"Blue for constancy." "Flesh for flesh." "Straw for plenty." "Red for justice." "Le Roi." "The Palace of Whitehall London 1638" "Your cousin Harry is the envy of my court." "Let's ask God to bless this union." "'On the night of my birth, 'a comet appeared in the sky and bells rang out.'" "A girl." "'The bells did not herald my birth... '..but the killing of my mother's Catholic priest." "'For Catholicism in England was seen as high treason." "'Cousin Harry was my father's heir, 'and my childhood playmate.'" "This is where my mother's priest used to come and go." "Follow me, Harry." "Be brave." "Mother?" "Mother?" "Harry and I have a play to show you." "Two birds that grow up and marry." "Mother?" "I am your servant." "Instruct me." "Mother?" "'The Virgin Mary told my mother to leave me behind 'and go to a nunnery in France.'" "Angelica..." "It is Our Lady's will that I give my life over to God." "My bible is my farewell gift to you." "Please don't leave me!" "'This was the day I lost my mother 'and put my soul into the balance.'" "If there be a God that steals mothers, strike me down!" "There is no God!" "There is no God!" "Why do you weep, Angelica?" "Only for joy that this day has finally come." "Make her ready." "Harry, I've heard the Queen say" "Angelica was wild as a colt when first she came to Court." "Her mother went to a nunnery in France, Highness, and then her father died." "For a year or two, she was not herself." "They tell me she saw devils." "She was but a child, my Lord!" "It was her mind was wild, not her." "A wild bedfellow then." "I do love to see a woman with spirit, and a man to break it." "She needs not be broken, my Lord." "In faith I hope she be broken, Harry,in this very night." "She's played false else." "Your work awaits you." "Not work... but the purest delight to me, my Lord." "Angelica Fanshawe is a delight to all men, Harry." "It's nothing, Angelica." "If it is nothing then why may I not see?" "Shall Honest John Lilburne... not speak the truth about this King that tells us God gave him his throne?" "!" "I say to you, he is a tyrant that will not let his Parliament sit!" "Charles Stewart has no divine right." "For writing this I am whipped!" "Will you recant, John?" "The King promises your freedom if you'll renounce your pamphlet." "My liberty is his to take... ..but not to give." "I am free-born John Lilburne!" "Beg him to recant, madam!" "Do not recant, John." "Plague Pits at the Spitel Field Near London" "'I closed my eyes and lived in the dark, choosing not to see the world outside was sick and running mad." "Read his pamphlet." "Read and remember." "For Justice and Liberty." "Your husband, madam?" "Aye." "Honest John Lilburne." "Whipped for raising his voice for justice and liberty." "Welcome to Babylon, sir." "Justice and liberty?" "He is mistook, madam." "There's nought but these... since time began." "Well, Sexby..." "I thought you were long dead by now." "I am at your service, Highness." "No-one left to kill in Germany?" "Not a one left to piss against a wall, Highness." "Well, you've travelled in vain." "I have no need of you." "Yet I heard talk of a fight to come here in England." "That the King must let his Parliament sit" "That their heads buzz with grievances against him." "That this will not be settled by talk." "Dear God, who is she?" "Remember the sewer you were born in and the hag that gave you life!" "Come to me later." "There is a service you may perform for me." "But there'll be no fight in England, Sexby." "May I speak with you, my Lady?" "Let her speak." "Quickly, madam, for I am waited on at the altar." "My Lady, I am the wife of a man much misunderstood," "Honest John Lilburne, that was whipped just now..." "Whipped?" "Aye, most cruelly, and will die in the Fleet unless a voice like yours be raised up to help him." "Wait!" "You might ask a favour of her Majesty on your wedding day." "My Lady, Lilburne is the villain that writes lies about His Majesty." "Madam, tell your husband there's no greater soul on this earth than the King." "He is my second father." "Then Honest John must die... and there is no liberty in this land." "The garter!" "Yes!" "The garter!" "Yes!" "No, no, no, no!" "Over here!" "Me, Angelica!" "Me!" "I will have them both, sir." "Let me be your friend a while longer." "My boy Harry." "You'll always be my best friend." "But now I must be a husband." "And you will be the best husband a woman ever had." "What, Harry?" "Not at your work