ACT 1: Princess Mary Tudor, passionate Catholic, daughter of King Henry VIII and the late Katherine of Aragon, is cut by her rejecting father from her claim to the English throne; Mary refused to support the King’s divorce from her mother, his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn, and his Protestant control of the English church.

Chester, Mary’s loyal servant, brings to Mary a “crazy,” starving, compulsively rhyming lame girl named Jane who makes Mary laugh and relates to her anguish about cruel fathers. Most importantly, Jane predicts Mary will be Queen someday. Mary keeps Jane as her “Foole,” the first and only female jester in the English court. Jane becomes a skilled rhymer and Mary’s confidante. Jane is hurt when Mary rejects her as a friend, reminding Jane she is but a servant. But when Mary is forced on penalty of death to sign a document relinquishing her claim to be Queen someday, Jane secures her seer’s status with Mary, predicting all (actual) events that will lead to Mary being crowned.

ACT 2: Seventeen years later, as Jane predicted, Mary is Queen, the first female to govern England. But now Jane now tells Mary truths Mary does not want to hear. She warns Queen Mary against marrying Philip of Spain, but Mary enters into an emotionally disastrous and politically damaging marriage. When Jane humiliates Mary in front of the court by publicizing Mary’s false pregnancy, Mary banishes Jane from the palace. Chester, Jane’s perpetual enemy, names Jane as a pagan infidel and intends to burn Jane at the stake with the numerous Protestant “heretics” Mary put to death. At the last minute, Mary lets Jane go.

Three years pass with no contact between Jane and Mary. Mary, dying of influenza, calls Jane to her deathbed. The two women ask for forgiveness of each other before Mary dies.