[Rising and stretching forth his hands. All kneel but SIR RALPH BAGENHALL, who rises and remains standing.

The Lord who hath redeem'd us With His own blood, and wash'd us from our sins, To purchase for Himself a stainless bride; He, whom the Father hath appointed Head Of all his church, He by His mercy absolve you! [A pause. And we by that authority Apostolic, Given unto us, his Legate, by the Pope, Our Lord and Holy Father, Julius, God's Vicar and Vicegerent upon earth, Do here absolve you and deliver you And every one of you, and all the realm And its dominions from all heresy, All schism, and from all and every censure, Judgment, and pain accruing thereupon; And also we restore you to the bosom And unity of Universal Church. [Turning to GARDINER. Our letters of commission will declare this plainlier.

[QUEEN heard sobbing. Cries of Amen! Amen! Some of the Members embrace one another. All but SIR RALPH BAGENHALL pass out into the neighboring chapel, whence is heard the Te Deum.

BAGENHALL. We strove against the papacy from the first, In William's time, in our first Edward's time, And in my master Henry's time; but now, The unity of Universal Church, Mary would have it; and this Gardiner follows; The unity of Universal Hell, Philip would have it; and this Gardiner follows! A Parliament of imitative apes! Sheep at the gap which Gardiner takes, who not Believes the Pope, nor any of them believe— These spaniel-Spaniard English of the time, Who rub their fawning noses in the dust, For that is Philip's gold-dust, and adore This Vicar of their Vicar. Would I had been Born Spaniard! I had held my head up then. I am ashamed that I am Bagenhall, English.

Enter OFFICER.

OFFICER. Sir Ralph Bagenhall!

BAGENHALL. What of that?

OFFICER. You were the one sole man in either house Who stood upright when both the houses fell.

BAGENHALL. The houses fell!

OFFICER. I mean the houses knelt Before the Legate.

BAGENHALL. Do not scrimp your phrase, But stretch it wider; say when England fell.

OFFICER. I say you were the one sole man who stood.

BAGENHALL. I am the one sole man in either house, Perchance in England, loves her like a son.

OFFICER. Well, you one man, because you stood upright, Her Grace the Queen commands you to the Tower.

BAGENHALL. As traitor, or as heretic, or for what?

OFFICER. If any man in any way would be The one man, he shall be so to his cost.

BAGENHALL. What! will she have my head?

OFFICER. A round fine likelier. Your pardon. [Calling to ATTENDANT. By the river to the Tower.

[Exeunt.



SCENE IV.—WHITEHALL. A ROOM IN THE PALACE. MARY, GARDINER, POLE, PAGET, BONNER, etc.

MARY. The King and I, my Lords, now that all traitors Against our royal state have lost the heads Wherewith they plotted in their treasonous malice, Have talk'd together, and are well agreed That those old statutes touching Lollardism To bring the heretic to the stake, should be No longer a dead letter, but requicken'd.

ONE OF THE COUNCIL. Why, what hath fluster'd Gardiner? how he rubs His forelock!

PAGET. I have changed a word with him In coming, and may change a word again.

GARDINER. Madam, your Highness is our sun, the King And you together our two suns in one; And so the beams of both may shine upon us, The faith that seem'd to droop will feel your light, Lift head, and flourish; yet not light alone, There must be heat—there must be heat enough To scorch and wither heresy to the root. For what saith Christ? 'Compel them to come in.' And what saith Paul? 'I would they were cut off That trouble you.' Let the dead letter live! Trace it in fire, that all the louts to whom Their A B C is darkness, clowns and grooms May read it! so you quash rebellion too, For heretic and traitor are all one: Two vipers of one breed—an amphisbaena, Each end a sting: Let the dead letter burn!

PAGET. Yet there be some disloyal Catholics, And many heretics loyal; heretic throats Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane, But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord. To take the lives of others that are loyal, And by the churchman's pitiless doom of fire, Were but a thankless policy in the crown, Ay, and against itself; for there are many.

MARY. If we could burn out heresy, my Lord Paget, We reck not tho' we lost this crown of England— Ay! tho' it were ten Englands!

GARDINER. Right, your Grace. Paget, you are all for this poor life of ours, And care but little for the life to be.

PAGET. I have some time, for curiousness, my Lord Watch'd children playing at their life to be, And cruel at it, killing helpless flies; Such is our time—all times for aught I know.

GARDINER. We kill the heretics that sting the soul— They, with right reason, flies that prick the flesh.

PAGET. They had not reach'd right reason; little children! They kill'd but for their pleasure and the power They felt in killing.

GARDINER. A spice of Satan, ha! Why, good! what then? granted!—we are fallen creatures; Look to your Bible, Paget! we are fallen.

PAGET. I am but of the laity, my Lord Bishop, And may not read your Bible, yet I found One day, a wholesome scripture, 'Little children, Love one another.'

GARDINER. Did you find a scripture, 'I come not to bring peace but a sword'? The sword Is in her Grace's hand to smite with. Paget, You stand up here to fight for heresy, You are more than guess'd at as a heretic, And on the steep-up track of the true faith Your lapses are far seen.

PAGET. The faultless Gardiner!

MARY. You brawl beyond the question; speak, Lord Legate!

POLE. Indeed, I cannot follow with your Grace: Rather would say—the shepherd doth not kill The sheep that wander from his flock, but sends His careful dog to bring them to the fold. Look to the Netherlands, wherein have been Such holocausts of heresy! to what end? For yet the faith is not established there.

GARDINER. The end's not come.

POLE. No—nor this way will come, Seeing there lie two ways to every end, A better and a worse—the worse is here To persecute, because to persecute Makes a faith hated, and is furthermore No perfect witness of a perfect faith In him who persecutes: when men are tost On tides of strange opinion, and not sure Of their own selves, they are wroth with their own selves, And thence with others; then, who lights the faggot? Not the full faith, no, but the lurking doubt. Old Rome, that first made martyrs in the Church, Trembled for her own gods, for these were trembling— But when did our Rome tremble?

PAGET. Did she not In Henry's time and Edward's?

POLE. What, my Lord! The Church on Peter's rock? never! I have seen A pine in Italy that cast its shadow Athwart a cataract; firm stood the pine— The cataract shook the shadow. To my mind, The cataract typed the headlong plunge and fall Of heresy to the pit: the pine was Rome. You see, my Lords, It was the shadow of the Church that trembled; Your church was but the shadow of a church, Wanting the Papal mitre.

GARDINER (muttering). Here be tropes.

POLE. And tropes are good to clothe a naked truth, And make it look more seemly.

GARDINER. Tropes again!

POLE. You are hard to please. Then without tropes, my Lord, An overmuch severeness, I repeat, When faith is wavering makes the waverer pass Into more settled hatred of the doctrines Of those who rule, which hatred by and by Involves the ruler (thus there springs to light That Centaur of a monstrous Commonweal, The traitor-heretic) then tho' some may quail, Yet others are that dare the stake and fire, And their strong torment bravely borne, begets An admiration and an indignation, And hot desire to imitate; so the plague Of schism spreads; were there but three or four Of these misleaders, yet I would not say Burn! and we cannot burn whole towns; they are many, As my Lord Paget says.

GARDINER. Yet my Lord Cardinal—

POLE. I am your Legate; please you let me finish. Methinks that under our Queen's regimen We might go softlier than with crimson rowel And streaming lash. When Herod-Henry first Began to batter at your English Church, This was the cause, and hence the judgment on her. She seethed with such adulteries, and the lives Of many among your churchmen were so foul That heaven wept and earth blush'd. I would advise That we should thoroughly cleanse the Church within Before these bitter statutes be requicken'd. So after that when she once more is seen White as the light, the spotless bride of Christ, Like Christ himself on Tabor, possibly The Lutheran may be won to her again; Till when, my Lords, I counsel tolerance.

GARDINER. What, if a mad dog bit your hand, my Lord, Would you not chop the bitten finger off, Lest your whole body should madden with the poison? I would not, were I Queen, tolerate the heretic, No, not an hour. The ruler of a land Is bounden by his power and place to see His people be not poison'd. Tolerate them! Why? do they tolerate you? Nay, many of them Would burn—have burnt each other; call they not The one true faith, a loathsome idol-worship? Beware, Lord Legate, of a heavier crime Than heresy is itself; beware, I say, Lest men accuse you of indifference To all faiths, all religion; for you know Right well that you yourself have been supposed Tainted with Lutheranism in Italy.

POLE (angered). But you, my Lord, beyond all supposition, In clear and open day were congruent With that vile Cranmer in the accursed lie Of good Queen Catherine's divorce—the spring Of all those evils that have flow'd upon us; For you yourself have truckled to the tyrant, And done your best to bastardise our Queen, For which God's righteous judgment fell upon you In your five years of imprisonment, my Lord, Under young Edward. Who so bolster'd up The gross King's headship of the Church, or more Denied the Holy Father!

GARDINER. Ha! what! eh? But you, my Lord, a polish'd gentleman, A bookman, flying from the heat and tussle, You lived among your vines and oranges, In your soft Italy yonder! You were sent for. You were appeal'd to, but you still preferr'd Your learned leisure. As for what I did I suffer'd and repented. You, Lord Legate And Cardinal-Deacon, have not now to learn That ev'n St. Peter in his time of fear Denied his Master, ay, and thrice, my Lord.

POLE. But not for five-and-twenty years, my Lord.

GARDINER. Ha! good! it seems then I was summon'd hither But to be mock'd and baited. Speak, friend Bonner, And tell this learned Legate he lacks zeal. The Church's evil is not as the King's, Cannot be heal'd by stroking. The mad bite Must have the cautery—tell him—and at once. What would'st thou do hadst thou his power, thou That layest so long in heretic bonds with me; Would'st thou not burn and blast them root and branch?

BONNER. Ay, after you, my Lord.

GARDINER. Nay, God's passion, before me! speak'

BONNER. I am on fire until I see them flame.

GARDINER. Ay, the psalm-singing weavers, cobblers, scum— But this most noble prince Plantagenet, Our good Queen's cousin—dallying over seas Even when his brother's, nay, his noble mother's, Head fell—

POLE. Peace, madman! Thou stirrest up a grief thou canst not fathom. Thou Christian Bishop, thou Lord Chancellor Of England! no more rein upon thine anger Than any child! Thou mak'st me much ashamed That I was for a moment wroth at thee.

MARY. I come for counsel and ye give me feuds, Like dogs that set to watch their master's gate, Fall, when the thief is ev'n within the walls, To worrying one another. My Lord Chancellor, You have an old trick of offending us; And but that you are art and part with us In purging heresy, well we might, for this Your violence and much roughness to the Legate, Have shut you from our counsels. Cousin Pole, You are fresh from brighter lands. Retire with me. His Highness and myself (so you allow us) Will let you learn in peace and privacy What power this cooler sun of England hath In breeding godless vermin. And pray Heaven That you may see according to our sight. Come, cousin. [Exeunt QUEEN and POLE, etc.

GARDINER. Pole has the Plantagenet face, But not the force made them our mightiest kings. Fine eyes—but melancholy, irresolute— A fine beard, Bonner, a very full fine beard. But a weak mouth, an indeterminate—ha?

BONNER. Well, a weak mouth, perchance.

GARDINER. And not like thine To gorge a heretic whole, roasted or raw.

