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ACT I.
SCENE I.
A Room in Whitehall Palace. Enter, as from the Council, Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Exeter, and Earl of Arundel.Norfolk.
Nay, nay, my lords, affairs must not stand thus.
She is my kinswoman, and I confess,
If but on my estate her influence bore,
I 'd pass it by unchecked. No private griefs
Should wring a word from me, nor tutor me
To raise the hand that snaps a natural tie.
But see, my lords—
Suffolk.
'Ods blood! we have seen enough:
We have been open-eyed, your grace of Norfolk.
I trust we hold one mind?
All.
We do, we do.
Suf.
Why, then, your grace, we have stared ourselves stone blind,
Stared all our man to palsied impotence,
At this she-basilisk. Some years ago,
From the mere dregs and offscourings of your house,
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Crawl slowly upward to the top of power—
Why, she was queen before her crown was on!—
Till, now, she threatens us from such a throne
Of downright rule as queen ne'er held before.
Nay, pucker not your brows, good Duke of Richmond
While conscience echoes what I bluntly speak:
Your royal father, more than any here,
Has felt her deadly witchcraft.
Richmond.
Fie, for shame!
I thought this meeting one of policy:
It never crossed me that five stalwart men
Had leagued their brains to gabble scandal thus
Of a poor queen, whose sole discovered crime—
Heaven send a rain of such bewildering sin!—
Is too much beauty.
Nor.
Therein lies her power.
Rich.
Then we depute you, as her nearest kin,
To play Saint Dunstan to this fair Elgiva;
To raze her eyes out, sear her blushing skin,
Twist off her nose, and slit her pretty mouth;
But O, 'fore heaven! lay not your manhoods off,
And stand here railing like a pack of drabs!
Arundel.
Patience, your grace; let Suffolk have his say;
This was but prelude to the main affair.
Rich.
Nay, if his song cannot out-go that pitch,
Henceforth I'll herd with women. Know, my lords,
To ease you of her beauty's deadly grief,
Her so-called strongest hold, my father's love,
Is well-nigh yielded to a nimble wight,—
No higher than your arm, your grace of Suffolk,—
Through herald words, and showers of gentle looks.
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Of bearded men, nor strive to win by storm
That woman's citadel, our sovereign's heart.
Suf.
Your grace may flout and game at Holy Writ,
Or any solemn truth; nor stands a fact
Less in repute, because an empty jest
Has cracked thereon, and shown its hollowness.
Rich.
I cry you mercy, lord of gravity!
Now wherefore meet we? Exeter, speak out.
You have not strayed away in idle words;
From which I argue you have kept to heart
This grave affair.
Exeter.
Thus is it, then, my lords:
We all have sorrowing seen the growing power
Of her we call the queen—we call, I say;
For, in my humble judgment, Katharine,
Our sometime mistress—
Rich.
Heaven defend us all!
He'll talk till cock-crow on that threadbare theme.
Will no one help us? Is there no one here
Who knows exactly why five fools have met?
Nor.
Thus, then, your grace. We peers have nigh become
A mere incumbrance in the council-seats.
Rich.
Why, here is a man who has his wits alive!
Nor.
Spare me, your grace; too heavy this for sport.
Rich.
Well, I'll be silent till the end. Go on.
Nor.
This spawn of ours, whom I must blush to own—
Rich.
Ha! more abuse!
Nor.
—Usurps the state entire;
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Empties the treasury, and fills it up,
By loans and taxes, such as she may will;
Sends one abroad, and calls another home;
Orders a marquis here, and there a duke.
All this she does, and more than I can name,
With but such counsel as her wits may lend,
Counting us peers as toys.
Rich.
Ah, now indeed
We reach the body of things politic.
If 't is a fight of wits, I am with you, sirs;
Though, I misgive, we shall be shrewdly cuffed.
Suf.
