University of Virginia Library

Scene I

—Craigmillar; the Queen, Mary Seton, and Margaret Carwood, walking together through the garden from the chapel
Queen
How sweet it is to breathe the air again,
Though blue November mists it. Winter roses
Blooming and fading! Mary, have you loved,
My silent girl?

Mary Seton
I have but looked on love
As the moon looks on day-spring those rare nights
She sees a world her silver would make wan,
And creeps, recluse, into the western haze,
Full of unbosomed memories.

Queen
(She sings)

Mary Seton
Still faster tears! Why will you linger here,
So tall 'mid the low bushes?

Queen
(Stooping over the rose-bushes)
How I stood
On tip-toe, and with prickled hands drew down
The roses in the bower at Inchmahome!
We were so happy 'neath the filbert-trees
In the old, monkish garden.

Mary Seton
I remember
The rows of boxwood hid us from each other;
You struggled to get out into the sun,
Transgressing the due limits.

Queen
I was free
Those last few weeks before we went to France;
I could be naughty at my pleasure then,
The wrinkled faces smoothed to see my pranks,
And I had no correction. Let me wander
In reverie awhile.

Margaret Carwood
Alas, dear madam,
We find you sad if you are solitary,
And weeping oft, as now.

Queen
A common thing!
What is there for a woman who takes thought,
If once she look down on her lot, save tears,
Strong floods of silent weeping. Leave me, girls,
Leave me awhile.
Exeunt Margaret Carwood and Mary Seton
It was for courtesy
I stooped and let Lord Bothwell kiss my hands,
For sweet to me is love in human eyes,
As daylight to the world. Through all my sickness
My husband did not come; I was recovered
When he at last made speed. He comes again
To-day; I should be happy, for my babe
Waits Holy Church's blessing. Yester eve
I held him in my arms, and heard my voice
Humming a cradle-song. Ah me, the tune—
Guilty again! It was the very same
My sweet French poet sang to bring the flush—
He called it flush o' France—to my white cheek
When we sailed north together. Memories
All, all of love! I am grown weak again,
And weep at the least thought. A robin trills
Each morning at my casement, on the yew,
And sets me sobbing; yet if now, even now,
My lord would lean a little 'gainst my knee,
Brushing his curls in the old, boyish way
Against my fondling heart, it were enough
To bring me back to kindness and desire.
When first I saw him, he was messenger
From Lady Lennox to my early dule:
That night at Orleans, as I sat alone
By lamplight, in the chill of widowhood,
That pierced as penetrative flakes of snow,
That bruise and then make stiff the pain, there bent
Before me my boy-cousin, lovely-faced,
Modest, and rose, with radiant, crested hair—
One would have said that Cupid's arching wings
Were met above his head; he was too young
For other speech than what his glistening eyes
Might give: with bashful worship he withdrew,
And I, the unsealed packet in my hand,
Took courage of the envoy. High of stature
Even then, and such full prince in him!—his portrait
Keeps its warm lodging in my breast; I doubt
If e'er I can displace it.
Enter Darnley surrounded by a leash of sporting dogs
Margaret back?
Henry!

Darnley
(Pointing at her with a drunken laugh)
How wan a face, as thin and sallow
As if you you were a good wife in the wynds,
Suckling her puling bairn. I have left girls
With fresher cheeks than these.

Queen
What brings you hither?
If to confess, the list of your offences
You may rehearse unchecked; though majesty,
When the offence is vile, deals chastisement
Without assize.

Darnley
Ho, ho, my dame, and would
You care for my confession? You are proud,
And might not laugh to hear the songs we sing
At Ainslie's tavern: I could pipe you one
Would put you to the blush. But come, wife, come—
We wink at one another's slips. Be merry!
You must not show high stomach to a king.

Queen
A king of what? O'er whom? Is it to seek
An unknown empire you put out to sea;
To wave your hand o'er despicable tribes,
Where tyrants bluster and are terrible?
A royal purpose! Sir, we are apprised
That you continue every day from evil
To worse: we therefore must combine to put
Your honours from you, that in lower place
You may but mingle with your mates, not carry
High names and dignities along with you.

Darnley
You ask me as a private gentleman
To my cub's christening? You deceive yourself;
My spirit swells, and all magnificoes
Are chary of their smiles. Strange horrors haunt
Outside the wine-cup—Morton . . . someone's bones!
I drink for very life, and have no mind
To diddle at your shows.

Queen
You cannot mean
You will be absent when at Feast of Kings
We offer and present our true-born heir.
So glorious a day! The noblest princes
Of Christendom, through their ambassadors,
Compass the font, the Pope himself desires
A nuncio should be sped; I have half-drained
My coffers in my joy: solemnities,
Full of such quick succession and surprise
As we shall now prepare, will keep their rank
And lustre uneclipsed in sovereign minds
When James shall be a man.

