University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

A Street in London.
Enter Underhill and Citizens of two parties.
FIRST CITIZEN.
What means this hurly burly? Ho! my masters,
Will ye not peace when the good Queen commands it?
The Council too—

SECOND CITIZEN.
Good Queen—good Council? say you?
Why do they send their knaves to preach at us?
Wolves in sheep's clothing!

THIRD CITIZEN.
Sir, you wrong us much,
Branding with epithets like these our clergy.

UNDERHILL.
Peace, ye uncivil brawlers! both are wrong.

FIRST CITIZEN.
And who art thou? meddlers are mischief-makers.

SECOND CITIZEN.
He is Queen Mary's servant—fie on his meddling!
Hot-Gospeller forsooth!

UNDERHILL.
Hark ye, Sir growler,
I have a hot hand—hotter than my tongue,
Can make the foul mouth smart that snarls on me.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Well-spoken, preacher!

UNDERHILL.
Well, Sir, what's your pleasure?

THIRD CITIZEN.
Come to Paul's cross, and hear our reverend doctors.
You're not a man to gag soft argument.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Hear argument forsooth! Hark ye, I'll task you.
Why vent your rancour 'gainst the late good King?
It is enough to madden men.—

THIRD CITIZEN.
And you—
Why pray ye for our good Queen's death? 'Tis well
They have made that treason.

UNDERHILL.
Marry, it is well.
She were a generous Queen if rightly guided.
But you must know, Sir, we'll not be restricted
In our souls' freedom. We, Sir, have the word—

THIRD CITIZEN.
You have—but we the sword!

SECOND CITIZEN.
Away with him!
He will infect us—plague upon the leper!

[They chase the third Citizen away.
UNDERHILL.
Come, come; you wax disorderly.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Indeed?
When Cobham wins the city worse shall follow.

UNDERHILL.
Peace, prithee.

SECOND CITIZEN.
When stout Bess shall be our Queen,
There shall be plates and pottles—yea, no fasts.
And chimney nooks for preachers shall be cozy.

FIRST CITIZEN.
So, so—when shall this be?

SECOND CITIZEN.
There have been omens—
Two suns rose in the east—rainbows 'neath moons—
A woman—no, a cow—hath yeaned a calf
Twain-headed!

FIRST CITIZEN.
This is stark folly! one fool hears
A voice cry from the walls of an old house,
And the mob swears it is an Angel's tongue,
Inveighing 'gainst this marriage.

SECOND CITIZEN.
When they shouted
“God save Queen Mary!”—mark—no answer then.
But when they shouted, “Save Elizabeth!”
The voice replied “So be it”—Being asked
What is the Mass? it said, “Idolatry!”

UNDERHILL.
Pshaw! Straight the council had the wall pulled down;
And lugged forth a young girl who made confession.
Queen Mary packed her to the pillory.
Her father would have hanged.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Another day
Some giddy boys played Wyatt and the Queen,
And scratched and kicked, till blood flowed ruefully.
Nay, one, to spite the Queen, they nick-named Philip;
And left half-hanged. What said her Grace to this?
“Lock up the urchins for an hour or so,
And whip the most pugnacious.”

SECOND CITIZEN.
Still, I say,
Down with the scurvy Spaniards! down with all Papists!

UNDERHILL.
To the rescue—Officers!

[A riot ensues.
Shouts heard outside, “Long live Queen Mary!”
Enter the Queen, Lord Mayor: Livery &c., &c.
LORD MAYOR.
This shall be righted.

QUEEN.
Disobedient servants!
Such things ye dared not in my father's time.
O that he were alive but for a month!

MAYOR.
In faith we'll see to this.

QUEEN.
Sir, all these evils
Lie deeper than ye wot. The fount of honour
Is poisoned at its source. My grandsire, father,
And then my brother, raised base parasites
To dignities, not honour: cankered the peerage:
Tainted the prelacy with fanaticks:
Raised quibbling casuists and venal pleaders
To the judicial bench, soiling the ermine
Which should be spotless as the sleeves of Moses
When he received the tablets of the law—
There are among ye men not scrupulous;
Who don or doff their faith like roomy cloaks,
As suits occasion: men whose loyalty
To church and Queen is plastick, and fits well
The ascendant rule—These sycophants would crush
The People, overleap the Law, cajole
Their Prince, betraying all!
[Murmurs among the Queen's suite.
Why murmur ye?

