 | Cardinal Beaton |  |
1
ACT I.
SCENE I.
—Before the Castle of St Andrews.Enter Cardinal Beaton.
It must not be—that this our Holy Church,
Whose pointed pinnacles stand high in heaven,
And whose foundations lie cemented fast
With blood of canonized saints in earth,
Shall be assaulted, pelted, and gainsay'd,
By contradictious tongues, that vibrate loud
In vile derision, sputtering round full fast
The poison they have lapp'd from the green pool
Of heresy. No longer, unaveng'd,
Shall this unshaven, sly, heresiarch,
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Creep round the land, with sermons in his teeth,
Calling me fool and glutton. Am I fool?
Too long have I been fool, to idle thus;
Suspending judgment on these piping knaves,
These grashoppers, that from their dunghills chirp
Contemptuously against my Primacy,
Mocking my very tolerance with jeers.—
I have him caged, and ready for the fire,
That only waits my bidding, to enwrap
His renegado limbs with scorching folds,
And eat him into ashes. But there needs,
For this bold point, the sanction of the Church,
Gather'd in convocation, to subscribe
The doom of death; and, by the general vote,
To turn the rabble's envy and dislike
From my partic'lar to the Catholic.
Yet, at the Papal seat, our throne of Rome,
To me alone the praise shall be ascribed,
Of cleaning out thus daringly with fire,
The docks and weeds that Luther's herd have sown
In the plantation of the good St Peter.
I shall be lauded at the Vatican,
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The spite and jealousy of milk-sop Arran,
Who bustles in his childish fits to pull
The power unto himself, yet palt'ring plays
A poor vicegerent, trembling to light up
The goodly bonfire of an heretic.
Why should I fear him? Have I not his son,
An hostage, messing at my daily table;
Whose life, dependent on my eye-lid's wink,
Warrants the fickle father's full compliance?
Then light the vengeance sore, and light it soon,
Upon my en'mies scalps! and blossoms grow
Upon my Card'nalship! as I'm a man
Not to melt down into a coward's grease,
Before the hot wrath of an adversary!—
But who is this that hither stately comes,
Magnificent in his habiliments,
As if t'outdazzle and to challenge me
In mine own diocese? 'Tis the King's master,
I'faith, my peacock Archbishop of Glasgow;
That to my word of call comes posting on,
Even like a spaniel to his master's whistle.—
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Good day, my Lord of Glasgow! I am glad
Here to salute you at my palace gate,
And bid you welcome. How with Mother Church
Fares it i'th'rainy west? Sprouts there as yet,
On the sweet banks of Clyde, a thriving crop
Of scripture-water'd heretics, to take
Your darling, old St Mungo, by the beard?
ARCHBISHOP DUNBAR.
My good Lord Cardinal, I return your greetings;
And come to thank you for inviting me
Thus courteously, as colleague, to assist
Your arm, too weak alone, t'outroot the growth
Of error, that upsends his poison'd twigs,
O'ertopping ev'n your tree of Primacy.—
The gentle west rains down upon my church
No rotting showers, t'engender and bloat up
The toads of disaffection and revolt.
St Mungo sits rejoicing; 'tis St Rule
That sweats with terror in his golden shrine,
Spite of the Legate's breath; that has no pith
To counter-blow these eastern blasts, that come
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And tainting all your coast with the vile seed,
That breeds damnation and the death of souls.
CARDINAL.
Softly, Dunbar; I only ask return
Of service due me for that day, whereon
I purified your putrid west with fire;
By singeing honestly unto the death,
Russel, and ballad-making Kennedy.
Their pyre's destructive flame has hitherto
Frighten'd your district into sound belief;
Whilst here within my circuit up has risen,
From pure impunity, a crew of rebels,
That dare me on to martyr them to Satan,
And send them mewling to his pit in smoke.
For sure God's grace permits it so, that I,
Advantaged by their churlish misbelief,
Home and abroad may signalize my zeal
For th'Apostolic Church, by cutting off
Some dozens of these surly schismatics.
ARCHBISHOP DUNBAR.
