JAMES. And attending you were, boy. No doubt to every word?

GEORGE. Your Majesty, I would never…

JAMES. Never never, no? Oh, no, tum tum. If you won’t listen you will never be of any use, and use you should be put to, George.

GEORGE. I am, from my heart, most grateful to Your Majesty. To wait upon the newly risen sun is…

JAMES (interrupts). Wait with nothing up your sleeve?

GEORGE. Your Majesty?

JAMES. No, if you have a knife, it’ll be in your mouth. Will you cut me with your mouth, George?

GEORGE. I…

JAMES. What do you like to read?

GEORGE (a panicky look). I enjoy The Romance of the Rose.

JAMES. Steamy stuff. Ladies in towers, knights with their manhood bulging against their armour? Shall I call you Steamy?

Two listening COURTIERS giggle.

GEORGE. Your Majesty can call anyone anything.

JAMES. Yes, yes, I can, can’t I! Ha! Tum tum!

CECIL (aside). God preserve us!

They look at each other.

JAMES. Steamy, Steamy, tell me, you’re from common English stock, no?

GEORGE. My father was a gentleman, Sire. And my mother sent me to France for an education.

JAMES. Where you learnt the reading of romances, in French.

GEORGE. Well, not really in French… more in English… translation.

JAMES. Ah. So what were the benefits of your sojourn amongst that snooty, ‘look down upon us all as barbarians’ race?

GEORGE. Well… The fencing was very good and the dancing. And it’s very useful being able to eat a whole chicken. With all the bones.

JAMES. You learnt that from the French?

GEORGE. No, from being brought up in Leicestershire. But it mightily impressed the frogs.

JAMES. You seek to impress, do you, Steamy?

GEORGE. I…

JAMES. No matter, you do. I suspect more than you realise. Oh, Steamy, how much do you know yourself? Because, looking at you, I wonder… exactly how devious are the English? Do I have to learn a whole new lexicon of deceit, south of the border?

GEORGE. I…

JAMES. Put it another way. Do you have any depth in you at all?

GEORGE. We try not to do depth in Leicestershire.

JAMES. I am greatly relieved to hear it.

GEORGE (aside). So this is how it is with him. I’ll tell people he calls me ‘steany’ with an ‘n’. That they are mishearing it with an ‘m’.

JAMES. Steamy, as an English reader of love stories, what do you make of this? (Hands the book to GEORGE.)

GEORGE (reads the title page). The Obedience of a Christian Man.

JAMES. It’s a book by William Tyndale.

GEORGE (hot coals). Is it banned?

JAMES. Oh, yes. Written eighty years ago and still fit for the fire. Read a page. It’s very romantic.

GEORGE. Romantic? A book by William Tyndale?

JAMES. Look. (Takes the book and opens a page, gives it back.)

GEORGE. There’s handwriting, down the edge…

JAMES. Yes, yes! Read it!