Ecce Homo

In the fields near St Albans: A clear, bright sky with a stiff breeze blowing. In the distance, the sound of church bells. This is joined by the shouts and calls of serving men and falconers bringing home their charges.

The King and court are returning from a morning's hunting with hawks.

As they enter, the Queen, quite excited after what has been an enjoyable hunt, is talking: For once she has found something good in England.

The King turns to Gloucester and praises his bird - saying how high it flew and reading a religious lesson into it.

Not one to miss the opportunity of attacking Gloucester, Suffolk says the bird is like the man - trying to fly higher than anyone else.

Gloucester turns the tables: Only a low thinking, ignoble man would not try to fly higher than a dumb bird.

The Cardinal joins in against Gloucester and, once again, the suppressed hatred of one man for the other threatens to break into open warfare.

Suffolk and the Queen both join in until the King, who from his childhood has heard nothing but the ‘Peers’ of England furiously arguing, gently rebukes her and quotes the bible.

The Cardinal, in a half-whispered aside to Gloucester, irreligiously turns the King’s words into a threat.

Gloucester first checks the King is occupied in talking to his Queen, then turns aside to the Cardinal, his hand on his sword, and says he wishes they could settle their argument with the sword.

In a rapid exchange of asides, the Cardinal and Gloucester arrange to meet and fight.

Even when the King, seeing the fury in the faces of the two old men, asks what is happening, they pretend to talk about hawking and carry on their secret arrangements.

The breeze has stiffened and is now turning into a strong wind.

The King, for once noticing the dangerous division between his uncle and great uncle, calls for everyone to return to town to eat.

Just as they are turning to go, there is the sound of an excited crowd approaching shouting, laughing, and singing hymns.

A man bursts onto the scene and, forgetting where he is and who he is talking to, dances around and shouts, ‘miracle’.

Suffolk steps up to him, quietens him with a look, and takes him to the king.

Kneeling, the man explains there has been a miracle at the shrine of St Alban, the first English Martyr: A man blind from birth has had his sight miraculously restored.

The King quickly crosses himself and offers a prayer of thanks to God.

The crowd arrives – carrying the man, who is still a cripple, in a chair. There is a whole mix of people including the Mayor of St Albans.

Gloucester orders everyone to move away and let the King talk to the man.

The King asks him whether he had been blind from birth. Simpcox, the man, answers he has – and then a woman rudely steps forward and confirms what he says.

Suffolk asks who she is and she answers Simpcox’s wife.

Gloucester, starting to get suspicious, comments that if she was his mother, she might be able to say he had been born blind.

The King and Queen both ask him questions, and the Cardinal asks him whether he can walk.

He says no – not since he fell out of a tree – and his wife adds a ‘plumb tree’ – making a rude joke. The King, innocent as ever, misses this.

Gloucester, now very suspicious, asks again when he went blind – and being told again, since birth, he expresses surprise at a blind man climbing trees.

Simpcox says it was the only time. And again, his wife makes a rude remark.

Gloucester, smiling as if he appreciates the joke, encourages Simpcox – and he now adds another sexual joke to his wife’s becoming over confident.

Gloucester pretends to examine Simpcox’s eyes – says he can’t see clearly and Simpcox, anxious to prove the miracle, says he can see clearly.

Leading him on, Gloucester quickly catches him out – he can name the colours of Gloucester’s clothes – which, if he had been born blind, he would not know.

Gloucester now promises to perform a miracle too – he is going to make this lame man walk – and he sends for the beadle, to bring his whips.

After he has been hit once with the whip, Simpcox leaps over a stool and runs off – and the crowd chases after him laughing at the joke and crying miracle.

Gloucester now sentences Simpcox and his wife to a cruel punishment (whipping in every town they pass through from St Albans to their home in the very North of England) – despite her pleading it was need that made them try to deceive people.

Almost straight away Buckingham enters with news of another man’s wife – Gloucester’s.

The King asks what has happened, and is quickly told – Gloucester’s wife has been caught involved in witchcraft, asking the forces of evil about the King’s life and about other members of the Privy Council.

A smile of victory on his face, the Cardinal adds she has been arrested and taken to London – in an aside he cruelly adds Gloucester won’t have the heart to fight now!

The King, only looking to heaven, says how evil quickly defeats itself, but the Queen, scenting blood, adds Gloucester better be faultless – a threat Gloucester understands, but thinks he is safe against.

Gloucester publicly states he has only ever had the Kin’s and country’s best interest in mind in his actions and adds that if his wife is guilty, he disowns her for her actions in bringing shame upon his name and household.

The King, starting to understand at last the situation Gloucester is in, and the consequences that will follow, orders everyone back into St Albans for the night – and to London for the investigation and trial the following day.

(Scene 2)

(To be continued)