Heaven wills it so, my Lord; and each dead saint,
Even from the bottom of his golden coffin,
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Now cries out Wrath; the very Maries, nich'd
Along your walls, as if to life arous'd,
And feeling, by the passengers' insults,
Totter with indignation, and shout Shame
Upon your inactivity and slowness.
Dead things seem live, and living things seem dead,
To feel and vindicate the church's wrongs.
CARDINAL.
With me the blame resides not—that tame Regent,
Perch'd on the summit of the State's affairs,
By Grange and his lay-faction, shifts and veers,
Passive to every gust of freakish humour,
That blows across him, like the useless vane
Of gold on our Cathedral's turret yonder,
Shewing the wind alone. He has not vigour
To jerk a Lutheran into the fire,
And work out his salvation by the deed.
Ev'n now, abused into faint-heartedness,
By some vain Bible-reading kinsman, who
Hath crawl'd by quoting texts into his heart,
He writes me saucily a letter, sauced
With tender mercies most unmerciful,
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Saying, He will not shed the innocent blood
Of this good man, this Wishart.—On your head,
O Cardinal, be th'abominable stain
Of this George Wishart's cruel taking off!—
And so he rubs his hands, and sits him down
At ease in his mock-royal elbow chair,
Leaving good Cardinal to do the job.
DUNBAR.
And let us do it fearlessly, my lord.
Rome looks upon us from her Papal heights;
France and the Guises cheer and chide us on
To energy; and Europe in the example
Expects a quieter to still the broils
That agitate with tossing controversies
Her universal people.
CARDINAL.
For the work
Then let us tuck ourselves, and plough such sores
Upon the backs of these New-Test'ment knaves,
As no salvation-salve shall ever heal.
For this fair purpose have I craved your presence,
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My suffragans, and their officials,
T'appear to-morrow to the accusation,
And sit assessors on the judgment-bench;
Back'd as we shall be with a garrison
Of College-doctors, that shall come equipt
With pond'rous sentences from all the Fathers,
Authoritative of our sage decree.
Ev'n now already crowd the churchmen in
From cowl to mitre, for the diet hot;
Hepburn is come, and at the hostelry;
Panter of Ross has from his travell'd mule
Just lighted; and my Lord Abbot of Paisley,
He the surnamed “Chaster than my Maiden,”
Is just gone down to taste his sweetheart's lip,
In the Foul Waist where he had set th'appointment
Six weeks ago, as mine own Marion told me.
As for your Lordship, 'twill, I think, be better
To taste my castle's pantry, and the store
Of good Canary I have treasured up
To entertain such liegemen of the Pope,
As like to snuff a burning Lollard's smoke.
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And bless your stomach with some goodly fare:
Then shall we talk more of to-morrow's business!
SCENE II.
—St Andrews—A Room in the Provost's House.Enter Sir James Learmont of Darsie, Provost of St Andrews.
'Tis a fine city this of ours to-day—
Why, such a flock of sooty fearful crows
Was never blown from all the woods of Fife
Down to the coast, cawing and yelping loud
Their prophecy of drownings and of wrecks,
As our good town from every gate receives
To-day of bishops, canons, vicars, deans,
Huge pamper'd abbots, lean apparitors,
Monks, mendicant and manducant, and all
The many-mouthed vermin of the Pope;
As if old Martin Luther's ghost had come
Post-haste from Isleben, to whip them forth
Of church and cloister in one gloomy cluster,
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There is such stir, ev'n here I hear the din
Of frocks, and cowls, and rockets, rustling by,
Fanning our spacious streets with the foul wind
Of devil-hatched cruel Papistry.
O for a luscious dose of poison'd brimstone!
So I should blow into their crowded cells
Such fumes of killing excellence, as should
Bring down by thousands dead the lumpish drones!
I hate this Cardinal as very death;
This Beaton, this proud Abbot of Arbroath,
I do abhor him as the very Satan.
Have I not reason? Have I not rich cause
To justify me, and to bear me out
Ev'n to the mortal and remorseless hatred?
I am a Christian man, yet cannot I
Be so o'erchristian as to love this enemy;
I should as soon make worship and bow down
To Pontius Pilate or to Caiaphas,
Or hoist up into old Saint Mary's niche
Judas Iscariot to receive my homage!
