Because this chapter and the last are so short, I have put them here together. Enjoy!

In which Blackadder takes his life in his hands, Elizabeth takes her heart off the shelf for a few minutes, and Sir Robert Dee is a pest.

The usual disclaimer: I do not own Blackadder or the characters, but really, really, wish I did.

1588 (Blackadder's POV)

Robert, Lord Dudley, was never far from the throne. From one quarter or another I would hear of his latest forays into the Queen's inner circle and her adroit handling of him. Finally, from what I understood, he withdrew. It could have been on account of his illness—his stomach bothered him more and more, and I heard she sent him different cures from Marbeck, but none availed. On the 4th of September 1588, Dudley died.

I waited until after the funeral and burial and then did a very rash thing. I had Baldrick drive me down to London and took up residence in the "old Blackadder house" in Billingsgate. That night I took extra care with my bath and grooming. The next day, Baldrick took me to Richmond where Elizabeth was in residence, and I had myself presented to the Queen. It had been twenty-two years and I had not aged; my intent was to gain admittance under my own name and then claim I was my son. Looking back on it, it was hardly fair to the Queen.

• • •

When Elizabeth heard a Lord Blackadder had requested an audience with her, she was at first quite at a loss what to think. This situation required the same rapidity of reasoning which she applied to affairs of state, and she used it. She had known of no other Lords Blackadder since Edmund's death. But then, his body—and that of his servant—had disappeared and never been found. Had they lived? Perhaps an accomplice had helped them off the grounds to some safe place and the servant, Baldrick was his name, had nursed Edmund back to health. She could only hope. They had been of an age, so he would be fifty-five years old, if he had lived. Like herself, he would be grey-haired and missing teeth, she thought as she ran her tongue over the empty spaces in her mouth. But he would still be Edmund, wouldnt' he? He would still love her.

She put both hands to her wig to make sure it was still straight, then smoothed her skirts around her hips. How thankful she was that she still danced and her figure had not gained the fatness of age, that her arms and legs were still firm, and that the wrinkles on her face were not as deep as they could have been.

She had become somewhat nearsighted, but that did not obscure her sight when the young man entered her chamber and doffed his hat to kneel before her. Her heart fell for just a moment; she never let her disappointment show. This was not Edmund, but his son. It saddened her that she had not borne this son to Edmund.

She gazed at the man on one knee before her. "You may rise, Lord Blackadder."

He rose and stood before her, his eyes respectfully downcast.

"Are you here to pay court to your Sovereign, Lord Blackadder?" she asked.

"Yes, your Majesty," he said as he stood, and it was as if Edmund was back before her again.

She caught her breath for an instant. "Indeed, you are very like your father. I take it you are the son of Lord Edmund Blackadder, who served me faithfully for nearly eight years?"

Blackadder swallowed. He had promised—long ago—that he would never lie to her. "Yes, majesty."

He had always thought of her the way she looked that night she had asked him, an eternity too late, to marry her. Seated before him was a shadow of the woman he had loved, a woman easily old enough, if he went by physical appearance, to be his mother. This woman was also much wiser than the one from whom he had been separated twenty-two years. He hadn't considered that; like a fool, he had imagined she would be unchanged.

She smiled, a small reserved thing compared to the sunny grins she used to give him. Yes, this woman had changed.

"You had a pleasant trip from your family estate?"

"Yes, majesty."

"And you are in good health?"

"Yes, majesty."

She toyed with the small psalter tied to her belt and wondered what this young man could possibly want. He said he was here to pay her court, but with the young men surrounding her in the Audience Chamber most days, he wouldn't stand a chance at this late date. He hardly looked stupid; he had the same intelligence about him that Edmund had had. On a whim she allowed herself to play along with her imagination.

"Your given name, it is Edmund, is it not?"

"Yes, majesty."

"And you are going to tell me at some point the purpose for your visit?"

"Yes, majesty."