ARUNDEL.
The People are beholden to your Grace.

QUEEN.
Not to the People only, but to you,
Likewise, I speak—proud Nobles! Be ye observant.

ARUNDEL.
In faith I see not—I—what cause we give
That thus your Grace should publicly rebuke us.

QUEEN.
'Tis for your good. Look to it. I would address
Some words to the People generally. Search out
Some platform whence my voice may freely spread.

ARUNDEL
[aside].
Oxford, come hither—Is it not laughable
To mark the exactions of servility
Wrung by these Tudors from the best o'the land,
As the majestic Kings of olden times,
The high Plantagenets had never asked?
What—must we—Veres and Howards—truck and kneel
Before the old Knight's progeny? Shake off
Thy cerements, stout Sir Owen! and laugh out
To see what anticks thine old bones begot!
Bear we this taunting?

OXFORD.
These new men it touches;
Not us. The Yorkist chose to plant his garden
With gay weeds, not true roses: what came of it?
My grandsire smote the louts on Bosworth field,
And left the crook-back Dickon on the grass,
Outstaring the hot sun with his dead eyes.
Little deemed he when Harry Richmond donned
The crown wrenched from the Dead, that his descendants
Should thus be rated by ungrateful tongues:—

ARUNDEL.
Hush! Gardiner's heavy eye wanders: his ear
Is omnipresent as the cuckoo's voice.

OXFORD.
Hear ye the Queen! So saith mine office.

QUEEN.
Citizens!

HERALD.
Keep silence!

QUEEN.
I stand here to face all traitors;
And their weak machinations to expose!
Ye know me as I am, your rightful Queen:
And your allegiance, sworn when I was crowned,
Ye will maintain.

UNDERHILL.
That will we to the death!

MANY VOICES.
God save the Queen!

QUEEN.
Then, too, did I take oaths:
Whereof this spousal ring upon my finger
Bears witness. That I am your lawful Queen
All Christendom allows; your Parliaments
Oft have confirmed. Ye who so lovingly
Obeyed my father, ye will not now desert
His daughter, baited by unliegeful carls?

A CITIZEN.
Down with the rebel curs!

ANOTHER CITIZEN.
God bless Queen Mary!

QUEEN.
I cannot tell how, naturally, a mother
Loveth her children, for I ne'er had any:
But if our subjects may be loved as children,
Be sure that I as earnestly love you
As mothers can.

A CITIZEN.
Bless your pale face!

QUEEN.
And I
Think you love me.

A CITIZEN.
That will we, noble lady!

QUEEN.
Touching this marriage, think me not desirous
Of wedlock. Hitherto I have lived a maiden:
But were God pleased that I should leave you sons
It might be for your welfare. Yet if I saw
Aught dangerous to my People in this marriage
I would renounce it.

A CITIZEN.
May you be happy in it!

QUEEN.
On a queen's word, if my good lords and commons
Mislike this bridal, it shall never be.
Therefore pluck up your hearts—stand fast like true men!
Nor fear those rebels whom your Queen fears not.

CITIZENS.
God bless Queen Mary, and the Prince of Spain!

QUEEN.
Mother of God! that cry is victory!

A VOICE
[behind the Queen].
'Twere well you spake less harshly of your friends!

QUEEN.
Who said those words? Some upstart I'll be sworn!
Respect me, if but for my father's sake,
Who out of nothing made you what you are—
Oxford, your arm! your grandsire's arm at Bosworth
Nobly upheld my grandsire at his need.
Be thou his grandchild's stay. Lead on, my lord.

[Exeunt Queen, &c. &c.
ARUNDEL.
Ay, flattery is sweet: now Oxford's brow
Throbs for his dukedom. Is it for our sins
That we must here perforce have woman Rulers?
The barbarous Briton loved them; but we Saxons
And Normans, spurned them. Vain were thy struggles, Maude!
No sceptre graced Elizabeth of York.
But now the great stem of Plantagenet,
Rest of its males, bears none but female blossoms.
If Mary fail, Elizabeth succeeds.
The Tudor sisters dead, from Scotland then
Shall Mary Stuart ride forth: or in default
Of these, Jane Grey's young sisters, or their mother;
Or Elinor of Clifford. Welladay!
If henceforth lances must give place to needles—
Gauntleted hands to bright eyes and soft lips—
'Twere well methinks to cry, “God save King Mary!”

[Exit.