He is a traitor—to his country, traitor;
To me, to truth, to honest men, a traitor;
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Even now he in his conclave meditates
Another murder; and a saint of God
Shall from our streets of infamy ascend
In flames, up-lighted by his cursed hands,
A deed 'gainst which the very stones that pave them
Should cry out and revolt.—But who comes here,
Intrusive on my chamber?
Enter Sir David Lindsay.
Lindsay, merry Lindsay!
Welcome, great King-at-Arms, and king at song!
What news from Mount Parnassus and the Mount?
Comest thou here, too, to see the spectacle?—
LINDSAY.
Sir James, my salutations go before me,
Wishing you full fertility of joy.—
Yet who can now be joyful? What good man
Can walk the world unsadden'd, and rejoice
To taste sweet sunshine, when bad men grow thick,
And thrive and fatten in the sordid sky
Of sinful, lustful, rank, prosperity?
There is a man in Scotland, great of name,
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Whom seeing walk in pomp along your streets,
I could despise and hiss him home again
Into the dunghill where his meanness grew.
Yet he's the wolf, whose bloody fangs have now
Possession of the innocent sweet lamb,
That throbs within his clutches—not with fear,
But with a Christian sufferer's holy joy.
Sir James, I cannot sit at home, secure
In household joys, when such abominable
And perverse things, ev'n from my window's ken,
Are practised 'gainst the godly and the good.
Is there no hope of rescue? Can we yet
Devise no blessed stratagem to save?—
LEARMONT.
I fear, sweet knight, we cannot; this man's power
Has shot aloft to such a monstrous height,
That Regency, o'ershadow'd and o'eraw'd,
Has dwindled to a trifle down beside it.
Too well does Beaton know that he has chain'd
Fast to his purposes the bigot heart
Of Mary of Lorraine, whose bloody house
Excites and lauds him on to persecution.
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The wavering Hamilton, who to his trust
Of delegated kingship proves a coward,
And sneaks before the Legate who derives
His being from Pope Paulus' leaden seal.
LINDSAY.
And has the Regent not advised with thee
Regarding this convention of the Prelates?
Does he consent, submissive though he sneak,
That thus the spiritual should overlord
And top it proudly o'er the secular?
LEARMONT.
I have a letter from his grace to-day,
Full of misjoin'd and ill-according matter.
He twits me with rebuke, that I permit
Preachers of lies t'infect our every street,
With novel blasphemies 'gainst Mother Church—
He calls the Cardinal a vile usurper,
Whose heart and head are both alike bedevil'd,
The one with cruelty, the other pride;
And that no gang of lords prelatical
Shall domineer and make a thrall of him,
Or hang a Lollard in his jurisdiction.
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Should be hang'd off, and leave the land at rest.
Whereto he adds, as sequel pat and proper,
That should the good George Wishart be condemn'd,
The Provost's civil arm must interpose,
(Unarm'd and impotent as now it is,)
To cheat the fire or gallows, and preserve
Our city unpolluted with that stain.
LINDSAY.
Sir Knight, what then forbids you to oppose
Your secular prohibition in the case,
As we anticipate, of doom to death;
In your own township, too, your proper reign?
LEARMONT.
I have but breath alone, sweet King-at-Arms,
And futile words to interdict; whereas
I should forbid with soldiery and spears.
I have no lordship o'er the priory;
That ground is priestly—there the Archbishop reigns.
Our town is split and phrenzied into factions,
That flout each 'gainst the other; but by far
The greater part of its inhabitants,
Dependent on the prelates, or attach'd,
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Should I intrude my veto, unenforc'd
With weapons not enow to terrify,
Why this same Beaton, from his Babylon,
His castle, stored with loud-tongued ordnance,
Should volley out his contradiction so,
That my poor people should not stand before him,
But fly piece-meal to heaven for an escape,
Mix'd with their steeples, and their chimney-tops.
LINDSAY.
Has he so fortified his brothel-house?
LEARMONT.
Tuts!—Babylon the great was not so strong,
Upon the night when King Belshazzar sate,
Amid his painted harlots, and his cups,
Quaffing delirium; till the frightful hand
Out-sprouted from the plaster of the wall,
And wrote th'emphatic Mene!—Would to God,
Our Card'nal's Mene-Tekel too were written!