yet?" "A drink of sack." "To make a "boy" lusty." "Well, then, "my boy Harry..."" "To it." "He is the King's nephew." "And a brave fighter." "You must be brave too now, Harry." "You must not call me "boy"." "I will be a boy no longer." "Husband, then." "Fanshawe House near Oxford" "Do your worst." "'So Fanshawe married Fanshawe." "'Harry did not wed the house and land - 'they were his already." "'I did not wed the name - 'that was mine already." "'We married for love.'" "My serve, sir." "Thank you." "Mistress Lilburne." "My Lady looks well." "Lilburne?" "You have met before?" "Your wife was kind enough to spare a word on the day of your wedding, sir." "My husband knows not that I am here." "He would not beg." "Indeed." "For I have read his letter." "As well as his pamphlet, The Work Of The Beast, which he was loving enough to send me as someone connected to His Majesty." "And indeed he does not beg - he demands that I intercede on the side of "justice" and "liberty"" "Perhaps you have not read his pages." "Sir, some of the pages are mine." "John and I are of one mind and one flesh." "Please, sit." "You are weary." "Indeed, Madam." "For I have walked from London to speak to you only the truth, I swear." "You have walked to no purpose, madam." "She plays with "truth"" "as her husband plays with "liberty" and "justice"." "I came not to play at anything, sir, but to save my husband from a slow death in the Fleet Prison." "For I know not how he will live except a voice is raised up for him, for I think the truest man in England." "And though he will not beg, I will." "His demand is only that the King let the Parliament sit so he may hear the grievances of his people." "Husband?" "May we not hear...?" "We?" "I fare you well, madam." "You may go." "You must never again interfere in matters you cannot understand." "Give me that!" "Did you burn yourself?" "Why do you stare at me always?" "Wait." "When you were sent here," "Prince Rupert said you were a good man for a fight." "I want you to take me to the Fleet Prison." "How will the gaoler make his living unless he bring in wine and whores?" "I had thought there would be dungeons." "There are, my lady." "And there with Lilburne they'll sit, except the mob that reads his pamphlets came to burn the gaol down." "I must see your face, madam." "I cannot." "We must have your face, madam, or your name." "I come to be of service to you, Master Lilburne." "How, madam?" "If you would but listen, my Lady will tell you." "I wish to help you to His Majesty's forgiveness." "He's a just, wise, and merciful man." "Forgiveness?" "!" "For I think you are a sincere and godly man." "But you do not know His Majesty's heart as I..." "He had me whipped at the cart's arse from Fleet Bridge to Westminster!" "Would you see the stripes?" "!" "John." "Let me take to him some words of conciliation..." "Apologise?" "John." "I?" "Her heart means well." "Madam, I thank you, but I would rather have another 500 lashes ere I would kneel for forgiveness." "The King must listen to the voice of reason in his Parliament and dismiss his fat-witted advisors!" "We shall not live like slaves!" "Nor shall we loll in our beds while he bring in an Irish Army or a Scotch Army to kill us!" "I..." "I know nothing of an Irish Army." "Madam." "My friend loves his crown of thorns, but God is at work in his honest heart." "If I may not know your name, know mine." "I am Thomas Rainsborough." "The means to talk a King off his throne." "King off his throne?" "Sirrah, I will not stay and quarrel with you for I see your life is a quarrel with itself." "When the world has turned, may you find your true nature." "How will the world be turned, sir?" "When the first is last and the last is first." "And where shall I be on that day?" "You will be where you choose to be." "Farewell, gentle Lady." "Who was the other, who had no words but "John"?" "A godly man, and a good man for a committee, I am told." "Sent from Cambridge to sit in the Commons." "Now that at last the King permits us to sit, let my first words in this new House be on injustice." "Hath not His Majesty sworn, not to deny to any man either justice or right?" "Then where is the justice for John Lilburne?" "That rots still in the Fleet by a sentence most illegal, against the liberty of the subject, bloody, wicked, barbarous and tyrannical?" "!" "Now we sit, we must listen to these voices or they will drown out our proceedings." "I, Oliver Cromwell, petition this House