The play picks up where Henry IV, Part One left off. Its focus is on Prince Hal's journey toward kingship, and his ultimate rejection of Falstaff. However, unlike Part One, Hal's and Falstaff's stories are almost entirely separate, as the two characters meet only twice and very briefly. The tone of much of the play is elegiac, focusing on Falstaff's age and his closeness to death, which parallels that of the increasingly sick king. Falstaff is still drinking and engaging in petty criminality in the London underworld. He first appears, followed by a new character, a young page whom Prince Hal has assigned him as a joke. Falstaff enquires what the doctor has said about the analysis of his urine, and the page cryptically informs him that the urine is healthier than the patient. Falstaff delivers one of his most characteristic lines: "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men." Falstaff promises to outfit the page in "vile apparel" (ragged clothing). He then complains of his insolvency, blaming it on "consumption of the purse." They go off, Falstaff vowing to find a wife "in the stews" (i.e., the local brothels).

A provocative new study presents an intimate view of the interior world of a genius, drawing parallels between the bard's life and his poetry and plays that reflect his early experiences in Stratford, contacts with underground Catholics, and role in theatrical London, arguing that his literary works offer clues to the details of his personal life. 35,000 first printing.

Provides an in-depth study of the medieval Cathar community, which, during the thirteenth century, became the focus of systematic repression by the Catholic Church, were branded as heretics, and suffered successive waves of persecution and execution, but whose faith led them to defy the Catholic Church and the Inquisition for more than thirty years. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

In the 13th century, a group of heretics in southwest France, the Cathars, became a serious threat to the Catholic church. In several waves of repression, thousands of Cathars were killed. Yet so ardent was their faith that, early in the next century, the Cathars rose one last time. This title tells the story of this historical episode.

**Subtitle: The True Story of Edith Thompson** Addressing the facts of the celebrated Thompson-Bywaters case, the last double hanging in Britain of this century. Since her execution in 1923, the death of Edith Thompson has been the subject of bitter controversy. How responsible was she for the death of her husband at the hands of her young lover? The case against her rested on the evidence provided by some seventy letter she wrote, correspondence admired for its wit and intelligence. With access to Home Office files and painstaking reconstruction of the era, Dr. Weis argues that Edith Thompson was innocent, a victim of the moral climate of the day.