Prologue to All The Queen’s Monsters

A Royal Menagerie so long maintained,
These five hundred years of Great London’s keep,
With beasts of the world resting much restrain’d,
So nightmare free rest we soundly asleep.
Now papist Philip, monarch dread of Spain,
Seeks vengeance unto good English peoples,
Enloosened chaos creating our pain,
With horrors untold beneath our steeples.
All true men die for God, country or Queen
Yet these streets be sav’d by a fairer child
Hunting beasts her pure eyes should n’er have seen,
Thus runs the tale of Mistress Lettice Wylde.
       Now let it be known to one and to all,
       Not all our monsters do hide behind walls.

The Rev John Ironmonger. 
Rector of St Dunstan in the East.