The Devil's Whore (2008): Season 1, Episode 2 - Episode #1.2 - full transcript

Madam, you are unwell.

She needs a hot dinner,
brother Chimney.

I saw her first, brother Joliffe.

Do not tire yourself, sir.

We travel before first peep of day.

Well, Madam... what say you?

What has been your
business in Oxford, sir?

- To sell corn, my dear.
- You're a farmer?

I sell corn...

which is a mite easier
than growing the stuff.

No armies trample over my profits.



And the King's court
must still be fed.

Shall I call the boy?

You want me drunk, madam?

I knew it were so!

Such a bonny lady, such a fine face,

but we must all eat, must we not?!

In times as these, a man
must make hard bargains...

and a woman must sell
what a man will buy.

Shall I call the boy?

No, dear Madam...
for I am lusty enough.

Come, come.

You've had your pay.

Come, let me help you.

Sir, I beg of you.



We'll have no tears.

For we are jolly here.

Now off with the rest, open
your pretty legs and all is done.

Sir, I think you have
a wife somewhere.

I beg you think.

Madam. No more of this.

Will you run me through?

I think you will not.

Madam, will you get on your back?

Well, then I see you
need another smack.

Oh, God!

Do not call for God, sir.

He's turned his face from us both.

The country starves, Thomas.

But there is food enough
for those with coin to pay for it.

Parliament men sign themselves passes

through my lines and sell
corn to our enemies in Oxford.

The country looks to
the Army for justice.

The country looks for order.

They want their King back in his place.
They want their world safe again.

You know my mind on that.

What is yours?

We are as one, and ever will be.

But Charles Stuart
will ever be King.

How can Charles Stuart be
King and the world be safe?

God will provide us the answer.

The starving copyholder
nor the unpaid soldier will not wait

for the firmament to split
and shine God's beam on us!

We must make our own light shine.

On the King, on the parliament
of thieves and on property.

Property?

Land should be a common treasury.
Let every man have a share of it

and there'll be no starving.
Men will feed themselves.

Where's that land to come from?

It must be taken from
those who have too much.

You would have us turn
to robbery then?

Farewell, Colonel.

Farewell, General.

Why did these members of parliament

induce us to fight in
the name of freedom

only that we might now endure
their greed or suffer their prisons?

I tell ya, this is no
freedom except for them!

And where sat they while
we fought for their profits?

At home counting their money.

I tell ya, we are robbed once more.

Not by King alone this time,
but by parliament as well!

Voice of the people, John.

Let them! Let them come!

Comrades!

We fought side by side for liberty!

What did you fight for
all that time?

To be the dogs that parliament
would throw me to?

Incarcerate me, sirs,
I am a free born man!

Try again.

I was told you were dead
at Kineton fight.

Death indeed sought me out.
Like a lover.

But yet I live.

I thank you.

God in heaven...

help me, please!

You are much changed, my Lady.

You are not, I see.

Where to?

Tonight I know not.

Tomorrow, London.
There to make a new beginning.

It'll be dark soon.

They'll not have gone far.

There's rabbit.

How did your husband die?

He died because I was not tame.

The world would have you tame.

Aye.

Then the world is full of fools.

How came you by those clothes?

A man gave them to me.

I killed a man.

Nothing remains of who I was.

At Axholme, where I was born,

men came to drain the fens

and when the water flowed away,
they found men...

... buried in the peat. Like this.

Hands tied to legs. Holes here...

Stones or hammers...

And a black god...

... made in wood,

kept perfect in the ground.

Where is that god now, I wonder?

If all his worshippers are
buried in the ground with him,

is he still a god then?

If a King runs away from his country,

is he still a King then?

He left England?

He gave himself to the Scots,

hoping for a new Army, they say.

But the Scots know a bargain.

They've sold him to the parliament.

How can you laugh?

I thought Charles Stuart King,

God and Father once.

Madam.

We enter the world alone and in
blood and leave the same way.

What happens in between
means little.

I will be no man's whore.

