Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > The King's Witch > Status Update

“There is a network of tunnels underneath the old palace,” Tom continued. “One of them leads directly to the cellar of this lodging. For almost a year now, we have been amassing enough gunpowder to destroy the whole of Parliament when it next meets. The king and his government will be reduced to ashes with a single spark.”

‘As she carefully refolded the document, she felt a sudden stab of anger. Is this what her ordeal was worth? The terror and pain that she had suffered in the Tower, the sullying of her name ever after? It was not even in the name of he who had sanctioned her torture. The king had shown precious little remorse in the months that had followed.’

Won’t spoil anything but this bit is really difficult. So horrifying and it is sad to think many women really went through this in James I’s reign (I’m sure some of you can guess what it is I’m referring to).

‘The witches shrieked their pact in unison, and the stage was once more in darkness. With mounting horror, Frances watched the unravelling as Macbeth fell victim to the witches’ curse, and descended into an orgy of evil, spurred on by his rapacious wife. She knew that Master Shakespeare had played to the king’s natural misogyny as much as to his witch hunting fervour.’

‘Over the past year, the joy that James’s subjects had expressed at being free from fifty years of female rule had soon been replaced by mutterings about his strange habits and ‘unkingly’ nature. Already, they were looking back with longing to the reign of ‘Good Queen Bess’. Frances gave a wry smile. The old queen had known the fickle nature of her people all too well.’

“Having thus ensnared him with her body, her spells and her potions... she so bewitched his mind and his body that he was unable to beget a child upon his wife, the countess... And so, thanks to the evil wiles of this whore of Satan, the earl’s line will die with him. But, not content with this victory, she conspired to ruin his estate so that all his cattle fell prey to a strange disease”

‘She shuddered inwardly as she remembered her uncle’s threat. He would neither accept nor understand that she might wish to make her own choice. After all, he had been quick to set aside his Catholic faith when the wind turned in favour of the Protestants. It seemed to Frances that this was an age where people’s consciences had to spin as easily as a weathervane.’

‘Still staring straight ahead, Anne held out her hand. Her husband gave it the most fleeting of kisses, his lips barely touching the velvet of her glove. Frances had heard it whispered by one of the old queen’s ladies that the King of Scots treated his consort more as an adornment than as a wife. He might beget heirs on her, but he took his pleasure elsewhere, in the beds of the pretty boys who surrounded him.’

“plenty of the court hanker after the days of our old queen - they, who were so quick to leave her side in order that they might hurry north to meet their king in waiting. They are just as quick to regret him now. People... people talk in whispers. They said that his accession was like a bolt of lightning, illuminating the kingdom in a brief, dazzling glow that seemed to leave it darker as soon as it had passed.”