University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

The State Apartments in the Tower. Queen Anne alone.
Queen Anne.
Ye rugged walls, how often have ye heard
The weary moans of prisoned innocence,
By bondage plundered of its cheerful spirit,
Broken in will, bankrupt in energy;
And when at last thought has so preyed on thought
As to debase the judgment's faculty,
Robbed of that God-sustaining power of right
Which lifts the soul above calamity!
O woe! O woe! shall I become at length
A mental wreck, a chaos of despair,
With scarcely strength in my enervate mind
To see the conscience-drawn dividing line
That marks the boundary between right and wrong?
Alas! I fear it; for I cannot tell
What high prerogative, that once was mine,
I would not barter for mere liberty.

(Enter, behind, Lady Boleyn and Mrs. Cosyns.)
Lady Boleyn.
Still lost in thoughts.

Mrs. Cosyns.
I'll warrant them not good.

Lady B.
Then stand aside. If she should utter aught,
Above a whisper, we can catch its sense.

Mrs. C.
Then to his grace, and so unto the king.
Good luck! my lady, it is merry, this,
To be familiar with their majesties—
To be the very spirit of the words
That go between them.

Lady B.
Hush! the queen begins.

Queen A.
This awful pause—this quivering of the beam
That balances my hesitating fate—
This watchful agony of rigid sense,
Bending all faculties in one fixed stare,
That hangs upon the dial of events,
And counts the passing moments, without power
To urge or slacken their relentless course—
Would make a faith in settled destiny
Far preferable to chance. Then stolid force
Might brazen out the frowns of hopeless fate,
And learn to suffer what it could not change.
But, O, the thought that we, the rulers born
Of time and fortune and opposed events,
Can be so meshed in outward circumstance
As to lose influence o'er our very lives,
Gives to adversity its bitterest pangs,
And takes from will its living soul of hope!

Lady B.
That 's rare philosophy, I question not,
But it is bad religion.

Mrs. C.
Terrible!

Queen A.
Avenging Heaven, and I deserve it all!

Lady B.
That 's broad confession.

Mrs. C.
Shameless! How she dared
The wrath of Heaven, in her stout impudence!

Queen A.
Yes, I deserve it; but 't is double pain,
To feel the chastisements of angry Heaven
Meted to me in seeming punishment
For that whereof I am guiltless.

Lady B.
Heard you that?

Mrs. C.
Nay, I'm a little deaf.

Queen A.
O Wolsey, Wolsey!
I, whose ambitious footstep thrust aside
Your tottering age—I, who with crafty toil
Climbed to the seat of patient Katharine—
Feel every pang with which I tortured you!
My power is gone; another cunning maid
Plays o'er my part of heartless treachery.
O More and Fisher—blood, blood!—save my wits!—
If fate like theirs should close my history,
To make Heaven's doom complete! Why shrink at that?
For 't is but one, among a thousand ways,
Of stepping from the world. And what were life,
Declining by degrees of misery
To chill oblivion?—Queen of yesterday—
The rabble's pity—an old doting crone,
That some fool's grandsire, “Marry, knew as queen!”
Rattling her toothless jaws in silly prate
About herself—“And how they crowned her once,
With a great crown all full of shining stones;
And what brave velvet farthingales she wore;
And how she reigned; and, well-a-day, how fell!”
Pah! it sets death a-laughing. Gracious Heaven,
But grant my sinfulness one little prayer—
'T is all I ask—drive on the lagging days,
And bring this matter to its fated end;
For there are seeds of madness in my grief
That must o'ertop my reason!

(Lady Boleyn and Mrs. Cosyns advance.)
Mrs. C.
Please you, lady.

[To Queen Anne.]
Lady B.
Your majesty.

Mrs. C.
She hears us not.

Queen A.
Well, well!
But Rochford, ay, and all my noble friends,
Crowded together in a general doom;
As if my enemies had sworn to leave
No vestige of me. Bitter, bitter hate!
My father next—

Mrs. C.
Yes, please you, he is well.

Queen A.
Who spoke?

Mrs. C.
Your servant.

Queen A.
Service without love.

Lady B.
You wrong her much.

Queen A.
You too, false kinswoman?

Lady B.
Marry, and if your highness had not held
Such high opinion of familiar friends,
You 'd ne'er been here. 'T is a good worldly rule,
As treachery harms more than enmity,
To tell no tales but what we tell our foes.

Queen A.
Deep in the world, but shallow in the heart.
What brings you here?

