University of Virginia Library

Scene II

—Edinburgh; Moray's lodging: a meal laid on the table—Moray solemnly pacing up and down; he stops and looks toward St. Giles'
Moray
A godly city! Up and down the bruit
Of murder spreads; they name her by her name,
She is at last proclaimed. How I have watched
The will of heaven, as a blank sentinel,
Set on a tower before the lurid sky,
Who keeps his station howsoe'er the clouds
May burthen or discharge. I am exempt
From any portion in this infamy;
As David's son, restrained by Providence
From bloody acts, that he with stainless hand
Might rear the temple-walls, I am withdrawn
From sight and warrant of unholy deeds,
Which being done advance me and the cause
Of Christ's religion. How I lean on Him,
Feeling within a kingship sure as His,
Founded on righteousness. Enter Lethington

The time is near.

Lethington
What, wrapt in doubt, my lord! I little thought
When we got rid of that untoward, young fool,
There would be such excitement on his death.
A fool is not so rare that one must miss him,
And mourn his loss, and give him wild farewells,
As ’twere impossible to find his like.

Moray
So royal a victim: but what gives me cause
For gravest apprehension is the fact
That the queen's name is touched with obloquy.
The hand that flared along the palace-wall
Hath penned the Tolbooth cartel: they are doomed—
Adulterer and adulteress.

Lethington
Devilish lies!
The queen acts in a noble childishness
Of unsuspicion, ready to espouse
Whoever is accused, since she herself,
So rankly charged, is wholly without fault.
At Seton now she wears her olden smile;
It makes me happy that we widowed her
To see her beauty peep again as gay
As the young gorse when fire hath harried it;
But while she freshens in the country wind
The Canongate grows ribald.

Moray
It affirms
The simple truth: my sister, Lethington,—
I knew it at the hour of Riccio's death,
And therefore stayed not my avenging hand—
Is full of amorous charms and subtlety;
And will not rest till she has brought her crown
To shame with her idolatry and lust.

Lethington
Well, ’tis an aspect and a possible
Solution of occurrents, though I own
That I mislike it. The ambassador
Will dine with us to-night?

Moray
Yes, Killigrew.

Lethington
Then we must play our parts.

Moray
I have desired
Lord Bothwell's company; in entertainment
He may declare his wickedness: we find
In Scripture that the feast will oft expose
Unguarded bosoms. The Lord Chancellor
Makes up our number.

Lethington
As a merry five,
Who know the merit in their purposes,
Let's drink and talk as ’twere before the fall.
You move uneasily.

Moray
I would be private
’Till the appointed hour.

Lethington
Yet look not black
To very guiltiness!
Exit Moray

Truly, murder is like the small-pox; those infected, if they be of sound habit, may recover, and no blemish on their skin; others there are—it will be up hill down dale with their complexions to their lives' end. . . . My good compeer suffers religion to play duenna to his soul; her presence gives warrant to the offences ’tis her office to ignore. He spied Morton from the window. These two are confederate; there is the make of a ruler in either, and for my part John Knox's Monstrous Regiment of Women

has my sanction. Women cannot govern, being under the dominion of a god. Melvil told her roundly it would be in her a gross oversight to marry a man full of all vices: she said she had no such thing in her mind, and came to me for illumination. I told Melvil to retire diligently before dinner, since we should all shortly be killed if Lord Bothwell had bruit of the business; and for her—I looked dreamily at the damask in her cheeks. She is devoted to destruction and she knows it not.

Re-enter Moray with Morton

Yet to be put to sea by Dan Cupid in a cockboat is no mean fate. The merchant-ship lades and unlades her cargo with care. Traffic and weariness! Perchance it were wiser to rock on the waves and sink. (Aloud)
Well, gentlemen, the latest rumours?

Morton
We must stand by him, bear the matter through.
The queen is branded fiercelier every hour,
And every hour with fiercer lavishness
Pours honours on the earl.

Moray
Hush, hush! His step.

Lethington
Not stealthy as a murderer's. Do not keep
A visage so discordant. We must greet
Our willing instruments. Enter Bothwell

Good even, earl,
An hour ago I crossed you unperceived,
Mounting the Castle Hill. How well your looks
Sustain your innocence! Calumniation
Slinks in the rear at menace of your loud
And angry voice; the blithe temerity
Of your undaunted brow and liberal stride
Themselves are witness to you.

Bothwell
We shall see
At the assize, the queen shall promise me,
Who will look blithe and who will hang the face.
Old Lennox pesters her.

Moray
If you are cleared
Of the aspersion . . .

Bothwell
If—what? Stand by me
Or I will blab; I have the queen's own ear;
The streets are filling with my retinue,
And every hour my conscience drops a load.
That marriage with Jane Gordon—she petitions
For a divorce, and she shall have it too.

Moray
Peace! The ambassador! Enter Killegrew

Most noble guest,
You were more welcome were we not persuaded
Your mistress' anger at a crime so strange
And horrible that it confounds belief
Speeds you to Scotland.

Killegrew
An incredible
Calamity.

Lethington
It has transfixed us all.
Two days and nights we doubted, charged the skies
With brewing thunderbolts, uptore the earth,
Found in its entrails no betraying store,
And finally as men, baulked at all points,
Betook ourselves to slander. Such invention
There hath not been, such malice of hot minds,
Since Adam first was tempted to assign
His trespass to a lady. The result . . .

Bothwell
Humph! I will put to silence this abuse,
This setting up of placards, tickets, bills
Of defamation. I have found a cartel
Reeking in red that names me murderer:
By heaven, I'll give them taste of their own blood
Who thus confront my eyes with effigies,
And keep my ears a-simmer with the cry
Of devil, witch . . .

Moray
Remember, gentlemen,
My sister's honour.

Killegrew
There the point that touches
My noble mistress; not for the world's wealth
Would her pure breast conceive impiety
Of any prince that breathes: hence she implores
That were the man found guilty of this crime
Her nearest friend . . .

Bothwell
We would convict him straight.
I have myself o'erturned the blackened stones
Of Kirk o' Field, and to the unsmirched corse
Paid honourable rites.

Moray
Around our princess
Were clustered her most faithful counsellors;
No traitor in the camp. I left her thus,
A month ago, being summoned to St. Andrews
By my sore-travailling wife: while by her side,
Assiduous to assuage, a messenger
Burst in and turned my conjugal distress
To fear and passion for the commonwealth.
No clue, no clue, though I have passed my time
Among the preachers, praying openly
Of God both to reveal and to revenge.

Morton
’Tis all conjecture; lacking evidence
We must refrain from judgment.

Bothwell
I will clear
My name, and quickly.

Lethington
(Apart to Moray)
Would indeed we all
Had bosoms as transparent.—Good our host,
Methinks your dinner cools.

Moray
True, I have guests.
Be seated friends. (To Killegrew)
We are your mistress' servants
In all, and to her health and to the blest
Conjunction of these realms—we drink. A pledge!

(They drink, except Bothwell)
Morton
(Apart to him)
Drink to your blest conjunction.

Lethington
England holds
Our choicest hopes, and our young church in her
Must find a nursing-mother. (To Bothwell)
Earl, we find
Such comfort in your confidence to wipe
Stain from your honour and that dearer name
That is the treasure of our loyalty,
We drink to your acquittal.

Bothwell
Ay, the queen!
Couple my name with hers and I am blest.
God love her! Gentlemen, he is a traitor
Who harbours of the queen an evil thought.

(They drink)