I write this page in great remorse of mind. In truth, I am a wicked cat.
Yet I believe I have strayed from the paths of righteousness only because I fell among wicked cats here. So the fault is not mine alone.
Item: I spake slander against my young Earl. I made of him what men and women call a past-it [bastard] when I sayt that his father did not put him in his mother’s belly.
Though, now I think on it, among cats this is not counted slander.
We care nowt for marrying, so our kits do not have fathers. We’re governed by our mothers, and the queen cats who hearked my tale did but marvel at how many fat moons a woman must endure to bring forth a single kit.
But why spake I in this wise of my lord?
I was offended that he never sent for me to join him. And it misliked me to hear my sister speak of him as our Earl, though what she sayt is true.
Many here do call him our Earl. He was but one hour mine. (I know not what an hour is, but I believe it to be a lesser time than two winters. Unless you are in hopes of your supper, and then it is forever.)
Item: I told of the wickedness of women, of which there is much to be read in books. Yet the Countess and Lady Moll were ever kind to me.
I blame the Queen for my wild words. She offended me. She came into my house, and made a very hell of it. I hid myself because the bloodie woman likes killing, and I feared she might kill me. But, unlike my sister, I had not wit enough to conceal myself in a tree.
And so I did not see my lord, nor he me.
I was offended, too, when I learnt that my lord would seek a place in the Queen’s household.
I do not blame my lord. I fear he may have no choice in the matter. For he, like me, has been removed from one house to another, whether or not he wished it. First by his maggot-brained father. Then by Lord Purrlie [Burghley]. All this is the Queen’s fault.
She loves to get her claws on Earls, and keep them close. If they’re cunning they’ll do nowt to vex her.
Otherwise she’ll have them imprisoned, or make her mark on the paper that says their heads must be struck off.
I pray my lord may prove too suttle for her.
If she comes here again, I also will prove suttle. I’ll trip her on the stairs and hope she breaks her bloodie neck.
And now I have quieted my conscience with good thoughts, I’ll prepare a new tale. All have begged me for another before winter comes.
But first I shall go about the house and make some marks of my own to fresh the place. And after I’ve taken a drink from the fountain in the court I’ll fresh the garden and the walks where many strangers have left their stinking marks behind the bushes.
Then I shall find me more paper, ink and a new pen and set down a tale. I have in mind a romance that slanders none. Oh, that will put my art to the test.
The Earl of Southampton's Cat 
Treason. I can say no more.
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Gib’s certainly changed his spots since he was a spy in the service of the spy cat Master Grey (aka the Night-Walker) and therefore a supporter of the Great Queen and her error-tick friends.
However, Gib’s still loyal to his Earl, even though his lordship doesn’t seem to be doing much to deserve his devotion.
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Hmm…I did not know that the Queen was a Cat-lick?! (…her error-tick friends). As a daughter of her father, I presumed she was Anglican.
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You’re right! Elizabeth was an Anglican, but Gib was reared in a Catlick household where he learnt to think of protestants as heretics. The young Earl’s father was rigidly Catholic. His mother and grandfather were also Catholics, but prepared to conform outwardly by attending Church of England services. Gib himself was “persuaded” by the spy cat Master Grey to support the Queen and her protestant advisers.
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Ah, yes, politics…keeping one’s head is very important. If I were Gib, I’d keep away!
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See.. the ugly u think, the paagli u write
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‘Twould serve her right to be thus made to fall,
To make up for the heads lopped off, and all …
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“Lord Purrlie [Burghley]” made me laugh
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Your opening line made me laugh. What cat ever showed a shred of remorse?
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Cats are very quick thinkers – perhaps we just don’t notice the second or two it takes them to examine their consciences, and repent (sort of)?
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Aw, don’t go making excuses for them. 🙂
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hahaha….lol…. 😀
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Mine do but take a second or two to examine their consciences, and then clearly they like what they see there.
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Would that we were more like them! As in: What’s done is done, let’s not get fussed about it. On the other hand, and unlike cats, we can make amends. Sometimes.
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Oh, dear!! ‘Tis Master Gib’s confessional, if he were a human. Since cats sleep most of the time, I’m surprised they would have such things as a conscience…lol. I wouldn’t be bothered…
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It seems Gib counts murdering the queen by tripping her on the stairs as ‘good thoughts’? Cats do indeed, have a different slant on life.
I love looking through the feline lens.
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I have been tripped by a cat and have born the scars. Who knows what goes on in their “slanted” little brains?
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Your Roxie has all the necessary skills for life in a Renaissance court.
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Do you have a time machine? Such a great idea!
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‘Slanted’. I like it!
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😼😾😼
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Our evil cats do try to trip us on the stairs to break our bloodie necks. Treason within our household methinks…
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Examine your conscience. What do you do that drives them to such wickedness?
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Forsooth! They are evil, ungrateful, infidels that we kindly rescued from the Orient. 🙂
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“Unless you are in hopes of your supper, and then it is forever.” Indeed, this sort of “hour” I know full well.
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Oh Gib you soo remind me of my hubby’s cat when I first moved in here and found her ‘freshening’ my clothes, my shoes and sadly, our bed.
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