Queen of England Elizabeth I - The actor, the rebel and the wrinkled queen

THE
ACTOR
THE REBEL
AND THE
WRINKLED
QUEEN

THE ACTOR THE REBEL
AND THE WRINKLEDQUEEN

Illustrated by Helen Flook

A & C Black London

This book is dedicated to the memory ofthe victims of Queen Elizabeths torturers andexecutioners, whose only crime was to followthe wrong religion Terry Deary

Table of Contents

Reprinted 2008, 2011
First published 2003 by
A & C Black Publishers Ltd
36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

www.acblack.com

Text copyright 2003 Terry Deary
Illustrations copyright 2003 Helen Flook

The rights of Terry Deary and Helen Flook to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

eISBN: 978-1-40811-623-4

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

This book is produced using paper that is made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests. It is natural, renewable and recyclable.

The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Printed and bound in Great Britain
by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading RG1 8EX.

Chapter One
The Dragon Queen

Queen Elizabeth was a monster. A monster who had hands like claws; a red frizzy wig like a lions mane; a wrinkled white face, caked with a mask of makeup, like a corpse in a coffin; little black, rotting teeth and breath like a sick old dog.

I met her just before she died and she was the most scary thing Id ever seen in my life.

Her dress was crusted with jewels and shone red, green, blue, orange and white, like a dragons scaly skin. Her short, fat fingers pinched my ear and she dragged me forward so my button nose was a hands breadth away from her hooked beak of a nose.

Thats when I smelled her stinking breath and heard her creaking voice hiss to my face.

The worst is death, and death will have its day, she breathed.

Yes, Your Majesty, I tried to say, but my mouth was dry and I just squeaked, Yessum-ad-stee!

Yessum-ad-stee? she mocked. You are supposed to be an actor, boy. You are supposed to speak clearly, arent you?

Yessum-ad-stee!

Does Mr Shakespeare let you speak like that on stage?

No-hum-ad-stee!

Then do not speak like that to your queen! she snarled.

At last she let me go and I swayed, almost fainting. A small, round man with a white beard grasped my arm and held me up. He was Lord Cecil, the queens chief minister.

She turned her little dark eyes on him. Let the boy kneel Dwarf.

Lord Cecil chewed his lip. I could tell he hated being called Dwarf.

Do you want to die? the queen asked suddenly.

No! I said and my voice was loud and clear this time. Lord Cecil gave me a small kick on the ankle.

No Your Majesty, I said more softly, and lowered my eyes to the cold stone floor.

Then you know what you must do? Lord Cecil asked in a kindly voice.

Tell you the truth, I nodded.

One lie and you go back to the prison cell, Queen Elizabeth said. Or we may take you along to the Tower of London to let you try out some of our torture machines. The rack, the red-hot pincers, the thumbscrews

Ill tell the truth! I moaned. I will!

Then let us begin, the queen commanded, and she sat back on her throne to listen.

I told my story

Chapter Two
The Red-haired Girl

My name is James Foxton and I come from a village near York in the north of England. When I was five years old, a troupe of actors came and put on a show.

It was magical. For two hours I forgot the misery of my empty belly and the cold that bit at my bare feet.

I want to be an actor just like them, I told my parents.

My father laughed, but my mother said, The boy can sing and dance well enough. Let him join a company of actors. Hell be one less hungry mouth for us to feed. We havent enough food as it is. The lad will only starve to death if we keep him at home.

So, at the age of seven, I joined Mr William Shakespeares actors at The Globe theatre in London. At first I helped with the costumes and helped the actors to dress and made sure they had the right swords and crowns or wigs or wine bottles before they went on stage. Then I was given a small part as a fairy in Mr Shakespeares play, A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Of course, all the parts were played by boys and men girls and women were not allowed to act on the stage. Thats what started the argument with the blue-eyed, red-haired girl at The Black Bull inn. We often put on a play in the yard of some inn like The Black Bull.

I was a fairy called Cobweb, and at the end the crowd cheered and clapped when I came on stage to take my bow.

The red-haired girl just glared at me from the doorway into the bar-room. When I had changed out of my dress, I went into The Black Bull to eat. The girl served greasy mutton stew and spilled it onto my shoulder.

Oh dear, what a shame! she smirked.

I knew she had done it on purpose.

She mopped at it with a dirty rag and I pushed her hand away.

Ooooh! Is the little fairy girl upset? she asked.

Shut up, I snapped.

Ooooh! Will the fairy girl change my head into a donkeys head, like she did in the play?