Darnley
James!

Queen
There have been
Great Scottish monarchs of the name. My father . . . .

Darnley
There have been Scottish kings named David too;
If David be your infant's father's name,
Let it be his.

Queen
It grieves me to the heart
The child should bear your likeness. We must rear him
Wholly apart from you. Now quit my presence;
I came here for the fresher air.

Darnley
Dum derra!
Mistress, you go your way, and I go mine;
The spinning world is big enough for two
To ding their crowns and make a holiday . . . .
Flowers at your bosom! Let me have a rose
To wag at jesters. 'Pon my word, your lips
Are set up coy, and I must have a kiss
For bravery and fellowship. Come, woman,
Are you a wife or maid to lift your shoulder
Between our mouths?

Queen
Leave me.

Darnley
Gug, gug!—and wherefore,
Until I have advantage? By St. Bride,
I'll play the truant. Bessie laughs to hear
How you fly out and spit. 'Tis tavern-talk
That you are mortal jealous. Sweet-heart, come;
We will not mope.

Exit, caressing one of his dogs.
Queen
He must be put away,
Fool, traitor, noxious reptile. What are these
Sharp swords about my heart? No issue thence
Of sighs and dolorous weeping; war and winter,
Numb wretchedness, and fierce, constricting hate
Huddle together. If I suddenly
Could die! Ah, would to God that I were dead!
And yet death were too narrow!
Enter Lethington, Bothwell, and Moray
Lethington,
I must return to France.

Lethington
Slip from your sphere!
Not so, my lady Venus; we will chase
The noisome meteor from the firmament,
And, spell-bound, guard our passion for the stars.
While you, matutinal in piety,
Shunned not the perils of the autumn air,
Your servants not less zealous in your service
Than you in that of heaven, combined in close,
Determined counsel. Will you let us speak
Touching your husband?

Queen
'Tis a heart-break to me
To think he is my husband.

Lethington
Cast not forth
Such strong, deep sighs. They sigh who wail the dead;
Not those who have sharp matter of reproach
Against the living. Justice, madam, whets
Her sword.

Queen
Could I indeed be rid of him,
It were a dearer cleansing than from sin,
More liberating than to cast away
Mortality, more blessed than to rise
From misconception of disordered dream.
But if it cannot be . . . .

Bothwell
What easier aim!

Queen
Without dishonour to my son?

Bothwell
Ay, surely;
My father was divorced, yet I enjoy,
Unblamed, his heritage.

Queen
(To Moray)
James, you are silent;
Your mind misgives?

Lethington
But if his godliness,
Being a little staggered by our zeal,
Appear unready, 'tis the wont of such:
The man accustomed to the leisure ways
Of Providence is apt to take offence
At the trim worldling's nimble diligence.

Bothwell
(Standing close behind the Queen)
Cannot you banish him? You know the means
Of making the slow hours pass wearily
To those that have offended you.

Queen
O earl,
I banish to recall.

Bothwell
The chancellor
Should now be back in favour. (Apart)
God, I stumble,
And blurt I know not what.

Moray
An apt appeal;
With Morton here, we may, by the approval
Of Parliament, draw judgment on the head
Of the offender who hath twice detained
Your grace in ward unlawfully.

Lethington
True, true!
(Aside to Moray)
We must be patient. Take a turn with me
Across the tilt-yard, ere her mood be ripe
To pledge us Morton's pardon.

They pace together.
Queen
(To Bothwell)
Hepburn, still
My cry is for a convent, where one feels
The pleasantness of death, and every day
Lives with him as a gentle monitor.
I long to be alone, for there is sorrow
One cannot put into one's prayers, nor drop
In any human breast—half recollection,
And half despair. My injuries are not
For state-reform. It is a sulphur-wind
About my modesty to hear of men
Counting my wrongs, of arid Protestants
Meting the measure of the chastisement
That cannot be poured out. When love is wronged
Hell opens at his feet; he must have space
Uncircumscribed, another infinite,
To map out his remorse.

Bothwell
(Aside)
What would she do?
She shakes me and incites.—How should it profit
You should retire to France?

Queen
To mitigate
The shame of ruling with a vacant seat
Beside me, single, an unwidowed queen;
To yield to Fate, and, lying in her breath
Under her pressing bosom, to receive
Strange aliments and help. You do not speak . . . .

Bothwell
I dare not.

Queen
Does it look so ill in me
To crave for respite?
(Turning, she catches the expression on his face and rises quickly)
Hush, I will not urge
Too vehement a prayer for liberty;
There may be other means
(Lethington and Moray approach)
Is Morton lodged
With so scant comfort you would have him back
At once to his fat lands and revenues?

