Fools and Mortals

This is a surprising book. A different swashbuckling adventure from the ones which Bernard Cornwell usually writes. But a pleasant surprise and still a great adventure.

The action is set in late Elizabethan England, 1595 to be precise, and the ageing queen is still on the throne. The main characters are a troupe of actors, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The Lord Chamberlain is a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, the son of her aunt, Mary Boleyn, and he might possibly even be the Queen’s half-brother. The troupe are firm favourites of the Queen, and one of them is William Shakespeare, who both acts and writes plays for them to perform. But the main character is Richard Shakespeare, William’s much younger brother.

Richard is also an actor, a good one, but too young to have made his mark. So far, he’s only played women’s roles, which were always customarily played by young men and boys. So, he’s mostly penniless and making ends meet by a combination of a pretty face, petty theft and a silver tongue. There’s no love lost between the brothers. William doesn’t cut his brother any slack, and gradually Richard’s resentment towards his brother grows. He feels that at 21 he is too old to play women, and wants to play a man’s part, but William repeatedly refuses him. Richard even goes as far as visiting a rival playhouse, thinking he might switch sides, but decides against this course of action, not least because he’s offered gold to steal a play to bring with him and he cannot make himself do this.

So, one day, when two of William’s play scripts do go missing, the suspicion falls on Richard. To save himself he promises in a rash moment that he’ll get the scripts back because he has a shrewd suspicion of who took them and where they are.

From then on Richard treads a perilous path through a brutal London. He finds and retrieves the scripts but that’s only the start of his dangerous adventures. Although he is partly reinstated in his brother’s good graces when he returns the precious papers, he is being brutally pursued by a bunch of Pursuivants, men who have been charged with routing out and destroying any signs of Catholicism in the realm, but who in this case have taken coin to bring the Shakespeare brothers down.

Woven through this story the players are rehearsing and then performing for the first time, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for the wedding of the Lord Chamberlain’s granddaughter. The two stories, one brutal and dangerous, the other funny and charming, complement each other well.

I found this book appealing. It is meticulously researched and late 15th Century London positively springs off the page. All the players – many of whom are real life characters – are well portrayed and the descriptions of the play gradually taking shape are wonderfully vivid.

If I have any criticisms, it’s that the story was a bit slow to get going, although I think this was to set the scene; and the deep indifference and resentment which William feels towards his younger brother is never explained.
Review by: Freyja