BONNER. I'd do my best, my Lord; but yet the Legate Is here as Pope and Master of the Church, And if he go not with you—

GARDINER. Tut, Master Bishop, Our bashful Legate, saw'st not how he flush'd? Touch him upon his old heretical talk, He'll burn a diocese to prove his orthodoxy. And let him call me truckler. In those times, Thou knowest we had to dodge, or duck, or die; I kept my head for use of Holy Church; And see you, we shall have to dodge again, And let the Pope trample our rights, and plunge His foreign fist into our island Church To plump the leaner pouch of Italy. For a time, for a time. Why? that these statutes may be put in force, And that his fan may thoroughly purge his floor.

BONNER. So then you hold the Pope—

GARDINER. I hold the Pope! What do I hold him? what do I hold the Pope? Come, come, the morsel stuck—this Cardinal's fault— I have gulpt it down. I am wholly for the Pope, Utterly and altogether for the Pope, The Eternal Peter of the changeless chair, Crown'd slave of slaves, and mitred king of kings, God upon earth! what more? what would you have? Hence, let's be gone.

Enter USHER.

USHER. Well that you be not gone, My Lord. The Queen, most wroth at first with you, Is now content to grant you full forgiveness, So that you crave full pardon of the Legate. I am sent to fetch you.

GARDINER. Doth Pole yield, sir, ha! Did you hear 'em? were you by?

USHER. I cannot tell you, His bearing is so courtly-delicate; And yet methinks he falters: their two Graces Do so dear-cousin and royal-cousin him, So press on him the duty which as Legate He owes himself, and with such royal smiles—

GARDINER. Smiles that burn men. Bonner, it will be carried. He falters, ha? 'fore God, we change and change; Men now are bow'd and old, the doctors tell you, At three-score years; then if we change at all We needs must do it quickly; it is an age Of brief life, and brief purpose, and brief patience, As I have shown to-day. I am sorry for it If Pole be like to turn. Our old friend Cranmer, Your more especial love, hath turn'd so often, He knows not where he stands, which, if this pass, We two shall have to teach him; let 'em look to it, Cranmer and Hooper, Ridley and Latimer, Rogers and Ferrar, for their time is come, Their hour is hard at hand, their 'dies Irae' Their 'dies Illa,' which will test their sect. I feel it but a duty—you will find in it Pleasure as well as duty, worthy Bonner,— To test their sect. Sir, I attend the Queen To crave most humble pardon—of her most Royal, Infallible, Papal Legate-cousin.

[Exeunt.



SCENE V.—WOODSTOCK.

ELIZABETH, LADY IN WAITING.

ELIZABETH. So they have sent poor Courtenay over sea.

LADY. And banish'd us to Woodstock, and the fields. The colours of our Queen are green and white, These fields are only green, they make me gape.

ELIZABETH. There's whitethorn, girl.

LADY. Ay, for an hour in May. But court is always May, buds out in masques, Breaks into feather'd merriments, and flowers In silken pageants. Why do they keep us here? Why still suspect your Grace?

ELIZABETH. Hard upon both. [Writes on the window with a diamond.

Much suspected, of me Nothing proven can be. Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.

LADY. What hath your Highness written?

ELIZABETH. A true rhyme.

LADY. Cut with a diamond; so to last like truth.

ELIZABETH. Ay, if truth last.

LADY. But truth, they say, will out, So it must last. It is not like a word, That comes and goes in uttering.

ELIZABETH. Truth, a word! The very Truth and very Word are one. But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl, Is like a word that comes from olden days, And passes thro' the peoples: every tongue Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks Quite other than at first.

LADY. I do not follow.

ELIZABETH. How many names in the long sweep of time That so foreshortens greatness, may but hang On the chance mention of some fool that once Brake bread with us, perhaps: and my poor chronicle Is but of glass. Sir Henry Bedingfield May split it for a spite.

LADY. God grant it last, And witness to your Grace's innocence, Till doomsday melt it.

ELIZABETH. Or a second fire, Like that which lately crackled underfoot And in this very chamber, fuse the glass, And char us back again into the dust We spring from. Never peacock against rain Scream'd as you did for water.

LADY. And I got it. I woke Sir Henry—and he's true to you I read his honest horror in his eyes.

ELIZABETH. Or true to you?

LADY. Sir Henry Bedingfield! I will have no man true to me, your Grace, But one that pares his nails; to me? the clown!

ELIZABETH. Out, girl! you wrong a noble gentleman.

LADY. For, like his cloak, his manners want the nap And gloss of court; but of this fire he says. Nay swears, it was no wicked wilfulness, Only a natural chance.

ELIZABETH. A chance—perchance One of those wicked wilfuls that men make, Nor shame to call it nature. Nay, I know They hunt my blood. Save for my daily range Among the pleasant fields of Holy Writ I might despair. But there hath some one come; The house is all in movement. Hence, and see.

[Exit LADY.

MILKMAID (singing without).

Shame upon you, Robin, Shame upon you now! Kiss me would you? with my hands Milking the cow? Daisies grow again, Kingcups blow again, And you came and kiss'd me milking the cow.

Robin came behind me, Kiss'd me well I vow; Cuff him could I? with my hands Milking the cow? Swallows fly again, Cuckoos cry again, And you came and kiss'd me milking the cow.

Come, Robin, Robin, Come and kiss me now; Help it can I? with my hands Milking the cow? Ringdoves coo again, All things woo again. Come behind and kiss me milking the cow!

ELIZABETH. Right honest and red-cheek'd; Robin was violent, And she was crafty—a sweet violence, And a sweet craft. I would I were a milkmaid, To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and die, Then have my simple headstone by the church, And all things lived and ended honestly. I could not if I would. I am Harry's daughter: Gardiner would have my head. They are not sweet, The violence and the craft that do divide The world of nature; what is weak must lie; The lion needs but roar to guard his young; The lapwing lies, says 'here' when they are there. Threaten the child; 'I'll scourge you if you did it:' What weapon hath the child, save his soft tongue, To say 'I did not?' and my rod's the block. I never lay my head upon the pillow But that I think, 'Wilt thou lie there to-morrow?' How oft the falling axe, that never fell, Hath shock'd me back into the daylight truth That it may fall to-day! Those damp, black, dead Nights in the Tower; dead—with the fear of death Too dead ev'n for a death-watch! Toll of a bell, Stroke of a clock, the scurrying of a rat Affrighted me, and then delighted me, For there was life—And there was life in death— The little murder'd princes, in a pale light, Rose hand in hand, and whisper'd, 'come away! The civil wars are gone for evermore: Thou last of all the Tudors, come away! With us is peace!' The last? It was a dream; I must not dream, not wink, but watch. She has gone, Maid Marian to her Robin—by and by Both happy! a fox may filch a hen by night, And make a morning outcry in the yard; But there's no Renard here to 'catch her tripping.' Catch me who can; yet, sometime I have wish'd That I were caught, and kill'd away at once Out of the flutter. The gray rogue, Gardiner, Went on his knees, and pray'd me to confess In Wyatt's business, and to cast myself Upon the good Queen's mercy; ay, when, my Lord? God save the Queen! My jailor—

Enter SIR HENRY BEDINGFIELD.

BEDINGFIELD. One, whose bolts, That jail you from free life, bar you from death. There haunt some Papist ruffians hereabout Would murder you.

ELIZABETH. I thank you heartily, sir, But I am royal, tho' your prisoner, And God hath blest or cursed me with a nose— Your boots are from the horses.

BEDINGFIELD. Ay, my Lady. When next there comes a missive from the Queen It shall be all my study for one hour To rose and lavender my horsiness, Before I dare to glance upon your Grace.

ELIZABETH. A missive from the Queen: last time she wrote, I had like to have lost my life: it takes my breath: O God, sir, do you look upon your boots, Are you so small a man? Help me: what think you, Is it life or death.

BEDINGFIELD. I thought not on my boots; The devil take all boots were ever made Since man went barefoot. See, I lay it here, For I will come no nearer to your Grace;

[Laying down the letter.

And, whether it bring you bitter news or sweet, And God hath given your Grace a nose, or not, I'll help you, if I may.

ELIZABETH. Your pardon, then; It is the heat and narrowness of the cage That makes the captive testy; with free wing The world were all one Araby. Leave me now, Will you, companion to myself, sir?

BEDINGFIELD. Will I? With most exceeding willingness, I will; You know I never come till I be call'd. [Exit.

ELIZABETH. It lies there folded: is there venom in it? A snake—and if I touch it, it may sting. Come, come, the worst! Best wisdom is to know the worst at once. [Reads:

'It is the King's wish, that you should wed Prince Philibert of Savoy. You are to come to Court on the instant; and think of this in your coming. 'MARY THE QUEEN.'

Think I have many thoughts; I think there may be birdlime here for me; I think they fain would have me from the realm; I think the Queen may never bear a child; I think that I may be some time the Queen, Then, Queen indeed: no foreign prince or priest Should fill my throne, myself upon the steps. I think I will not marry anyone, Specially not this landless Philibert Of Savoy; but, if Philip menace me, I think that I will play with Philibert, As once the Holy Father did with mine, Before my father married my good mother,— For fear of Spain.

Enter LADY.

LADY. O Lord! your Grace, your Grace, I feel so happy: it seems that we shall fly These bald, blank fields, and dance into the sun That shines on princes.

ELIZABETH. Yet, a moment since, I wish'd myself the milkmaid singing here, To kiss and cuff among the birds and flowers— A right rough life and healthful.

LADY. But the wench Hath her own troubles; she is weeping now; For the wrong Robin took her at her word. Then the cow kick'd, and all her milk was spilt. Your Highness such a milkmaid?

ELIZABETH. I had kept My Robins and my cows in sweeter order Had I been such.

LADY (slyly). And had your Grace a Robin?

ELIZABETH. Come, come, you are chill here; you want the sun That shines at court; make ready for the journey. Pray God, we 'scape the sunstroke. Ready at once.

[Exeunt.



SCENE VI.—LONDON. A ROOM IN THE PALACE.

LORD PETRE and LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.

PETRE. You cannot see the Queen. Renard denied her, Ev'n now to me.

HOWARD. Their Flemish go-between And all-in-all. I came to thank her Majesty For freeing my friend Bagenhall from the Tower; A grace to me! Mercy, that herb-of-grace, Flowers now but seldom.

PETRE. Only now perhaps. Because the Queen hath been three days in tears For Philip's going—like the wild hedge-rose Of a soft winter, possible, not probable, However you have prov'n it.

HOWARD. I must see her.

Enter RENARD.

RENARD. My Lords, you cannot see her Majesty.

HOWARD. Why then the King! for I would have him bring it Home to the leisure wisdom of his Queen, Before he go, that since these statutes past, Gardiner out-Gardiners Gardiner in his heat, Bonner cannot out-Bonner his own self— Beast!—but they play with fire as children do, And burn the house. I know that these are breeding A fierce resolve and fixt heart-hate in men Against the King, the Queen, the Holy Father, The faith itself. Can I not see him?

RENARD. Not now. And in all this, my Lord, her Majesty Is flint of flint, you may strike fire from her, Not hope to melt her. I will give your message.

[Exeunt PETRE and HOWARD.

Enter PHILIP (musing)

PHILIP. She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy, I talk'd with her in vain—says she will live And die true maid—a goodly creature too. Would she had been the Queen! yet she must have him; She troubles England: that she breathes in England Is life and lungs to every rebel birth That passes out of embryo. Simon Renard! This Howard, whom they fear, what was he saying?

