University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

Scene I

—The Dule-Chamber in Edinburgh Castle; the Queen and Mary Livingstone
Queen
Put out the candles, let the sunshine in;
Mine eyes ache in this painful, petty light.
O Mary, there is spring-tide out of doors,
The hawthorn-buds are breaking. I have glanced
Down from my chamber casement on the moat
Deep, deep below, and there was shining green,
And turfy glimmer on the cold, grey rocks.
It must be blithe without.

Mary Livingstone
Round Holyrood
An angry people gathers. Dear my mistress,
Let the black hangings canopy your bed
As lowering thunder-clouds ...

Queen
You cruel girl,
Through the long, sombre record of the night
Did we not kneel? Altho' I fear the touch
Of the stone-tombs, did I make shortened prayer
For his unhouselled soul? Was I not broken
By the great dirge that rose for him?

Mary Livingstone
Ay, madam,
The dawn was white about us when we left
The Royal Chapel. You may put religion
Aside, and study vengeance.

Queen
For the dead
We will not cease to pray, and they shall never
Be absent from our thoughts. Give me the air;
I swoon again. It is captivity
To breathe in this close darkness.

(She faints)
Mary Livingstone
Let the light
Flood in on her!

Enter Lady Lethington and Mary Seton
Mary Seton
Alack, what little health
My lady has!

Lady Lethington
She must have heard the cries.

Mary Livingstone
Unpack your gossip.

Lady Lethington
Girls, there is a cartel
Set up, a wicked writing. Peace, she stirs.

Mary Livingstone
Stoop nearer.

Mary Seton
They have dared to name her name
With Bothwell's and the lady of Buccleuch's.

Queen
(Opening her eyes)
It is a dream. Yet tell me everything.
You all look reticent.

Mary Seton
But you will fall
Back into swoon for comfort.

Queen
Let me hear!
I shall not build on faintness for my help;
Rather on God, my Truth.

Mary Seton
In slanderous night
You were writ up . . .

Queen
A murderess. Make my pillow,
Now she has loosed the shutters. We shall need
Time to prepare our nerve. How firm the city
Holds to the land in sunlight! I am firm;
I shall not slip back into faint or drowse,
For anything they say within the street.
Fetch me his miniature.

Mary Livingstone
The king's?

Queen
I laid it
Beneath my psalter.

Mary Livingstone
Madam, here it is.

(They gather round the Queen as she gazes at it)
Queen
His eyes are touchstones: I have thrown mine wide;
They blench not from his portrait any more
Than from his white, blind body. As I stood
Below the feet, my grief was turned by death
To stone of wonder: it was marvellous
I saw what once embraced me, spoke my name,
Wronged me, and wept me back. That awful hand—
Impossible to think of!—wedded me;
On that small piece of sculpture, once his mouth,
I had expended kisses. . . . Then the past
Grew void; I could not weep:
Yet be my witnesses I meet his eyes.
How dead you lie about me! Take the picture.
You say the Earl of Bothwell is accused
Of helping in this deed?

Lady Lethington
'Tis said he wrought
The very murder.

Queen
(Rising).
Girls, there have been days
On which the king, my husband, spoke such insult
I could have plucked the sky down on his head:
Lord Bothwell never hated him, no cause
Of quarrel lay between them, no distrust,
No memories, and no shame.—A throstle, hark!
Sing, sing, keen bird! Oh, I forget myself;
My anger is an impulse at my throat
As piercing as your love!—Can punishment
Take aim, when the Lord Admiral and I
Are found in fault? I recollect the eve
Of David Riccio's murder as a point
From which my new suspicions dart on those
Who hide behind detraction. What strange spell
Is fixing me to gaze on Kirk o' Fields,
On that black, hollow spot? The noon has altered;
Close up the shutters. I have never seen
A world so sullen . . . and you say my name
Is on the Tolbooth? If I bend my ear
I catch hoarse cries; I could not suffer hate;
That buzzing frenzies me.—Of all this evil
There is no fraction in my soul. It seems
As if I stood amid a roaring crowd,
Till to my deafened senses the vile tumult
Seems to arise within. Am I a ghost
To pace yon uninhabitable rooms,
Where I put on my silver-broidered gown
Hardly a week ago, and trimmed my hair
The newest fashion, softly brushing it
Clear from the temples? I must leave this haunt
For Seton.

Lady Lethington
With Lord Bothwell?

Queen
He shall mind
My boy; all people shall have knowledge how
I rate their libel—the one, honest man,
Who in his eagerness to do me service
Almost waylays my thoughts. Argyle and Huntly,
With Lethington, shall give me private escort
To my deep country home, where I can live
Retired, and watch the willows' glinting buds.
I have a captive's instincts, and already
Anticipate small pleasures with a passion
Intemperately ardent. (Looking out)
Who is that
Rides hither from the High Street? Shame! The earl,
Guarded by fifty men; his hand is moving
Above his hilt. Close up the shutters—darkness!

Scene II

—Edinburgh; Moray's lodging: a meal laid on the table—Moray solemnly pacing up and down; he stops and looks toward St. Giles'
Moray
A godly city! Up and down the bruit
Of murder spreads; they name her by her name,
She is at last proclaimed. How I have watched
The will of heaven, as a blank sentinel,
Set on a tower before the lurid sky,
Who keeps his station howsoe'er the clouds
May burthen or discharge. I am exempt
From any portion in this infamy;
As David's son, restrained by Providence
From bloody acts, that he with stainless hand
Might rear the temple-walls, I am withdrawn
From sight and warrant of unholy deeds,
Which being done advance me and the cause
Of Christ's religion. How I lean on Him,
Feeling within a kingship sure as His,
Founded on righteousness.
Enter Lethington
The time is near.

