Rigaud : Let me tell you a story madam. The story of a strange marriage with no love in it. A strong woman with force of character; fierce, cruel, implacable. Married to a poor, weak husband. But did she crush him to powder? Mmm, non. Not quite. There was a little spark of life in him yet. He was a frequenter of a certain boarding house for theatrical ladies and there your poor husband found a little friend and got her with child. Ooh la la!

Mrs Clennam: My husband was a weak man, Monsieur Rigaud, and a sinner. What of it?

Rigaud: How you punished him for it. And her. You stole away the child. And cast that little dancing girl into darkness.

Mrs Clennam: She sinned against the lord.

Rigaud: You sent that girl to the poor house to weep for her stolen child.

Mrs Clennam: I saved her from her depravity.

Rigaud: She died of a broken heart in poverty and pain but before she died. She wrote to old Gilbert Clenham, your husband’s father and he was so moved by the letter that learning of her death he wrote a new will. It was too late to help that poor abused mother so he left a legacy for a newborn, a child born as poor as she and on the very day she died. A child born in the Marshalsea.

Affary: Amy Dorrit?

Rigaud: I have read Gilbert Clenham’s will. It is in my possession.

Mrs Clennam: Flintwinch!

Flintwinch: I didn’t burn the will, because I had no right to. The pretence of having done no wrong for years has paralyze you. But the truth will out, there’s not stopping it.

Rigaud: You kept the truth from Little Dorrit all her life. Why did you do that? Because to reveal the legacy would disclose the greater secret. The secret you have been trying to hide all your life. Who have you been hiding it from.

Mrs Clennam: Enough. My conscience is clear before god. I will make my peace with Little Dorrit.

Rigaud: It is not Little Dorrit’s story is it? It concerns the other child, taken away from it’s loving mother to be brought up in a house of your punishment and shame. Finish the story, Madam Clennam. Unburden yourself. Tell us the name of that orphan child.

Affary: Who is it mistress? Who is it?

Rigaud: Who must never know the truth? Who is that orphan child?

Mrs Clennam: Arthur – it is Arthur!

The Neolithic Era (c. 4000 - 2000 B.C.)

The Neolithic or New Stone Age can be defined as the time when people took up agriculture as a way of life, and stopped being nomadic hunter-gatherers. Sometime around 4000 BC the ideas and technology of farming, and perhaps some of the first livestock, crossed the Channel and arrived in England. Farming quickly spread all across the British Isles, a social revolution every bit as eventful as the Industrial Revolution some 6000 years later.

Neolithic farmers settled in stable communities, cleared land, planted wheat and barley, and raised herds of domesticated sheep, cattle, and pigs. What hunting they did as a supplement to their agriculture may have been done with the assistance of small dogs.

They settled on the easily drained soils of the upland hills and on the coastal plains, avoiding the thickly wooded valley bottoms. This meant that the areas of heaviest settlement were the chalk hills of the south and west, where many of their remains can be seen today.

These Neolithic settlers originally lived in rectangular log cabins, similar in style to those of the early American West.


Silbury Hill:

Communities were small, but they were communities, so people could and did indulge in large projects requiring group participation, such as the building of communal graves (long barrows), causewayed camps, and henges. More on these later.

Although these people were farmers, they hadn't yet ironed out all the fine details of crop management, so every 10-20 years the land would reach the point where it could no longer support crops and the group would have to move on. Each group, probably no larger than an extended family, seems to have moved around a fairly small region in this way; packing up when the land would no longer produce. In a few generations they could have returned to the original settlement after the land had lain fallow long enough to regenerate.

Clothing seems to have been simple hide garments. Ornamentation was extremely simple; animal teeth and bone necklaces.

Life span was short, about 35 years for men and 30 for women. Arthritis was rampant, as was malnutrition. This was not a Golden Age of Yore; it was a difficult time to scratch a living from the earth.


Bronze Age Britain c. 2500 - 600 B.C.

Beaker People:

About 2500 B.C. an influx of migrants settled in Britain. These newcomers have been called the Beaker People because of the shape of the pottery vessels which are so often found in their round barrow graves. The stocky newcomers, although few at first, seem to have quickly gotten the upper hand on their Neolithic landlords, becoming a sort of nouveau aristocracy.

The Beaker folk were farmers and archers, wearing stone wrist guards to protect their arms from the sting of the bowstring. They were also the first metalsmiths in Britain, working first in copper and gold, and later in the bronze which has given its name to this era.