RENARD. What your imperial father said, my liege, To deal with heresy gentlier. Gardiner burns, And Bonner burns; and it would seem this people Care more for our brief life in their wet land, Than yours in happier Spain. I told my Lord He should not vex her Highness; she would say These are the means God works with, that His church May flourish.

PHILIP. Ay, sir, but in statesmanship To strike too soon is oft to miss the blow. Thou knowest I bad my chaplain, Castro, preach Against these burnings.

RENARD. And the Emperor Approved you, and when last he wrote, declared His comfort in your Grace that you were bland And affable to men of all estates, In hope to charm them from their hate of Spain.

PHILIP. In hope to crush all heresy under Spain. But, Renard, I am sicker staying here Than any sea could make me passing hence, Tho' I be ever deadly sick at sea. So sick am I with biding for this child. Is it the fashion in this clime for women To go twelve months in bearing of a child? The nurses yawn'd, the cradle gaped, they led Processions, chanted litanies, clash'd their bells, Shot off their lying cannon, and her priests Have preach'd, the fools, of this fair prince to come; Till, by St. James, I find myself the fool. Why do you lift your eyebrow at me thus?

RENARD. I never saw your Highness moved till now.

PHILIP. So weary am I of this wet land of theirs, And every soul of man that breathes therein.

RENARD. My liege, we must not drop the mask before The masquerade is over—

PHILIP. —Have I dropt it? I have but shown a loathing face to you, Who knew it from the first.

Enter MARY.

MARY (aside). With Renard. Still Parleying with Renard, all the day with Renard, And scarce a greeting all the day for me— And goes to-morrow. [Exit MARY.

PHILIP (to RENARD, who advances to him). Well, sir, is there more?

RENARD (who has perceived the QUEEN). May Simon Renard speak a single word?

PHILIP. Ay.

RENARD. And be forgiven for it?

PHILIP. Simon Renard Knows me too well to speak a single word That could not be forgiven.

RENARD. Well, my liege, Your Grace hath a most chaste and loving wife.

PHILIP. Why not? The Queen of Philip should be chaste.

RENARD. Ay, but, my Lord, you know what Virgil sings, Woman is various and most mutable.

PHILIP. She play the harlot! never.

RENARD. No, sire, no, Not dream'd of by the rabidest gospeller. There was a paper thrown into the palace, 'The King hath wearied of his barren bride.' She came upon it, read it, and then rent it, With all the rage of one who hates a truth He cannot but allow. Sire, I would have you— What should I say, I cannot pick my words— Be somewhat less—majestic to your Queen.

PHILIP. Am I to change my manners, Simon Renard, Because these islanders are brutal beasts? Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers?

RENARD. Brief-sighted tho' they be, I have seen them, sire, When you perchance were trifling royally With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill With such fierce fire—had it been fire indeed It would have burnt both speakers.

PHILIP. Ay, and then?

RENARD. Sire, might it not be policy in some matter Of small importance now and then to cede A point to her demand?

PHILIP. Well, I am going.

RENARD. For should her love when you are gone, my liege, Witness these papers, there will not be wanting Those that will urge her injury—should her love— And I have known such women more than one— Veer to the counterpoint, and jealousy Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse Almost into one metal love and hate,— And she impress her wrongs upon her Council, And these again upon her Parliament— We are not loved here, and would be then perhaps Not so well holpen in our wars with France, As else we might be—here she comes.

Enter MARY.

MARY. O Philip! Nay, must you go indeed?

PHILIP. Madam, I must.

MARY. The parting of a husband and a wife Is like the cleaving of a heart; one half Will flutter here, one there.

PHILIP. You say true, Madam.

MARY. The Holy Virgin will not have me yet Lose the sweet hope that I may bear a prince. If such a prince were born and you not here!

PHILIP. I should be here if such a prince were born.

MARY. But must you go?

PHILIP. Madam, you know my father, Retiring into cloistral solitude To yield the remnant of his years to heaven, Will shift the yoke and weight of all the world From off his neck to mine. We meet at Brussels. But since mine absence will not be for long, Your Majesty shall go to Dover with me, And wait my coming back.

MARY. To Dover? no, I am too feeble. I will go to Greenwich, So you will have me with you; and there watch All that is gracious in the breath of heaven Draw with your sails from our poor land, and pass And leave me, Philip, with my prayers for you.

PHILIP. And doubtless I shall profit by your prayers.

MARY. Methinks that would you tarry one day more (The news was sudden) I could mould myself To bear your going better; will you do it?

PHILIP. Madam, a day may sink or save a realm.

MARY. A day may save a heart from breaking too.

PHILIP. Well, Simon Renard, shall we stop a day?

RENARD. Your Grace's business will not suffer, sire, For one day more, so far as I can tell.

PHILIP. Then one day more to please her Majesty.

MARY. The sunshine sweeps across my life again. O if I knew you felt this parting, Philip, As I do!

PHILIP. By St. James I do protest, Upon the faith and honour of a Spaniard, I am vastly grieved to leave your Majesty. Simon, is supper ready?

RENARD. Ay, my liege, I saw the covers laying.

PHILIP. Let us have it.

[Exeunt.



ACT IV.

SCENE I.—A ROOM IN THE PALACE.

MARY, CARDINAL POLE.

MARY. What have you there?

POLE. So please your Majesty, A long petition from the foreign exiles To spare the life of Cranmer. Bishop Thirlby, And my Lord Paget and Lord William Howard, Crave, in the same cause, hearing of your Grace. Hath he not written himself—infatuated— To sue you for his life?

MARY. His life? Oh, no; Not sued for that—he knows it were in vain. But so much of the anti-papal leaven Works in him yet, he hath pray'd me not to sully Mine own prerogative, and degrade the realm By seeking justice at a stranger's hand Against my natural subject. King and Queen, To whom he owes his loyalty after God, Shall these accuse him to a foreign prince? Death would not grieve him more. I cannot be True to this realm of England and the Pope Together, says the heretic.

POLE. And there errs; As he hath ever err'd thro' vanity. A secular kingdom is but as the body Lacking a soul; and in itself a beast. The Holy Father in a secular kingdom Is as the soul descending out of heaven Into a body generate.

MARY. Write to him, then.

POLE. I will.

MARY. And sharply, Pole.

POLE. Here come the Cranmerites!

Enter THIRLBY, LORD PAGET, LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.

HOWARD. Health to your Grace! Good morrow, my Lord Cardinal; We make our humble prayer unto your Grace That Cranmer may withdraw to foreign parts, Or into private life within the realm. In several bills and declarations, Madam, He hath recanted all his heresies.

PAGET. Ay, ay; if Bonner have not forged the bills. [Aside.

MARY. Did not More die, and Fisher? he must burn.

HOWARD. He hath recanted, Madam.

MARY. The better for him. He burns in Purgatory, not in Hell.

HOWARD. Ay, ay, your Grace; but it was never seen That any one recanting thus at full, As Cranmer hath, came to the fire on earth.

MARY. It will be seen now, then.

THIRLBY. O Madam, Madam! I thus implore you, low upon my knees, To reach the hand of mercy to my friend. I have err'd with him; with him I have recanted. What human reason is there why my friend Should meet with lesser mercy than myself?

MARY. My Lord of Ely, this. After a riot We hang the leaders, let their following go. Cranmer is head and father of these heresies, New learning as they call it; yea, may God Forget me at most need when I forget Her foul divorce—my sainted mother—No!—

HOWARD. Ay, ay, but mighty doctors doubted there. The Pope himself waver'd; and more than one Row'd in that galley—Gardiner to wit, Whom truly I deny not to have been Your faithful friend and trusty councillor. Hath not your Highness ever read his book. His tractate upon True Obedience, Writ by himself and Bonner?

MARY. I will take Such order with all bad, heretical books That none shall hold them in his house and live, Henceforward. No, my Lord.

HOWARD. Then never read it. The truth is here. Your father was a man Of such colossal kinghood, yet so courteous, Except when wroth, you scarce could meet his eye And hold your own; and were he wroth indeed, You held it less, or not at all. I say, Your father had a will that beat men down; Your father had a brain that beat men down—

POLE. Not me, my Lord.

HOWARD. No, for you were not here; You sit upon this fallen Cranmer's throne; And it would more become you, my Lord Legate, To join a voice, so potent with her Highness, To ours in plea for Cranmer than to stand On naked self-assertion.

MARY. All your voices Are waves on flint. The heretic must burn.

HOWARD. Yet once he saved your Majesty's own life; Stood out against the King in your behalf. At his own peril.

MARY. I know not if he did; And if he did I care not, my Lord Howard. My life is not so happy, no such boon, That I should spare to take a heretic priest's, Who saved it or not saved. Why do you vex me?

PAGET. Yet to save Cranmer were to serve the Church, Your Majesty's I mean; he is effaced, Self-blotted out; so wounded in his honour, He can but creep down into some dark hole Like a hurt beast, and hide himself and die; But if you burn him,—well, your Highness knows The saying, 'Martyr's blood—seed of the Church.'

MARY. Of the true Church; but his is none, nor will be. You are too politic for me, my Lord Paget. And if he have to live so loath'd a life, It were more merciful to burn him now.

THIRLBY. O yet relent. O, Madam, if you knew him As I do, ever gentle, and so gracious, With all his learning—

MARY. Yet a heretic still. His learning makes his burning the more just.

THIRLBY. So worshipt of all those that came across him; The stranger at his hearth, and all his house—

MARY. His children and his concubine, belike.

THIRLBY. To do him any wrong was to beget A kindness from him, for his heart was rich, Of such fine mould, that if you sow'd therein The seed of Hate, it blossom'd Charity.

POLE. 'After his kind it costs him nothing,' there's An old world English adage to the point. These are but natural graces, my good Bishop, Which in the Catholic garden are as flowers, But on the heretic dunghill only weeds.

HOWARD. Such weeds make dunghills gracious.

MARY. Enough, my Lords. It is God's will, the Holy Father's will, And Philip's will, and mine, that he should burn. He is pronounced anathema.

HOWARD. Farewell, Madam, God grant you ampler mercy at your call Than you have shown to Cranmer. [Exeunt LORDS.

POLE. After this, Your Grace will hardly care to overlook This same petition of the foreign exiles For Cranmer's life.

MARY. Make out the writ to-night.

[Exeunt.



SCENE II.—OXFORD. CRANMER IN PRISON.

CRANMER. Last night, I dream'd the faggots were alight, And that myself was fasten'd to the stake, I And found it all a visionary flame, Cool as the light in old decaying wood; And then King Harry look'd from out a cloud, And bad me have good courage; and I heard An angel cry 'There is more joy in Heaven,'— And after that, the trumpet of the dead. [Trumpets without. Why, there are trumpets blowing now: what is it?

Enter FATHER COLE.

COLE. Cranmer, I come to question you again; Have you remain'd in the true Catholic faith I left you in?

CRANMER. In the true Catholic faith, By Heaven's grace, I am more and more confirm'd. Why are the trumpets blowing, Father Cole?

COLE. Cranmer, it is decided by the Council That you to-day should read your recantation Before the people in St. Mary's Church. And there be many heretics in the town, Who loathe you for your late return to Rome, And might assail you passing through the street, And tear you piecemeal: so you have a guard.

CRANMER. Or seek to rescue me. I thank the Council.

COLE. Do you lack any money?

CRANMER. Nay, why should I? The prison fare is good enough for me.

COLE. Ay, but to give the poor.

CRANMER. Hand it me, then! I thank you.

COLE. For a little space, farewell; Until I see you in St. Mary's Church. [Exit COLE.