Suddenly she felt as if the room had closed in on her.

"And quit saying 'yes Majesty', Blackadder. You sound like a parrot."

"Yes, Majesty."

"Did you not hear me," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "I should have you whipped for your insolence!"

He stood silent before her, then raised his right eyebrow and smiled, the merest twitch of a lip.

It occurred to her that she was either being toyed with or she was losing her mind, and she had no question of her sanity.

"Approach us," she commanded.

The man walked forward and stopped eight paces from the throne. Even as close as twelve feet, he wasn't close enough.

"You may draw near."

"Your majesty—" Sir Robert Dee started.

"Oh, do be quiet, Dee," the Queen snapped. "We have not lived this long being stupid; we do not intend to start being stupid now." She raised a beckoning hand. "Draw near, Lord Blackadder."

It was a command, and he had ever obeyed her commands. He took six steps forward and stood still before her, his face and every thought in his mind and heart open to her searching gaze.

She did not speak, but looked him over carefully and then stood.

"You will accompany us for a walk in the gardens, Lord Blackadder."

"But majesty—" Dee insisted.

"And we shall take our walk without our advisor," she said as she descended from the throne. "Follow us, Lord Blackadder."

He followed her a respectful six paces back, his ears ringing as the trumpets announced her passage through the corridors and out into the gardens. The sun was warm and welcome after the cool inside; he was thankful he had chosen a sunny day for his folly.

She walked in silence for several minutes, then stopped in a bower of coral roses. The man stopped outside the bower and just looked at her, that damned eyebrow beginning to raise again. She stepped up to him until she was close enough to touch him and looked again at his face. Those were the same dark eyes, the same heavy brows with the same arch, that was the same mole on his left cheek . . . it was too much, too much coincidence. She chanced her heart.

"Edmund?"

"Yes, majesty."

"My Edmund?" She thought she might have lost her mind after all, but it seemed worth taking the chance if what she surmised was true.

"Yes, majesty."

"What do you mean by this?"

"May we keep walking? My legs are shaking." He laughed. "I think I'm nervous."

"As well you should be; I can still have your head cut off, you know."

He gave her a sober look. "Yes, majesty, and I would rather you didn't. It's one of the ways I can truly die."

"Then I have not gone mad? You really are Edmund?" She stopped and turned on him suddenly. "Because I swear to you, if I find you are some imposter here to play on my affections, I will do far more to you than have your head cut off."

"No." He licked his lips to wet them. "It is I. I had to stay away. Even now I might be risking my secret; can you understand that?"

Again she searched his face for meaning. It had been so long since they had bared their hearts to each other; too much had changed in both of them for her to assume she knew how to take what he was saying. "Yes, I think I do. You feared I might betray you. To Dee, perhaps."

"Yes, I did. Please forgive me—"

"A wise man is cautious," she murmured, dismissing his fears. "Tell me how this thing has come about."

He explained briefly, then finished with, "I should have died in 1498. I should have died at Apethorpe, when I was shot."

"Marbeck told me he nursed you back to health himself."

"Oh, he did, but my life would have been mine with or without him."

"Did you know you would live?" She looked sideways at him as they walked.

"I suspected something of the sort."

"Oh, Edmund, how awful! I always thought you risked your life to save mine."

"I did, madam, for I had never been shot before. I had no idea whether I would live or die."

"Really? You really didn't know?"

"No, I didn't."

"Well, then," she said picking a small white rose and turning it in her fingers, "You risked your life and I thank you."

"It was my duty, majesty."

They walked a while longer without speaking. As they entered the lily planting, she abruptly turned to him, causing him to stop to avoid walking into her. "You say you were born in 1461?"

"Yes, madam. I was born Edmund Plantagenet. I took the name Blackadder later, to avoid discovery by the new Tudor king."

"That would have been my grandfather."

He nodded, wondering if she would hate him for telling her. But this was the last thing he had held from her and it had to be given up, no matter the consequences.