Do nothing

but sit by the fire

and look like a feast.

Look what I found
on the road to London.

A whore in a dead man's shirt.

Take his clothes from her.

You will pay with your own life,
for that of my friend.

But first...

Lay her down.

Or would you rather I kill him?

You're the devil, sir.

And you, madam, the devil's whore.

Enough, enough killing.

The devil's whore gives the orders.

What times we live in.

Go home, sir, to your wife.

Your money will go to
the poor whose taxes you live on.

A whore and a Leveller too,

well may you prosper
as Master Lilburne does.

Walled up in stone.

By whose order?

By the parliament.

We will meet again, madam.

"Free Born" John walled up again.

His wife will need money.

Then I see you have found
another god to worship.

The Holy Trinity,
truth, liberty and justice.

And what is that but more blood?

And tell me,
when all the blood is spilled,

what then?

Who will be master
and who will be slave?

Will I be King?

Will my lady work in the fields?

There is a madness in you
that feeds on the times, Sexby.

Do not laugh at me, sir.

Between blood of birth
and blood of death there is life.

And this fight is now my life.

What is yours?

To laugh at hope?

To live and die alone?

Nay.

I would not have that life.

Turn your back.

I wish to dress in my skirts again.

Must you?

Must I what, sir?

Put on your clothes?

I mean only to swim.

Swim naked with me, madam...

... And we will both take gold
to Honest John.

He can have my share too.

All I ask is that you swim with me.

Stand off.

Will you not swim, Sexby?

I never could swim.

- From a friend in the Parliament?
- Indeed.

I knew not I had a friend
in the Parliament.

?28.

Enough to buy a new printing press.

And some clothes for the children.

Aye, a new press.

I thought the fight
had lost you, Edward.

No, John.

The fight will never lose me again.

My sword is drawn.

This is the fight now.

Words?

Read.

You hold his life in your hands.

Both sides will call it treason.

"Parliament to be forcibly adjourned

"and a new one elected
by all men of good faith,

"not only those with property."

The levelling up of men cannot
begin until this is accomplished.

"That new Parliament
to have Charles Stuart...

"... Arrested."

"And tried as a man of blood..."

Who will do the levelling up?

The army, Edward.
Where you should be still.

There is no other engine to drive
the world's turning but the army.

Will you take these pages out?

They must find their way to a press.

I am searched.

Even my skirts.

The dogs.

Where is the press?

At your house, madam,

with Thomas Rainsborough.

We must search you, sir.
On my master's orders.

And who is your master?

That you need not know.

Madam?

Go, madam!

Where is she?

This was my mother's chapel.

My, er, soldiers are godly men.

They will not tolerate idolatry.

My mother worshipped her God
through painted clay.

I am glad to see you
safe and well, madam.

These two years I tried
for news of you many times.

I feared you were sick.

Or worse.

I was never more alive.

From Honest John.

We are in your debt.

This house is given
to the army for a while.

Though I must make free
with a part of it,

the rest is yours.

How fares Joshua?

Madam?

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 broke a King's heart.

And killed some innocents too, madam.

My hands are stained in blood.

A Joshua indeed.

I've heard that all of your family
is in the New World, Colonel.

My mother, my brother,
and my sisters.

But not your wife then?

I will have no wife
until this quarrel be over.

And how would you
settle the quarrel?

By making England a republic.

And if England wants
Charles Stuart on his throne again?

Then I will leave England to its King

and go to Massachusetts.

And find me a wife there.

And what shall she be, Colonel?

Such a one as lives
and worships in freedom.

One that knows how to
truly love a man and be loved.

Oh, and beautiful.

None such in England then?

No, I would not have
an English wife, madam.

Not a painted child
that knows nothing

but a thousand years of privilege

and calls it "breeding" or "manners".

Calls submission "duty"

and lives only to please a man
and pass on his property to his sons.

I will a have a free spirit, madam.

All this and beautiful too.

I fear you will not
find this paragon.

I need not find her.

For I believe she will find me.

Will you not speak?