CRANMER. It is against all precedent to burn One who recants; they mean to pardon me. To give the poor—they give the poor who die. Well, burn me or not burn me I am fixt; It is but a communion, not a mass: A holy supper, not a sacrifice; No man can make his Maker—Villa Garcia.

Enter VILLA GARCIA.

VILLA GARCIA. Pray you write out this paper for me, Cranmer.

CRANMER. Have I not writ enough to satisfy you?

VILLA GARCIA. It is the last.

CRANMER. Give it me, then. [He writes.

VILLA GARCIA. Now sign.

CRANMER. I have sign'd enough, and I will sign no more.

VILLA GARCIA. It is no more than what you have sign'd already, The public form thereof.

CRANMER. It may be so; I sign it with my presence, if I read it.

VILLA GARCIA. But this is idle of you. Well, sir, well, You are to beg the people to pray for you; Exhort them to a pure and virtuous life; Declare the Queen's right to the throne; confess Your faith before all hearers; and retract That Eucharistic doctrine in your book. Will you not sign it now?

CRANMER. No, Villa Garcia, I sign no more. Will they have mercy on me?

VILLA GARCIA. Have you good hopes of mercy! So, farewell. [Exit.

CRANMER. Good hopes, not theirs, have I that I am fixt, Fixt beyond fall; however, in strange hours, After the long brain-dazing colloquies, And thousand-times recurring argument Of those two friars ever in my prison, When left alone in my despondency, Without a friend, a book, my faith would seem Dead or half-drown'd, or else swam heavily Against the huge corruptions of the Church, Monsters of mistradition, old enough To scare me into dreaming, 'what am I, Cranmer, against whole ages?' was it so, Or am I slandering my most inward friend, To veil the fault of my most outward foe— The soft and tremulous coward in the flesh? O higher, holier, earlier, purer church, I have found thee and not leave thee any more. It is but a communion, not a mass— No sacrifice, but a life-giving feast! (Writes.) So, so; this will I say—thus will I pray. [Puts up the paper.

Enter BONNER.

BONNER. Good day, old friend; what, you look somewhat worn; And yet it is a day to test your health Ev'n at the best: I scarce have spoken with you Since when?—your degradation. At your trial Never stood up a bolder man than you; You would not cap the Pope's commissioner— Your learning, and your stoutness, and your heresy, Dumbfounded half of us. So, after that, We had to dis-archbishop and unlord, And make you simple Cranmer once again. The common barber dipt your hair, and I Scraped from your finger-points the holy oil; And worse than all, you had to kneel to me; Which was not pleasant for you, Master Cranmer. Now you, that would not recognise the Pope, And you, that would not own the Real Presence, Have found a real presence in the stake, Which frights you back into the ancient faith: And so you have recanted to the Pope. How are the mighty fallen, Master Cranmer!

CRANMER. You have been more fierce against the Pope than I; But why fling back the stone he strikes me with? [Aside. O Bonner, if I ever did you kindness— Power hath been given you to try faith by fire— Pray you, remembering how yourself have changed, Be somewhat pitiful, after I have gone, To the poor flock—to women and to children— That when I was archbishop held with me.

BONNER. Ay—gentle as they call you—live or die! Pitiful to this pitiful heresy? I must obey the Queen and Council, man. Win thro' this day with honour to yourself, And I'll say something for you—so—good-bye. [Exit.

CRANMER. This hard coarse man of old hath crouch'd to me Till I myself was half ashamed for him.

Enter THIRLBY.

Weep not, good Thirlby.

THIRLBY. Oh, my Lord, my Lord! My heart is no such block as Bonner's is: Who would not weep?

CRANMER. Why do you so my—lord me, Who am disgraced?

THIRLBY. On earth; but saved in heaven By your recanting.

CRANMER. Will they burn me, Thirlby?

THIRLBY. Alas, they will; these burnings will not help The purpose of the faith; but my poor voice Against them is a whisper to the roar Of a spring-tide.

CRANMER. And they will surely burn me?

THIRLBY. Ay; and besides, will have you in the church Repeat your recantation in the ears Of all men, to the saving of their souls, Before your execution. May God help you Thro' that hard hour!

CRANMER. And may God bless you, Thirlby! Well, they shall hear my recantation there.

[Exit THIRLBY.

Disgraced, dishonour'd!—not by them, indeed, By mine own self—by mine own hand! O thin-skinn'd hand and jutting veins, 'twas you That sign'd the burning of poor Joan of Kent; But then she was a witch. You have written much, But you were never raised to plead for Frith, Whose dogmas I have reach'd: he was deliver'd To the secular arm to burn; and there was Lambert; Who can foresee himself? truly these burnings, As Thirlby says, are profitless to the burners, And help the other side. You shall burn too, Burn first when I am burnt. Fire—inch by inch to die in agony! Latimer Had a brief end—not Ridley. Hooper burn'd Three-quarters of an hour. Will my faggots Be wet as his were? It is a day of rain. I will not muse upon it. My fancy takes the burner's part, and makes The fire seem even crueller than it is. No, I not doubt that God will give me strength, Albeit I have denied him.

Enter SOTO and VILLA GARCIA.

VILLA GARCIA. We are ready To take you to St. Mary's, Master Cranmer.

CRANMER. And I: lead on; ye loose me from my bonds.

[Exeunt.



SCENE III.—ST. MARY'S CHURCH.

COLE in the Pulpit, LORD WILLIAMS OF THAME presiding. LORD WILLIAM HOWARD, LORD PAGET, and others. CRANMER enters between SOTO and VILLA GARCIA, and the whole Choir strike up 'Nunc Dimittis.' CRANMER is set upon a Scaffold before the people.

COLE. Behold him— [A pause: people in the foreground.

PEOPLE. Oh, unhappy sight!

FIRST PROTESTANT. See how the tears run down his fatherly face.

SECOND PROTESTANT. James, didst thou ever see a carrion crow Stand watching a sick beast before he dies?

FIRST PROTESTANT. Him perch'd up there? I wish some thunderbolt Would make this Cole a cinder, pulpit and all.

COLE. Behold him, brethren: he hath cause to weep!— So have we all: weep with him if ye will, Yet— It is expedient for one man to die, Yea, for the people, lest the people die. Yet wherefore should he die that hath return'd To the one Catholic Universal Church, Repentant of his errors?

PROTESTANT murmurs. Ay, tell us that.

COLE. Those of the wrong side will despise the man, Deeming him one that thro' the fear of death Gave up his cause, except he seal his faith In sight of all with flaming martyrdom.

CRANMER. Ay.

COLE. Ye hear him, and albeit there may seem According to the canons pardon due To him that so repents, yet are there causes Wherefore our Queen and Council at this time Adjudge him to the death. He hath been a traitor, A shaker and confounder of the realm; And when the King's divorce was sued at Rome, He here, this heretic metropolitan, As if he had been the Holy Father, sat And judged it. Did I call him heretic? A huge heresiarch! never was it known That any man so writing, preaching so, So poisoning the Church, so long continuing, Hath found his pardon; therefore he must die, For warning and example. Other reasons There be for this man's ending, which our Queen And Council at this present deem it not Expedient to be known.

PROTESTANT murmurs. I warrant you.

COLE. Take therefore, all, example by this man, For if our Holy Queen not pardon him, Much less shall others in like cause escape, That all of you, the highest as the lowest, May learn there is no power against the Lord. There stands a man, once of so high degree, Chief prelate of our Church, archbishop, first In Council, second person in the realm, Friend for so long time of a mighty King; And now ye see downfallen and debased From councillor to caitiff—fallen so low, The leprous flutterings of the byway, scum And offal of the city would not change Estates with him; in brief, so miserable, There is no hope of better left for him, No place for worse. Yet, Cranmer, be thou glad. This is the work of God. He is glorified In thy conversion: lo! thou art reclaim'd; He brings thee home: nor fear but that to-day Thou shalt receive the penitent thief's award, And be with Christ the Lord in Paradise. Remember how God made the fierce fire seem To those three children like a pleasant dew. Remember, too, The triumph of St. Andrew on his cross, The patience of St. Lawrence in the fire. Thus, if thou call on God and all the saints, God will beat down the fury of the flame, Or give thee saintly strength to undergo. And for thy soul shall masses here be sung By every priest in Oxford. Pray for him.

CRANMER. Ay, one and all, dear brothers, pray for me; Pray with one breath, one heart, one soul for me.

COLE. And now, lest anyone among you doubt The man's conversion and remorse of heart, Yourselves shall hear him speak. Speak, Master Cranmer, Fulfil your promise made me, and proclaim Your true undoubted faith, that all may hear.

CRANMER. And that I will. O God, Father of Heaven! O Son of God, Redeemer of the world! O Holy Ghost! proceeding from them both, Three persons and one God, have mercy on me, Most miserable sinner, wretched man. I have offended against heaven and earth More grievously than any tongue can tell. Then whither should I flee for any help? I am ashamed to lift my eyes to heaven, And I can find no refuge upon earth. Shall I despair then?—God forbid! O God, For thou art merciful, refusing none That come to Thee for succour, unto Thee, Therefore, I come; humble myself to Thee; Saying, O Lord God, although my sins be great, For thy great mercy have mercy! O God the Son, Not for slight faults alone, when thou becamest Man in the Flesh, was the great mystery wrought; O God the Father, not for little sins Didst thou yield up thy Son to human death; But for the greatest sin that can be sinn'd, Yea, even such as mine, incalculable, Unpardonable,—sin against the light, The truth of God, which I had proven and known. Thy mercy must be greater than all sin. Forgive me, Father, for no merit of mine, But that Thy name by man be glorified, And Thy most blessed Son's, who died for man.

Good people, every man at time of death Would fain set forth some saying that may live After his death and better humankind; For death gives life's last word a power to live, And, like the stone-cut epitaph, remain After the vanish'd voice, and speak to men. God grant me grace to glorify my God! And first I say it is a grievous case, Many so dote upon this bubble world, Whose colours in a moment break and fly, They care for nothing else. What saith St. John: 'Love of this world is hatred against God.' Again, I pray you all that, next to God, You do unmurmuringly and willingly Obey your King and Queen, and not for dread Of these alone, but from the fear of Him Whose ministers they be to govern you. Thirdly, I pray you all to live together Like brethren; yet what hatred Christian men Bear to each other, seeming not as brethren, But mortal foes! But do you good to all As much as in you lieth. Hurt no man more Than you would harm your loving natural brother Of the same roof, same breast. If any do, Albeit he think himself at home with God, Of this be sure, he is whole worlds away.

PROTESTANT murmurs. What sort of brothers then be those that lust To burn each other?

WILLIAMS. Peace among you, there!

CRANMER. Fourthly, to those that own exceeding wealth, Remember that sore saying spoken once By Him that was the truth, 'How hard it is For the rich man to enter into Heaven;' Let all rich men remember that hard word. I have not time for more: if ever, now Let them flow forth in charity, seeing now The poor so many, and all food so dear. Long have I lain in prison, yet have heard Of all their wretchedness. Give to the poor, Ye give to God. He is with us in the poor.

And now, and forasmuch as I have come To the last end of life, and thereupon Hangs all my past, and all my life to be, Either to live with Christ in Heaven with joy, Or to be still in pain with devils in hell; And, seeing in a moment, I shall find [Pointing upwards. Heaven or else hell ready to swallow me, [Pointing downwards. I shall declare to you my very faith Without all colour.

COLE. Hear him, my good brethren.

