University of Virginia Library

Scene VI

—Holyrood; the library. Lethington is discovered, leaning back on a couch, a small dog across his lap, in his hands “The First Buik of Rolland Amoreuse.”
Lethington

By the special providence of the love-god mine eyes have been turned aside from beholding ought but vanity. While the wicked devised mischief on their beds, my deepest solicitude hath been to remove the mockage from my auburn eyes, to extrude from them the keenness of the politician, the coolness of the cynic, the dancing valour of the wit, and to fill them with that lonesomeness of fasting desire that is mortal to women. [Reading]
This incomparable princess of Albracca! I will dote on her perfections, till the Lord James look in on me; then—but The Manuel of Morall Vertewis is at hand (Turning over the books)
Romance and theology— it is all one. The head, as the heart, hath its ferment, its aspirations, its disease. Tales of the nursery! yet I mock not at man's childishness. His imaginations affright him; the heavenly ministrants protect. Bairns must have bogles, though they dwell in their father's house.

(Reading)

Enter Mary Fleming
Mary Fleming

Mr. Secretary.

Lethington

Yes, Angelica.

Mary Fleming

You are so distraught, you do not even recollect my name.

Lethington

Divine one, I called you by your proper name, my angel.

Mary Fleming

I care not for your flatteries. Let me look into the history. Is it thus written?

(Trying to snatch the book)

Lethington

I am reading, Angelica, of one in love, one who encountered a marvellous disdain. (Reading)
Le bon Renaud—

Mary Fleming

Is that the name of your hero?

Lethington

You mistake; ’tis a lady who suffers this extremity of love—ebbed from roses to lilies in a day: you yourself, my sweet Fleming, look not paler on the instant.

Mary Fleming

You have been playing tricks with the story; you are like the good Renaud himself.

Lethington

Heaven forbid! yet he was a comely youth; auburn eyes, and, I doubt not, auburn hair that crept into the laces of his collar. Finding this delicate Adonis asleep one day by a fountain, it is written the lady was so ravished with his beauty she fell to sprinkling him with flowers. Imagine the dismay of the pauurette, when, despite her courteous salutation, he shook himself free of her dainty prickles, mounted his horse, and fled.

Mary Fleming

Le bon Renaud! Had she a visage so prodigious as to make him afraid?

Lethington

The freshness of a rose of the orchard.

Mary Fleming

Then you belie her.

Lethington

It is written, she kissed the very flowers ’gainst which he had slumbered, thus accosting them: (Reading)
ô herbes verdoyantes! que vous estes heureuses d'auoir touché un visage si aggreable! Que je porte d'enuie à vostre felicité. ’Twas, sweet Fleming, her weakness to desire un beau garcon in marriage. The lad had yellowish hair and she worshipped him.

Mary Fleming

She was a fool.

Lethington

Nay, the fool saith in his heart there is no God. She would have fallen under the censure of good Mr. Knox; call her rather an idolator.

Mary Fleming

If it so please our “great god the Secretaire”—an idolator.

(Curtseying low to him)

Lethington

Yet I would never have suffered the beautiful creature to pass away unsaluted. For it is written, on his awakening she made him a deep reverence.

Mary Fleming

Then you find not Angelica in fault; though like lady Venus she raved over her mortal, it was in his sleep, or at worst, after his departure. It is rumoured, Mr. Secretary, you are about to retire from the palace.

Lethington

If I presently ride away . . . . .?

Mary Fleming

Que je porte enuie à vostre félicité! For who would linger in Holyrood under the nose of the Lord James? Though he perch demure as a hooded falcon his dreams are of bloodied feathers. I fear me

even now he is devising some ill to my mistress. But you—can you not rescue her? Did you know of this?

Lethington
Pretty one,
None told me of it; knowledge, recollect,
Must enter by the ear.

Mary Fleming
If I believed—

Lethington
You loved me, I would let these sovereigns run
Amuck at their own ruin.

Mary Fleming
Do not think
Of me; in sooth, it scarcely is a time
For private thoughts.

Lethington
Yet the whole universe
They say is swayed by love. Shall politicians
Treat Cupid as an interloping god?
He is my bosom-counsellor, and teaches
My pen to rally Cecil on his rheum;
For never, as I tell the minister,
Do state-affairs so trouble me, but one,
One of the four and twenty hours I give
To merriment; for those that are in love
Are ever set upon a merry pin.

Mary Fleming
Not if their lady scorn them.

Lethington
Pardon, sweet!
For my romance instructs me that fair ladies
Faint for our noble beauty—while at will
We take them or we leave.

Mary Fleming
But does your heart
Instruct you it is wise and chivalrous
To leave the queen uncomforted? You love her?

Lethington
Ay, some day I shall haply die for her.

Mary Fleming
You are so dreamy. I will go away.

Lethington
Report me of the queen!

Mary Fleming
Am I your spy?

Lethington

Never, my girl; my own wits shall piece the evidence of my senses. How shall a man deal with rumour? ’Tis the question of the hour.

Mary Fleming

It were best you should not anger me—we are parting.

Lethington

Nay, if I leave you angry, I leave you to a long remorse. You will have no peace till the wronged exile's return. Mary, there is but one thing I trust in a woman, and that is the certainty of her unreason. She will give herself a month's penance for a moment's unkindness. So adieu, sweet Fleming, unsaluted. Exit Mary Fleming
If I could give my sovereign liberty! She sent for me, and, lifting up her eyes, Put in them such a world of trust, I promised— We promise children the impossible— All should be well. A noise upon the stairs! Tumult, affright!