LINDSAY.
Haply the Mede may soon be on his march
'Gainst your Belshazzar and his Babylon!
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I wish to God he were, sweet King-at-Arms!—
Here come more friends, more honest men, I hope.—
Enter Melvil of Carnbee, and Duncan of Airdrie.
Good sirs, I give you hearty glad salute!—
God bless you, Melvil! welcome, thoughtful Laird
Of Airdrie! I rejoice to see you both!—
How wags the world in Crail Constabulary?
Disastrously, I dread me; for I mark
Your faces purs'd and shrivell'd into sour
Much-meaning melancholy. What is the matter?
Are prodigies abroad? Has any cow
In Airdrie Forest calved a Cardinal?
MELVIL.
Sir Knight, I think this reeling of the Church
Has hurried us poor laymen, too, within it,
And suck'd us in the current both along.
In sooth, we cannot rest nor sleep o'nights,
Being so provok'd and stung to fretfulness
By the oppressions of tyrannic Church.
Of late, we've been like silly sheep, so fleec'd
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And stipends, rack'd up to a Pagan pitch;
As if good clerks, who are the salt o'the earth,
Came not to minister like lowly John,
But to be minister'd unto like gods
By Mammon, with his pouches swoln with gold.—
We've been so fleec'd, that scarce a flock or two
Sticks to our shiv'ring and denuded hides,
To keep us warm when nibbling our poor grass.—
Then, there's to be another burning-bout,
To frighten us from captious murmurings.
To-day, as we came riding by Stravithie,
There overtook us, on his barded mule,
My double-chinn'd and beautiful Lord Abbot
Of Pittenweem, all shining in the fat
Wherewith a thousand dinners had o'erlaid him:
He told us, he was going to the tryst
Of Prelates, where a famous Lollard goose,
All fat and oily from Dan Luther's roost,
Should be prepared and roasted for their sakes;
He bade us look up to the northern sky,
And said, That part of Heav'n which now you see
As clear as this gold button on my frock,
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As fat as Craw's or Hamilton's:—And so,
With sneer and joyous snort, as if his nose
Had, in its divination, caught the smell,
He scour'd fast by us, leaving us poor lairds
To meditate on hierarchal pride,
And wish him and his junta at the devil.
LEARMONT.
That is a silly wish; for, by my troth,
The honest devil hath them here already,
More wedded to him than goodman to wife.
He sleeps within their craniums every night;
He plays the fornicator with their brains,
Engend'ring cruelty, and lust, and greed.
DUNCAN.
Oh, Learmont, I am sick, when I think on
This evil world, and its perversity.
I see the good man crush'd into disgrace,
And slain with sorrows which he merits not:
I see the wicked elevated high
On honour's pinnacle, and in his hand
The whip of persecution, wherewith he
Smites down the virtue, that would fain uprise
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Can we behold such things, and be like stones
Insensate, nor up-summon and exert
Sinew and soul, as much as in us lies,
To clear from imputation Providence,
And be the servants of the righteous God,
In vindicating righteous men from wrong?—
Oh, I have heard such holy sentences,
Such blessed burning words, drop from the lips
Of this oppress'd and angel-minded man,
This Wishart, fanged in your Card'nal's clutch,
As would charm down to sweet benevolence
The very malice that claps chains upon him!
He has the Gospel grav'd upon his heart,
Without the Church's vain phylacteries
Emblaz'd upon his tunic or his sleeve;
He is the man, in whose defence to rise
Is human glory, as 'tis God's command.
Sir James, I will not sit supine, and see
Him, by whose words my sin-enslaved heart
Has been enfranchis'd to the bliss of grace,
Drawn like a criminal abroad, to feed
That fire, that ought, like Shadrach's, to consume
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Leaving the holy innocent untouch'd.
I'll have my tenants arm'd, and at their head
I will appear.
MELVIL.
Mine, too, shall be prepared;
And Dishington's, and Anstruther's, and Strang's;
The southern baronies shall all be up:
A troop of honest laymen congregated,
To challenge and redeem their sweet-tongued saint
From Church's malice, and th'embrace of fire.