CRANMER. I do believe in God, Father of all; In every article of the Catholic faith, And every syllable taught us by our Lord, His prophets, and apostles, in the Testaments, Both Old and New.

COLE. Be plainer, Master Cranmer.

CRANMER. And now I come to the great cause that weighs Upon my conscience more than anything Or said or done in all my life by me; For there be writings I have set abroad Against the truth I knew within my heart, Written for fear of death, to save my life, If that might be; the papers by my hand Sign'd since my degradation—by this hand [Holding out his right hand. Written and sign'd—I here renounce them all; And, since my hand offended, having written Against my heart, my hand shall first be burnt, So I may come to the fire. [Dead silence.

PROTESTANT murmurs.

FIRST PROTESTANT. I knew it would be so.

SECOND PROTESTANT. Our prayers are heard!

THIRD PROTESTANT. God bless him!

CATHOLIC murmurs. Out upon him! out upon him! Liar! dissembler! traitor! to the fire!

WILLIAMS (raising his voice). You know that you recanted all you said Touching the sacrament in that same book You wrote against my Lord of Winchester; Dissemble not; play the plain Christian man.

CRANMER. Alas, my Lord, I have been a man loved plainness all my life; I did dissemble, but the hour has come For utter truth and plainness; wherefore, I say, I hold by all I wrote within that book. Moreover, As for the Pope I count him Antichrist, With all his devil's doctrines; and refuse, Reject him, and abhor him. I have said.

[Cries on all sides, 'Pull him down! Away with him!'

COLE. Ay, stop the heretic's mouth! Hale him away!

WILLIAMS. Harm him not, harm him not! have him to the fire!

[CRANMER goes out between Two Friars, smiling; hands are reached to him from the crowd. LORD WILLIAM HOWARD and LORD PAGET are left alone in the church.

PAGET. The nave and aisles all empty as a fool's jest! No, here's Lord William Howard. What, my Lord, You have not gone to see the burning?

HOWARD. Fie! To stand at ease, and stare as at a show, And watch a good man burn. Never again. I saw the deaths of Latimer and Ridley. Moreover, tho' a Catholic, I would not, For the pure honour of our common nature, Hear what I might—another recantation Of Cranmer at the stake.

PAGET. You'd not hear that. He pass'd out smiling, and he walk'd upright; His eye was like a soldier's, whom the general He looks to and he leans on as his God, Hath rated for some backwardness and bidd'n him Charge one against a thousand, and the man Hurls his soil'd life against the pikes and dies.

HOWARD. Yet that he might not after all those papers Of recantation yield again, who knows?

PAGET. Papers of recantation! Think you then That Cranmer read all papers that he sign'd? Or sign'd all those they tell us that he sign'd? Nay, I trow not: and you shall see, my Lord, That howsoever hero-like the man Dies in the fire, this Bonner or another Will in some lying fashion misreport His ending to the glory of their church. And you saw Latimer and Ridley die? Latimer was eighty, was he not? his best Of life was over then.

HOWARD. His eighty years Look'd somewhat crooked on him in his frieze; But after they had stript him to his shroud, He stood upright, a lad of twenty-one, And gather'd with his hands the starting flame, And wash'd his hands and all his face therein, Until the powder suddenly blew him dead. Ridley was longer burning; but he died As manfully and boldly, and, 'fore God, I know them heretics, but right English ones. If ever, as heaven grant, we clash with Spain, Our Ridley-soldiers and our Latimer-sailors Will teach her something.

PAGET. Your mild Legate Pole Will tell you that the devil helpt them thro' it. [A murmur of the Crowd in the distance. Hark, how those Roman wolfdogs howl and bay him!

HOWARD. Might it not be the other side rejoicing In his brave end?

PAGET. They are too crush'd, too broken, They can but weep in silence.

HOWARD. Ay, ay, Paget, They have brought it in large measure on themselves. Have I not heard them mock the blessed Host In songs so lewd, the beast might roar his claim To being in God's image, more than they? Have I not seen the gamekeeper, the groom. Gardener, and huntsman, in the parson's place, The parson from his own spire swung out dead, And Ignorance crying in the streets, and all men Regarding her? I say they have drawn the fire On their own heads: yet, Paget, I do hold The Catholic, if he have the greater right, Hath been the crueller.

PAGET. Action and re-action, The miserable see-saw of our child-world, Make us despise it at odd hours, my Lord. Heaven help that this re-action not re-act Yet fiercelier under Queen Elizabeth, So that she come to rule us.

HOWARD. The world's mad.

PAGET. My Lord, the world is like a drunken man, Who cannot move straight to his end—but reels Now to the right, then as far to the left, Push'd by the crowd beside—and underfoot An earthquake; for since Henry for a doubt— Which a young lust had clapt upon the back, Crying, 'Forward!'—set our old church rocking, men Have hardly known what to believe, or whether They should believe in anything; the currents So shift and change, they see not how they are borne, Nor whither. I conclude the King a beast; Verily a lion if you will—the world A most obedient beast and fool—myself Half beast and fool as appertaining to it; Altho' your Lordship hath as little of each Cleaving to your original Adam-clay, As may be consonant with mortality.

HOWARD. We talk and Cranmer suffers. The kindliest man I ever knew; see, see, I speak of him in the past. Unhappy land! Hard-natured Queen, half-Spanish in herself, And grafted on the hard-grain'd stock of Spain— Her life, since Philip left her, and she lost Her fierce desire of bearing him a child, Hath, like a brief and bitter winter's day, Gone narrowing down and darkening to a close. There will be more conspiracies, I fear.

PAGET. Ay, ay, beware of France.

HOWARD. O Paget, Paget! I have seen heretics of the poorer sort, Expectant of the rack from day to day, To whom the fire were welcome, lying chain'd In breathless dungeons over steaming sewers, Fed with rank bread that crawl'd upon the tongue, And putrid water, every drop a worm, Until they died of rotted limbs; and then Cast on the dunghill naked, and become Hideously alive again from head to heel, Made even the carrion-nosing mongrel vomit With hate and horror.

PAGET. Nay, you sicken me To hear you.

HOWARD. Fancy-sick; these things are done, Done right against the promise of this Queen Twice given.

PAGET. No faith with heretics, my Lord! Hist! there be two old gossips—gospellers, I take it; stand behind the pillar here; I warrant you they talk about the burning.

Enter TWO OLD WOMEN. JOAN, and after her TIB.

JOAN. Why, it be Tib!

TIB. I cum behind tha, gall, and couldn't make tha hear. Eh, the wind and the wet! What a day, what a day! nigh upo' judgement daay loike. Pwoaps be pretty things, Joan, but they wunt set i' the Lord's cheer o' that daay.

JOAN. I must set down myself, Tib; it be a var waay vor my owld legs up vro' Islip. Eh, my rheumatizy be that bad howiver be I to win to the burnin'.

TIB. I should saay 'twur ower by now. I'd ha' been here avore, but Dumble wur blow'd wi' the wind, and Dumble's the best milcher in Islip.

JOAN. Our Daisy's as good 'z her.

TIB. Noa, Joan.

JOAN. Our Daisy's butter's as good'z hern.

TIB. Noa, Joan.

JOAN. Our Daisy's cheeses be better.

TIB. Noa, Joan.

JOAN. Eh, then ha' thy waay wi' me, Tib; ez thou hast wi' thy owld man.

TIB. Ay, Joan, and my owld man wur up and awaay betimes wi' dree hard eggs for a good pleace at the burnin'; and barrin' the wet, Hodge 'ud ha' been a-harrowin' o' white peasen i' the outfield—and barrin' the wind, Dumble wur blow'd wi' the wind, so 'z we was forced to stick her, but we fetched her round at last. Thank the Lord therevore. Dumble's the best milcher in Islip.

JOAN. Thou's thy way wi' man and beast, Tib. I wonder at tha', it beats me! Eh, but I do know ez Pwoaps and vires be bad things; tell 'ee now, I heerd summat as summun towld summun o' owld Bishop Gardiner's end; there wur an owld lord a-cum to dine wi' un, and a wur so owld a couldn't bide vor his dinner, but a had to bide howsomiver, vor 'I wunt dine,' says my Lord Bishop, says he, 'not till I hears ez Latimer and Ridley be a-vire;' and so they bided on and on till vour o' the clock, till his man cum in post vro' here, and tells un ez the vire has tuk holt. 'Now,' says the Bishop, says he, 'we'll gwo to dinner;' and the owld lord fell to 's meat wi' a will, God bless un! but Gardiner wur struck down like by the hand o' God avore a could taste a mossel, and a set un all a-vire, so 'z the tongue on un cum a-lolluping out o' 'is mouth as black as a rat. Thank the Lord, therevore.

PAGET. The fools!

TIB. Ay, Joan; and Queen Mary gwoes on a-burnin' and a-burnin', to get her baaby born; but all her burnin's 'ill never burn out the hypocrisy that makes the water in her. There's nought but the vire of God's hell ez can burn out that.

JOAN. Thank the Lord, therevore.

PAGET. The fools!

TIB. A-burnin', and a-burnin', and a-makin' o' volk madder and madder; but tek thou my word vor't, Joan,—and I bean't wrong not twice i' ten year—the burnin' o' the owld archbishop'll burn the Pwoap out o' this 'ere land vor iver and iver.

HOWARD. Out of the church, you brace of cursed crones, Or I will have you duck'd! (Women hurry out.) Said I not right? For how should reverend prelate or throned prince Brook for an hour such brute malignity? Ah, what an acrid wine has Luther brew'd!

PAGET. Pooh, pooh, my Lord! poor garrulous country-wives. Buy you their cheeses, and they'll side with you; You cannot judge the liquor from the lees.

HOWARD. I think that in some sort we may. But see,

Enter PETERS.

Peters, my gentleman, an honest Catholic, Who follow'd with the crowd to Cranmer's fire. One that would neither misreport nor lie, Not to gain paradise: no, nor if the Pope, Charged him to do it—he is white as death. Peters, how pale you look! you bring the smoke Of Cranmer's burning with you.

PETERS. Twice or thrice The smoke of Cranmer's burning wrapt me round.

HOWARD. Peters, you know me Catholic, but English. Did he die bravely? Tell me that, or leave All else untold.

PETERS. My Lord, he died most bravely.

HOWARD. Then tell me all.

PAGET. Ay, Master Peters, tell us.

PETERS. You saw him how he past among the crowd; And ever as he walk'd the Spanish friars Still plied him with entreaty and reproach: But Cranmer, as the helmsman at the helm Steers, ever looking to the happy haven Where he shall rest at night, moved to his death; And I could see that many silent hands Came from the crowd and met his own; and thus When we had come where Ridley burnt with Latimer, He, with a cheerful smile, as one whose mind Is all made up, in haste put off the rags They had mock'd his misery with, and all in white, His long white beard, which he had never shaven Since Henry's death, down-sweeping to the chain, Wherewith they bound him to the stake, he stood More like an ancient father of the Church, Than heretic of these times; and still the friars Plied him, but Cranmer only shook his head, Or answer'd them in smiling negatives; Whereat Lord Williams gave a sudden cry:— 'Make short! make short!' and so they lit the wood. Then Cranmer lifted his left hand to heaven, And thrust his right into the bitter flame; And crying, in his deep voice, more than once, 'This hath offended—this unworthy hand!' So held it till it all was burn'd, before The flame had reach'd his body; I stood near— Mark'd him—he never uttered moan of pain: He never stirr'd or writhed, but, like a statue, Unmoving in the greatness of the flame, Gave up the ghost; and so past martyr-like— Martyr I may not call him—past—but whither? PAGET. To purgatory, man, to purgatory.

