University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

SCENE I.

—A HALL IN AN ANCIENT CASTLE.
KING EDWARD, and ATTENDANTS.
KING EDWARD.
Tell me no more our conquest is complete!
All we have gained is but a trembling trophy,
Which oft as Snowdon, from its secret caves,
Pours forth these vagrants of rebellious song,
Shakes at the echo of a minstrel's voice.
Our victories yet want the bloody seal,
That gives stability to power. I wait
In anxious indignation, till I hear,
That these prime sources of seditious fury,
These scoffers at our sway,—the captive bards,
Are silenced all by death.

SCENE II.

KING EDWARD, CLYFFORD, and ATTENDANTS.
KING EDWARD.
Well! my young soldier,
Hast thou, as I enjoined thee, seen these miscreants,
Who to their harps breathed anarchy and carnage,
Resign their forfeit lives?

CLYFFORD.
Yes! my dread liege,
I have indeed beheld—shield, shield me, Heaven,
From such another spectacle!

KING EDWARD.
Weak boy!
What, choaked with tears! art thou the martial youth,
Whom, for thy father's sake, tho' marriage failed
To give the stamp of honor to thy birth,
I fondly fostered as a future hero?

CLYFFORD.
If I offend, whom I would die to serve,
Pray you, my liege, assign me any torture,
Rather than your reproach!

KING EDWARD.
Then be corrected!
Thy too indulgent sire, the gentle Edmund
Would lead thee, by his homilies on peace,
To be an anchorite:—thy king, my Clyfford,
Must steel thy sinews to the sterner duties
Of discord-quelling power.—But to thy story!
What! did these fierce offenders die so bravely,
Thou couldst have wished their pardon?

CLYFFORD.
From my soul—
O royal Edward! think me not ungrateful
For all thy lavish bounty to my youth,
If when I saw these victims of thy wrath
Perish, amid the groans of suffering thousands,
I wished thy mercy—

KING EDWARD.
Poor, deluded stripling!
These wild enthusiasts have ensnared thy fancy;
And foolish pity for the expiring traitors
Has made thee half a rebel.

CLYFFORD.
No! my liege,
I pitied not the dying: their demeanour
Might waken envy, but not weak compassion:
They died as freedom's martyrs—and they said
The benedictions of their bleeding country
Would waft to Heaven their unrepining spirits.
It was the anguish of their mourning kindred
That pierced my soul—it seemed, that in their death
The vital spirit of their nation perished.

KING EDWARD.
There, Clyfford, thy unconscious lips applaud
The wisdom of severity. The arm,
That strikes against us in the field of war,
Is not so much an object of our fear,
As that more potent voice, which, in the scene
Of festive tumult, arrogantly spreads
Contagious enmity against our rule,
And mutinous defiance. These wild tribes
Of hardy mountaineers will soon become
The docile vassals of our sovereign pleasure,
When their presumptuous rhapsodists no more
Exist, to fire the fascinated people
To frantic insurrection. Quiet now
May guard and fertilize our new domain,
Since these rebellious, these strife-kindling bards
Are all extirpated.

CLYFFORD.
Not all my liege.

KING EDWARD.
What! are we disobeyed? is not our sentence
Justly fulfilled on all the trait'rous tribe?

CLYFFORD.
Of the devoted band, one hoary chief,
Pre-eminent in genius and renown,
The famed Llandorvin, by a pious fraud,
That nature framed to save him, has eluded
His watchful guard, and 'scaped the general doom,
Which sunk to day in everlasting silence
All the lost brothers of his art.

KING EDWARD.
Escaped!
He shall not foil my power—by Salem's cross
Not all the deep recesses of their mountains
Shall screen this fugitive, and whosoe'er
Has stolen the victim from insulted justice,
Shall in atonement share his future death.

CLYFFORD.
Recal that oath!—O noble minded Edward!
For it involves a cruelty, thy nature
Could never execute. Our glorious sovereign,
The pride of Christendom! bears not a sword
To strike at female youth, and filial duty.

KING EDWARD.
What canst thou mean?

CLYFFORD.
The culprit is a daughter:
Of radiant beauty; and, as fame reports,
Endowed with all the mental energy,
That made her sire the darling of his nation.

KING EDWARD.
Bribed she our guard?—Perdition on the traitors!

CLYFFORD.
No! on my life my liege the men are faithful.
This damsel with prevailing supplication
(A savage must have granted her request)
Begged but to pass within her father's prison
The night preceding his appointed death.
How she effected his escape, we know not;
But when the morning came, and all the victims
Were summoned to their fate, the fearless maiden
Boasted, her sire was free; and nobly added
To seal his freedom, if her blood might seal it,
She would exult to meet th'impending doom,
From which she had redeemed him.