"You weren't my age even then?"

"No, madam, I was not."

"You were . . . nearly one hundred years old when you came to my court." Her face fell slightly. "You were toying with me the whole time."

"Ah no, madam, never have I toyed with you."

She got indignant. "You told me you were your son just a while ago!"

"Well, I had to gain an audience. If I had told the truth you would have dismissed me as a madman and I would never have seen you."

She took this into consideration and nodded, then said thoughtfully, "Even now you are so much older than I. You are nearly one hundred and thirty years old!"

"I am not a witch, madam. I am simply a man who has lived much longer than he should."

She glanced sideways at him from under an arched brow—an echo from the past—and said, "Some would take that as witchcraft, Edmund."

"Yes, if it were my doing. But it was not." He paused, and when he spoke again he could not keep the pain from his voice. "One might look upon it as a curse."

"Or a blessing," the Queen answered, thinking of the sparse grey hair under her wig, and the scarred visage she hid under layers of thick white makeup, both the ravages of the smallpox that had nearly killed her shortly after she had lost Edmund. The first time, for this would be the second.

They had made a circuit of the garden walk and were going to go around it again when John Dee bustled up, a man inflated with a sense of his own importance if there ever was one. Blackadder disliked him on sight.

"Begging your pardon, majesty—" and here Dee gave Blackadder a look that reminded him of nothing more than a serpent— "but the ambassador from Alsatia is due quite soon."

"Yes, Dee, I will receive him in the Audience Chamber." She didn't want to erase Blackadder's presence from her privy chamber just yet. "Well, go on man, make ready!" And Dee bustled off again. As he hurried away, Blackadder said quietly, "Don't you sometimes miss Melchett?"

Looking after her advisor, she pursed her lips. "More often than you might think." She turned toward the man she had loved. "We must part now."

Blackadder stood straight and tall and addressed his Queen. "Madam . . ." Suddenly he knelt before her. "I have never forgotten you."

She was aware of being watched but stepped closer and laid her hand on his shoulder. The curling dark hair tempted her and she put her hand on his head as if conferring a blessing, which she could not do. Only God can bless—or curse—a man.

"Stand up, Edmund."

He did so and kept his eyes on his shoes, which were very nearly touching the hem of her gown.

"I have never forgotten you." She pulled a piece of yellowed paper from between the pages of her psalter. "Will you return?" But even as she asked she knew he would not.

"Alas, madam, I cannot." He offered no reason, no excuse.

She handed him the paper. "Then you must take this. I don't know how long I will live, but when I die it must not be found among my effects. It would do far more damage to you and—dare I presume?—to England."

He took the paper and slid it into his glove, careful of the folds. She held out her hand to him. As if it were yesterday, he remembered the lingering kisses, the time he nibbled her knuckle. He bent and kissed her hand, then straightened. He couldn't love her now as he once did; she was no longer merely a woman. She had become much more than that; she was a symbol of the nation itself, of strength and might and determination.

He looked at her then, the tender look she had so wished he would give her when they were together. "Farewell then, madam."

"Fare thee well, Edmund," she whispered. She heard him walk down the gravelled path to the colonnade and onto the pavement. She waited a moment more, then stiffened her back, lifted her head, and walked inside. The heralds trumpeted her approach to the Grand Chamber.

That night she locked herself in the Privy Chamber after having dismissed all six of her ladies-in-waiting. Those who passed by at various times of the night heard her weeping and moaning, and they assumed she wept for Dudley.

Blackadder's life continued pretty much the same as it had since 1566. He re-inhabited his house in Drury Lane as his own son, and lived there quietly. Baldrick said he spent a lot of time "singing songs he and Elizabeth had sung together in the happier times, studying the sword and history", particularly of the Plantagenets and Tudors, with such ability as he had. He also went off alone on very long rides north; Baldrick learned much later that Blackadder was scouting the countryside for any lands he might later wish to petition the throne for, should he once again find himself in favor. They also spent a great deal of time at the Castle Plantagenet.

