?
Yes, absolutely.
In the morning.
Erm, sir, excuse me, sir. I was just wondering how long...
Not now, Shakespeare. This poor and simple woman is washing my feet.
It is a deep and symbolic communion between shepherd and flock.
I'm in a state of grace.
You're in some sort of bloody state, that's for sure.
Tiny point, sir.
From my small store of liturgical knowledge, sir,
I had thought it was the priests who washed the feet
of the poor and simple, not the other way round.
Don't cross theological swords with me, boy.
I've spent the last 15 years in study
at the English College at Douai.
Of course, absolutely, sir. I'm sorry.
Did you say the English College at Douai?
Concentrate, boy! I'm not accustomed to repeating myself.
Excuse me just one moment, sir.
Wife, kindly prepare my reserve puffling trousers.
For I fear my quakesome Bowlingtons be ripe ready to barf forth
a fulsome tempest of foul and steaming scaredy sludge.
- What ails thee, husband? - He's the spy! - What spy?
Marlowe told me there's a Jesuit terrorist in Warwickshire.
It's Simon Hunt, my old schoolteacher.
Yes, Shakespeare.
And you have given me shelter, your mother has taken my communion.
If I burn, boy, you'll burn.
I suggest you take pains to ensure my safety.
I shall return this e'en.
Lock the doors! Bar the windows!
None must enter, none must ever know he's staying here.
Knock, knock! Hello!
- Kit, oh, my God! - What, aren't you pleased to see me?
Yes, why wouldn't I be? What are you trying to say?
It's not like we've got a terrorist staying or anything.
- Shakespeare! - Ah.
We are come to Warwickshire as promised,
ever intent upon our noble purpose.
Hunting Jesuits.
Well, there aren't any here!
A Jesuit in our house, giving mass to my mum? As if!
Anyway, Will, I thought you could put me up
while I'm hunting the swine.
- You want to stay? - Well, we'd get expenses.
- But I'd rather keep them, if that's all right. - Fear not, Mr Shakespeare.
I will not be soliciting lodging in your humble cottage.
I shall stay at Sir Thomas Livesey's,
who will also provide constables for when we arrest the terrorist,
and all who harbour him.
Good day.
Don't mind me, Will.
I know you're here for some peace and quiet to write your new play.
So, just show me my room, send up some ale and pie. Wahey!
Forget I'm even here, hmm!
Wife, those spare puffling pants.
Any time you're ready.
Well, I've got Moll next door to take Sue, Kate and the twins,
so that's them safe.
Your mum's in Sue's room and Marlowe's lazing upstairs.
And we just need to find a way to keep him there.
Will!
I stopped by the tavern earlier and asked them to send me round
a naughty country lass for some company this evening.
- I hope Mrs S won't object. - Object? She'll be thrilled. Wife!
Great news, Kit's sent out for a prostitute.
Fortune favours us.
With luck, she'll keep him in his room till we can get rid of Hunt.
Supper, if you please, Shakespeare.
Sir, an agent of the Crown has lodged himself in this house.
You must leave at once.
Never -- the road is dangerous and the night is wild.
I shall leave early on the morrow. But fear not.
Till then will I keep to my room
and be absolutely silent and discreet.
Yes, yes, you must.
Apart, of course, from celebrating midnight mass later.
- What? - Send supper to my room.
I'm Gertrude, a very sinful woman.
And am come under cover of darkness to visit a gentleman in this house.
Good, excellent.
I must say, the Stratters tarting slaps have smartened up!
Erm, Bottom, take this young lady up to Mr Marlowe.
No sooner said than done.
Now that is one of mine, isn't it?
You can't claim to be inventing the entire English language.
Can't I, Botsky? Watch this space.
Now, take Miss Gertrude to Mr Marlowe.
Let's hope she can keep Kit busy all night and the two of them
make enough of a row to cover a midnight mass.
Oh, by the way, Shakespeare, this e'en,
a certain member of the local gentry will be visiting to take communion.
- What? - The Lady Gertrude is expected tonight.
- What? - Send her up when she arrives. I'll hear her confession in my room.
I'm Gertie, a very sinful woman, and I'm come under cover of darkness
to visit a gentleman in this house.
Ah, Lady Gertrude?
I've been expecting you.
Come to my chamber and we shall have a divine service.
- That's what I'm here for, kind sir! - No! - You object, boy? - Wrong Gertrude!
First, I would speak with you of my deepest and most shameful thoughts.
Ooh, loving that, yeah!
Bit of dirty talk does it for me. Fire away.
And if my sins be too great for forgiveness,
then must I verily be flagellated.
Not normally my scene, but I don't mind experimenting a bit.
And finally must I be brought to a state of ecstatic grace.
You and me both. Right, let's get to it!
Kit, you've got the wrong tarting slap. This one's yours.
- Then, who's this? - Erm, mine.
And Anne's, we've become Swingletons.
You know what goes on in boring country towns. We're all at it.
We park our hay carts in quiet cul-de-sacs and watch each other.
[.. pater et filius et spiritus sanctus.]
[Amen!]
Looks like you got away with it, master. Kept them both busy.
Yes, but it was close.
We nearly delivered a Catholic noblewoman to a government agent
and a lowly tarting slap to a crazed religious zealot.
Well, I've turned some tricks in my time.
