University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

Greenwich Palace.
Queen Elizabeth and Davison.
Elizabeth.
Thou hast seen Lord Howard? I bade him send thee.

Davison.
Madam,
But now he came upon me hard at hand
And by your gracious message bade me in.

Elizabeth.
The day is fair as April: hast thou been
Abroad this morning? 'Tis no winter's sun
That makes these trees forget their nakedness
And all the glittering ground, as 'twere in hope,
Breathe laughingly.

Davison.
Indeed, the gracious air
Had drawn me forth into the park, and thence
Comes my best speed to attend upon your grace.

Elizabeth.
My grace is not so gracious as the sun
That graces thus the late distempered air:
And you should oftener use to walk abroad,
Sir, than your custom is: I would not have
Good servants heedless of their natural health
To do me sickly service. It were strange
That one twice bound as woman and as queen
To care for good men's lives and loyalties
Should prove herself toward either dangerous.

Davison.
That
Can be no part of any servant's fear
Who lives for service of your majesty.

Elizabeth.
I would not have it be—God else forbid—
Who have so loyal servants as I hold
All now that bide about me: for I will not
Think, though such villainy once were in men's minds,
That twice among mine English gentlemen
Shall hearts be found so foul as theirs who thought,
When I was horsed for hunting, to waylay
And shoot me through the back at unawares
With poisoned bullets: nor, thou knowest, would I,
When this was opened to me, take such care,
Ride so fenced round about with iron guard,
Or walk so warily as men counselled me
For loyal fear of what thereafter might
More prosperously be plotted: nay, God knows,
I would not hold on such poor terms my life,
With such a charge upon it, as to breathe
In dread of death or treason till the day
That they should stop my trembling breath, and ease
The piteous heart that panted like a slave's
Of all vile fear for ever. So to live
Were so much hatefuller than thus to die,
I do not think that man or woman draws
Base breath of life the loathsomest on earth
Who by such purchase of perpetual fear
And deathless doubt of all in trust of none
Would shudderingly prolong it.

Davison.
Even too well
Your servants know that greatness of your heart
Which gives you yet unguarded to men's eyes,
And were unworthier found to serve or live
Than is the unworthiest of them, did not this
Make all their own hearts hotter with desire
To be the bulwark or the price of yours
Paid to redeem it from the arrest of death.

Elizabeth.
So haply should they be whose hearts beat true
With loyal blood: but whoso says they are
Is but a loving liar.

Davison.
I trust your grace
Hath in your own heart no such doubt of them
As speaks in mockery through your lips.

Elizabeth.
By God,
I say much less than righteous truth might speak
Of their loud loves that ring with emptiness,
And hollow-throated loyalties whose heart
Is wind and clamorous promise. Ye desire,
With all your souls ye swear that ye desire
The queen of Scots were happily removed,
And not a knave that loves me will put hand
To the enterprise ye look for only of me
Who only would forbear it.

Davison.
If your grace
Be minded yet it shall be done at all,
The way that were most honourable and just
Were safest, sure, and best.

Elizabeth.
I dreamt last night
Our murderess there in hold had tasted death
By execution of the sentence done
That was pronounced upon her; and the news
So stung my heart with wrath to hear of it
That had I had a sword—look to't, and 'ware!—
I had thrust it through thy body.

Davison.
God defend!
'Twas well I came not in your highness' way
While the hot mood was on you. But indeed
I would know soothly if your mind be changed
From its late root of purpose.

Elizabeth.
No, by God:
But I were fain it could be somewise done
And leave the blame not on me. And so much,
If there were love and honesty in one
Whom I held faithful and exact of care,
Should easily be performed; but here I find
This dainty fellow so precise a knave
As will take all things dangerous on his tongue
And nothing on his hand: hot-mouthed and large
In zeal to stuff mine ears with promises,
But perjurous in performance: did he not
Set hand among you to the bond whereby
He is bound at utmost hazard of his life
To do me such a service? Yet I could
Have wrought as well without him, had I wist
Of this faint falsehood in his heart: there is
That Wingfield whom thou wot'st of, would have done
With glad goodwill what I required of him,
And made no Puritan mouths on't.

