If our courts judged us today as the people of England were judged in the 17th century, we'd surely all be in jail or penniless. That, or wearing a white smock and standing in the porch of our local church every Sunday as public penance.
The late Peter Whelan's phenomenally engrossing The Herbal Bed tells the true story of Susanna Hall, the daughter of a certain Mr William Shakespeare, who, in the bawdy summer of 1613, becomes embroiled in a devastating public accusation of adultery which threatens her entire family.
