Peregrine Took to the Woodshed

[Blackguard]

"What am I to do with you?" Came the stern voice of the Earl of Danby. "Have I not warned you?"

 

Peregrine Osbourne looked down, if only to disguise his black eye. No words came in reply. It was best to let his father rant.

 

"She is a bloody Catholic maiden in the Queen's service! Thank God you were stopped in time or the scandal would have been worse." Thomas Osbourne was just warming up.

 

"If you want intercourse with a Catholic, fuck a bloody Catholic whore. She would likely give you the pox anyway. If you think to marry a Catholic for any reason, you will be cast out of this house and out of this family. I don't bloody care if its the Queen of France. No son of mine will ever marry a Catholic. Ever! If you had a brain in your head you would realize that I am only in office this very day because I persecute the Catholics, like all good Englishmen. Their loyalties are with France and Rome, not England. They are little more than Papist spies, funded by our enemy ... the King of France."

 

Peregrine had heard it before. He could never be as good as his older brother.

 

"If I even see you with an unwed Catholic lady at court, I am going to send you to supervise one of the family coal mines in Wales for the next bloody year, with orders to have you imprisoned if you think to attempt to leave. If you do not believe me, then try me boy! I will break you like a twig!"

 

There was a long silence as the Lord Treasurer began to calm. The boy knew better than to speak back. "I am going to find you an Anglican bride before you can get into further mischief. In the meantime, go and find an actress in Drury and I'll see that she is kept for you. Keep your prick in her until you are safely wed. Do you understand me Peregrine? You are on thin ice with me."

 

There was no other answer than "yes father." Of course, silently, a hatred of his father smoldered within. One day.