Lethington
Nay, madam, persons of your noble nature
Should think him amply punished; he has scarce
A hole to put his head into, a penny
To buy a dinner.

Queen
(Wearily and half apart)
There is none of them
Guilty of venial error.

Lethington
He will give
Wise counsel in this question of divorce;
He is an able lawyer, and hath much
Old rancour to repay.

Queen
Beseech you speak
No more to me of this. Can you not see
That we are sundered? 'Tis enough; henceforth
No mention of my husband; he is dead,
Cast from our royal mind and purposes,
Forgotten, insignificant.

Moray
To-morrow
We will remove to Holyrood.

Queen
Oh, why?

Moray
It is your birthday.

Queen
If these feasts were kept,
And not wide, hollow gaps within the year,
We should to-day be merry; for the king—
Ye put it in my mind—is twenty-one.
I gave him no good wishes; but my tears
Are all for his amendment; he is young.
I will within, and write to him. God heals
Though he is slow in healing. Moray, come.

Exeunt Queen and Moray, followed by Lethington
Bothwell
She stings me now to demon-jealousy
With shifts and cunning—yet she dropt a word . . . .
I hear the muster for some vast success
Rise through my nature, arming as a tract
Arms when the bale-fires hang upon the peels
By Tarras and by Tweed. My energies
Are wild and undirected, but aglow
With concourse and with hope. This husband, this
Mere cog upon the golden wheel of Fate
That would fly round to seat me on a throne,
And give me lips the loveliest that the world
Has decked for kisses and co-equal joys—
This Darnley shall be put away.
Re-enter Lethington, a bond in his hand, meeting Mary Fleming
How,—when,
I cannot bring to thought; but the great moment
That shatters him will feed my pulse with richness,
An impetus of blood.

Exit
Lethington
Well, Mary, well!
(Looking after Bothwell)
He must be cooler when I bid him sign;
Among us we will guide the matter through,
And keep the queen in languid innocence
Since she will hear no question of divorce.

Mary Fleming
Your brows are clouded.

Lethington

Scruples, dear, scruples! There can be no
clear-cut action in the world with this hesitancy at
wrist.

Mary Fleming

One cannot know surely by divination
whether an action be right or wrong.

Lethington

One may know by intuition whether a
deed will profit. Do you not grieve for your mistress?

Mary Fleming

Why, she is most marvellously beloved!

Lethington

Well parried, young stateswoman, and of
whom?

Mary Fleming

Of all but her enemies—and these are
the religious.

Lethington

Who have scruples, so we return to our
controversy; and scruples but cause men to do ill what
they do; they cannot hinder ill-doing. Mary, why did
you scruple to let me kiss you in the passage?

Mary Fleming

Why, the queen was looking.

Lethington

Looked she ever ill on lovers? I would
have bussed you bonnily under her very eyes: they are
russet now as a November twilight. I would fain enlighten
them. Our great queen must be concerned
with love—'tis her empire. Like the daughter of Jove
she can forget her own grief in the joys of an amorous
couple. We have need to divert her. Come, come;
'tis my hour of recreation. I have been plotting the
deaths of princes; but I have caught wind of the abominable
machinations of Dan Cupid for my wedding, and
I must look into this conspiracy. Have you harboured
any of these infamous malefactors?

Mary Fleming

My lord, most sorely against my
will . . .

Lethington

Ah, you had scruples, but yet a maiden's
delicate prompting to give protection to fugitives.

Mary Fleming

A troop indeed of vagabond wishes so
tender . . .

Lethington

Of age, you thought no-one would have
the heart to arrest them. They shall not be arrested.
Confide this innocent troop to my keeping. They confess
under torture to devising a plot for the possession of
my person.

Mary Fleming

I swear that they meant you no ill.

Lethington

No ill—but a remedy for all ills—my
death, which is rapidly approaching on the strides of
frenzy. I am lunatic every instant of my leisure, and
stark mad in my despatches. I must needs prate to Cecil
of your kindness. You have put a wonderful elation
into my nature. But as secretary, I am undone. Now
(Drawing her to him)
swear to me, a woman's sweet,
silent way, swear that you will recover me. What—refuse
the sweet lip-promise? 'tis the only oath I take of
a woman.

Mary Fleming

Yet I will not make it on compulsion.

Lethington

Lest you might break it without remorse.
O subtle casuistry! Kiss me once free-heartedly, and
take these winter-roses in your cheeks to the queen.

Mary Fleming

Carnation is the Stuart flower.

Lethington
(Taking her cheeks between his hands and kissing them)

Then your own by inheritance and fortune.