• • •

When questioned about the years from 1588 to 1648, Baldrick turned his mild face to the interviewer and said, "Elizabeth was his first true love, you see. He mourned their parting for nearly forty years, and after she died he mourned her death for another twenty." Baldrick took a few apples from the bushel basket on the stone floor of the kitchen and began peeling them for pie. "He was very angry about the way Ludwig made it necessary for him to leave her. And very sad." Baldrick picked up another apple. "Angry and sad. That's all I can say."

• • •

When the Queen died in 1603, the carriage with her casket was followed by a solemn march of Lords carrying flags bearing their coats of arms. According to Anne Rougemont, who watched the procession from the windows of her house and numbered the Lords in a letter to a friend,

" . . . amonge them was a Lord Blackadder, sonne of the man who had for six years beene the Quene's favourite until he, along with her advisor and governesse, was murdered in 1566 . . . suche was the sorow on the youngge Blackadder's face I might have thotte him bereved of his own wyffe."

History herein is fairly accurate. Dudley did enjoy the Queen's favor, but was not considered romantically by her after roughly 1580. She was a different woman in her later years, getting paranoid and depressed, though she still ruled well. Dee was an advisor from her early years, but I chose to make him a replacement for Melchett. She did weep sore and often, but it was after her last young suitor, Robert Devereux second Earl of Essex, was beheaded in 1601 for trying to raise up a rebellion.

The second short chapter, in which Baldrick signs up for a job, Blackadder gets greedy, and Charles the First loses his head.

SECOND INTERLUDE
1603-1648

After James I came to the throne, Lord Blackadder retired back to the North. There was nothing in London now to draw him, and he turned his back on the town just as he had turned his back on the North all those decades ago when Henry VIII had come to power. He was not interested in James or in his court, and with the exception of occasional visits to the house in Billingsgate to transact business, he stayed away.

Blackadder had, as most Englishmen of his time, been born and raised Catholic. There was no other option for anyone of royal birth, because the royalty of England and the Church of Rome were hand in glove.

Things had been fairly peaceful until Elizabeth's later years, when the Catholics, inspired by France and Spain, began to exert their influence again. The old persecutions began anew and grew quietly under King James.

The problems were exacerbated by Charles, however, who had some strange ideas. One was that he should be absolute monarch and that he should not have to answer to Parliament or any other body or person for what he did as King. The Royalists, a majority of whom were Catholic, supported Charles. The Parliament, a majority of whom were puritans— known as Roundheads for their short haircuts—wanted to remove Charles from the throne. Though the situation was much more complex, if one thinks of it in simple terms, the Civil War can almost be laid entirely at Charles' feet.

Through all this Blackadder remained a Royalist. He supported the monarchy, even though he was much less than pleased with Charles. It is possible Blackadder was a Catholic until the time of Elizabeth. The horrors wrought by Bloody Mary of England soured a great many hitherto loyal Catholics on the papal authority and hierarchy of the Church, and Blackadder may have been one so disillusioned.

As a courtier to Queen Elizabeth, and later as her favorite, it was required that he attend chapel with her anytime he was present, which was quite often. One wonders what influence sitting under a Church of England vicar for seven years might have had.

Blackadder liked to paint himself as a man whose first instinct was self-preservation, and insists that like a chameleon he joined whichever side appeared to be winning at the time. However, it is unlikely he was so self-serving, for the following reasons.

He'd had seven years of religious freedom, where if he'd really wanted to he could have attended Catholic mass in addition to the Church of England chapel and he would not have been hindered. It is quite possible he supported Charles not for religious reasons, but rather because he believed so strongly in the monarchy. He saw it as a necessary balance to Parliament. He had great respect for the throne, and believed great good could be done from it. For those reasons, I believe, he was a Royalist; for those reasons he supported Charles.