How they lived:

There was a changeover during this period to round houses, echoed in the mushroom-like growth of stone circles and round barrow mounds. We can guess that huts had a low stone wall for a base which was used to brace wooden poles and rafters. On top of this would have been a roof of thatch, turf, or hides.

They made their own pottery, and eventually the first woven garments in Britain .They also seem to have introduced the first known alcoholic drink into Britain, a form of honey-based mead. The islands have never been the same since.

The Beaker Folk introduced a pastoral pattern to the agricultural lifestyle of Neolithic times. As population grew, more marginal land was brought into cultivation, and was farmed successfully for hundreds of years, until climate changes forced its abandonment. The Beaker Folk were a patriarchal society, and it is during the Bronze Age that the individual warrior-chief or king gained importance, contrasting with the community orientation of the N

The Devil's Whore tells the story of the seismic events of 17th-century England, when political disobedience turned to revolution and civil war, and English history changed forever. The story is told through the experiences of a spirited aristocratic woman, Angelica Fanshawe (Andrea Riseborough), who comes to know the key figures on both sides of this bitter conflict. It is a story not just of political and historical significance, but of love, loss, murder, courage and betrayal.

Angelica is born in 1623, when England is divided both politically and religiously. When Angelica's deeply religious mother gives up her daughter and flees to France to the sanctuary of a Catholic convent, the child Angelica curses God. Thereafter, at key moments throughout the rest of her life, she is haunted by images of the Devil, seemingly cursed for her moment of rash blasphemy.

As the years pass, Angelica becomes part of the royal court of Charles I (Peter Capaldi), enjoying a life of carefree privilege. She is engaged to her childhood sweetheart, her cousin Harry Fanshawe (Ben Aldridge), and looks forward to their future together at Fanshawe House.

But England is changing. Outside Angelica's gilt-edged world, the people are poor, sick, hungry and angry; demanding society and government change radically to ensure a better life for all. One such man is John Lilburne (Tom Goodman-Hill), whose campaigning on behalf of the common man puts him at odds with the authorities. On the day of her marriage, Angelica witnesses his brutal public flogging as his wife Elizabeth (Maxine Peake) looks on. That same day, a mercenary and soldier for hire, Edward Sexby (John Simm), visits the palace, where he is captivated by Angelica's beauty.

Soon after their wedding, Harry and Angelica are visited at home by Elizabeth Lilburne, who has walked, heavily pregnant, from London, to plead with Harry to intercede on her imprisoned husband's behalf. Loyal Royalist Harry dismisses her immediately, and is appalled when Angelica questions his decision. But for Angelica, the seeds of her political awareness are sewn. She persuades Sexby to take her to prison to visit Lilburne, to hear what he has to say. In the meeting, Lilburne is flanked by two supporters, also paying a visit. They are Thomas Rainsborough (Michael Fassbender) and Oliver Cromwell (Dominic West).

Soon afterwards, amidst mounting public pressure, Lilburne is released from prison. With the authority of the throne under threat, the King marches on parliament to arrest five rebels. They are tipped off, and escape. It is a further humiliation. As the royal authority begins to crumble, so too does Angelica's marriage, her husband Harry unable to cope with such a spirited and modern woman as his wife.


The royal family are forced to abandon London, and take refuge in Oxford. Finally, the long-threatened war breaks out, with the Royalists and Parliamentarians clashing at the bloody Battle of Edgehill. Those prominent in the Roundhead cause include Rainsborough, Cromwell and Lilburne. During the battle Sexby, previously merely a soldier for hire, becomes troubled by his allegiance to the Royalists, disobeys his superior officer, Harry Fanshawe, and defects to the other side. In the heat of battle, Fanshawe all but kills him, but Sexby's vision of Angelica helps him to survive.

By now, the lines are drawn, and England has begun one of the bloodiest periods of its history. Sexby has joined the Roundhead cause. King Charles calls upon the massed ranks of his own nobility, including Harry Fanshawe, to support him. But Harry's wife has different ideas.

It is the start of a road that will change inexorably not only Angelica's life, but all of those with whom she comes into contact, including the most important figures of this tumultuous time. Ahead of her lies unaccustomed poverty, tragedy and triumph, love and loss on an unimaginable scale, with the Devil of her visions seemingly thwarting