The Trial of the King

It was packed out at the Council Chambers - I don't think there was a spare seat left, and people were overflowing onto the landing! Richard turned up with a number of supporters, who occasionally shouted "Shame!" and "Long live the King!" during the proceedings. I couldn't find a gavel, so I used one of my wooden drop spindles (not that anybody took much notice).
Actually, it all went very well, and everyone took it in good part. Boz has clearly been hiding a long held ambition to be Perry Mason - he gave an excellent speech as prosecuter. Not only did he bring charges against Richard for an untidy Castle Gardens and talking about sending books as beermats up to the Scottish booktown of Wigtown - there were far more serious matters that he brought to our attention. By buying up "all the readable books in America", Richard had single-handedly created an illiterate United States, so that the illiterate people voted (twice) for an illiterate President - and therefore Richard Booth was indirectly responsible for the Iraq War!
When Richard was asked to answer the charges, he made a speech (in which the words 'not' and 'guilty' did not appear - Rob Soldat, his defence counsel, commented that it was a good job the charge against him wasn't one of irrelevance!). He did tell an amusing story about his uncle, who was Keeper of Oriental Ceramics at the British Museum - but said that the ceramics were irrelevant to popular culture. What was far more important was the cheap Japanese prints that the ceramics were wrapped up in. He used to play cricket in his stock room....
Rob, on Richard's behalf, pretty much admitted the charges, but added that the untidiness of the Castle Gardens didn't matter too much, and the beermats proposal was only a thought crime, and you shouldn't have your head cut off just for thinking things. He added that, far from being a tyrant, Richard was entering a more constitutional phase of his monarchy - in which Richard said whatever he wanted, and the people did whatever they wanted, so everyone was happy.
When the jury was asked to go outside to consider the verdict, half of Richard's supporters went out with them.
Tracy came back to say that some people out there were taking it way too seriously - and proceeded to attempt to bribe me with wool and a trip to Wonderwool. However, I had already been bribed with Smarties....
The foreman of the jury brought in the expected Guilty verdict, and I laid aside my white bonnet (I was the only one there in 17th C costume, though Rob had come in a rather smart velvet jacket, and Boz was wearing quite a sharp suit). I put on my black bonnet and pronounced the sentence of death - to shouts from the floor that this was a Stalinist show trial.
It was all very entertaining. There were even two 'members of the press' there - a chap in a trilby with a Press card stuck in the band (saying Brecon and Radnor Express), and a lady in a beret with a pencilled on moustache, who was acting as the court artist. They were asking for people's names afterwards, so maybe they really were press!

Tracy went in to see Boz this morning - he cringed a bit, apparently, since she was one of the main Royalist supporters - but she'd only dropped in to say how brilliant she thought his speech was!