University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

—The Castle of Rothsay in Bute. A Chamber. King Robert, the Duchess Marjorie, Allan.
Duchess Marjorie.
Now that my infamous, false bond is loosed,
And death has cleared my wrong, with sweetened thought
I tend and love my monarch's broken age.
My pride no longer fills my care with gall
As when his son was living.—Let me put
Your cushion smooth and easy for the head.—
Good Allan, help me.

Allan.
Blank—no gratitude.
His agèd sight is travelling across
The limit whence his life will follow it.
He listens to our human speech no more
Than if his ears were closed. He cannot last
More than to learn his son is safe in France.

King Robert.
Ha! France!

Allan.
Yes, sire—Prince James is surely safe.
The wind hath favour'd sailing.

Duchess Marjorie.
Let me raise
Your feet, my father, on this other stool.

Allan.
He's gone again.

Duchess Marjorie.
A lost, a feeble face
That makes no terms with Death.

Allan.
Lady, I'm glad
That I have had no children. It is sore
To lose them—see them die like upward sparks,
And your own embers burning still to ash.

Duchess Marjorie.
Yes—and to see them sin and sell their souls
To vanity. I'll never give the world
More lives to waste.

Allan.
An' yet to have no love!
I loved your husband; I had been forlorn
Without his kindly laugh.

Duchess Marjorie.
Enough! He died
In time to save his kindness from all taint,
But nothing else.

King Robert.
Look! Does the weather-cock
Still point to south?

Allan.
Yes, and the day is fair
And full of shining.

King Robert.
Help me to look out.

Duchess Marjorie.
You are too weak to move.

King Robert.
I must look out.
Support me to the window.—Over there
Is France, the sunny land, beyond those fields
Of wheaten green, beyond, beyond, beyond!
And where's the east?

Allan.
'Tis yonder.

King Robert.
Over there
Is dark Lindores, beyond the blasted moors
That make the distance mourn—beyond, beyond!
Both unattainable! O heart, too far!—
Now I'll sit down.—Why runs that man so fast?

Allan.
Perchance he brings us happy tidings, sire,
That the young prince is well.

King Robert
[struggling to speak].
My tongue hath swooned
At presage of his tidings. Haste—O stay—
Not more ... I should be stronger tasting death
To bear it. ...

Allan.
Nay, 'tis surely happy news.
Our gallant prince in health and full of joy.
Look! they are come. What ho! Prince James is safe!

[Enter the Earl of Buchan and Walter.]
Earl of Buchan.
He's in an English prison—in the Tow'r
That frowns upon the Thames. King Henry hath,
Against the laws of knighthood, seized the ship
That bore our prince, and vows he'll teach the tongue
Of France to Scotland's heir.

King Robert.
He's dead.

Walter.
No, no:
In prison, and a kindly one they say.

King Robert.
He's dead—he's dead! They told me such false tales;
David was but in prison, in kind walls—
And he was dead. I'm near the grave for lies
To much avail you.

Earl of Buchan.
No; he is not dead.
He's well and treated in most gracious ways.

King Robert.
Starved?

Earl of Buchan.
He is well attended and well kept,
Even from the royal board.

King Robert.
Away, begone!
I'm dying, and you thrust the earth on me.
I'm on my way to judgment. Let me face
No witnesses;—no bleeding chiefs that slew
Each other, I consenting; no poor souls
I've left to evil men; no innocents
Condemned by wicked judges I have feared
To thwart; no beggars, stripped by greedy lords
Whose avarice I bore; no murdered forms
Whose murd'rers I forgave. No need of such.
I plead that I am guilty.—Bring them not.
I'm guilty on my solemn oath, O God.
Father of men, King of the universe,
I've sinned in Thy great offices—in both!
Bring not Thy witnesses—my people's ghosts.
Bring not that dear dread witness, with pale hands
And different keen face and eyes, whose look
Would fix a root of horror in my soul
To grow up like a yew-tree from a grave.
Let me be judged within an empty court!
Or, if we're judged together,—when the book
Is opened, where in lines of red are writ
The sins of his few years,—
And he stands far apart in white despair,
Then shall he answer to a few that fall
From the accusing lips, but point the sum
To me for answer. I will take them all
As blessings:—for a father's sins extend
Far over his own blotted page; yea, fill
With scarlet of damnation many blanks
His children had left clean except for him.

Allan.
How solemn is this judgment before death,
Enacted for our profit.

Walter.
Thus to see
A soul in flesh corruptible appear
Before th' immortal bar.

King Robert.
My God, my God!
I wait Thy sentence; I am self-contemned,
Without a word from any human voice.
It will not be to flames! Some writers say
The punishments of hell are nothing more
Than change of states—each man his opposite.
If so, then I shall be a childless slave,
My fatherhood and royalty displaced,
Seen in some other, who within my sight
Leans his one hand upon a goodly son,
The other on a sceptre. Then, oh then,
The penal fires would be like Heaven's glow,
Their smoke refreshing cloud and covering
From the heart-scorching sight.

Allan.
Will none approach
To hold him up?

Duchess Marjorie.
I will.—His eyes are wild
With something in the depths.

King Robert.
Lost! lost! 'Tis done.
There is no crown upon my head. Oh say,
Is nothing on my head?

Duchess Marjorie.
A little round
Of sovereign gold.

King Robert.
But I can feel there's naught;
And in me all my father's love is sucked
Forth by the cruel wind.—What face is that?
I never knew it. Yet the hair—the hair!
But oh! the eyes—I've never looked on such,
Nor known those lips. If it should be my son,
I do disown him, disinherit, curse!
Now Hell receive me!

Duchess Marjorie.
See, the change hath come,
Death's ashen tread, before it stoops to take.

Allan.
Gather about him now the strife is done.
Peace presses us together.

King Robert
[in a whisper].
Prison! Death!
The cloud of night is rising in mine eyes;
I feel Life turn the key upon my heart.
There is no op'ning.—It is dark—I die.

[Dies.
Duchess Marjorie.
That was the last heave of the broken heart,
The last breath of the soul.

Allan.
My king, my lord!
I never thought thy death would be so strange,
With all that pain to end a gentle life.

[Enter Albany.]
Duchess Marjorie.
Your grace, the king is dead.

Albany.
How!—dead!—the king!

Duchess Marjorie.
He died upon the news that James is ta'en
The King of England's captive.

Earl of Buchan.
Now your grace
Is Regent, till the prisoner is loosed,
Whose chains bind down our restive fealty
And tie it to your will.

Albany.
A trust I hold
But for the regal future. Lift the head!
Died he at peace?

Walter.
Oh no, he mourn'd his son
Till we could hear no more.

Albany.
Alas! and this
Is rule and monarchy—to be like this,
Poor, old, unhappy, ignorant, extinct.—
[Aside.]
For this I've doom'd my soul. What's done is done.
I'll use my fortune till I'm even thus.—
He had few sins to dread.

Duchess Marjorie.
And yet he died
Most full of hellish terrors.

Albany.
I will send
A great procession. John, I mourn thy fate.
False was the comfort that new-nam'd thy state.

[Exit.
Duchess Marjorie.
I'll to a convent's refuge, there to pray
For his affrighted soul, and sooth to say
For his sake will I join another name
To his and never think they're not the same.

[Exit.
Allan.
His heart was broken, not by strokes of Time,
But thrusts of him who should have propp'd it. Crime
Such as dark Albany's is visited
On the third generation. Raise the dead.
[Enter procession of Churchmen and Lords.]
His doom was in his gentleness and fear.
His changèd name still brought him to this bier.

[Exeunt omnes.