Toward the end, however, Blackadder was greatly disappointed one man could do so much harm to his beloved country. He saw Charles for what he was, and had little respect for him. Still, when the Cromwells came hunting for Charles with the intent of trying him and putting him to death, he hid the man and his eighteen-year old son.

November, 1648 to January, 1649

Castle Plantagenet had been torn down and rebuilt as Blackadder Hall, a very comfortable mansion with all the most modern conveniences for the time. It was located on a gently sloping piece of ground, so that it stood elevated above the surrounding landscape just enough to look slightly grander than it really was. The foundations were laid using old cut stone from the castle, and the drainage and plumbing were magnificent. The front, facing south, was a full three storeys, and each wing stretching back north on the east and west sides was two storeys. The kitchen was located on the southwest corner below the ground floor, in what would nowadays be considered a cellar. It was large, having two fireplaces and a large pantry and an advanced larder, worktables and an indoor sink, enough for servants to feed a party of twenty or twenty-five people.

Baldrick never did understand why Blackadder had such a large kitchen built, but it was usually the warmest room in the hall and in the evenings Blackadder often sat at a table with his feet on a chair before the fireplace, studying some obscure text by candlelight. His own rooms were far more comfortable, but he preferred the company of his servant to the solitude and shadows of his chambers.

Baldrick was preparing fish for supper one evening when Blackadder came in from the cold. He took off his hat and threw it down. "Baldrick, get me some mulled ale, will you? I'm freezing."

Baldrick pulled a goblet from the shelf and asked how the King was, and Blackadder made a joke about the King hiding in his black currant bushes. The combination of ale and cold weather soon sent Blackadder to the small room, but not before he warned Baldrick that Cromwell and his men were near and he was not to reveal to them or anyone else that the King was at Blackadder Hall.

In later years Baldrick pretended to be stupid, but at this early time he still had genuine flashes of idiocy. Cromwell and his men showed up at the kitchen door and invited themselves in from the cold. When asked if the King was at Blackadder Hall, the faithful servant answered in the negative. But when Cromwell grabbed the milk jug and a purple cup in which to drink it, Baldrick informed him he couldn't use that cup because it belonged to the King. So while Sir Edmund Blackadder was in the privy closet, King Charles I of England was arrested at sword point and taken away to the Tower of London.

Blackadder dressed up as a priest and managed to get appointed to administer the last rites to Charles before his execution. And it is true, he did take a large amount of money from the King in return for what was at the time an absolutely nonexistent plan to help him escape. Ever the optimist, Charles was highly skeptical he would be convicted of the charges. Very soon afterward, though, a verdict of guilty was returned and the King was condemned to die.

Blackadder's concern at this point was purely for himself: once the King was dead his own life and that of every other man or woman who had supported the King against Parliament would be forfeit. Therefore, reason dictated, the King must be kept alive. Blackadder, visiting Charles, comforted the King and himself with the sure knowledge that no-one could be found who would sink so low as to behead their own King at the order of Parliament. Upon returning home, however, he discovered Baldrick had taken the job.

"You very small, total bastard!" Blackadder exclaimed, and grabbed Baldrick with one hand and the kitchen axe with the other. He might have given Baldrick a small cut or two, had Baldrick not said he actually took the job because he had a cunning plan to save the King.

The plan was ridiculous and doomed to fail from the start. Baldrick must have been having a run on idiocy, because he told Blackadder he planned on buying a new king and putting him on the throne when no-one was looking.

"You'd do anything for thirty pieces of silver, wouldn't you?" Blackadder sneered.

"It was a thousand pounds, actually, Sir, plus tip," Baldrick said, holding out the bag of money.

Realizing he could not save the King, Blackadder took the bag from Baldrick and said he would do the job himself. He didn't consider as he did so, joking that if it had to be done it should be done in a single stroke by someone who actually owned an axe, what that would mean to him.