All this—your grace of Richmond, mark we well—
All this unqueenly power she strictly holds
By the fond tenure of our sovereign's love.
Let but the light, which now he suns her in,
Vanish in frowns, and this same haughty moon,
That floods our prospect with her filchéd beams,
Sinks to her native blackness.
Rich.
So, stop there!
My lords, I'll join you in your enterprise
Against the sweet usurpings of our queen,
Perchance, when I behold you four tall men
Ranked on Tower Hill, the headsman standing by;
When meek-faced Suffolk is about to say,
“Good people, I confess I suffer justly.”
Arun.
Exeter, I have caught cold by standing here;
I feel the shrewdest of rheumatic pains
Twitching my spine above the shoulder-blades.—
I must withdraw. [Apart to Exeter.]
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Nay, nay, stand fast; he jests.
Rich.
When noble Norfolk's humbly-worded letter,
“Touching his close connection with the queen,”
Meets in reply her gracious writ of death;
When scurvy poets sing in bastard rhymes,
“The doleful ballad of lord Arundel;”
When slip-shod wenches, with out-popping eyes,
And all unbreathed, pant out to passers by,
“Pray, tell me, sirs, where dies false Exeter?”
Then will I aid you, then I'll run amain,
Grovel and crawl, and kiss the royal shoe,
And howl for pardon which she will not grant.—
Till then, adieu!
Nor.
Your grace will keep our counsel?
Rich.
Zounds! I am a gentleman; and prove it, sir,
By having better business to my hands
Than the undoing of my female kin.
[Exit.]
Ex.
He 's a hot heart; but such are mostly true.
Suf.
What was the hint yon brain-struck bastard dropped
About the king's love suffering change to Anne?
Arun.
Nay, I know not; he dealt so much in tropes:
His grace of Norfolk is a poet's father,
He may resolve us.
Nor.
I have thought of that.
'T was a bare hint, but worth our scrutiny.
Ex.
Ay, ay, indeed.
Suf.
I half believe it meant:
When Richmond bays, there is store of game afoot;
We have found it so.
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I'll to his majesty.
If this prove true, our cause is well-nigh won.
Suf.
Your grace will summon us to hear the news?
Nor.
Trust me; if true, I'll be too full to hold.
Arun.
Methinks the country air would ease these aches
About my neck; another talk like this
Nigh wrench my head off. [Aside.]
Nor.
Till we meet, farewell!
Be secret, but be watchful.
Exe.
Time is fate.
Suf.
We have not pulled the crafty Wolsey down,
To whimper tamely at a woman's heels!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II.
Another Room in the Palace. Enter Jane Seymour, pursued by King Henry.King Henry.
O, prithee, tarry! I am out of wind—
I'll not have breath to tell you how I love.
Stand, I adjure you, on your loyalty!
Jane Seymour.
Now am I safe; I owe you loyalty,
And you owe me protection. [Kneels.]
King H.
Nonsense, child!
[Raises her.]
You are far safer with plain Harry Tudor,
Than if the monarchs of all Christendom
Circled you round. For what are angry swords
To the raised finger of the baby Love?
I say, I love you; that implies respect.
Jane S.
Respect should teach you not to urge your love.
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Sweetheart, pray hear me. I am all unused
To lover's logic, to the mincing phrase
That snares a heart in nets of sophistry;
I'll not attack your passion through your brain;
But at your love's unconquered citadel
I'll sit me down, with rough, unmannered haste,
And bid you open in your sovereign's name.
Jane, do you love me?
Jane S.
With all duty, sir.
King H.
Tut, tut! no duty. Would you be my queen?
Jane S.
Your wife, my liege; the tempting name of queen
Makes no addition to a loving mind.
Love asks but love.
King H.
So, well said, mistress mine!
I never thought to win your dainty heart
By bartering for it an unfeeling crown.
Love comes unsought, nor heeds the voice of power:
The very gem which, from his purple throne,
A fuming king may gaze and thunder for,
Beneath the willows of some muddy brook
A listless rustic may disclose and wear.