LEARMONT.
God speed the attempt with happy consequence,
My faithful friends! but I do fear the worst
From Beaton's power, and crafty cruelty.—
I'll make you welcome to our city-gates,
In all the heat of your hostility,
With banner, and with band, and batt'ring-ram,
To rattle down about his lordship's ears,
If so you can, his Babylonish fort,
And bury him and Papistry within it.
But not so weak, with tower and culverin,
Hath he so nerved this citadel of Trail,
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Of ploughmen, from their morning's porridge fresh,
Arm'd with their coulters, and with wooden flails.
He has a castle moulded of the stone,
Each tower of which can, from its iron mouths,
Spit out destruction on our raked streets.
He has a retinue of jacque-men bold,
Of whom a dozen, in their coats of mail,
Can put to rout, and scare into the sea,
A thousand peasants, with their wooden flails.
I cannot augur well to th'enterprize,
Although, God knows, I wish it wondrous well,
And laud the spirit that gives rise to it.
LINDSAY.
Then have we nought to do but stand aloof,
And 'scape the sweep of Beaton's cannon-shot;
Breathing our passion's idle fumes against
The gaping iron tubes that threaten us
Good sooth! we must rest happy and content,
Couch'd in our holes of refuge, that the flame
That murders Wishart catches not the skirts
Of our reformed garments, that deserve,
Oil'd as they are with Martin Luther's stain,
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We must rejoice that we are tolerated
To live in air, and are not sharply taught
To live like salamanders in the fire;—
Such is old Church's grace and lenity!
DUNCAN.
Lindsay, if our weak hands can work no good,
We must upon our knees, with utter'd prayer,
Be up and doing at a Throne of Grace;
Beseeching Him, who, in th'eternal store,
Has treasur'd up his element of fire,
And there commands it till the judgment-day,
That he may dash its painful nature out,
And lap it like a cov'ring round about
His saint, wherein he may by angels be
Up-wafted to his seat in Paradise.
That attitude, that exercise, becomes
Men who, like us, have tasted of the fresh
Sweet spring of sacred knowledge, now unseal'd
To the pure readers of the Testaments;
And may th'Almighty soon send down from heaven
His purifying angel, him, whose office
Is to purge clean with fire the dimming stars,
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Enter the portals of our corrupt Church,
And burn away the canker'd leprous spots
That overspread her altars and her walls.
So may our sinful land of Scotland yet,
Beneath religion's uneclipsed sun,
Bear prosp'rously a harvest of good works,
And spread her bosom to his beams in joy!
LEARMONT.
We join you, Airdrie, in your goodly prayers.
But now the time's too hot, and too commoved,
Too frying with vexation, to permit us
To steal away like cowards to our closets,
There to be fumbling on our knees, whenas,
Haply we should be doing with our hands.
For long it cannot last, that this our realm
Shall be usurpingly administer'd
By one who sets the Romish purple up
Against the Crown, and squanders good men's lives,
As if the Pope had by a bull consign'd
To him the trust of life. We'll wait in hope,
Some issue of deliv'rance.—But, my friends,
'Tis now high time of dinner, and your hearts
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Hence let us, then, unto the social board;
It shall refresh, and yield our spirits fuel
For fuller conversation on this theme.
[Exeunt omnes.
SCENE III.
—A House in the Castle Wynd, St Andrews.Two old Women, Janet Geens and Katie Tervat.
JANET.
That's a tale now, Katie! Ah, waes me!
KATIE.
Ay, there's news for you, Janet. It's just the haill town's
clatter at this mament.
JANET.
An' is't that honest fair-spoken man, wi' the bands about,
that we heard sae aften at the Scores last simmer? Is he
to be brunt the morn afore my door? The like o'that!
KATIE.
As true's the honest man's ain preachin', Janet. An'
weel I wot, wasna he right in picking out that text, last
time we heard him, “And he beheld the city, and wept
over it?”
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I'd rather they took an' brunt me for a wutch, at the
wutch-lake! I suld willently gie my bit frail unworthy
person for his, ony day.
