Greville picks his way across the field. Everyone turns and looks at him. As he approaches Willis, a lady drops her hoe and runs to embrace him.

MRS CORDWELL   At last! At last!

WILLIS   (reproving) Mrs Cordwell.

MRS CORDWELL   This is my husband. Come post-haste from Portsmouth.
She puts her arm happily through Greville’s.

WILLIS   Mrs Cordwell. Captain Cordwell drowned off the Goodwins three years since.

MRS CORDWELL   (ruefully agreeing) But he is very like.

WILLIS   Back to work, Mrs Cordwell.
She is led away.

GREVILLE   Dr Willis?

EXT. WINDSOR. MAIN ENTRANCE. DAY.

Willis’s attendants, who are five heavy-set young men of brutal appearance, unload some mysterious wooden sections from a cart.

INT. WINDSOR. WALKING THROUGH KING’S APARTMENTS. DAY.

WILLIS   I must have certain undertakings. Authority over the patient. Access to him at all times.

PITT   You will reside here at Windsor. And Parliament will have to be kept informed, so you will need to write bulletins. They must be confident, optimistic. The survival of the Government depends upon it. And, Dr Willis, you are my doctor, do you understand?

WILLIS   I am the King’s doctor, sir.

PITT   It is the same thing.

GREVILLE   (leading Willis away) In here, sir.

INT. WINDSOR. KING’S APARTMENTS. ANTEROOM. DAY.

Willis’s attendants, carrying the wooden sections.

INT. WINDSOR. KING’S APARTMENTS. DRAWING ROOM. DAY.

Footmen in attendance. Willis is examining the arrangements in the King’s apartments.

WILLIS   Yes. Do you know, Mr Greville, the state of monarchy and the state of lunacy share a frontier. Some of my lunatics fancy themselves kings. He is the King so where shall his fancy take refuge?

GREVILLE   We do not use the word lunatic, sir, in relation to His Majesty.

WILLIS   Oh! Well, who is to say what is normal in a king? Deferred to, agreed with, acquiesced in. Who can flourish on such a daily diet of compliance? To be curbed, stood up to, in a word thwarted, exercises the character, elasticates the spirit, makes it more pliant. It is the want of such exercise that makes rulers rigid.

PAGES   (out of view) Sharp, sharp. The King, the King.

GREVILLE   This is the King, sir.

WILLIS   Whom I must cure.
The pages bring in the King, who talks all the time, very fastand without pause.
He is accompanied by Fitzroy and a couple of pages. He sees Willis and slowly circles him, looking at him keenly but with no change in his tone.

KING   … plough you a furrow as straight as a ruler, straight as a ruler done by a ruler. Ha! And another beside it and another beside that until you had as pretty a ploughed field as you could find this side of Cirencester. Put us out of our kingdom tomorrow and I would not want for employment.

WILLIS   (interrupts) I have a farm.