Davison.
Madam, yet
Far better were it all should but be done
By line of law and judgment.

Elizabeth.
There be men
Wiser than thou that see this otherwise.

Davison.
All is not wisdom that of wise men comes,
Nor are all eyes that search the ways of state
Clear as a just man's conscience.

Elizabeth.
Proverbs! ha?
Who made thee master of these sentences,
Prime tongue of ethics and philosophy?

Davison.
An honest heart to serve your majesty;
Nought else nor subtler in its reach of wit
Than very simpleness of meaning.

Elizabeth.
Nay,
I do believe thee; heartily I do.
Did my lord admiral not desire thee bring
The warrant for her execution?

Davison.
Ay,
Madam; here is it.

Elizabeth.
I would it might not be,
Or being so just were yet not necessary.
Art thou not heartily sorry—wouldst thou not,
I say, be sad—to see me sign it?

Davison.
Madam,
I grieve at any soul's mishap that lives,
And specially for shipwreck of a life
To you so near allied: but seeing this doom
Wrung forth from justice by necessity,
I had rather guilt should bleed than innocence.

Elizabeth.
When I shall sign, take thou this instantly
To the lord chancellor; see it straight be sealed
As quietly as he may, not saying a word,
That no man come to know it untimely: then
Send it to the earls of Kent and Shrewsbury
Who are here set down to see this justice done:
I would no more be troubled with this coil
Till all be through. But, for the place of doom,
The hall there of the castle, in my mind,
Were fitter than the court or open green.
And as thou goest betake thee on thy way
To Walsingham, where he lies sick at home,
And let him know what hath of us been done:
Whereof the grief, I fear me, shall go near
To kill his heart outright.

Davison.
Your majesty
Hath yet not signed the warrant.

Elizabeth.
Ha! God's blood!
Art thou from tutor of philosophy late
Grown counsellor too and more than counsellor, thou
To appoint me where and what this hand of mine
Shall at thy beck obsequiously subscribe
And follow on thy finger? By God's death,
What if it please me now not sign at all?
This letter of my kinswoman's last writ
Hath more compulsion in it, and more power
To enforce my pity, than a thousand tongues
Dictating death against her in mine ear
Of mine own vassal subjects. Here but now
She writes me she thanks God with all her heart
That it hath pleased him by the mean of me
To make an end of her life's pilgrimage,
Which hath been weary to her: and doth not ask
To see its length drawn longer, having had
Too much experience of its bitterness:
But only doth entreat me, since she may
Look for no favour at their zealous hands
Who are first in councils of my ministry,
That only I myself will grant her prayers;
Whereof the first is, since she cannot hope
For English burial with such Catholic rites
As here were used in time of the ancient kings,
Mine ancestors and hers, and since the tombs
Lie violated in Scotland of her sires,
That so soon ever as her enemies
Shall with her innocent blood be satiated,
Her body by her servants may be borne
To some ground consecrated, there to be
Interred: and rather, she desires, in France,
Where sleep her honoured mother's ashes; so
At length may her poor body find the rest
Which living it has never known: thereto,
She prays me, from the fears she hath of those
To whose harsh hand I have abandoned her,
She may not secretly be done to death,
But in her servants' sight and others', who
May witness her obedience kept and faith
To the true church, and guard her memory safe
From slanders haply to be blown abroad
Concerning her by mouths of enemies: last,
She asks that her attendants, who so well
And faithfully through all her miseries past
Have served her, may go freely where they please,
And lose not those small legacies of hers
Which poverty can yet bequeath to them.
This she conjures me by the blood of Christ,
Our kinship, and my grandsire's memory,
Who was her father's grandsire and a king,
And by the name of queen she bears with her
Even to the death, that I will not refuse,
And that a word in mine own hand may thus
Assure her, who will then as she hath lived
Die mine affectionate sister and prisoner. See,
Howe'er she have sinned, what heart were mine, if this
Drew no tears from me: not the meanest soul
That lives most miserable but with such words
Must needs draw down men's pity.