The following day Blackadder, dressed in headsman's garb, appeared in the King's room in the Tower and extorted more money from him, first for a tip, and then with the reasoning that Charles couldn't take it with him so he might as well give it to the executioner.

The King uncovered his disguise, however, and immediately assumed that Blackadder had concocted some wonderful plan to save him. Blackadder had been desperate enough to try even Baldrick's absurd plan, but in the end it was of no avail.

He had taken the job in the beginning for the money, and had no care for the King, except that in his good-hearted assumption that Blackadder was going to save him, the King shamed the man into actually trying to do what Charles thought he was planning to do all along—save Charles. Blackadder ended up having to do the very thing he had applied to do in the first place. Now, however, he abhored the idea. He decided to do the best by his Sovereign that he could.

In spite of the bitter cold of winter, the crowd in front of Whitehall Palace was huge and hugely impatient. When the plan to substitute a pumpkin with a face painted on it for Charles' head failed, Blackadder had to carry through with the job of beheading the King or be killed himself.

When Charles realized he was not long for this world, he asked the attending bishop for his cap, which he put on. Blackadder and the bishop then helped him tuck his hair up under the cap.

After a few words with the attending bishop, the King removed his cloak and handed his Order of the Garter to the bishop, then removed his doublet and put the cloak back on. He then said a short prayer, knelt, and put his head on the block.

"Your Majesty," Blackadder said, bending down to position Charles' head on the block. "Please forgive me."

"It's alright, Blackadder," Charles answered. "I'd rather a friend did this than an enemy."

Blackadder cringed inwardly at the word "friend".

"Is the block well anchored?"

"It is, Sir."

"It could have been a little higher, don't you think?"

Blackadder swallowed drily. "It can be no higher, Sir."

"Is the axe good and sharp?" the King asked.

"Yes, Majesty," Blackadder answered quietly. He had sharpened it himself.

"Oh, good. Well, I suppose you'd better get on with it. When I stretch forth my hands, thus—"

Blackadder bent and tucked the King's hair back under his cap.

"Wait till I give the sign," the King said quietly.

"Yes, your Majesty."

Blackadder surrepticiously wiped first one palm and then the other on his trousers, then remembered what Baldrick had told him nearly sixty years ago at Fotheringhay Castle. He said a quick prayer that he would make a clean cut and spare Charles any pain. The axe when he lifted it seemed to carry the weight of all the souls it had taken. The King stretched his hands in front of him. Blackadder brought the axe down with all the force he could muster.

When the deed was done, and after he had held up the head to the crowd, he believed he understood why the executioner wore a hood. To hide his identity, of course, so that if anyone wanted revenge he would not be easily identified. And to hide the scalding tears running down the headsman's cheeks.

"You can't help being sorry afterwards, my Lord," Baldrick had said.

Indeed.

Blackadder's religious preferences are never mentioned in the series, but I based his on those of many people during that time; for many, their religious preferences depended largely on who was on the throne. Blackadder probably started out Catholic, but the excesses of Bloody Mary and having sat through chapel services with Elizabeth First might have had some influence on what he believed. That is totally my invention and has nothing to do with the actor or the creators and writers of Blackadder.

In the special about the beheading of Charles First, we see Baldrick's face as he watches Blackadder do the deed. If one watches carefully, one might see on Baldrick's face a hint of relief that Blackadder has removed from him the responsibility of having to behead the King. Again my imagination filled in what I thought might have been going through Blackadder's mind. Charles did say a lot of the stuff in this chapter; for reference, check out The anonymous account of Charles' death as it appears in Robinson, James Harvey, Readings in European History (1906); Schama, Simon, A History of Britain vol. II (2001); Wedgwood, C. V, A Coffin for King Charles; the Trial and Execution of Charles I (1964).

This is not the end of my Blackadder story—the first chapter of Part Two will be up soon, promise! Meantime, if you all would care to read and review, I would be so thankful. :-)