Might you not hear a thousand years
of privilege in my voice?

Perhaps a hundred or two.

General Cromwell wishes to see you.

How is dear John?

Well, General, when I saw him.
For a man with rats for bedfellows.

He is there by order of Parliament.
I cannot pluck him out.

You plucked me out.

You fought bravely by my side
at Kineton and at Marston.

As did Honest John.

And at Naseby thereafter.

Where Charles Stuart
lost his throne, did he not?

He lost his power, Edward.

But he is King still

and whoever has him
has our destiny in his grip.

The Scotch have sold him
to Parliament,

and Parliament have him
sitting in Northamptonshire.

And if the army were to seize him,

the army would hold sway.

Then pluck him out of
Northamptonshire, General.

That I may not do.

But other men might.

There is a woman in Oxfordshire.

Her true name is not known
to God-fearing men.

She is known as the Devil's Whore.

Upon my life, General, this woman
is the epitome of wickedness.

Truly, Master Joliffe?

What form does this wickedness take?

Lechery, sir.

She consorts with men.

And what, I pray you,
should the army do about that?

She is sent from the devil!

I must confess, sir.

Confess?

Aye, confess.

I don't want to be silent.

Her licentiousness
has a purpose, sir.

That purpose is robbery and murder.

She...
uses her...

face...

To trap men.

Well...

Wickedness indeed.

The Parliament require you
to make a troop available to me

to search out and take this woman.

My America.

My Newfoundland.

Edward.

Still not dead, then?

No, my Lady, it seems I must live.

I bring a message
from the General, sir.

- I'll leave you.
- No,

never. Stay and listen.

He has eyes everywhere.

I believe not a one of us moves
his bowels without Oliver senses it.

- Craving your pardon, my Lady.
- Given.

He wants the King taken
and delivered to the Army

but he would not give the order.

Aye***

He would rather I did it

Whoever does it, risks
the wrath of the Parliament

And yet it should be done.

It shall be done, then.

Think no more on it.

I will risk all in the cause.

Fear not, they will not harm me.

The country would fall
to utter ruin without me.

Your business?

Sire. We have come
to take you into safe-keeping.

On whose authority do you come
to take away a King?

It is a very good authority.

Oliver will never strike him down.

He would not be remembered
as the man who threw over the King.

Deep down,

Oliver believes in the good
old frame of government.

The cloth that went before
cut to a different style?

Authority where it was,
rank where it was, land where it was.

The women sent home again
to be silent wives

in harness to their husbands.

In harness to property.

There are two roads
to the future, Thomas.

The Leveller regiments
will follow yours.

Then what will Oliver do?

And what will Thomas Rainsborough
do if the road is blocked?

I will become an American.

Like my wife.

You swore you had no wife, sir.

Oh, I mean to have one.

If she will have me.

Colonel!

Stay.

I will return for my answer.

Colonel, I heard not your question.

Will you be my wife?

Colonel! Parliament men!

Well?

Come and find your answer
when duty allows.

This need not concern you, Colonel,

except your garrison will need to
know of our presence in your area.

You bring a troop of horse to seek
a woman who stole your purse?

Read further, sir.
She murdered my dear friend.

Though, again, sir,
it need not concern you.

It concerns me

that the Parliament thinks
the Army has no more pressing task

than to indulge the grudges
of wealthy men who stayed at home

growing their bellies
while others bled to death.

My Lady Angelica Fanshawe.
The mistress of this house.

Ah, my Lady Fanshawe.

Master joliffe sits in the Parliament
tending the nation's wounds.

He is leaving.

A delight to meet you, madam.

And yet, I swear I have looked
upon your face before.

At court, perhaps?

Of course. In the court.

I never could forget such a face.

And I never will.

Farewell, Madam.

Colonel.

Nothing will go well till
these leeches are purged.

- What was his business?
- To persecute some whore.

He means to have her hanged.

My answer, Madam?

Do you see him?

See who?

You do not see him?!

I cannot marry you.

There is no future.
There is only the past.

Purge of Parliament?

