University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Hatfield House.
Enter Elizabeth, Winchester, Pembroke, Oxford.
ELIZABETH.
A curse is on this kingdom! Each new day
Comes with the stamp of blood upon its forehead.
And though pale faces lurk 'neath smiling masks,
The hot heart palpitates for retribution.
My sister's miseries are manifest:
Yet still the royal monster who deserts her
Rules through his myrmidons. In vain doth Pole
His nobler counsels urge.

WINCHESTER.
Our hope lay there—
In our great enemy—'tis marvellous
How little Pole's commanding mind and will
Avail this day for England.

OXFORD.
He is cramped.
Within the jealous precinct of a court
Large energies like his lack room to move.
Pole cannot act with others. Men like him
Bear sway alone; or lie like stranded ship,
That hears the clarion of the seaward wind,
And waves no pennon.

ELIZABETH.
His ambition dead,
(For he has touched the summit and foregone it)
He fights with the left hand; and from his work
His heart is absent.

WINCHESTER.
Also his body fails him.

ELIZABETH.
The silver voice of Fakenham pleads in vain.
Philip commands; Bonner inveighs; at hand
Is wily Gardiner's whisper. Shall we wonder
If thus assailed, sapped, stung, her sick heart yields?

PEMBROKE.
We wonder not; but—let the word be spoken—
Shall we submit?

WINCHESTER.
Ridley and Latymer
Have perished: Cranmer, ere another day,
Dies too. Speak Madam! Shall the plague be stayed?

ELIZABETH.
I scarcely understand your aim, my lords:—
Perhaps I misconceive. What would you have?

PEMBROKE.
Elizabeth for Queen!

OXFORD.
You go too far.
I would to God her Highness ruled through law—
Not in despite of law. The Queen's distraught.
I claimed my right, an audience, hoping little,
Yet strenuous. Alas! what found I there?
Eyes wandering, thoughts perplexed, a broken voice—
The tower of mind down toppling to its earth!
She is half dead—

WINCHESTER.
Without sign manual
No convict dies.

OXFORD.
What knows she what she signs?
Parchments throng round—time presses—Gardiner frets—
With aching brain she strives to read; then sighs,
And wipes her eyes; and signs. God pardon her!
Her faculties are torpid. She will lie
Speechless as one that's dead: then wake with cries,
Her temples swollen with inward pain, teeth gnashing,
Her pale lips flecked with foam.

WINCHESTER.
God pity her!

OXFORD.
She dreamed to be the giver of new life:
But breeds disease, whose issue must be death.

WINCHESTER.
Is not this persecution a plain fact?

OXFORD.
Oh those incarnate devils, Gardiner and Bonner!
Flesh bred in murder! Blame those fiends, not her.
And blame your parliament with purse agape
For Noaille's gold; and ears for Renard's guile!
I say the Queen's distraught; she cannot govern—
A regency cures that.

PEMBROKE.
I love straight ways:
Bye paths mislead. Had Richmond grasped at Bosworth
Less than a crown, Richard had won the day.

ELIZABETH.
My lords, I pray you cease. I have ever found
The Queen exceeding kind. She spared me once;
When foes maligned me. I will not supplant her:—
Nor, were I so disposed, doth the time suit.
That time too swiftly comes;—but heralded
By death. Be patient.

WINCHESTER.
Cranmer loved your Mother.

ELIZABETH.
Where was his aid in her extremity?
Weak pilot, veering with each shift of wind!
Think you he will recant again?

OXFORD.
Not now.

ELIZABETH.
Then is he doomed. Christ succour his frail flesh!
How can I save a self-abandoned man?
No man is safe. All are hemmed in by spies.
Men watch while we talk here. Farewell, my lords.

[Exeunt.