KING EDWARD.
Mark! thou novice
In the high task to govern wayward rebels,
Mark! how these fierce enthusiasts of the harp
Subvert all power! How with outrageous fury
They spurn authority, and smile at death.
This artful traitress may have severed from us
The hearts of half our soldiery. Inform me
How they received this daring subterfuge!

CLYFFORD.
As men, my liege, who tho' inured to scenes,
Where lawless war oft leads to wildest outrage,
Yet feel the force of beauty, and of nature.
They praised the noble girl, exclaimed “God bless her,”
And would have sent her crowned with garlands home,
But that stern Mortimer, whose rigid spirit
Can ne'er forgive her countrymen the havoc,
They spread so frequent o'er his neighbouring lands,
Seized on the maid, and resolutely vowed
He would conduct her to your royal presence,
As hostage for her father's peaceful conduct.

KING EDWARD.
He judges better than thy simple youth;
And knows the caution, that our state requires.

SCENE III.

KING EDWARD, CLYFFORD, MORTIMER, GWENDYLEN.
MORTIMER.
Behold, my liege—but from your gallant kinsman
You are apprized of all, I would relate,
Touching this fair delinquent, whom my duty
Brings to attend the order of your highness.

KING EDWARD.
My faithful Mortimer! we ever find thee
Intelligent and active in our service.
Fair stranger! thy offence has nature's plea:
We shall not therefore, as our state might warrant,
Weigh it, as treason to our sovereignty.
Think us thy friend! and know we mean to place thee
In the protection of our gentle queen,
Whose fair retinue, and well ordered court,
Form an asylum for thy youth and beauty.
There wilt thou learn, what thy distracted country
Ought to have learnt, a grateful just obedience;
Nor rashly mingling in rebellious broils
Partake thy father's crimes.

GWENDYLEN.
My father's crimes!
O royal Edward, do not let the pride
Of recent conquest make thee arrogate
What God denies himself; the power to alter
Th'eternal sacred bounds of good and evil.
My father's life may be, as once it seemed,
Thy victim: but his virtue, and his fame
Are far beyond the reach of thy attaint;
And, like his firm unspotted soul, immortal.

KING EDWARD.
So young! and so presumptuous! thy apt childhood
Has caught the ravings of licentious freedom:
But softer studies, and submissive manners
More suit thy sex and age.

GWENDYLEN.
Your pardon, sir!
My brief, and artless life has only been
One plain continued lesson in the school,
The heart-improving school of true submission,
Where quick obedience is the happy offspring
Of love, and veneration.

KING EDWARD.
Has thy father,
Plunged in the storm of dark hostility,
That drowns domestic joy, has he found leisure
To tutor thy fond infancy; and grow
By the alluring powers of mild instruction
The idol of his child?

GWENDYLEN.
If I, my lord,
As partial friends have said, if I appear
Of spirit riper, than my youth might promise,
I owe it to his rare paternal bounty;
Who from my cradle, with incessant fondness
Watched o'er the dawn of reason in my soul,
And to my young enchanted mind displayed
The lustre of his own.—O mighty Edward!
Couldst thou but feel a moment, what my heart
Has felt for years—the pure benignant splendor
Of that rich mind, where fancy's fervid powers
Blaze, but as solar fire, to guide the world,
Thou wouldst not wonder, that I thus exult
To draw my being from so bright a source,
And vindicate the glory of my father.

KING EDWARD.
My young, and fair enthusiast, I esteem
Thy filial pride, good children make good subjects.
Thy spirit pleases, and perchance may lead me
To be thy father's friend: but we must teach him
To court our mercy, not insult our power.
Wait till the queen, youth's patroness! appears
To take thee to her charge. Come, Mortimer,
Receive our private orders!

(Exit with Mortimer.

SCENE IV.

GWENDYLEN, CLYFFORD.
CLYFFORD.
Lovely, sequestered fair! whose native graces
Surpass, what I have seen, of finished beauty!
I gaze upon thee with delight, and anguish:
The admiration, that thy charms inspire,
Is turned to torture by the fears I feel
Of ills, that threaten thee, which yet thou know'st not.

GWENDYLEN.
Have they surprised my father? Noble youth!
If thou indeed hast pity for our wrongs,
Rack not my soul with ignorance and terror!

CLYFFORD.
No lovely Gwendylen! thy father yet
Retains the liberty, thy virtue gave him.

GWENDYLEN.
Blest be the voice, which gives me that assurance!
It has disolved the icy bonds, that seemed
To rob my heart of motion. In his safety
I live again; and feeling but for him,
Smile at adversity, whose baffled force
Falls on myself alone.