Davison.
Sure it is,
This queen hath skill of writing: and her hand
Hath manifold eloquence with various voice
To express discourse of sirens or of snakes,
A mermaid's or a monster's, uttering best
All music or all malice. Here is come
A letter writ long since of hers to you
From Sheffield Castle, which for shame or fear
She durst not or she would not thence despatch,
Sent secretly to me from Fotheringay,
Not from her hand, but with her own hand writ,
So foul of import and malignity
I durst not for your majesty's respect
With its fierce infamies afire from hell
Offend your gracious eyesight: but because
Your justice by your mercy's ignorant hand
Hath her fair eyes put out, and walks now blind
Even by the pit's edge deathward, pardon me
If what you never should have seen be shown
By hands that rather would take fire in hand
Than lay in yours this writing.

[Gives her a letter.
Elizabeth.
By this light,
Whate'er be here, thou hadst done presumptuously,
And Walsingham thy principal, to keep
Aught from mine eyes that being to me designed
Might even with most offence enlighten them.
Here is her hand indeed; and she takes up
[Reading.
In gracious wise enough the charge imposed
By promise on her and desire of ours,
How loth soe'er she be, regretfully
To bring such things in question of discourse,
Yet with no passion but sincerity,
As God shall witness her, declares to us
What our good lady of Shrewsbury said to her
Touching ourself in terms ensuing; whereto
Answering she chid this dame for such belief,
And reprehended for licentious tongue,
To speak so lewdly of us: which herself
Believes not, knowing the woman's natural heart
And evil will as then to usward. Here
She writes no more than I would well believe
Of her as of the countess. Ha!

Davison.
Your grace
Shall but defile and vex your eyes and heart
To read these villainies through.

Elizabeth.
God's death, man! peace:
Thou wert not best incense me toward thine own,
Whose eyes have been before me in them. What!
Was she not mad to write this? One that had
Your promise—lay with you times numberless—
All license and all privateness that may
Be used of wife and husband! yea, of her
And more dead men than shame remembers. God
Shall stand her witness—with the devil of hell
For sponsor to her vows, whose spirit in her
Begot himself this issue. Ha, the duke!
—Nay, God shall give me patience—and his knave,
And Hatton—God have mercy! nay, but hate,
Hate and constraint and rage have wrecked her wits,
And continence of life cut off from lust,
—This common stale of Scotland, that has tried
The sins of three rank nations, and consumed
Their veins whose life she took not—Italy,
France that put half this poison in her blood,
And her own kingdom that being sick therewith
Vomited out on ours the venomous thing
Whose head we set not foot on—but may God
Make my fame fouler through the world than hers
And ranker in men's record, if I spare
The she-wolf that I saved, the woman-beast,
Wolf-woman—how the Latin rings we know,
And what lewd lair first reared her, and whose hand
Writ broad across the Louvre and Holyrood
Lupanar—but no brothel ever bred
Or breathed so rank a soul's infection, spawned
Or spat such foulness in God's face and man's
Or festered in such falsehood as her breath
Strikes honour sick with, and the spirit of shame
Dead as her fang shall strike herself, and send
The serpent that corruption calls her soul
To vie strange venoms with the worm of hell
And make the face of darkness and the grave
Blush hotter with the fires wherein that soul
Sinks deeper than damnation.

Davison.
Let your grace
Think only that but now the thing is known
And self-discovered which too long your love
Too dangerously hath cherished; and forget
All but that end which yet remains for her,
That right by pity be not overcome.

Elizabeth.
God pity so my soul as I do right,
And show me no more grace alive or dead
Than I do justice here. Give me again
That warrant I put by, being foolish: yea,
Thy word spake sooth—my soul's eyes were put out—
I could not see for pity. Thou didst well—
I am bounden to thee heartily—to cure
My sight of this distemper, and my soul.
Here in God's sight I set mine hand, who thought
Never to take this thing upon it, nor
Do God so bitter service. Take this hence:
And let me see no word nor hear of her
Till the sun see not such a soul alive.