Fools and Mortals

by Bernard Cornwell

‘Richard, Richard! In this life we can look to God for help, but God also expects us to look to ourselves.

‘They believe they are doing good, Richard. When men do evil and claim that they are doing God’s work, then they are at their most dangerous. They are more than dangerous! They are the vilest of sinners.’

He closed his eyes and looked pained. ‘The church was corrupt, God knows it was corrupt, but still we fed the hungry, we clothed the naked, and we tended the sick. We did good works, we prayed for souls and we gave comfort. But now the Puritans revile us, they call us the devil’s creatures, and they hate us. They hate even their own kind, other Protestants. And they would close your playhouses, Richard, they would strip the churches of what small beauty is left in them, and they would make the world drab.’

They were hated by the emerging Puritans, and, famously, by the Puritan-ruled City of London, which was why all the playhouses were built outside the city’s boundaries.