Then, as mere Hal, the shepherd, if you list—
Barring all sovereignty with equal terms—
Say, do you love me? [Kneels.]
Jane S.
Maiden shame, my liege—
King H.
Liege me no more—Hal—Harry—what you will
Jane S.
My maiden heart should send its blushing force
Of startled blood to whelm my guilty face,
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Yet am I pale—ah! pale with fear to think
What woful fate may be reserved for me,
If our right noble queen—
King H.
Hell blast the queen! [Starts up.]
Jane S.
Ha! did I gall you so? (Aside.)
O pardon me!
King H.
Girl, I am well-nigh maddened by the queen.
A pack of yelling fancies bait my soul,
And each tongue seems to cheer the horrid rout,
When my fierce conscience cries—The queen, the queen!
Jane S.
O, had I suffered her extremest rage,
Ere I thus angered you!
King H.
Nay, I'll not scold.
Forgive me, sweetheart, my unmannered spleen.
My soul is much perplexed and tempest-tossed
About my marriage with this cunning queen:
I fear me, Lucifer made her a bait
To trap my soul.
Jane S.
O, you arch hypocrite! [Aside.]
King H.
Methinks the Pope was right—ay, must be right;
Since by the creed he is infallible.—
Jane S.
Not by the new one.
King H.
There the sorrow lies:
I have main doubts of our new-gendered creed.
If he be right, then is our union void;
For, by his voice, poor Katharine was my wife.—
I will consult my lords on this grave point.
Jane S.
Your nobles wear your eyes; but, then, the people—
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I'll make half England see without their heads,
But I will wed you! Sweetheart, promise me,
If I can offer an unmortgaged hand,
That you will take it.
Jane S.
Thus I promise you.
[Gives her hand.]
King H.
When next we meet, I'll show you many a way,
To lead us from this labyrinth of doubt,
As soft and thornless to your pretty feet
As the rich velvet whereon you shall tread
To mount the dais of our English throne.
Till then, adieu!
(They separate—she rushes back.)
Jane S.
Sweet Harry, be not rash!
King H.
O, I would fawn, and play the stricken cur
To any groom, whose love-illumined wit
Could steal from time the weary chain of days
That links our purpose to its hopeful end.
[Exeunt severally.]
SCENE III.
An Ante-room in the Palace. Enter the Duke of Norfolk, meeting an Usher.Norfolk.
Has the king risen?
Usher.
Anon he will come forth.
Nor.
I will await him.
Ush.
That is spared your grace.
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King Henry.
Ha! Norfolk, Norfolk, you have come in time;
There is no face more welcome than your own.
I 'd rather see you, in this private way,
Than in your dignity of counsellor.
Nor.
Your majesty o'errates my little worth.
King H.
Not a whit, man. Sir Usher, keep the door;
Let no one enter till his grace withdraws.
[Exit Usher.]
Nor.
I came on business of her majesty—
King H.
'Ods blood! the queen again! Enough, good Norfolk.
I have met no man since I arose to-day,
Who came not whimpering of her majesty.
Pray change your style; the fashion had grown stale
Ere you were up.
Nor.
O ho! and how is this?
[Aside.]
King H.
Norfolk, 't is pitiful! No hour last night,
But my sharp senses, tuned to painful pitch,
Started, like guilt, upon the faintest sound;
The very mice stalked by like sentinels
Ringing in proof; the clock beside my bed
Hammered the hours like a gross forging smith;
The gentlest gust of air howled like the damned;
And when a noise, which in the joyous day
Would scarce make damsels wink, fell on my ear,
Up from my restless bed, like one possessed,
I bounded, with wide-stretched and glaring eyes,
And half cried—Treason!
Nor.
Sir, I am amazed.
Shall I go seek your majesty's physicians?
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Ah! 't is a grief their physic cannot touch.