But that ancient doddering old arsemonger was the weirdest.
He just wanted to serve me wafers and wine and talk Latin to me.
Still, whatever turns them on.
The price is still the same, a copper penny.
Oh, my goodly Godlingtons! Gertrude was the tartling slap.
Which means Gertie was the noblewoman,
and we sent her to Marlowe!
Well, I must say, that was the most divine service I've ever had.
I feel I've been to heaven and back!
The Eucharist has certainly changed since I last had it ministered.
In the old days, you kept your clothes on
and the priest only put a biscuit in your mouth.
Now... Now, money.
- Money? - For the Offertorium.
A good Catholic never forgets alms for the poor.
Here is a copper penny. Believe me, it was worth it.
Priests were never like that before the Reformation!
Just goes to show, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
Still, all's well that ends well.
- Now, those two are definitely mine. - Stop it, master, really!
- It's embarrassing. - And it hasn't ended well, Will.
I don't know, wife. We got our penny back.
But we're still harbouring a heretic.
We'll be turning our kitchen table into an altar at midnight.
And with Marlowe still upstairs.
We've got to get Kit out of the house.
But how? It's impossible.
Just get your old man to take him down the pub.
As I was about to suggest.
Dad? Get your coat!
- What's that, son? - Astonishingly, we need you.
I mean, what were the odds?
How long does this thing go on?! It's been three hours.
Your dad can't keep Marlowe drinking forever.
If he comes home and sees this, we'll burn.
You've got to act now.
You're right, wife. This is really it, time to man up.
For there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come.
If it be not to come, it will be now.
If it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
When I said do something, I did not mean recite a soliloquy!
Right, yes. Fair point.
God bless this woman.
I am a wicked sinner.
No, Mum, he is the wicked sinner and a disgrace to his God!
How dare you, boy? Show me some respect and call me sir!
I will not call you sir, sir.
Because you are a disgusting sadist, sir, who used his position
of power and authority to abuse defenceless schoolboys, sir.
Well, it didn't do you any harm, did it?
No, apart from the deep, emotional and physical scars,
I'm absolutely fine.
Now, get upstairs, keep quiet and at first light, futtock off!
.. every day! Shh! Shh!
- I love you, Kit. You're my mate. - Oh, I love you.
I wish you were my son, not Will.
- You've got Bolingbrokes! - Oof!
- He won't even stand up to his old schoolteacher. - Schoolteacher?
- Simon Hunt. - Oh. - Priests, I 'ate 'em!
I have no idea what you were talking about.
Go, now! And don't come back.
You'd have been caught last night
- if Walsingham's agent hadn't gotten himself drunk. - Drunk, Will?
It takes more than four or five gallons of sack
to get this bad boy squiffy.
I only stayed drinking with your boring, vain, nasty old dad
because I guessed a sad-act town foulstuff like him
would have information.
And he did.
Simon Hunt.
Jesuit, traitor, follower of the heretic, Campion.
- I arrest you for treason. - But Kit, he's found in my house!
You condemn not just Hunt, but me.
- I shall surely burn for harbouring a traitor. - Oh!
How sweet it is. To capture a heretic is one thing.
But to snare the crow is a thing sublime!
- You will burn for certain, sirrah. - Hang on just one minute, Greene.
Will burn? He's a hero.
It was he that entrapped the traitorous Hunt.
Luring him here under the excuse of their days together
at Stratford School and summoning me
and keeping him close till I arrived.
You mentioned none of this before.
What, trust the deep intel to a Johnny-come-lately like you?
You've only been a spy a week and the best you've done
is harass Miss Lucy for serving cheese and biscuits!
Shakespeare, boy. Did you betray me?
- Well, I... - Yes, yes, he did betray you.
- Then am I grateful. - Grateful?
For now, I can embrace the martyr's death.
As a Christian, I can think of nothing more glorious
than to be tortured and killed by other Christians
over minor details in the church service.
Take him away!
What's all this noise? Have I missed something?
You're not off, are you, Kit?
I thought we could have another night out roistering!
Roistering! With you?
You bothered the barmaids, you never bought a round,
you tried to filch some poor fella's purse
and you told the same dreadful joke
about a poultry farmer's disappointing cock 15 times.
Never, ever again.
Oh, I thought we were mates.
I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester.
I told you, John. People find you out.
At first, they think you're good company.
But in the end, they realise you're just a greedy, revolting old man.
Oh, my goodly Godlingtons!
- That's it. - What's it, doll?
The comic character for my Henry.
It's Dad!
It's been Dad all along.
The amusing yet ultimately pathetic figure
who forms a counterpoint to Prince Hal's heroic destiny.
It's you, Dad. It's John Foulstuff.
Well, I won't write Henry V just yet, or Henry VIII, for that matter.
I'm not in the mood to celebrate religious zealotry just now,
since it be but an excuse for intolerance and murder.
I know, it's so weird. And for the same God, too.
Why can't we be like the Muslims?
They have their Shi'ites and their Sunnis
as we have our Protestants and Catholics.
But unlike us, they don't feel the need to start a holy war over it.
You wait, someone will stir them up in the end.
Anyway, the trip's not been a total failure.
You've come up with a brilliant new comic character.
And I think one of these days,
John Foulstuff will be a very big hit.
That's right, I'm a bleeding inspiration.
Don't you forget it!