[Verse 1]
London lawyer, sharp as a blade,
Under-sheriff walking the streets he help made just.
Friend of Erasmus, ink-stained and wise,
Wrote a book called Utopia, an island in disguise.
Henry's court came calling, fifteen twenty-nine,
Lord Chancellor's chair, the steepest climb.
But fifteen thirty-two he laid the title down,
Wouldn't swear the oath to the new crown.
Head of the church? His conscience said no —
Tower Hill, July the sixth, the axe's final blow.
Four centuries waiting, then Rome made it plain:
Died in fifteen thirty-five, made saint in that same year's name.
[Chorus]
This is the play and this is the man,
One script holding more than history can.
A hero who begged mercy — not to save his own neck,
But for strangers in the street caught beneath the mob's wreck.
This is the play and this is the man,
Read the manuscript close, understand.
[Verse 2]
May Day, fifteen seventeen, London's boiling pot,
A broker named Lincoln stirs the trouble he's got,
Finds a preacher at the Easter Spital stand,
Reads his grievance list against the stranger band.
Apprentices rising, craftsmen in the street,
Foreign-born neighbors caught beneath their feet.
More steps out, city officer, calm in the fray,
Talks the rioters down, turns the blades away.
A dozen men hang on the fourth of May,
Lincoln swings three days on, the debt he has to pay.
The king forgives the rest, lets the city breathe —
More's the voice that stopped the worst they could conceive.
[Chorus]
[Verse 3]
Now the play itself, born in the fifteen-nineties,
Munday and Chettle sketch it, the ink gets messy.
Dekker wanders in, Heywood lends a hand,
Patchwork playwrights building one uneasy stand.
One single manuscript the British Library keeps,
Pages cut and pasted while six writers' tempers seep.
Six, maybe seven different hands in the mix,
A scholar's puzzle box of paper and tricks.
[Verse 4]
Enter Tilney, Master of the Revels — that's the name
For the court man reading plays, licensing the game.
Margin note in ink: cut the riot, cut it whole,
"Leave out the insurrection wholly," and its soul —
A mob against the strangers, a man who crossed the throne,
Too hot for London streets where real riots had blown.
So the play sat silent, never saw the stage's light,
Waiting on a twentieth-century opening night.
[Bridge]
Three pages labeled Hand D, in a script all his own,
Shakespeare's only manuscript the world has ever known.
St Martin's Gate, the riot roaring loud,
More turns and tells the angry crowd:
"Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,"
Babies on their backs, fleeing from dangers.
"Why, you must needs be strangers" — feel it true:
What if the exile at the gate was you?