Paul Doherty - The White Rose murders

Richard III – The last Yorkist king, called the Usurper or Pretender. He was defeated by Henry Tudor at Market Bosworth in August 1485. He was the wearer of the White Rose, his personal emblem being Le Blanc Sanglier -the White Boar.

The Princes in the Tower – Nephews of Richard III, allegedly murdered by their uncle in 1484.

Henry Tudor – The Welshman. The victor of Bosworth, founder of the Tudor dynasty and father of Henry VIII and Margaret of Scotland. He died in 1509.

Henry VIII – Bluff King Hal or the Great Killer, he had six wives and a string of mistresses. He is the Mouldwarp or the Dark One as prophesied by Merlin.

Catherine of Aragon – A Spanish princess, Henry VIII's first wife and mother of Mary Tudor.

Anne Boleyn – Daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn: 'A truly wicked man'. Second wife of Henry VIII and mother of

Elizabeth Tudor.

Mary Boleyn – Anne's sister, nicknamed the English Mare at the French court, she had so many lovers.

Bessie Blount – One of the more dazzling of Henry VIII's mistresses.

Margaret Tudor – Henry VIII's sister, married to King James IV of Scotland and later to Gavin Douglas, Earl of Angus: 'Trouble in petticoats'.

Mary Tudor – Daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, nicknamed Bloody Mary because of her persecution of Protestants.

Elizabeth I – Queen of England, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, nicknamed the Virgin Queen though Shallot claims to have had a son by her.

Catherine Howard – Henry VIII's fourth wife. Executed for her extra-marital affairs.

Francis I, King of France – Brilliant, dazzling and sex mad.

Will Shakespeare – English playwright.

Ben Jonson – English playwright.

Christopher Marlowe – English playwright and spy killed in a tavern brawl.

Jamss IV of Scotland – First husband of Margaret Tudor.

Suleiman the Magnificent – Turkish Emperor.

Thomas Wolsey – Son of an Ipswich butcher, he went to Oxford and embarked upon a brilliant career. He became Cardinal, Archbishop and First Minister of Henry VIII.

Mary, Queen of Scots – Granddaughter of Margaret Tudor and mother of James I of England and Scotland.

Darnley – Husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Bothwell – Lover of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Thomas More – Humanist, scholar. Minister of Henry VIII, later executed for opposing Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Edward VI – Son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, a sickly boy who died young.

The Earl of Surrey – One of the Howard clan. He fought for Richard III, was pardoned and proved to be Henry VIII’s most capable general.

Murder raps on my door every night. When the sky is dark and a hunter's moon hides behind the clouds, Murder sweeps up to this great manor house to kill my sleep and plunder my dreams with ghosts spat out by Hell and images of bloody and horrible death. Oh, yes, I hear them coming in the darkness outside as the wind rises to moan through the trees. I hear the clip-clop of spectral hooves on the pebble-strewn path in front of the manor door. I lie awake waiting for them and, at the first ghostly moon, I rise and stare through the mullioned glass at men and women from my past whose souls have long since slipped into the darkness of eternity.

They gather under my window like some ghastly chorus, grey shapes still displaying horrible wounds; the hideous faces of those I have worked with, played with, wenched with, dined with – as well as those I have killed. (May I say, always in fair fight.) The moon slips between the clouds and bathes their blue-white faces in a silver light. They stare up, black-mouthed and hollow-eyed, stridently baying at me, asking why I do not join them. I always smile and wave down at them so their howling increases. They slide through the walls and up the great, oak-panelled staircase along the wainscoted gallery and into my chamber to stand, an army of silent witnesses, around my bed. Hell has cast them out to bring me back. I just stare, each face a memory, a part of my life.

My chaplain, the vicar of the manor church, says I eat too much and drink too deeply of the rich claret but what does he know, the silly fart? I have seen them, he hasn't.

Doesn't he believe in demons, sorcerers, ghosts and ghouls? I do. I have lived too long a life with the bastards to reject them. A fool once told me about Murder, a little dwarf woman, who dressed in yellow buckram and burgundy-coloured shoes with silver buckles. She was the jester at Queen Mary's court. You know – pale-faced, red-haired Mary, who married Philip of Spain and thought he would give her a baby. Her belly grew big though no child was there. Poor, bloody Mary, who liked to put the Protestants in iron baskets and turn them to spluttering fat above roaring fires at Smithfield next to the meat shambles. Anyway, this jester, God knows I forget her name, she claimed the sky turned red at night because of the blood spilt upon the earth since the time of Cain, the first murderer. Another man, a holy vicar (a rare thing indeed!), once wondered whether the souls of murdered men and women hung for all eternity between heaven and earth. Do they, he wondered, float in some vast, endless, purple-coloured limbo, like the fireflies or will-o'-wisps do above the marshes and swamps down near the river?

Oh, yes, I often think of Murder as I he between my gold-embroidered, silken sheets with the warm, plump body of Fat Margot the laundress lying hot beside me. She shares my bed to keep the juices running though, of course, the vicar objects.

'You are past your ninetieth summer!' he wails. 'Turn to God, give up the lusts of the flesh!'

I notice his lips appear more thick and red whenever he drools on about the lusts of the flesh. (Have you ever observed that? Most of the snivel-nosed bastards can tell you more about the lusts of the flesh than I could.) Nevertheless, I keep my vicar in line. A good rap across the knuckles with my stick soon diverts his thoughts from the rich, creamy plumpness of Margot's tits. Moreover, I know the Bible as well as he.

'Haven't you read the Scriptures?' I bawl. 'Even the great King David had a handmaid to sleep with him to keep his body warm at night. And that was Jerusalem which is a damned sight warmer than bloody Surrey!'

Oh, yes, the vicar is right on one thing: I am well past ninety. Sir Roger Shallot, Lord of Burpham Manor near Guildford, Surrey, master of its meadows, pastures, granges and barns. I own chests and coffers stuffed with gold, silver and costly fabrics; plump fallow deer run in my lush woods; clear streams feed my stew ponds stocked full of silver carp and tench. My manor has opulent chambers, the walls lined with polished, open wainscoting, carved in the neat linen folds after the French fashion. Above them, my servants have hung velvet drapes from the looms of Bruges, Ghent and Lille. My floors are of burnished pine wood and covered with woollen rugs from Turkey or the weavers of Lancashire.

I am Roger Shallot, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner of Array, Knight of the Garter (there's a good story behind that) and member of the Golden Fleece of Burgundy. I hold medals from the Pope (though I have hidden these); gems from the spider queen, Catherine de Medici. (By the way, Catherine was a born poisoner but a most accomplished lover.) I hold pure brown leather purses full of clinking gold given to me by the present Queen's father, Bluff King Hal. Bluff King Hal! A fat, piggy-eyed, murdering tub of lard! Do you know, he wasn't very good in bed? Oh, he often boasted about his exploits between the sheets but Anne Boleyn once confided in me, with deep sighs and loving whispers, how with some men, even kings, there is an eternity between what they say and what they can do – but that's another story! Oh, you know, she was a witch? Anne Boleyn, I mean. She had an extra teat with which she fed her familiar, and six, not five fingers on her right hand. She tried to cover it with a long, laced cuff and started a new style in fashion. God rest her, she died bravely.