Lady B.
The welfare of yourself,
And the deliverance of your noble brother,
With all his prisoned friends.

Queen A.
When owls can sing,
I'll listen, cousin.

Lady B.
Scold, but credit me.

Queen A.
What is the price? If it involve my life,
I'll coin my heart's blood, to the utmost drop,
But I will pay it.

Lady B.
'T is that you agree
To offer no obstruction to the king
In his proposed divorce.

Queen A.
Dare you insult—
Nay, nay, forgive my haste. Is it the king
Who wills his daughter's shame? who barters life
On terms that blacken mercy's reverend hand,
And sink her calling to mere brokery?
Is this divorce his wish?

Mrs. C.
It is, your highness;
I had it from his lips.

Lady B.
'T will but oppose,
And not defeat his plan, if you refuse.
Denial carries death to all; when you,
By bare concession, gain a pregnant hope.

Queen A.
Hope, hope for me! O God, what mockery!—
I wish for nothing. Show me, beyond doubt,
That 't is the king's command, and I will yield.

Mrs. C.
A wise conclusion.

Queen A.
Spare your comments, madam;
My duty tutors better than your tongue.
The very vileness of this proffered trade
Gives it the lie. O, 't is far past belief,
To deem a father so unnatural:
Sure 't is but trial of my patient love
The king intends.—Why, glimmering hopes seem born
From the sheer blackness of surrounding things,
Like little stars at midnight. [Aside.]


Mrs. C.
Bless my soul,
Her highness smiles!

Queen A.
Why not?

Lady B.
Be still, you fool!
Her subtle mind is twisting in a net
Of its own flimsy thoughts. [Apart to Mrs. Cosyns.]


Mrs. C.
I am not your wench!
What the king orders me, I will perform,
Though all the Lady Boleyns in the land
Cry “Fool, and fool!” [Apart to Lady Boleyn.]

If it would please your highness,
Now, while this candid mood possesses you,
To make confession to us of the crimes
For which you suffer; and so spare the king—

Lady B.
The loose-tongued idiot! [Aside.]


Queen A.
Out! you heartless wretch!
Are you a woman? Have you borne a child?
And would you snatch it from your wolfish breast,
To stamp the bastard on its baby brow?

Mrs. C.
I have no child.

Queen A.
Heaven keep you barren, then,
You shameless slanderer of your mother's sex!
Dare you to traffic for my chastity—
The natural patent of all womanhood—
That more becomes my naked innocence
Than the great ring of jewelled royalty?
O! had I lost it, I would barter crown,
And queenly dignity—yea, life itself—
To wear it but one hour of agony,
Then hand it spotless to posterity.
Fie! you are rank, if you have never felt
Your sex's instinct!

Mrs. C.
Lady, let us go:
Her majesty so storms—

Lady B.
Yes, slink away,
You wretched marplot! [Apart to Mrs. Cosyns.]


Queen A.
Get to your prayers—go!
Send to your heart each drop of modest blood,
That ever mustered in your virgin cheeks,
At wanton thoughts, to wash away this shame!

Mrs. C.
Come, come; she'll rail again.

[Exit with Lady Boleyn.]
Queen A.
This killing doubt!
What can it mean?—where am I?—is it real?
For I have read how some have seemingly
Passed ages in a dream; have died and risen;
Have wandered on through shadows limitless,
And passed the radiant gates of Paradise,
To dwell for days unnumbered with the Saints;
Have woke at last, and found the blazing sun,
That shaped the fancies of their lengthened vision,
Just peeping from the east. Is life a dream?
Is time a mere illusion of the mind?
And shall we waken from our restless sleep,
To see the glory-beaming face of God
Smile in our eyes a summons to that life
Where all is real? What to my endless soul
Is this flat pageantry of days and years?
Events, not hours, are measurers of our lives,
And I in deeds have far outlived my term;
While sorrows, heavier than three-score and ten
May often totter under, bow my head,
That only needs the hoary badge of time
To make old age complete. Why should I stand
And dally thus with my kind landlord, Death,
Upon the threshold of his narrow house,
While all without is dark and shelterless,
And all so bright within? Why fear to leave
The fickle favors that mankind bestow,
For the sure bounties of Omnipotence?
O God, I know not! but my startled heart
Rises in loud rebellion at the hint
Of that chill power whose torpid tyranny
Shall still its play forever. Love, fame, power—
Ay, all, all, everything, the uttermost!—
Have vanished in the shadow of my wrongs;
And yet I gripe life's load of misery,
As if there were a hope beyond my loss!

[Exit.]