that by its own authority it orders the immediate release of Honest John Lilburne!" "You waste no words." "What would you have me say?" "Did you think me..." ""fat-witted"?" "Your journey was wasted." "You thought to bring a prize home for your husband, did you not?" "He must not know." "I will bring in your bags, my Lady." "What thought you on Master Rainsborough?" "If my Lady was a dinner, he would lick the plate clean." "No more?" "He sees into men's hearts." ""The world to turn."" "How may that be, think you?" "He dreams." "On a world where no man needs a King to govern him." "And perhaps, no woman her husband to govern her." "Shall I bring in your bags, my Lady?" "Where got you those cuts?" "Fighting." "Where?" "Wherever there are wages." "Why are you here, Sexby?" "Why do you draw my water and carry logs to my fire?" "I am waiting, my Lady." "For what?" "For the killing to start." "Killing?" "One side will draw a sword." "It is the world." "Your horse waits on its straw." "And my Lord waits on you." "You are returned." "How fares your friend?" "She is..." "She is much recovered, sir." "Cover yourself, sirrah." "Harry." "My thoughts are with His Majesty." "A mob, urged on by traitors in the Parliament, has forced the release of Lilburne." "This is anarchy." "Harry, do you not think that these grievances...?" "They have no grievances." "He is the King." "They are his subjects." "Of course, but might there not be..." "It is not for you to think about." "We will go to London tomorrow." "His Majesty has commanded the House to give up five old dogs that have bitten him these ten years." "They still deny the King his right to rule." "They're traitors, the House must surrender them." "And what if they refuse?" "He will seize them." "He will enter their Chamber?" "It is his parliament." "But to use force against..." "It is not for you to think about." "Harry." "Will you not come to me tonight?" "Aye." "If you will be silent." "Why do men mock me?" "Who mocks you, Harry?" "Even on my wedding day, I was mocked." ""A pleasure for all men."" "What?" "Are you a whore, madam?" "I'm what you see, Harry." "I'm what you know me to be." "Aye... by day." "But by night, what are you?" "When the Devil came to you..." "That you did tell me as a boy." "Sir?" "Aye, Satan, with his tongue unfurled." "I was a girl, I..." "Did he enter you?" "What?" "!" "Then wherefrom these noises at night?" "Harry, why do we fight?" "Are we not Harry and Angelica, best of friends?" "Boy, again." "Do you smell it?" "It's on the wind." "The House refuses." "I will be master of my enemies." "Follow me!" "Do not draw your sword... unless you be certain of the day." "The King comes with armed men." "Gentlemen, a barge awaits you at the Watergate." "Let them go, quickly." "If the King takes them, he is strong." "If he fails to take them, he is weak." "Do not attack your enemy's house... ..if he be gone from it." "I had not thought he would do this, Thomas." "Mr Speaker, I must for a time make bold with your chair." "Five of your members are charged with treason." "You will point them out to me." "Sire, it is not my part to see or speak anything but as this House desires me." "Hear, hear!" "No matter." "My eyes are as good as another's." "I can see all my birds have... flown." "Know the hour." "And the minute." "And the second." "It's lost." "Harry, what is lost?" "London is lost." "(SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH)" "We leave London as soon as it is dark." "The apprentice bands are sacking houses." "The militia is out and armed." "They come here to defend their Parliament." "Majesty." "My dear, sweet girl, you must not trouble yourself." "Sire, there are matters Your Majesty may not fully understand." "Angelica." "Concerning the Parliament men." "I think they need not be your enemies, Your Majesty." "There has been a mistake." "A mistake?" "I am...mistook?" "A thousand apologies, Your Majesty." "Her mind is wild, still." "Leave us." "(SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH)" "Wa...wa...wa..." "War." "Edge Hill Kineton 1642" "The day depends on us!" "And we charge!" "Where's your honour, Sexby?" "Where are your men?" "Half way to Kineton, seeking you, sir." "Follow me." "You lost your men, you seek them out." "You're under my command, Sexby." "I don't take orders from boys." "How came you by that?" "Give it to me." "Take it from me." "I can have you shot for this." "Then why should I fight for you or your