Liner Notes
Act I
As the first notes of Daybreak are heard, a royal guard enters King Charles' bed chambers at dawn. An ornate dagger in a wooden box is shown to Charles by the guard. The King orders the box and the dagger inside to be destroyed. The dagger is hurled out of a Palace tower window into the Thames River by a guard. The common people in the streets outside the Palace Gates are poor but hopeful as they prepare for the day. The King's guards expel a young man named Will Dobson, the son of the King's sword smith, from the gates of Richmond Palace grounds into the muddy street wearing only his tattered nightshirt and a medallion made by his father, the King's sword smith.
For the next three years, Will finds work in rural England with a rich land owner, Oliver Cromwell. Will plans to attend the seminary as his father wished. However, Cromwell and his cousin, John Pym, talk Will into running for a seat in the House of Commons, and arrange with other land owners to vote naive Will into the House of Commons. Will's first assignment is to sit on the King's liaison committee on behalf of Parliament with the expectation that Will is too inexperienced to interfere with the secret agenda of John Pym, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and James Hampden, Pym's co-conspirator, in the plot to convict King Charles of treason against England.
In the Palace rose garden, the ghost of King James I is trapped in limbo inside the palace walls. His granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth Stuart is torn between doing what is best for the monarchy and marrying Prince Ofonso under a marital treaty, or finding her true love. She will lose all her wealth and title if she refuses to marry Prince Ofonso. James counsels his granddaughter to follow her heart and appreciate the simple things the world has to offer in Wonderment.
Once inside the Palace gates with the Parliament's liaison committee, Will seeks out his childhood friend, Elizabeth, with whom he shared his first kiss while living behind the Palace in servant's quarters. Their affection for one another is rekindled in Best of Days, creating a dangerous situation for both of them. Will tells Elizabeth that after his parents disappeared from the servants' quarters, he was expelled from the Palace. Elizabeth asks Will to meet her at the reception for her betrothed, whom she has never met.
In the King's chambers, Pym confronts Charles about violations of England's laws regarding monopolies owned by the Catholic Church, the religion of his French wife, Henrietta. In desperation for Parliament to approve a new tax to fund his army in Scotland, Charles agrees to end his interference with religious worship and end monopolies in England. Charles angrily reminds the men that God selected him to rule England, and all of his decisions were blessed as his Divine Right.
Elizabeth approaches her father to explain her reservations about marrying Prince Ofonso and is struck to the ground by an infuriated Charles. Elizabeth's innocence is lost and she says farewell to her father. He takes no notice.
Pym, Hampden, and Will stop at Trafalgar Tavern for ale to celebrate their meeting with Charles. Outside the tavern, Will sees a young man named Robby, who has lost his week's pay and is heartbroken that his family will go hungry again. Will cheers him up by playing a lute and singing Dare to Dream, a song his father used to sing to him. Inside the tavern, the working class men make fun of King Charles by acting out what they would do if they were the King of the World.
The town of London turns out to see the new Parliament gather at Whitehall, with both wealthy land owners and royals filling the Houses of Commons and Lords while some street urchins lend their support with the a capella Good Parliament, a song written in 1648. Pym attends the first meeting of the House of Commons in Parliament! and successfully misleads its members to believe that Charles refused to negotiate with the liaison committee and will force his prayer book on all of England. The House of Commons is enraged and votes to arrest Charles for high treason against England for violating its laws. Will earnestly tries to correct the misrepresentation, but is discounted due to his youth. Parliament agrees to form an army and arrest the Charles for treason. Cromwell agrees to lead the army, but refuses to lead the House of Commons, leaving this task to Pym.
Will and Elizabeth are reminded by all who know them that they cannot be together due to their differences in class. However, the young lovers pine for one another from different rooftops in London in All I See.
Saddened by not being with Will, Elizabeth is surrounded by the Henrietta's Ladies in Waiting as they prepare for the reception and ball. The Ladies encourage her to marry Prince Ofonso to be a Queen, but to continue to see Will in Do What Royals Do.
