The Devil's Whore: Episode 2

"How did your husband die?"

"Because I was not tamed."

"The world would have you tamed?"

"I know."

"Then the world is full of fools."

It's puzzling, watching The Devil's Whore again, that it was apparently intended to be twelve parts but was cut down to four. It's hard, not having seen the unedited version, to judge the wisdom of this decision; certainly the version we have does not seem unduly rushed, and is superb to boot. But perhaps this reflects how TV execs generally find the Civil War an unsexy period, with its suspicious lack of Tudors or Nazis.

Who cares. This is still top stuff. We're two years on, the programme is still lit to look like the paintings of the Dutch masters, and Angelica incurs the ire of a strangely nasty Percy from Blackadder after killing a man who tries to tape her, something for which she is unlikely to garner much sympathy in the less than enlightened times in which she lives. She grows close to Sexby, though. Both are philosophical and both are excluded from power, one by sex and one by class. Sexby may be rough trade for a lady of her background, but the two of them seem to have much in common.

John Lilburne continues to be in trouble, his ideas being far too radical for even the Parliamentarian establishment (for which read the mainstream, triangulating left), let alone the Royalists. Angelica and Sexby are on his side, though, even though his ideas extend even as far as putting the King on trial. 

Also radical, and sympathetic, is Thomas Rainsborough, an astute politician and military strategist yet, we feel, a little too radical for Cromwell and his ilk. He is immediately and passionately drawn to Angelica, preferring a "free spirit" to a woman who submits to privilege and patriarchy. Sexby, meanwhile, is in gaol and hence unable to seethe with jealousy when she sleeps with him.

Things then get complicated. It is only Rainsborough among the senior Parliamentarians who has the guts to have the King arrested, and it is only Rainsborough who is able to protect Angelica from Percy's nasty, sadistic, misogynistic urge to see her humiliated and hanged.

Lilburne is magnificent, and I'm not just saying this because I so hugely admire the historical Lilburne. Here, he insists to Cromwell that there must be no purge of Parliament without an election. The people will vote for the King's men, as Cromwell point out, but they must have their say, and Lilburne will not budge on that point of principle.

Ironically, Angelica is saved by the freed Sexby threatening Percy and not by any deed of Rainsborough, but she agrees to marry the glamorous general anyway. The lady and the republican have their marriage blessed by a stoic Sexby, and Cromwell agrees to free Lilburne as a wedding gift. The couple are happy ever after.

Except they aren't. Cromwell, embodying all the cynicism of Middle England, has Rainsborough murdered as he furiously prays. Angelica is widowed for a second time and, just to kick her when she's down, Percy arrests her yet again...

This just keeps getting better and better.