PETERS. Nay, but, my Lord, he denied purgatory.

PAGET. Why then to heaven, and God ha' mercy on him.

HOWARD. Paget, despite his fearful heresies, I loved the man, and needs must moan for him; O Cranmer!

PAGET. But your moan is useless now: Come out, my Lord, it is a world of fools.

[Exeunt.



ACT V.

SCENE I.—LONDON. HALL IN THE PALACE.

QUEEN, SIR NICHOLAS HEATH.

HEATH. Madam, I do assure you, that it must be look'd to: Calais is but ill-garrison'd, in Guisnes Are scarce two hundred men, and the French fleet Rule in the narrow seas. It must be look'd to, If war should fall between yourself and France; Or you will lose your Calais.

MARY. It shall be look'd to; I wish you a good morning, good Sir Nicholas: Here is the King. [Exit HEATH.

Enter PHILIP.

PHILIP. Sir Nicholas tells you true, And you must look to Calais when I go.

MARY. Go? must you go, indeed—again—so soon? Why, nature's licensed vagabond, the swallow, That might live always in the sun's warm heart, Stays longer here in our poor north than you:— Knows where he nested—ever comes again.

PHILIP. And, Madam, so shall I.

MARY. O, will you? will you? I am faint with fear that you will come no more.

PHILIP. Ay, ay; but many voices call me hence.

MARY. Voices—I hear unhappy rumours—nay, I say not, I believe. What voices call you Dearer than mine that should be dearest to you? Alas, my Lord! what voices and how many?

PHILIP. The voices of Castille and Aragon, Granada, Naples, Sicily, and Milan,— The voices of Franche-Comte, and the Netherlands, The voices of Peru and Mexico, Tunis, and Oran, and the Philippines, And all the fair spice-islands of the East.

MARY (admiringly). You are the mightiest monarch upon earth, I but a little Queen: and, so indeed, Need you the more.

PHILIP. A little Queen! but when I came to wed your majesty, Lord Howard, Sending an insolent shot that dash'd the seas Upon us, made us lower our kingly flag To yours of England.

MARY. Howard is all English! There is no king, not were he ten times king, Ten times our husband, but must lower his flag To that of England in the seas of England.

PHILIP. Is that your answer?

MARY. Being Queen of England, I have none other.

PHILIP. So.

MARY. But wherefore not Helm the huge vessel of your state, my liege, Here by the side of her who loves you most?

PHILIP. No, Madam, no! a candle in the sun Is all but smoke—a star beside the moon Is all but lost; your people will not crown me— Your people are as cheerless as your clime; Hate me and mine: witness the brawls, the gibbets. Here swings a Spaniard—there an Englishman; The peoples are unlike as their complexion; Yet will I be your swallow and return— But now I cannot bide.

MARY. Not to help me? They hate me also for my love to you, My Philip; and these judgments on the land— Harvestless autumns, horrible agues, plague—

PHILIP. The blood and sweat of heretics at the stake Is God's best dew upon the barren field. Burn more!

MARY. I will, I will; and you will stay?

PHILIP. Have I not said? Madam, I came to sue Your Council and yourself to declare war.

MARY. Sir, there are many English in your ranks To help your battle.

PHILIP. So far, good. I say I came to sue your Council and yourself To declare war against the King of France.

MARY. Not to see me?

PHILIP. Ay, Madam, to see you. Unalterably and pesteringly fond! [Aside. But, soon or late you must have war with France; King Henry warms your traitors at his hearth. Carew is there, and Thomas Stafford there. Courtenay, belike—

MARY. A fool and featherhead!

PHILIP. Ay, but they use his name. In brief, this Henry Stirs up your land against you to the intent That you may lose your English heritage. And then, your Scottish namesake marrying The Dauphin, he would weld France, England, Scotland, Into one sword to hack at Spain and me.

MARY. And yet the Pope is now colleagued with France; You make your wars upon him down in Italy:— Philip, can that be well?

PHILIP. Content you, Madam; You must abide my judgment, and my father's, Who deems it a most just and holy war. The Pope would cast the Spaniard out of Naples: He calls us worse than Jews, Moors, Saracens. The Pope has pushed his horns beyond his mitre— Beyond his province. Now, Duke Alva will but touch him on the horns, And he withdraws; and of his holy head— For Alva is true son of the true church— No hair is harm'd. Will you not help me here?

MARY. Alas! the Council will not hear of war. They say your wars are not the wars of England. They will not lay more taxes on a land So hunger-nipt and wretched; and you know The crown is poor. We have given the church-lands back: The nobles would not; nay, they clapt their hands Upon their swords when ask'd; and therefore God Is hard upon the people. What's to be done? Sir, I will move them in your cause again, And we will raise us loans and subsidies Among the merchants; and Sir Thomas Gresham Will aid us. There is Antwerp and the Jews.

PHILIP. Madam, my thanks.

MARY. And you will stay your going?

PHILIP. And further to discourage and lay lame The plots of France, altho' you love her not, You must proclaim Elizabeth your heir. She stands between you and the Queen of Scots.

MARY. The Queen of Scots at least is Catholic.

PHILIP. Ay, Madam, Catholic; but I will not have The King of France the King of England too.

MARY. But she's a heretic, and, when I am gone, Brings the new learning back.

PHILIP. It must be done. You must proclaim Elizabeth your heir.

MARY. Then it is done; but you will stay your going Somewhat beyond your settled purpose?

PHILIP. No!

MARY. What, not one day?

PHILIP. You beat upon the rock.

MARY. And I am broken there.

PHILIP. Is this a place To wail in, Madam? what! a public hall. Go in, I pray you.

MARY. Do not seem so changed. Say go; but only say it lovingly.

PHILIP. You do mistake. I am not one to change. I never loved you more.

MARY. Sire, I obey you. Come quickly.

PHILIP. Ay. [Exit MARY.

Enter COUNT DE FERIA.

FERIA (aside). The Queen in tears!

PHILIP. Feria! Hast thou not mark'd—come closer to mine ear— How doubly aged this Queen of ours hath grown Since she lost hope of bearing us a child?

FERIA. Sire, if your Grace hath mark'd it, so have I.

PHILIP. Hast thou not likewise mark'd Elizabeth, How fair and royal—like a Queen, indeed?

FERIA. Allow me the same answer as before— That if your Grace hath mark'd her, so have I.

PHILIP. Good, now; methinks my Queen is like enough To leave me by and by.

FERIA. To leave you, sire?

PHILIP. I mean not like to live. Elizabeth— To Philibert of Savoy, as you know, We meant to wed her; but I am not sure She will not serve me better—so my Queen Would leave me—as—my wife.

FERIA. Sire, even so.

PHILIP. She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy.

FERIA. No, sire.

PHILIP. I have to pray you, some odd time, To sound the Princess carelessly on this; Not as from me, but as your phantasy; And tell me how she takes it.

FERIA. Sire, I will.

PHILIP. I am not certain but that Philibert Shall be the man; and I shall urge his suit Upon the Queen, because I am not certain: You understand, Feria.

FERIA. Sire, I do.

PHILIP. And if you be not secret in this matter, You understand me there, too?

FERIA. Sire, I do.

PHILIP. You must be sweet and supple, like a Frenchman. She is none of those who loathe the honeycomb.

[Exit FERIA.

Enter RENARD.

RENARD. My liege, I bring you goodly tidings.

PHILIP. Well?

RENARD. There will be war with France, at last, my liege; Sir Thomas Stafford, a bull-headed ass, Sailing from France, with thirty Englishmen, Hath taken Scarboro' Castle, north of York; Proclaims himself protector, and affirms The Queen has forfeited her right to reign By marriage with an alien—other things As idle; a weak Wyatt! Little doubt This buzz will soon be silenced; but the Council (I have talk'd with some already) are for war. This the fifth conspiracy hatch'd in France; They show their teeth upon it; and your Grace, So you will take advice of mine, should stay Yet for awhile, to shape and guide the event.

PHILIP. Good! Renard, I will stay then.

RENARD. Also, sire, Might I not say—to please your wife, the Queen?

PHILIP. Ay, Renard, if you care to put it so.

[Exeunt.



SCENE II.—A ROOM IN THE PALACE.

MARY, sitting: a rose in her hand. LADY CLARENCE. ALICE in the background.

MARY. Look! I have play'd with this poor rose so long I have broken off the head.

LADY CLARENCE. Your Grace hath been More merciful to many a rebel head That should have fallen, and may rise again.

MARY. There were not many hang'd for Wyatt's rising.

LADY CLARENCE. Nay, not two hundred.

MARY. I could weep for them And her, and mine own self and all the world.

LADY CLARENCE. For her? for whom, your Grace?

Enter USHER.

USHER. The Cardinal.

Enter CARDINAL POLE. (MARY rises.)

MARY. Reginald Pole, what news hath plagued thy heart? What makes thy favour like the bloodless head Fall'n on the block, and held up by the hair? Philip?—

POLE. No, Philip is as warm in life As ever.

MARY. Ay, and then as cold as ever. Is Calais taken?

POLE. Cousin, there hath chanced A sharper harm to England and to Rome, Than Calais taken. Julius the Third Was ever just, and mild, and father-like; But this new Pope Caraffa, Paul the Fourth, Not only reft me of that legateship Which Julius gave me, and the legateship Annex'd to Canterbury—nay, but worse— And yet I must obey the Holy Father, And so must you, good cousin;—worse than all, A passing bell toll'd in a dying ear— He hath cited me to Rome, for heresy, Before his Inquisition.

MARY. I knew it, cousin, But held from you all papers sent by Rome, That you might rest among us, till the Pope, To compass which I wrote myself to Rome, Reversed his doom, and that you might not seem To disobey his Holiness.

POLE. He hates Philip; He is all Italian, and he hates the Spaniard; He cannot dream that I advised the war; He strikes thro' me at Philip and yourself. Nay, but I know it of old, he hates me too; So brands me in the stare of Christendom A heretic! Now, even now, when bow'd before my time, The house half-ruin'd ere the lease be out; When I should guide the Church in peace at home, After my twenty years of banishment, And all my lifelong labour to uphold The primacy—a heretic. Long ago, When I was ruler in the patrimony, I was too lenient to the Lutheran, And I and learned friends among ourselves Would freely canvass certain Lutheranisms. What then, he knew I was no Lutheran. A heretic! He drew this shaft against me to the head, When it was thought I might be chosen Pope, But then withdrew it. In full consistory, When I was made Archbishop, he approved me. And how should he have sent me Legate hither, Deeming me heretic? and what heresy since? But he was evermore mine enemy, And hates the Spaniard—fiery-choleric, A drinker of black, strong, volcanic wines, That ever make him fierier. I, a heretic? Your Highness knows that in pursuing heresy I have gone beyond your late Lord Chancellor,— He cried Enough! enough! before his death.— Gone beyond him and mine own natural man (It was God's cause); so far they call me now, The scourge and butcher of their English church.

MARY. Have courage, your reward is Heaven itself.

POLE. They groan amen; they swarm into the fire Like flies—for what? no dogma. They know nothing; They burn for nothing.

MARY. You have done your best.

POLE. Have done my best, and as a faithful son, That all day long hath wrought his father's work, When back he comes at evening hath the door Shut on him by the father whom he loved, His early follies cast into his teeth, And the poor son turn'd out into the street To sleep, to die—I shall die of it, cousin.