At the reception and royal ball for the Ofonso royal family, Pym suspects that he and members of the House of Commons are in danger since the King and his bishops are not in attendance for the historic occasion and may be meeting in Star Chamber, a secret tribunal that arrests those not in support of the monarchy. Lady Carlisle informs her friend Pym that she overheard Queen Henrietta state that both Pym and Hampden would be arrested for treason at daybreak. Pym and Hampden flee London after asking Will to tell Cromwell that he must become the Speaker of the House of Commons and see their plan through. Will agrees to speak to Cromwell in their absence.
Will then sees Elizabeth on the other side of the ballroom. Lady Carlisle arranges for them to dance together in a way that appears innocent. The couple cannot resist their love, and kiss on the dance floor in front of the royalty in attendance. Queen Henrietta is furious.
Act II
The next morning, Henrietta finds Will in Elizabeth's bedroom. Will escapes through a servant's passage. Henrietta tells her daughter Elizabeth that she understands Elizabeth's conflict, but commands her to preserve the monarchy and never see Will again in Where You Are.
Will flees to a Catholic cathedral to find peace with his betrayal of his promise to his father to join the seminary. He prays for answers in Earthly Love, and then realizes that God gave Elizabeth to him, and his love for her was not a sin. Elizabeth follows Will to the cathedral where they kneel at the altar and exchange secret vows of commitment in Wasn't It You.
Will breaks his vow of secrecy to Parliament and warns Elizabeth that her father will be arrested by Parliament's Army. Will explains that the Puritans who will try Charles for treason believe that forgiveness must be given if a sinner repents. He reasons that they may convict, but cannot kill Charles if he repents. Elizabeth runs to the Palace to warn her father he must repent or he will surely be beheaded. She finds an ancient letter in a broken desk in her chambers written by Queen Elizabeth when she was alive and resided in Richmond Palace many years before. The ghost of Elizabeth appears and tells her namesake to follow her heart regardless of what the monarchy dictates for her.
Will keeps his promise to Pym and pleads with Cromwell to stop observing the destruction caused by the conflict between Parliament and the monarchy and take a political stand as Parliament's new leader in Voyeur.
The King is arrested by Parliament's Army. Henry, the Palace gate guard and friend of Wills, is without an identity or job for the first time. Henry contemplates his wasted life in My Sword. He joins the Parliamentary Army.
Charles escapes his imprisonment at the war-ravaged Hampton Court Palace during the night, tricking the simple Parliamentary soldiers. Charles steals the dead guard's dagger, which was found by the guard in the Thames River years ago. Henry emerges from the nearby tavern after too many pints of ale in King of the World Reprise. Henry tries to stop Charles' escape in a fast-paced sword fight. Henry is killed by Charles in a brutal blow to the chest.
Will and others come from the tavern to discover Henry is dead. Charles is restrained, and then realizes Will's identity as the son of his former sword smith. Charles reveals that Star Chamber killed his parents on a carriage journey while delivering a custom medallion dagger to Charles' friend. His parents were murdered for not keeping Will away from Elizabeth who might have been tempted to not honor the marriage treaty with Portugal due to her unsavory attraction to Will. Years of loss and anguish rush forth in Will, who attacks Charles like an animal. Charles pulls the stolen medallion dagger from his boot and plunges it into Will's chest, only to find meet the solid resistance of Will's matching medallion, hanging around Will's neck. The medallion is held between the dagger's blade and Will's chest by the ghost of Will's father, who had made both the dagger and the medallion when Will was a child.
Charles is tried for treason and convicted after he refuses to express remorse for his crimes. Instead of attending the trial, Henrietta packs her possessions and prepares to lose her crown in Henrietta's Lament. Henrietta escapes back to her father, King Louis, in France with Elizabeth's younger brother, Charles II.
Charles is beheaded in the town square. The ghosts of James I and Elizabeth I try to help Charles ascend to heaven, but his ghost is pulled down into hell in a fiery chorus of dark angels. Only Elizabeth sees the ghosts and the Charles' descent. Elizabeth also sees the ghosts of Will's parents looking at Will lovingly and then ascending to heaven.
England is without a monarch. Cromwell becomes England's new leader. The people of London find inspiration in their new ability to rule themselves through Parliament in Lament (Another Hour Another Day). Will and Elizabeth wed and live happily together as commoners.
(Lament—The Musical is based in large part on the individuals, transcripts, letters of royals and gentry, and actual events leading to the beheading of King Charles I in 1648.)