king?" "Come and fight me on the battlefield." "Hold fast, John!" "Hold fast!" "Welcome to paradise, sir!" "For liberty and justice!" "I see your world is turning!" "Sir" "Sexby!" "Traitor!" "He's here, Thomas." "The night has frozen his wounds." "Yet he breathes." "Grab his legs..." "Both armies gave thanks to the same god for the same victory." "And in truth, the fight at Kineton settled nothing at all." "It was only the beginning." "As the seasons turned, ever more blood was spilled in all corners of the land." "Croyland Abbey,The Fens Christmas Day 1643" "You thought right, Thomas." "They look not for this, not come by floodwater." "Nor on this day, Oliver." "Make ready the guns, Edward." "Thomas." "Must there truly be no warning?" "None." "We are too few to storm them." "Women and children..." "Aye." "They must feel terror in their hearts." "Fire the first gun." "Fire the first gun and reload." "Fire the second." "Fire the second gun and reload." "We are ready, sir." "Hold." "Thomas, surely they see how few we are." "All that matter's is this man's spirit." "If I break it, your men need not draw their swords." "Is this how men fight, sir?" "Hear this." "God sent these floods to trap you." "Now he sends you Rainsborough and Cromwell, like Joshua and Gideon, to drown you in fire and blood." "You cannot withstand us." "We have 20 cannon." "Our duty is clear, sirs." "You will command the surrender now." "If you do, you may retreat, bag and baggage when the waters go." "Sirs..." "Else your walls will suffer more ordnance." "My engineers will dig beneath you and we will blow you all to atoms." "Your men will receive no quarter." "Those that breathe will go to the Indies as slaves." "Decide now." "Your time is borrowed, sir." "Will you grant us what remains of this blessed day to pray together" "Colonel Rainsborough?" "No, sir." "You blaspheme by giving the Son of God a birthday party." "This is a day like any other." "Angelica, the King asks me to tell you he has recalled Harry from the West Country." "Then I can go to Fanshawe again?" "No, no, child." "You are to wait till Harry sends for you." "Bring him in." "Away!" "Stand." "Well, speak." "Sire, on Christmas Day just gone, the Abbey at Croyland was taken." "Taken?" "How, taken?" "Surrendered, sire." "To Colonels Cromwell and Rainsborough." "Sire, we could not have resisted them." "Surrendered?" "Without...a fight?" "Well..." "You, sir, will never command men hereafter." "It seems now my enemies need only look upon my power and it takes to its heels." "I must tell you all, while they have more stomach than we have for the fight, none of us will see London ever again." "Save yourself, madam!" "What's going on?" "Go, go!" "Find them." "You'll watch them hang." "Slowly." "You were not... ..touched?" "I was never more glad to see you." "My letter was clear." "You were to wait to be brought out." "I thought I was..." "You thought?" "You thought to pay no heed to my wishes." "Men are dead because you thought." "I was wrong." "It was done because..." "I missed my friend Harry." "Did he not miss me?" "You reach for your boy." "You will not find him again." "I am Colonel Harry Fanshawe." "I am yours to command, Colonel." "Amen." "Amen." "Let down your hair." "Show yourself to me." "Oh, my husband..." "My true, brave husband." "You are my master." "I am yours." "My true..." "Madam!" "These are the words of the whores in my soldiers' camps!" "Then, Harry... ..I commend to you to your soldiers..." "..and your soldiers to their whores." "Where you may command, I will ever be your dutiful wife." "Where you may not, I can be nothing but what I am." "Parliamentary Camp Newbury October 1644" "Horses for the Earl of Manchester." "Does the Commander-in-Chief know our plans, General?" "The King marches on us, my lord." "I have a plan to assault his guns at first peep, from behind his own lines." "We shall devise some signal for your lordship when it is time to take to the field." "I will not need your signal, Colonel Rainsborough, and I did not loll asleep, General, when you spoke your plans earlier." "I believe the King will not press the fight." "Let the winter come on." "Let time heal our wounds." "For myself, I'd march to Oxford and pull him from his lair." "Would not you, General?" "Gentlemen, we must consider what we do." "If we fight the King a hundred times and we beat him 99 times he will be King still." "But if he beat us but once, we shall be hanged." "We shall lose