CLYFFORD.
Thou sweet perfection!
That Heaven should form thee for a fate so cruel!
E'en now thou seem'st to my afflicted sense
Like a lost infant, seeing not its peril,
Wandering with sightless eyes in active slumber
Upon a turret's roof:—another step
Is sure destruction. How! how shall I save thee?

GWENDYLEN.
What means thy kind inquietude? Is Edward
So ruthless, as to thirst for blood like mine?
Nay, if he is, lament not, generous Clyfford!
I have not passed my days with such a father,
Untaught in life's great lesson, how to die!

CLYFFORD.
No! not thy blood! O thou enchanting fair one!
Thy beauty, and thy perils will distract
My troubled brain, and turn me to a traitor
Against th'imperial patron of my youth.
My heart recoils, when I attempt to speak
Against the bounteous Edward, but his rage
To crush all opposition to his sway
In this devoted country, may induce him—
No! no! I am to blame—his noble nature—
I will not shew thee that detested image,
Which my o'er-anxious fancy had created,

GWENDYLEN.
My young ingenuous friend! I see, and honor
The struggle in thy soul between just pity
To the sunk victims of abhorred oppression,
And fond attachment to an artful tyrant,
Allied to thee in blood, but not in virtue.

CLYFFORD.
If thus thou think'st of Edward, I may banish
My groundless dread, lest his imperial offers
Of splendid favour might induce thy candor
To call thy wand'ring father to our court;
And then behold him in some fatal season,
When stern necessity of state might prompt
To faithless rigor—but the King returns:
Treasure my caution in thy tender bosom!
And know me for thy friend in fate's worst hour.

SCENE V.

GWENDYLEN, CLYFFORD, KING EDWARD, MORTIMER.
KING EDWARD.
Come, my fair ward; to shew you, that we honor
A daughter's courage, we return in person
To lead you to our Queen. To all your race
Our purposes are kind: we freely grant
Your father's forfeit life. Make him our friend.
We mean to place you in our realm of England,
Where both shall flourish in our royal favor.

GWENDYLEN.
My lord, in childhood, I was taught a fable,
Touching the lion's court.

KING EDWARD.
Now, on my soul,
This girl is passing shrewd; but hear me, damsel!
Wake not the lion's wrath! you know my power
Can sweep this hoary fugitive from earth:
Would you provoke my rigor? be advised!
Embrace my proffered bounty, and confide
His safety to your King!

GWENDYLEN.
I will confide it
But to the King, whose word was never broken
The King of Kings! If it is Heaven's decree,
That he must perish, never shall his daughter
Be lured by false ambition to betray him.

KING EDWARD.
Betray him! say'st thou? is it to betray
An outcast, lurking in wild woods and caverns,
To call him from despair? perhaps from death,
To the bright refuge of a monarch's favor?

GWENDYLEN.
Insidious tyrant! talk not of thy favor!
'Twas this ensnared the princes of our land,
And made the fair face of our bleeding country
A scene of ruin, horrible to think of,
And to behold, distracting. While my thoughts
Exulted in the rescue of my father,
My nation's woes seemed banished from my mind:
But now, that I survey thy angry visage,
My country's evil genius glares upon me:
Thy cruelty, thy crimes, in all their horror,
Remorseless Edward! rush upon my brain,
And all my father's virtues fire my soul
With just and brave contempt of barb'rous power.

KING EDWARD.
Art thou so frantic in thy enmity,
That grace and clemency are lost upon thee?
Thou female abstract of thy nation's fury!
Then salutary rigor must instruct thee
Not to insult our bounty. Mortimer!
Take thou the charge of this intractable!
Tame the young zealot with the due correction
Of strict imprisonment, and solitude,
To teach her better thoughts; while we, my Clyfford,
Inform the Queen, that her intended charge
Is found unworthy of her kind acceptance.

(Exit with Clyfford.

SCENE VI.

GWENDYLEN, MORTIMER.
MORTIMER.
Come! my fair captive, tho' you were to blame
To irritate the King, who meant you kindness,
While I confine, I yet must pity you.

GWENDYLEN.
If thou, our most inveterate foe! hast pity,
Bestow it on th'oppressor! not th'opprest!
The one, has men, and demons for his vassals;
The other, angels for her friends. Just Heaven!
If, as I now most fondly would surmise,
By noble sufferance I may avert
Evil impending o'er my father's head,
I will not shrink, howe'er stern fate may try me;
But with that filial love, which still has been
The ruling passion of my ardent soul,
Exult to suffer for so dear a purpose.