MARY. I pray you be not so disconsolate; I still will do mine utmost with the Pope. Poor cousin! Have not I been the fast friend of your life Since mine began, and it was thought we two Might make one flesh, and cleave unto each other As man and wife?

POLE. Ah, cousin, I remember How I would dandle you upon my knee At lisping-age. I watch'd you dancing once With your huge father; he look'd the Great Harry, You but his cockboat; prettily you did it, And innocently. No—we were not made One flesh in happiness, no happiness here; But now we are made one flesh in misery; Our bridemaids are not lovely—Disappointment, Ingratitude, Injustice, Evil-tongue, Labour-in-vain.

MARY. Surely, not all in vain. Peace, cousin, peace! I am sad at heart myself.

POLE. Our altar is a mound of dead men's clay, Dug from the grave that yawns for us beyond; And there is one Death stands behind the Groom, And there is one Death stands behind the Bride—

MARY. Have you been looking at the 'Dance of Death'?

POLE. No; but these libellous papers which I found Strewn in your palace. Look you here—the Pope Pointing at me with 'Pole, the heretic, Thou hast burnt others, do thou burn thyself, Or I will burn thee;' and this other; see!— 'We pray continually for the death Of our accursed Queen and Cardinal Pole.' This last—I dare not read it her. [Aside.

MARY. Away! Why do you bring me these? I thought you knew better. I never read, I tear them; they come back upon my dreams. The hands that write them should be burnt clean off As Cranmer's, and the fiends that utter them Tongue-torn with pincers, lash'd to death, or lie Famishing in black cells, while famish'd rats Eat them alive. Why do they bring me these? Do you mean to drive me mad?

POLE. I had forgotten How these poor libels trouble you. Your pardon, Sweet cousin, and farewell! 'O bubble world, Whose colours in a moment break and fly!' Why, who said that? I know not—true enough!

[Puts up the papers, all but the last, which falls. Exit POLE.

ALICE. If Cranmer's spirit were a mocking one, And heard these two, there might be sport for him. [Aside.

MARY. Clarence, they hate me; even while I speak There lurks a silent dagger, listening In some dark closet, some long gallery, drawn, And panting for my blood as I go by.

LADY CLARENCE. Nay, Madam, there be loyal papers too, And I have often found them.

MARY. Find me one!

LADY CLARENCE. Ay, Madam; but Sir Nicholas Heath, the Chancellor, Would see your Highness.

MARY. Wherefore should I see him?

LADY CLARENCE. Well, Madam, he may bring you news from Philip.

MARY. So, Clarence.

LADY CLARENCE. Let me first put up your hair; It tumbles all abroad.

MARY. And the gray dawn Of an old age that never will be mine Is all the clearer seen. No, no; what matters? Forlorn I am, and let me look forlorn.

Enter SIR NICHOLAS HEATH.

HEATH. I bring your Majesty such grievous news I grieve to bring it. Madam, Calais is taken.

MARY. What traitor spoke? Here, let my cousin Pole Seize him and burn him for a Lutheran.

HEATH. Her Highness is unwell. I will retire.

LADY CLARENCE. Madam, your Chancellor, Sir Nicholas Heath.

MARY. Sir Nicholas! I am stunn'd—Nicholas Heath? Methought some traitor smote me on the head. What said you, my good Lord, that our brave English Had sallied out from Calais and driven back The Frenchmen from their trenches?

HEATH. Alas! no. That gateway to the mainland over which Our flag hath floated for two hundred years Is France again.

MARY. So; but it is not lost— Not yet. Send out: let England as of old Rise lionlike, strike hard and deep into The prey they are rending from her—ay, and rend The renders too. Send out, send out, and make Musters in all the counties; gather all From sixteen years to sixty; collect the fleet; Let every craft that carries sail and gun Steer toward Calais. Guisnes is not taken yet?

HEATH. Guisnes is not taken yet.

MARY. There yet is hope.

HEATH. Ah, Madam, but your people are so cold; I do much fear that England will not care. Methinks there is no manhood left among us.

MARY. Send out; I am too weak to stir abroad: Tell my mind to the Council—to the Parliament: Proclaim it to the winds. Thou art cold thyself To babble of their coldness. O would I were My father for an hour! Away now—Quick!

[Exit HEATH.

I hoped I had served God with all my might! It seems I have not. Ah! much heresy Shelter'd in Calais. Saints I have rebuilt Your shrines, set up your broken images; Be comfortable to me. Suffer not That my brief reign in England be defamed Thro' all her angry chronicles hereafter By loss of Calais. Grant me Calais. Philip, We have made war upon the Holy Father All for your sake: what good could come of that?

LADY CLARENCE. No, Madam, not against the Holy Father; You did but help King Philip's war with France, Your troops were never down in Italy.

MARY. I am a byword. Heretic and rebel Point at me and make merry. Philip gone! And Calais gone! Time that I were gone too!

LADY CLARENCE. Nay, if the fetid gutter had a voice And cried I was not clean, what should I care? Or you, for heretic cries? And I believe, Spite of your melancholy Sir Nicholas, Your England is as loyal as myself.

MARY (seeing the paper draft by POLE). There! there! another paper! Said you not Many of these were loyal? Shall I try If this be one of such?

LADY CLARENCE. Let it be, let it be. God pardon me! I have never yet found one. [Aside.

MARY (reads). 'Your people hate you as your husband hates you.' Clarence, Clarence, what have I done? what sin Beyond all grace, all pardon? Mother of God, Thou knowest never woman meant so well, And fared so ill in this disastrous world. My people hate me and desire my death.

LADY CLARENCE. No, Madam, no.

MARY. My husband hates me, and desires my death.

LADY CLARENCE. No, Madam; these are libels.

MARY. I hate myself, and I desire my death.

LADY CLARENCE. Long live your Majesty! Shall Alice sing you One of her pleasant songs? Alice, my child, Bring us your lute (ALICE goes). They say the gloom of Saul Was lighten'd by young David's harp.

MARY. Too young! And never knew a Philip.

Re-enter ALICE.

Give me the lute. He hates me! (She sings.)

Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing! Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in loathing: Low, my lute; speak low, my lute, but say the world is nothing— Low, lute, low!

Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken; Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken; Low, my lute! oh low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken— Low, dear lute, low!

Take it away! not low enough for me!

ALICE. Your Grace hath a low voice.

MARY. How dare you say it? Even for that he hates me. A low voice Lost in a wilderness where none can hear! A voice of shipwreck on a shoreless sea! A low voice from the dust and from the grave (Sitting on the ground). There, am I low enough now?

ALICE. Good Lord! how grim and ghastly looks her Grace, With both her knees drawn upward to her chin. There was an old-world tomb beside my father's, And this was open'd, and the dead were found Sitting, and in this fashion; she looks a corpse.

Enter LADY MAGDALEN DACRES.

LADY MAGDALEN. Madam, the Count de Feria waits without, In hopes to see your Highness.

LADY CLARENCE (pointing to MARY). Wait he must— Her trance again. She neither sees nor hears, And may not speak for hours.

LADY MAGDALEN. Unhappiest Of Queens and wives and women!

ALICE (in the foreground with LADY MAGDALEN). And all along Of Philip.

LADY MAGDALEN. Not so loud! Our Clarence there Sees ever such an aureole round the Queen, It gilds the greatest wronger of her peace, Who stands the nearest to her.

ALICE. Ay, this Philip; I used to love the Queen with all my heart— God help me, but methinks I love her less For such a dotage upon such a man. I would I were as tall and strong as you.

LADY MAGDALEN. I seem half-shamed at times to be so tall.

ALICE. You are the stateliest deer in all the herd— Beyond his aim—but I am small and scandalous, And love to hear bad tales of Philip.

LADY MAGDALEN. Why? I never heard him utter worse of you Than that you were low-statured.

ALICE. Does he think Low stature is low nature, or all women's Low as his own?

LADY MAGDALEN. There you strike in the nail. This coarseness is a want of phantasy. It is the low man thinks the woman low; Sin is too dull to see beyond himself.

ALICE. Ah, Magdalen, sin is bold as well as dull. How dared he?

LADY MAGDALEN. Stupid soldiers oft are bold. Poor lads, they see not what the general sees, A risk of utter ruin. I am not Beyond his aim, or was not.

ALICE. Who? Not you? Tell, tell me; save my credit with myself.

LADY MAGDALEN. I never breathed it to a bird in the eaves, Would not for all the stars and maiden moon Our drooping Queen should know! In Hampton Court My window look'd upon the corridor; And I was robing;—this poor throat of mine, Barer than I should wish a man to see it,— When he we speak of drove the window back, And, like a thief, push'd in his royal hand; But by God's providence a good stout staff Lay near me; and you know me strong of arm; I do believe I lamed his Majesty's For a day or two, tho', give the Devil his due, I never found he bore me any spite.

ALICE. I would she could have wedded that poor youth, My Lord of Devon—light enough, God knows, And mixt with Wyatt's rising—and the boy Not out of him—but neither cold, coarse, cruel, And more than all—no Spaniard.

LADY CLARENCE. Not so loud. Lord Devon, girls! what are you whispering here?

ALICE. Probing an old state-secret—how it chanced That this young Earl was sent on foreign travel, Not lost his head.

LADY CLARENCE. There was no proof against him.

ALICE. Nay, Madam; did not Gardiner intercept A letter which the Count de Noailles wrote To that dead traitor Wyatt, with full proof Of Courtenay's treason? What became of that?

LADY CLARENCE. Some say that Gardiner, out of love for him, Burnt it, and some relate that it was lost When Wyatt sack'd the Chancellor's house in Southwark. Let dead things rest.

ALICE. Ay, and with him who died Alone in Italy.

LADY CLARENCE. Much changed, I hear, Had put off levity and put graveness on. The foreign courts report him in his manner Noble as his young person and old shield. It might be so—but all is over now; He caught a chill in the lagoons of Venice, And died in Padua.

MARY (looking up suddenly). Died in the true faith?

LADY CLARENCE. Ay, Madam, happily.

MARY. Happier he than I.

LADY MAGDALEN. It seems her Highness hath awaken'd. Think you That I might dare to tell her that the Count—

MARY. I will see no man hence for evermore, Saving my confessor and my cousin Pole.

LADY MAGDALEN. It is the Count de Feria, my dear lady.

MARY. What Count?

LADY MAGDALEN. The Count de Feria, from his Majesty King Philip.

MARY. Philip! quick! loop up my hair! Throw cushions on that seat, and make it throne-like. Arrange my dress—the gorgeous Indian shawl That Philip brought me in our happy days!— That covers all. So—am I somewhat Queenlike, Bride of the mightiest sovereign upon earth?

LADY CLARENCE. Ay, so your Grace would bide a moment yet.

MARY. No, no, he brings a letter. I may die Before I read it. Let me see him at once.

Enter COUNT DE FERIA (kneels).

FERIA. I trust your Grace is well. (Aside) How her hand burns!

MARY. I am not well, but it will better me, Sir Count, to read the letter which you bring.

FERIA. Madam, I bring no letter.

MARY. How! no letter?

FERIA. His Highness is so vex'd with strange affairs—

MARY. That his own wife is no affair of his.

FERIA. Nay, Madam, nay! he sends his veriest love, And says, he will come quickly.

MARY. Doth he, indeed? You, sir, do you remember what you said When last you came to England?

FERIA. Madam, I brought My King's congratulations; it was hoped Your Highness was once more in happy state To give him an heir male.

