Q Toon: That I Canst Thee Tell

We don't have Starz TV in our home, so I haven't seen their current in-and-out-of-costume drama, "Mary and George," a series about Mary Villiers' scheming to secure her son George as King James I's royal boy toy.

For the benefit of American readers whose knowledge of British history is gleaned exclusively from television, I have to explain that the Queen Anne in my cartoon is not the one portrayed by Olivia Colman in "The Favourite," but James's wife, Anne of Denmark. She was still very much alive when James began his dalliance with the young George Villiers; in fact, it is thought that she promoted his rise as a way of getting rid of James's then favourite, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.

Maybe that's in the Starz TV version. I suppose it ought to be. 

Now, if you are following the Starz TV series, here's your warning of spoilers ahead.

One might suppose that by the time she was hooking her husband up with a new boyfriend, Anne's marital relationship had withered to the point that I imagine that she had her own "I Really Don't Care Do U" jacket. The royal couple had been living separately since the death of their youngest child, Sophia. (Four of their seven children died in infancy; the oldest, Henry, died of typhoid at the age of 18). 

Once Villiers entered the picture, James seems to have almost forgotten that Anne even existed. She was very sick for several years before her death in 1619, but he paid only three visits to her at Somerset House during her illness.

Villiers's ascendency lasted beyond James's reign and into that of the king's surviving son, Charles I. Rumor had it that his affair with the reigning monarch continued as well.

Villiers was a trusted adviser to Charles, but an incompetent one. As Lord Admiral and de facto Foreign Minister, Villiers launched a naval expedition to wrest Cádiz from Spain, but his ill-equipped, poorly manned ships led by a soldier who with no naval experience never got past Holland. He then offended English Protestants by giving support to Catholic France against the Protestant Huguenots in hopes of enlisting France's help against Spain. France instead made peace with Spain, and Villiers then turned English troops in defense of the Huguenots. He was forced into a humiliating and costly retreat.

While organizing a fleet to aid the Huguenots (a third attempt), Villiers was stabbed to death by a disgruntled army officer, John Felton, on August 23, 1638. King Charles was greatly grieved, but Parliament was greatly relieved and hailed Felton as a hero. Villiers's death, however, occasioned improvement in Charles's marital relations with his Queen, Henrietta Maria of France, and they started getting serious about conceiving some eventual heirs.

A decade later, defeated in the English Civil War, Charles was accused of treason against England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather than the good of the country. Clinging to his father's credo of the Divine Right of Kings, he protested that no court had jurisdiction over him because "the King can do no wrong," and refused to defend himself at trial. He was convicted, sentenced, and beheaded in January of 1649, aged 48.

Present British monarchs are descendants of Charles's only surviving sibling, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia by her 1613 marriage to Frederick V.

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Okay, you folks who didn't want to have "Mary & George" spoiled can resume reading now.

Trying to put 17th-Century English grammar in the mouths of the palace gossipers in today's cartoon, I puzzled over how to conjugate a third-person present tense verb in that final panel. Wikipedia wasn't giving me clear answers — strong verb? weak verb?  I couldn't think of a sentence in Shakespeare's œuvre that would help, although there must be one.

The obvious source, of course, would be the King James Version of the Bible, so I looked up the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5.

In my Bible, third person singular verbs are conjugated the same way they are today: that is, using the most basic form of a regular verb. "They who hunger and thirst." "When men revile you." How about an irregular verb? Again and again, "Blessed are they."

Doesn't that seem wrong? In other European languages with which I'm familiar, third person plural verbs always have a suffix unique from the other conjugations. (Even in French, in which the entire suffix is silent.)

Anybody got a first printing KJV out there?