Blackadder II

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In the script book they fill in the gaps from Season1 to Season 2 with a little tie up.

After the death of Prince(and, briefly, King) Edmund at he hands of his sinister adversary "The Thrush", a huge queue of imposters seized the English throne one after another - including Edward IV, Henry VI, Edward V, William IV, some bloke called Derek and Lady Jane Wellesley. However, none of them showed any staying power, and the crown was finally seize by Henry Tudor, a tall, dark, blue-eyed, man with a face like a stoat, whom the Black Adder himself had saved from certain death at the Battle Of Bosworth.

Henry, donning a "VII" borrowed from an aunt, was immediately attacked from all sides by hundreds of pretenders - amongst them Lambkin Warmneck, Scrumnel Basset, Timpson Pertscrew, Singleton Crampon, Crimplene Gusset (Malcom XII of Scotland) Gareth Gwenlan and Grimly Feendish. Only one of these - a certain Bernard Baldrick - need detain us here.

Baldrick, an unemployed dung-taster from Stoke, had sought to better himself by taking the Deputy Village Idiot Test at Hoathly Posset in Staffordshire. In the course of the practical, however, he accidentally burnt the examiner at the stake, and thus caught the eye of the evil Earl of Lincoln, who was looking for a cloth-eared, frog-faced, total moron to place on the throne as his puppet.

In 1486, the earl ordered Baldrick to raise an army and march on London. Baldrick unfortunately misheard and, two days later, armed a raisin, marched on Londonderry and was never seen again. The Earl of Lincoln, humiliated, retired to his estates and devoted the rest of his life to perfecting the art of eating biscuits without getting any crumbs on his napkin.

Meanwhile, Henry VII cunningly married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Henry VI, thus confusing any remaining pretenders, enabling him to keep a firm grip on her baronies, and uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster into the House of Tudor and the House of Pancakes. Too late Henry realized this left his children with far too many surnames to fit on their school nametapes, and he died an angry and embittered man.

On the accession of his son Henry VIII in 1509, the whole country heaved a sigh of relief. Her, at last, was a king they had heard of! Henry initially took little interest in affairs of state. He appointed Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Sprunt as Lord Scrivener and Cardinal Blackadder as Keeper of the Privy Rolls, leaving the king himself free to write "Greensleeves" and tuck into a large bowl of syphilis. He immediately became deranged, fat and covered in pustules, and insisted on being known either Keith or Michelle.

Henry VIII executed at least 50,000 people during his reign, especially singling out for punishment anyone suspected of laughing at people who were slightly chubby. Unsurprisingly, this plump nutcase and Cardinal Blackadder got on like a house on fire, spending long evenings at Hampton Court wassailing, simonizing, dissolving monasteries, tinkling with virginals and stuffing each other's orifices with lightly-oiled lampreys. Such was the rich inner life of the new Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Henry, as is well known, had seven wives: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleese, Moll of Flanders, Catherine Howard, Catherine Seymour and Catherine the Other One. This last was in fact Baldrick - dressed up in an old brocade curtain and a dab of anchovy paste behind each ear. The king, insane, half-blind, halt, lame and stone-deaf was grateful for anything he could get, and Baldrick, of course, felt very much the same way.

It is sometimes said, quite inaccurately, that Henry VIII died of a surplus of Lamborghinis. In fact, he was almost certainly murdered by Cardinal Blackadder, who strangled him with an eel after being caught in the act of helping himself to a couple of peerages from the king's bureau.

Henry was succeeded by his only son, Edward VI. As he was just nine years old, England was ruled on his behalf by two "Protectors", enabling the young king to enjoy his childhood to the full, playing with his friends and executing anyone who beat him at rounders. The exiled Cardinal Blackadder's attempts to get in on the act from his French hideaway, tempting the Boy King with gifts of marmite-flavoured sceptres, jellied conkers and bags of emerald-centered toffees were contemptuously ignored.

Edward died young and was succeeded by his sister, Bloody Queen Mary of Scots, a sour, narrow-minded, obstinate woman with a mouth like a bottom, whose idea of a nice mixed grill was twenty Protestants and a tomato. As can be imagined, Cardinal Blackadder and his son Lord Edmund, kept a low profile while this frightful hag was around. In due time, Mary died - embittered,childless and with nasty singes on the hems of all her dresses - leaving the way clear for her sister Elizabeth, the Virgin Train.

She had been waiting ages and ages on the sidelines, but when she did arrive she was a bit of a disappointment - being painted a strange colour, not very clean inside or out, and with no buffet car. However, she did have a very podgy nurse, imaginatively called Nursie, a silly laugh and a bloke called Melchy to help her rule.

Our story now continues in dramatized form......