Some thrown out, some kept in.

No, I cannot support it.

They are bloodsuckers. One sweep
of the sword and they are gone.

- We begin a new.
- Ah. A new election?

We know who the godly men are,
the men who want the best for England.

- Let them remain.
- No election?

No.

- Why no election?
- John,

the country is half-ruined.

There is famine in the north and west.
Corrupt monopolies flourish.

We must force Parliament to reform.

We need the support of
Honest John Lilburne.

In God's name, john,

we want to purge the men
whose warrant keeps you rotting here!

Why no election?

Because the country will vote
for the King's men!

And you will turn to dust in
this rat-infested hole

and your wife and children
will starve in a gutter!

But I mistake, of course, for in truth,
there is no more comfortable place

on earth for john Lilburne
than a prison cell!

Where he is spared the trouble of
considering the full-grown problems

of governance and not the unborn
children of liberty and truth.

Which will lie forever in
the womb if we cannot make a world

into which they may be brought!

Comfortable?

Think, john, a purged Parliament

and a law quickly passed
by which no man will have

an income above 2,000 a year,
not even Earls and Dukes.

By what authority would a law
such as that be brought in?

By this authority.

For there is none now else in England,
I think you know.

Sir.

Within half a day of your departure,
Mistress Fanshawe was arrested.

She's charged with
robbery and murder.

- They will hang me!
- Lies cannot hang you.

This was done to attack me,
why else?

Thomas, a word.

- You must not tell him.
- I killed a thief.

- Will he not understand?
- No, he will not.

He is Thomas Rainsborough,
not Edward Sexby.

Then he will hear
me condemned in court.

Elizabeth will stay with you.

Let me pay a visit
to Master joliffe.

Let me ask him in front
of his wife and daughter,

- how he met this Oxford whore.
- Let him tell his lies,

Edward, the truth will out.

Angelica,

you wanted to speak?

No.

Mistress Fanshawe,
the charges against you are as follows -

In the year of our Lord, 1646,

you did most cruelly
murder the com merchant,

Master Chimney.

And that with diverse
others in Wytham woods,

you did attack and
rob Master joliffe.

And that you are the notorious felon

known as, The Devil's whore.

What is your answer
to these charges?

That I am no whore...

Liar! Whore!

Hang her!

... And never was!

If your father continues
with this case,

your head will follow your hair.

We will proceed to the evidence.

Master joliffe...

Master joliffe, will you
come forward and give your account?

I...

mistook.

This is not the woman who robbed me.

That woman was a whore
I used many times in Oxford.

All this I swear...

... on the blood of Christ.

Release the prisoner.

I ask your forgiveness.

For a while in the prison,
a doubt crept...

No, Thomas. I killed a man

who wanted my honour for pigeon pie.

I was...

There is no past. Only the future.

There is something
more I must tell you.

I am with child.

A speedy settlement

I will bring forward new
proposals to the Parliament soon.

Your Majesty, my heart is
filled with joy to hear that promise.

But I must tell His
Majesty from the love that

I bear Your Majesty, and ever will,

there are some in the
army that are put to worry

by the many rumours that His
Majesty yet seeks an intervention,

- from the Scottish force.
- No, no, no.

No.

And that is also a
promise from His Majesty?

Of course it is a promise.

Thomas Rainsborough.

What of him, Majesty?

He is a fanatical.

A Leveller.

Should such a man
be in such high command?

I would sleep easier in my bed
if he were removed from our affairs.

Thomas is the best
man in England, sire.

And my friend.

Well, then let any man
here tell me a better way.

Let any man here tell me any
other way this ship can be brought into

harbour other than
to talk to Charles Stuart?

He gave me solemn undertakings.

- Promises from his own lips.
- Which will prove false as ever before.

We have Royalist uprisings in south
wales, in Yorkshire and in Cheshire.

Then let us crush them!

Aye Thomas, we can crush them.

We can spend our lifetimes, and our
children's, killing and killing again.

But when the killing stops,
where is England?