MARY. Sir, you said more; You said he would come quickly. I had horses On all the road from Dover, day and night; On all the road from Harwich, night and day; But the child came not, and the husband came not; And yet he will come quickly.... Thou hast learnt Thy lesson, and I mine. There is no need For Philip so to shame himself again. Return, And tell him that I know he comes no more. Tell him at last I know his love is dead, And that I am in state to bring forth death— Thou art commission'd to Elizabeth, And not to me!

FERIA. Mere compliments and wishes. But shall I take some message from your Grace?

MARY. Tell her to come and close my dying eyes, And wear my crown, and dance upon my grave.

FERIA. Then I may say your Grace will see your sister? Your Grace is too low-spirited. Air and sunshine. I would we had you, Madam, in our warm Spain. You droop in your dim London.

MARY. Have him away! I sicken of his readiness.

LADY CLARENCE. My Lord Count, Her Highness is too ill for colloquy.

FERIA (kneels, and kisses her hand). I wish her Highness better. (Aside) How her hand burns!

[Exeunt.



SCENE III.—A HOUSE NEAR LONDON.

ELIZABETH, STEWARD OF THE HOUSEHOLD, ATTENDANTS.

ELIZABETH. There's half an angel wrong'd in your account; Methinks I am all angel, that I bear it Without more ruffling. Cast it o'er again.

STEWARD. I were whole devil if I wrong'd you, Madam. [Exit STEWARD.

ATTENDANT. The Count de Feria, from the King of Spain.

ELIZABETH. Ay!—let him enter. Nay, you need not go: [To her LADIES. Remain within the chamber, but apart. We'll have no private conference. Welcome to England!

Enter FERIA.

FERIA. Fair island star!

ELIZABETH. I shine! What else, Sir Count?

FERIA. As far as France, and into Philip's heart. My King would know if you be fairly served, And lodged, and treated.

ELIZABETH. You see the lodging, sir, I am well-served, and am in everything Most loyal and most grateful to the Queen.

FERIA. You should be grateful to my master, too. He spoke of this; and unto him you owe That Mary hath acknowledged you her heir.

ELIZABETH. No, not to her nor him; but to the people, Who know my right, and love me, as I love The people! whom God aid!

FERIA. You will be Queen, And, were I Philip—

ELIZABETH. Wherefore pause you—what?

FERIA. Nay, but I speak from mine own self, not him; Your royal sister cannot last; your hand Will be much coveted! What a delicate one! Our Spanish ladies have none such—and there, Were you in Spain, this fine fair gossamer gold— Like sun-gilt breathings on a frosty dawn— That hovers round your shoulder—

ELIZABETH. Is it so fine? Troth, some have said so.

FERIA. —would be deemed a miracle.

ELIZABETH. Your Philip hath gold hair and golden beard; There must be ladies many with hair like mine.

FERIA, Some few of Gothic blood have golden hair, But none like yours.

ELIZABETH. I am happy you approve it.

FERIA. But as to Philip and your Grace—consider, If such a one as you should match with Spain, What hinders but that Spain and England join'd, Should make the mightiest empire earth has known. Spain would be England on her seas, and England Mistress of the Indies.

ELIZABETH. It may chance, that England Will be the Mistress of the Indies yet, Without the help of Spain.

FERIA. Impossible; Except you put Spain down. Wide of the mark ev'n for a madman's dream.

ELIZABETH. Perhaps; but we have seamen. Count de Feria, I take it that the King hath spoken to you; But is Don Carlos such a goodly match?

FERIA. Don Carlos, Madam, is but twelve years old.

ELIZABETH. Ay, tell the King that I will muse upon it; He is my good friend, and I would keep him so; But—he would have me Catholic of Rome, And that I scarce can be; and, sir, till now My sister's marriage, and my father's marriages, Make me full fain to live and die a maid. But I am much beholden to your King. Have you aught else to tell me?

FERIA. Nothing, Madam, Save that methought I gather'd from the Queen That she would see your Grace before she—died.

ELIZABETH. God's death! and wherefore spake you not before? We dally with our lazy moments here, And hers are number'd. Horses there, without! I am much beholden to the King, your master. Why did you keep me prating? Horses, there!

[Exit ELIZABETH, etc.

FERIA. So from a clear sky falls the thunderbolt! Don Carlos? Madam, if you marry Philip, Then I and he will snaffle your 'God's death,' And break your paces in, and make you tame; God's death, forsooth—you do not know King Philip.

[Exit.



SCENE IV.—LONDON. BEFORE THE PALACE.

A light burning within. VOICES of the night passing.

FIRST. Is not yon light in the Queen's chamber?

SECOND. Ay, They say she's dying.

FIRST. So is Cardinal Pole. May the great angels join their wings, and make Down for their heads to heaven!

SECOND. Amen. Come on. [Exeunt.

TWO OTHERS.

FIRST. There's the Queen's light. I hear she cannot live.

SECOND. God curse her and her Legate! Gardiner burns Already; but to pay them full in kind, The hottest hold in all the devil's den Were but a sort of winter; sir, in Guernsey, I watch'd a woman burn; and in her agony The mother came upon her—a child was born— And, sir, they hurl'd it back into the fire, That, being but baptized in fire, the babe Might be in fire for ever. Ah, good neighbour, There should be something fierier than fire To yield them their deserts.

FIRST. Amen to all Your wish, and further.

A THIRD VOICE. Deserts! Amen to what? Whose deserts? Yours? You have a gold ring on your finger, and soft raiment about your body; and is not the woman up yonder sleeping after all she has done, in peace and quietness, on a soft bed, in a closed room, with light, fire, physic, tendance; and I have seen the true men of Christ lying famine-dead by scores, and under no ceiling but the cloud that wept on them, not for them.

FIRST. Friend, tho' so late, it is not safe to preach. You had best go home. What are you?

THIRD. What am I? One who cries continually with sweat and tears to the Lord God that it would please Him out of His infinite love to break down all kingship and queenship, all priesthood and prelacy; to cancel and abolish all bonds of human allegiance, all the magistracy, all the nobles, and all the wealthy; and to send us again, according to His promise, the one King, the Christ, and all things in common, as in the day of the first church, when Christ Jesus was King.

FIRST. If ever I heard a madman,—let's away! Why, you long-winded—Sir, you go beyond me. I pride myself on being moderate. Good night! Go home. Besides, you curse so loud, The watch will hear you. Get you home at once.

[Exeunt.



SCENE V.—LONDON. A ROOM IN THE PALACE.

A Gallery on one side. The moonlight streaming through a range of windows on the wall opposite. MARY, LADY CLARENCE, LADY MAGDALEN DACRES, ALICE. QUEEN pacing the Gallery. A writing table in front. QUEEN comes to the table and writes and goes again, pacing the Gallery.

LADY CLARENCE. Mine eyes are dim: what hath she written? read.

ALICE. 'I am dying, Philip; come to me.'

LADY MAGDALEN. There—up and down, poor lady, up and down.

ALICE. And how her shadow crosses one by one The moonlight casements pattern'd on the wall, Following her like her sorrow. She turns again.

[QUEEN sits and writes, and goes again.

LADY CLARENCE. What hath she written now?

ALICE. Nothing; but 'come, come, come,' and all awry, And blotted by her tears. This cannot last.

[QUEEN returns.

MARY. I whistle to the bird has broken cage, And all in vain. [Sitting down. Calais gone—Guisnes gone, too—and Philip gone!

LADY CLARENCE. Dear Madam, Philip is but at the wars; I cannot doubt but that he comes again; And he is with you in a measure still. I never look'd upon so fair a likeness As your great King in armour there, his hand Upon his helmet. [Pointing to the portrait of Philip on the wall.

MARY. Doth he not look noble? I had heard of him in battle over seas, And I would have my warrior all in arms. He said it was not courtly to stand helmeted Before the Queen. He had his gracious moment, Altho' you'll not believe me. How he smiles As if he loved me yet!

LADY CLARENCE. And so he does.

MARY. He never loved me—nay, he could not love me. It was his father's policy against France. I am eleven years older than he, Poor boy! [Weeps.

ALICE. That was a lusty boy of twenty-seven; [Aside. Poor enough in God's grace!

MARY. —And all in vain! The Queen of Scots is married to the Dauphin, And Charles, the lord of this low world, is gone; And all his wars and wisdoms past away: And in a moment I shall follow him.

LADY CLARENCE. Nay, dearest Lady, see your good physician.

MARY. Drugs—but he knows they cannot help me—says That rest is all—tells me I must not think— That I must rest—I shall rest by and by. Catch the wild cat, cage him, and when he springs And maims himself against the bars, say 'rest': Why, you must kill him if you would have him rest— Dead or alive you cannot make him happy.

LADY CLARENCE. Your Majesty has lived so pure a life, And done such mighty things by Holy Church, I trust that God will make you happy yet.

MARY. What is the strange thing happiness? Sit down here: Tell me thine happiest hour.

LADY CLARENCE. I will, if that May make your Grace forget yourself a little. There runs a shallow brook across our field For twenty miles, where the black crow flies five, And doth so bound and babble all the way As if itself were happy. It was May-time, And I was walking with the man I loved. I loved him, but I thought I was not loved. And both were silent, letting the wild brook Speak for us—till he stoop'd and gather'd one From out a bed of thick forget-me-nots, Look'd hard and sweet at me, and gave it me. I took it, tho' I did not know I took it, And put it in my bosom, and all at once I felt his arms about me, and his lips—

MARY. O God! I have been too slack, too slack; There are Hot Gospellers even among our guards— Nobles we dared not touch. We have but burnt The heretic priest, workmen, and women and children. Wet, famine, ague, fever, storm, wreck, wrath,— We have so play'd the coward; but by God's grace, We'll follow Philip's leading, and set up The Holy Office here—garner the wheat, And burn the tares with unquenchable fire! Burn!— Fie, what a savour! tell the cooks to close The doors of all the offices below. Latimer! Sir, we are private with our women here— Ever a rough, blunt, and uncourtly fellow— Thou light a torch that never will go out! 'Tis out—mine flames. Women, the Holy Father Has ta'en the legateship from our cousin Pole— Was that well done? and poor Pole pines of it, As I do, to the death. I am but a woman, I have no power.—Ah, weak and meek old man, Seven-fold dishonour'd even in the sight Of thine own sectaries—No, no. No pardon! Why that was false: there is the right hand still Beckons me hence. Sir, you were burnt for heresy, not for treason, Remember that! 'twas I and Bonner did it, And Pole; we are three to one—Have you found mercy there, Grant it me here: and see, he smiles and goes, Gentle as in life.

ALICE. Madam, who goes? King Philip?

MARY. No, Philip comes and goes, but never goes. Women, when I am dead, Open my heart, and there you will find written Two names, Philip and Calais; open his,— So that he have one,— You will find Philip only, policy, policy,— Ay, worse than that—not one hour true to me! Foul maggots crawling in a fester'd vice! Adulterous to the very heart of Hell. Hast thou a knife?

ALICE. Ay, Madam, but o' God's mercy—

MARY. Fool, think'st thou I would peril mine own soul By slaughter of the body? I could not, girl, Not this way—callous with a constant stripe, Unwoundable. The knife!

ALICE. Take heed, take heed! The blade is keen as death.

MARY. This Philip shall not Stare in upon me in my haggardness; Old, miserable, diseased, Incapable of children. Come thou down. [Cuts out the picture and throws it down. Lie there. (Wails) O God, I have kill'd my Philip!