My conscience, Norfolk.
Nor.
Hum! join this to that,
And I might get some credit as a prophet.
[Aside.]
King H.
(My conscience—O!)
Nor.
And 't was his “conscience, O!”
Made such a pother ere Queen Katharine fell.
[Aside.]
King H.
Nay; do you hear me? 't was my conscience, sir.
Nor.
Certes, within a month, another queen.
[Aside.]
Grief has bereft me of the power of speech.
Might Cranmer help you?
King H.
No; you are the man.
Nor.
Deign to unfold your majesty's distress;
And what so weak a man as Norfolk can,
He'll gladly undertake.
King H.
Hear, then, the cause.
You know our present queen— [Listens.]
Nor.
And hear her, too.
Queen Anne.
(Without.)
What, sir, deny me to his majesty?
Usher.
(Without.)
But 't is his majesty's direct command.
Queen A.
(Without.)
Stand from before me; I will answer it.
(Enter Queen Anne, followed by the Usher.)
Queen A.
Your highness—
King H.
Fellow with an usher's wand,
Hand me your cane. Begone, your place is wanted!
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Your highness, 't was the queen—
King H.
Knave, bite your tongue,
Or you may talk your head off! Fly, I say!
And if within the precincts of our court
Your traitor face be seen two hours from now,
I'll break your body in as many pieces
As this frail stick! [Breaks up the wand.]
[Exit Usher.]
Queen A.
Nay, royal sir, I pray
Some show of mercy to yon guiltless man.
If there was fault, believe it mine alone:
He dared not stop my entrance.
King H.
Say you so?
Well, madam, I believe it yours alone:
And much it vexes us that you, our queen,
Whose acts should but reflect our royal will,
Show, thus, a glass whence every traitor's eye
May take the foul impression of himself.
Queen A.
My liege, forgive my over-zealous haste;
The cause that brought me is no common one.
Our faithful Protestants in Germany
Are sorely pressed—
King H.
If they be pressed to death,
I care not. There are those within my realm,
Gross, headstrong Protestants, puffed up with pride,
Who should be sent abroad to get a squeeze.
Nor.
Ha! ha! your majesty. [Laughing.]
Queen A.
What owl is that
Crying so merrily as shadows thicken?
O, I beseech your majesty, sustain
The noble cause so happily begun!
You are the instrument, by Heaven picked out
From all the famous potentates of earth,
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Shall lay your memory as a sacred thing
Upon their altars, radiant with such beams,
Shot clear from heaven, that slander's eagle eye,
Dazzled with light, can challenge no defect
Most blessed of men! when the great trump of doom
Shall to its centre crack the startled world,
And cheek by cheek the king and slave awake,
Think what a band of heaven-persuading saints
Shall circle God, and raise their tongues for you!
King H.
Why here 's Erasmus in a farthingale!
What say you, Norfolk?
Nor.
Nothing now, my liege:
My brain is clearer in the council-room.
I pray her majesty, the queen, may cease
To load her spirits with our state affairs:
The rugged shoulders of tried counsellors
Can scarce endure the burden of these times;
And much I fear—
Queen A.
I see through what you mean,
Good uncle Norfolk. You are one of those
Big bloated toads that cumber up sweet earth,
A mere deformity in common sight;
Yet, 'neath the royal sun, you swell and swell,
Blinking your dull but self-sufficient eyes
Around the narrow bound your view may grasp,
And then shake heaven with angel merriment,
To hear you splutter—“Lord, all this is ours!”
King H.
'Ods wounds! forbear!
Nor.
I'll give receipt for this.
[Aside.]
King H.
Why rate you thus our friend and counsellor?
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Has seemed to be the shadow of our will!—
Queen A.
But seen in sunshine.
King H.
If 't would please your highness
To blow these noxious vapors from your mind,
Have pity on us, nor infect our ears.
Queen A.