We cannot achieve all, my friends,

but we can achieve...

- a sufficiency!
- A sufficiency of Charles Stuart?

A sufficiency of bloated
thieves in the Parliament?

A sufficiency of soldiers
who fought for their country,

only to be told they must
now starve for the wages promised.

- I fought not for that sufficiency!
- Hear, hear!

Well, what then, Thomas?
More death, more destruction, what?

We exile Charles Stuart.

Let him depart.

Let us govern the country through
councils elected in the streets,

- the guilds, the universities.
- Elected in the streets?

- By whom?
- By all men.

For I think

the poorest he that is in England
has a life to live is the greatest he.

No more Parliaments
for men with property only.

We should burn it down.

Well, then, Thomas...

... and all of you,
my friends and comrades,

I must tell you this.

What Colonel Rainsborough urges
this council to accept

is a form of government
unknown on this Earth,

and one that will straightway
fall into anarchy.

Rather than let this beloved England
fall into such misery, I tell you now,

I would pull promises out of Charles
Stuart's mouth

another thousand years.

Then it's clear, General.

In this beloved England,
one of us will not live.

If you rise up, you will
be called mutineers and traitors.

Oliver is still the hero.

Then the regiments must
be prepared for this convulsion.

Reason says we lose all in delay.

Now tell me what
your heart says, Edward.

I have butchered men.

Here and in Germany.

But say the word, Colonel,

and I will sharpen my blades
once again.

This time for justice, not for pay.

But, Colonel,

Edward Sexby has nothing
to lose on this Earth.

Others have.

Madam?

One man only

may unite the Army
in this great matter, Thomas.

That man is you.

Thomas.

Charles Stewart has broken
his promises. Every one of them.

By escaping from Hampton Court. Gone,
it is thought, to the Island of Wight.

I come to apologise to you...

... and to all.

For that I was foolishly
dazzled by him.

We will negotiate with
this false man no more.

But, Thomas,

there must now be unity amongst us

or all will be brought to ruin.

There are new uprisings
today in Essex and in Yorkshire

and in Cheshire and in
wales and in Bristol, too.

The country needs its
Army now as never before.

What say you?

When we have done,

will all matters as to how we
govern this country be for discussion?

All matters.

And will all matters as to
land and property be for discussion?

All.

You are needed in Pontefract,
Thomas.

A siege such as only you can
lift. But I beg of you, make speed.

Our enemies were making
ready for this while I

blinked in the sunlight
of the king's gaze.

- I will go tomonow.
- Tonight, Thomas.

Tonight must be my
wedding night, Oliver.

If my lady will marry a soldier
that will be gone in the moming?

She will.

May God grant you
a long life together.

I must go to wales,
a thing I never thought to do.

Fare you well.

Will you not offer
me a wedding gift, General?

- If it can be done.
- Let john Lilburne go free.

Overthrow Parliament's warrant.

It is done, madam.

By authority of the Army.

You will not make me
a wife for one night, I hope?

I must disappoint you, Edward.
No fight for you.

Till I return,
guard this woman with your life.

Why do you sleep
on straw still, Sexby?

I wish you were by
Thomas' side in Yorkshire.

Aye. I wish it, too.

He is the best man I ever met.

Sexby, do you ever think
of those times in Wytham woods?

I have never been
in Wytham woods, my lady.

Except once.

To swim one day when I was hot.

We come with a message
from General Cromwell.

When you were the god of battles, there
was ever a sign of your blessing on me.

Now when you rest upon my shoulders,
my sight is dim.

I think I see the road...

... and yet I fear to tread it.

I know the man I
must strike down and yet

I fear the blood
that will be shed thereafter.

Take men to the Island
and arrest Charles Stuart.

He will be charged with
making unlawful war on England.

Let others stand ready
to enter the Parliament.

The time has come.

Husband.

Yes?

There will be a life for us,
will there not?

One day the argument will be over.

There is a life to come.

Arrest her.

- You shall not touch her!
- Sexby, desist.

What does it matter now?
Let them hang me.