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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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