KATIE.
See gin the wratch, the Cardinal, 'ill tak you for him,
Janet. Na, na; he's no a man that cares mickle either
for the flesh or the sauls o'auld women. Gin you were a
fat young quean in your teens, there's nae sayin, may be
there might be a chance, Janet.
JANET.
The sorrow tak him, and a'his crew o'rotten Bishops
thegither! The fient a drap, either o'gude kail or gude
gospel, we get frae ane o'them.
KATIE.
They keep a'their guid things to themsels, Janet.
JANET.
Ay, ay; except a dry paternoster, and a drap holy water
to sloken't wi', nae a plack's-worth we get frae ony o'
them.
KATIE.
Hoot, woman! they hae sae mony sma' weanies o'their
ain, how can they be expeckit to spare ony thing for auld
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up, an' at nae little expence, Janet.
JANET.
Brawly do I ken that. There's Bishop Gavin Dunbar's
dochter,—she that's married to Andrew Balfour i'the College-wynd,
—as braw a hizzie, wi' her fardingales and her
fleegairies, as ony Principal's dochter i'the three Colleges.
KATIE.
Dinna speak o'her. There's the Cardinal's ain lang
gilly-gapus dochter, Tibbie Beaton, married to nae less a
man than my Lord Crawford himsel! You see, Janet, it's
a braw luck to be born a Bishop's brat.
JANET.
The de'il's kind to them, wi' his gowd, and his gear, and
his dainties; but he shoots auld decent folk ower wi' a
pickle ait-meal, and a wheen cauld kail-blades.
KATIE.
Very true, Janet; unless you sell yoursel' ower to him
a'thegither; an' then he'll mak mickle o'you, and dandle
an' cuddle you like ane of his ain dawties. You'll then hae
your auld kist fu' o'gowd in a mament; and you'll be enabled
to swallow preens or pokers without ony scaith to your
stamach. He has nae little power, that auld de'il!
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I'se hae naething to do wi' him.
KATIE.
An' I wish he would hae naething to do wi' me. But
he touzles folk into mickle distress, an' nae little temptations
whiles, Janet.
JANET.
Let him e'en gang, Katie.—An' is't the morn the honest
gentleman is to be brunt? Is't for that they're heapin' up
coals and sticks afore my door, there? Weel I wot, I'se
no be i'the house. I'se leave the town. I'se be down to
my sister Lizzy, that lives i'the Kirk-wynd at Anster,
yonder.
KATIE.
We'se tak a walk thegither. I canna be contentit bein'
in sic a town, where the godliest folk o'the land are brunt
like warlocks.
JANET.
'Deed, Katie, this town 'ill never thrive wi' sic deevilish
things gaun on in't.
KATIE.
It's never thriven sin' gude Peter Hamilton bleezed to
death afore the auld College, yonder.
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A sorrowfu' day that was for St Andrews, weel I wot!
Mickle rinnin back an' forrit to the Castle, ere the fire
kendled! The haill street greetin' a'the time; a'except
the Bishops and their gang, that stood glowrin', and gapin',
and gawfin', as the powther flaffed aff!—That auld ill-faurd
sinner, Rob Caldcleugh, he was the man that set the fire
up. The de'il's i'his face an' his heart yet for that black
deed! I've mickle hopes he'll be hangit, or get his head
smash'd for't yet.
KATIE.
But it's wearin' late, woman; there's aucht o'clock chappin
i'the College steeple. We'll better slip awa' soon to
our beds the night, that we may rise wi' the day-daw, if
we're to straik down to the coast.
JANET.
Very true. Let's hae our Sabbath-day's duds about,
an' our staves i'our hands, sharp at sax.
KATIE.
I'se come and tak a drap o'your parridge wi' you, and
then we'll baith stap awa thegither.
JANET.
My sister, Lizzy Geens, is but a puir body; but she'll
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that than be in a house here, wi' a big bane-fire afore your
door, and a decent man bleezin' away i'the middle o't.
KATIE.
Good night then, Janet.
JANET.
Good night, Katie, my woman. Mind sax o'clock.
[Exit Katie. Curtain drops on Janet.
| Cardinal Beaton | |