Your pardon, sir, if my unbroken tongue
For once ran riot with my better sense.
King H.
Ay, 't is a wilful jade.
Queen A.
But hear me out.
King H.
We'll make no purchase from the samples given—
Preaching and railing. 'T is but courtesy,
If you require this room, that we withdraw.
Come, Norfolk, come.—What said his holiness?
[Exit, leaning on Norfolk.]
Queen A.
What means this heavy feeling at my heart?
What means the king by this unwonted coldness?
What means my uncle by his insolence?
Why stood the king with an approving smile,
And heard my most unnatural enemy
Offer reproof in semblance of advice?
I have seen the time—ay, not a month ago—
When, in the fury of his lion mood,
He 'd brained the scoffer with his royal hand.
But times have changed—ah! have they changed indeed?
Has my life passed the zenith of its glory?
Must I make ready for the gathering clouds
That dog the pathway of a setting sun?
Well, let them come! The blaze of my decline
Shall turn to gold the dull enshrouding mists,
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Than the young splendor in which first I rose.
Ha! ha! par Dieu! now this is marvellous!
A queen whose crown has scarcely ta'en the shape
Of her young brow, the anointing oil scarce dried,
The shouts still buzzing in my deafened ears,
With which the people hailed me on the throne;
Not two years queen, and moralizing thus,
Like fourscore crawling to its certain grave!
This is sheer weakness, the dull malady
Of little minds that chafe at little ills.
Great souls are cheerful with their inborn power,
Feeling themselves the rulers of events,
The sinewy smoothers of the roughest times,
And not the slaves of outward influence.
Despair is a fellow with a moody brow,
Who shuts a dungeon door upon himself,
And then groans at his bondage. Fear, avaunt!
Thy shades but trespass on my noon of power.
(Several Courtiers cross the stage, bowing. Enter Thomas Wyatt.)
Ho! Wyatt, hither.
Wyatt.
Did your highness call?
Queen A.
Where go you, sir?
Wyatt.
I and these gentlemen,
Inflamed with holy zeal of selfishness,
Make to the Mecca of our hopes, the king,
A solemn pilgrimage.
Queen A.
What news abroad?
Wyatt.
Not a breath stirring.
Queen A.
Say they aught of me?
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If praise might tire the courtiers' flowing tongues,
Ere this they had been mute: to-day, as ever,
The sweets of Hybla drop from every mouth.
As I came here, a crowd of Protestants,
All fire-burned artisans and men of pith,
Their new-made zeal sitting like riot on them,
Brandished the fragments of some papal crosiers,
And cried—“Long live Saint Anne!”
Queen A.
Mockery!
If history should hand my name to time,
God grant its fame may rest on firmer base
Than the disjointed sainthood of a mob!
I keep you waiting. Fortune speed your suit.
[Exit Wyatt.]
(Another throng of Courtiers cross the stage, bowing profoundly.)
These straws of courtiers watch the royal wind,
And first predict the coming hurricane;
Certes, as yet I see no adverse signs.
Some state affairs have galled the fretful edge
Of hasty Harry's rash but loving heart:
Anon he will return, and, cap in hand,
Cry, “Pardon, Anne!” But I'll pout and swell,
Tossing my head, and tapping thus my foot;
Then all my pride, at one great, eager gasp,
I'll seem to swallow, as I bound to him;
And then I'll pat his cheeks, and call him “Bear,”
And chide him gently for his angry mood.
But when his eyes blush at their starting tears,
I'll laugh aloud, and puzzle all his wits.
So from this egg, of seeming noxious wrath,
Shall spring a new-born love of double power.
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To threaten Germany with fiery war,
If wrong befall our faithful Lutherans:
Whereat our uncle, the good Duke of Norfolk,
Shall gnaw his nether lip off with chagrin.
Ho! cheer thee, Anne! darksome passages
Oft mount to prospects, but for them unknown.
[Exit.]
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