our estates." "Sir, I have none to lose." "My lord, if this be so, then why did we take up arms at first?" "Then let us make peace, on any terms, be it never so base." "Are your men in readiness, then?" "Armed without and within, my lord." "I'm told... that none of your officers are men of estate, but such as are common men." "Yet godly and precious, sir." "They are in this quarrel for their conscience' sake, not for pay." "I pray you look them over." "The day draws on." "I pray you." "For most surely it would raise their spirits even higher to look upon the face of their Commander-in-Chief." "For what is our purpose in this fight, but to rid England of the thieving abuses of privilege and to take back our common inheritance?" "A rich man is but a man who is a burden on to other men." "Even an earl is but a man." "Who is this?" "Major Lilburne, that did fight most desperately at Kineton and in our late victory at Marston field." "Lilburne - the man who would have us all level." "Will he not bow?" "John...will you not bow to his lordship?" "Bow, sir, and all will be well." "All will not be well in this land until the Earl of Manchester is but plain Mr Montague." "You will hang, sir!" "He will not hang." "I will be hanged first." "Edward!" "My lord." "Perhaps the earl did not see how bravely this man fought at Marston." "For it was somewhat dark before he entered the field of battle himself." "You, sir, are another Leveller!" "And I will have no Levellers in my command!" "Bow, or I'll hang you myself." "Edward, you were too hot." "But I'll speak to the earl and he will relent." "Do not spend your breath." "I will fight for this parliament no more." "Where is liberty when Freeborn John must bow to a hog in armour?" "Fare you well." "He spoke the truth." "There are too many like Mr Montague that have too much to lose by our victory." "Goodnight." "You were right, Thomas." "Soon we must move towards Oxford and the King's lair." "And in our way, there are some great houses that we must secure." "Nay, that you must secure." "Colonel Fanshawe." "I am Colonel Thomas Rainsborough." "I know you who you are." "I will accept no bargain nor hear no threats from you." "Do your worst." "My lady and her women will leave within the hour." "So be it." "My wife." "I will write you a pass to Oxford, my lady." "We are busy in the county." "I will need no pass, sir." "This is the house that I was born in." "If you wish to take it from us, you will wade through blood to do it." "This is not Croyland Abbey." "Is this not so, my lord?" "The ladies will be ready within the hour." "Husband?" "Madam." "Hear your husband, for I mean to do my duty here." "And I mine...sir." "You will leave, madam!" "I will not, sir." "Angelica, you are the dearest creature in the world to me..." "Then let me stand beside you." "Rainsborough has never failed in a siege." "He will destroy the house and all in it." "Then where else should I be?" "I will stay at all costs." "And die by your side." "Then all is lost." "Utterly lost." "Your Majesty..." "Be silent." "You should have obeyed your husband." "And you, sir... ..you should have subdued your wife." "Stay in Oxford if you will, madam, but expect nothing from the Queen's household evermore." "I will accept any commission from Your Majesty, however base or of low rank..." "No, sir." "You will prepare yourself... to meet God." "Your Majesty...?" "He forgiveth and absolveth them that truly repent, so that at the last, we may come to his eternal joy..." "..through Jesus Christ Our Lord." "Amen." "You must say "amen"." "Amen." "Surely the King does this only to fright me?" "Halt!" "Stand left!" "Where is my wife?" "Harry!" "Be brief, madam." "Farewell, sweet friend." "I have done this, Harry." "I have done this!" "Remember me." "Remember your boy... who loved his sweet playfellow more than life." "Pray to God for me, Angelica." "Pray to God for me, Angelica." "Please God..." "Take aim..." "Please, God, if you hear me, I beg you..." "Fire! 'There is a woman in Oxfordshire.'" "Upon my life, General, this woman is the epitome of wickedness." "She consorts with men." "She is sent from the Devil!" "You are much changed, my lady." "You are not, I see." "What Colonel Rainsborough urges this council to accept is a form of government unknown on this Earth." "Then it's clear, General." "In this beloved England, one of us will not live." "By whose authority do you come to take away a King?" "It is a very good authority."