Enter the Queen's Ladies distractedly
Mary Seaton
O, Mr. Secretary!
We are in great amazement.

Lethington
What is this?
Good gentlewomen—your discomfiture?

Mary Seaton
The queen is fled; ’tis rumoured to Dunbar;
And the king's rooms are empty. There is noise
The palace will be sacked.

Lethington
Fled to Dunbar!
Take comfort, ladies; she is in the care
Of loyal subjects.

Mary Seaton
But the earl is frenzied,
And full of oaths.

Lethington
I will assuage his fears.
Let me not see the Maries falling fast
As apple-flowers in a late gale of May.
Cheerly, sweet damsels! Ere the week be ended
Your mistress will return.

Lennox enters as the Ladies retire
(To Lennox)
My lord the earl!
Lennox
He saved his life and left me in the lurch;
Curse the deserter, the unnatural,
Ill-hearted son! He casts me to his foes
As easily as an abandoned mistress
Is thrown to raging kindred. Succour me,
A father stripped of filial affection,
An old, unrooted man, whose enemies
Are closer than his child.

Lethington
Be calm, my lord,
And all things cease to dance—most chiefly fear,
Pale whirligig of our intelligence;
Go you to Glasgow, wait until your springal
Return to nature; he will fly his parent
In vain; the stars wink, and my prophecy
Is on the road betimes.

Lennox
The boy I cherished
In every whim and appetite.

Lethington
Be certain,
Good father, you will catch him at your side,
If you go pray the weather-cock, an idol
Set up in God's high places.

Lennox
Curse him!

Enter Morton, Ruthven, and Moray
Morton
Ay,
We curse him with mailed fingers.
Exit Lennox
That old traitor
Is withered by a threat.

Lethington
Our chancellor
Can make his glistening eyes as terrible
As terrier's teeth. I marvel not, my lord,
That Lennox is affrighted. Why, your anger
Starts from you as a sweat.

Morton
No parrying now,
No playing fast and loose. You own this flight
Is of your provocation.

Lethington
Did you trust me
With carriage of your business? For my part
I had been well content that destiny
Should muster slowly as Elijah's rain
From hand-breadth cloud to blackened firmament.

Morton
You have no zeal, you never would have thrust
Your hanger in that damned idolator.

Lethington
Well, for religion, I confess the trickle
Of precious ointment adown Aaron's beard
Attracts me; I discern a fascination,
A charm about its unctuous descent.
Man's worship as it furthers the accord
And unity of nations touches me.
(To Moray)
Lord James, your honest brows are malcontent;
When good men cloud I feel solicitude.
The queen, ’tis said, is safe.

Morton
And we undone.
She will disburthen Darnley of our treasons,
As cunning as a whore. Our instrument!—
You keep a polished smile—do you not hate him?
The young deserter!

Lethington
Hate! With circumspection.

Morton
I hate him, but with all the pains of heaven
And hell, with God's great rancour against sin,
And with the petty fiends' malevolence.
’Tis the slipped victim rounds the lion's breast
To his great, wailful bay. Maitland, I suffer,
If I have cast desire upon a deed,
Immeasurable pangs.

Lethington
No action yet
Is possible. Take horse—

Morton
To banishment!

Lethington
To brood at Newcastle
How best to undermine this arrogant
And towering house of folly.

Morton
In my brain
The bloodhounds are already on his trail.
To think a female should unhug my grip
Of heritage and spoil! That great Tantallon,
Those stretching churchlands!

Lethington
Grudge not God his own
Fair acreage!

Morton
But I wanton with the lands
Of these fat priests; they are my buxom dames,
Put to rank purpose by idolatry:
No scruple of the conscience in their use;
With them I ease my lust.

Ruthven
Shall we not fly?
There is a draught. Can you not shut the door?
It blows up that dark passage. Blood can freeze
I tell you. Quick! To England.

Morton
(Shaking Ruthven off)
You are fevered.
(To Moray)
Let's hold one thought in common in the dark.
Moray, your policy?

Moray
I shall not budge.

Lethington
Faith, we must keep him stainless; he must proffer
Our humble loves to the fair Amazon
Now girding for the battle.

Morton
(To Moray)
Since I go
South to your empty lodgings by the Tweed,
A bond betwixt us twain! I thought on you
Mewed up in England, and the forfeitures
Of your estates if Riccio's parliament
Had looked upon your treason. ’Tis your time
To prove your mettle. (To Lethington and Moray)
Who first summons me
Home to my honour shall not lack support
In any private end.

Moray
I shall not fail Exeunt Morton and Ruthven
(To Lethington)

Your further counsel. I who treated her
As something of a prisoner am exposed,—
Or shall be, for already there is bruit
Of a swift-mustering army at Dunbar,—
To shattering reprisals; yet to flee
Would argue guilt.

Lethington
Flight were insane in you,
Since you are clear of fault. Let us despatch
Straightway her faithful Melvil to the queen,
Bearing a letter that professes you
A dunce at these devices and offended
At that which must offend her to the quick.
Show yourself hurt, yet patient to endure
Unjust suspicion; then abide her coming
As confident and lowly as the just
Await the day of judgment. Morals, Moray,
Are your peculiar portion. See, my desk
Is at your service.

(Moray sits at the desk and writes. Lethington surveys him, pacing up and down)
Moray
(Rising with letter)
This will tutor her.