Lethington
What, wrapt in doubt, my lord! I little thought
When we got rid of that untoward, young fool,
There would be such excitement on his death.
A fool is not so rare that one must miss him,
And mourn his loss, and give him wild farewells,
As 'twere impossible to find his like.

Moray
So royal a victim: but what gives me cause
For gravest apprehension is the fact
That the queen's name is touched with obloquy.
The hand that flared along the palace-wall
Hath penned the Tolbooth cartel: they are doomed—
Adulterer and adulteress.

Lethington
Devilish lies!
The queen acts in a noble childishness
Of unsuspicion, ready to espouse
Whoever is accused, since she herself,
So rankly charged, is wholly without fault.
At Seton now she wears her olden smile;
It makes me happy that we widowed her
To see her beauty peep again as gay
As the young gorse when fire hath harried it;
But while she freshens in the country wind
The Canongate grows ribald.

Moray
It affirms
The simple truth: my sister, Lethington,—
I knew it at the hour of Riccio's death,
And therefore stayed not my avenging hand—
Is full of amorous charms and subtlety;
And will not rest till she has brought her crown
To shame with her idolatry and lust.

Lethington
Well, 'tis an aspect and a possible
Solution of occurrents, though I own
That I mislike it. The ambassador
Will dine with us to-night?

Moray
Yes, Killigrew.

Lethington
Then we must play our parts.

Moray
I have desired
Lord Bothwell's company; in entertainment
He may declare his wickedness: we find
In Scripture that the feast will oft expose
Unguarded bosoms. The Lord Chancellor
Makes up our number.

Lethington
As a merry five,
Who know the merit in their purposes,
Let's drink and talk as 'twere before the fall.
You move uneasily.

Moray
I would be private
'Till the appointed hour.

Lethington
Yet look not black
To very guiltiness!
Exit Moray

Truly, murder is like the small-pox; those infected, if
they be of sound habit, may recover, and no blemish on
their skin; others there are—it will be up hill down dale
with their complexions to their lives' end. . . . My good
compeer suffers religion to play duenna to his soul; her
presence gives warrant to the offences 'tis her office to
ignore. He spied Morton from the window. These two are
confederate; there is the make of a ruler in either, and
for my part John Knox's Monstrous Regiment of Women

has my sanction. Women cannot govern, being under
the dominion of a god. Melvil told her roundly it would
be in her a gross oversight to marry a man full of all
vices: she said she had no such thing in her mind, and
came to me for illumination. I told Melvil to retire
diligently before dinner, since we should all shortly be
killed if Lord Bothwell had bruit of the business; and
for her—I looked dreamily at the damask in her cheeks.
She is devoted to destruction and she knows it not.
Re-enter Moray with Morton
Yet to be put to sea by Dan Cupid in a cockboat
is no mean fate. The merchant-ship lades and unlades
her cargo with care. Traffic and weariness! Perchance
it were wiser to rock on the waves and sink. (Aloud)

Well, gentlemen, the latest rumours?

Morton
We must stand by him, bear the matter through.
The queen is branded fiercelier every hour,
And every hour with fiercer lavishness
Pours honours on the earl.

Moray
Hush, hush! His step.

Lethington
Not stealthy as a murderer's. Do not keep
A visage so discordant. We must greet
Our willing instruments.
Enter Bothwell
Good even, earl,
An hour ago I crossed you unperceived,
Mounting the Castle Hill. How well your looks
Sustain your innocence! Calumniation
Slinks in the rear at menace of your loud
And angry voice; the blithe temerity
Of your undaunted brow and liberal stride
Themselves are witness to you.

Bothwell
We shall see
At the assize, the queen shall promise me,
Who will look blithe and who will hang the face.
Old Lennox pesters her.

Moray
If you are cleared
Of the aspersion . . .

Bothwell
If—what? Stand by me
Or I will blab; I have the queen's own ear;
The streets are filling with my retinue,
And every hour my conscience drops a load.
That marriage with Jane Gordon—she petitions
For a divorce, and she shall have it too.

Moray
Peace! The ambassador!
Enter Killegrew
Most noble guest,
You were more welcome were we not persuaded
Your mistress' anger at a crime so strange
And horrible that it confounds belief
Speeds you to Scotland.

Killegrew
An incredible
Calamity.

Lethington
It has transfixed us all.
Two days and nights we doubted, charged the skies
With brewing thunderbolts, uptore the earth,
Found in its entrails no betraying store,
And finally as men, baulked at all points,
Betook ourselves to slander. Such invention
There hath not been, such malice of hot minds,
Since Adam first was tempted to assign
His trespass to a lady. The result . . .

Bothwell
Humph! I will put to silence this abuse,
This setting up of placards, tickets, bills
Of defamation. I have found a cartel
Reeking in red that names me murderer:
By heaven, I'll give them taste of their own blood
Who thus confront my eyes with effigies,
And keep my ears a-simmer with the cry
Of devil, witch . . .

Moray
Remember, gentlemen,
My sister's honour.

Killegrew
There the point that touches
My noble mistress; not for the world's wealth
Would her pure breast conceive impiety
Of any prince that breathes: hence she implores
That were the man found guilty of this crime
Her nearest friend . . .

Bothwell
We would convict him straight.
I have myself o'erturned the blackened stones
Of Kirk o' Field, and to the unsmirched corse
Paid honourable rites.

Moray
Around our princess
Were clustered her most faithful counsellors;
No traitor in the camp. I left her thus,
A month ago, being summoned to St. Andrews
By my sore-travailling wife: while by her side,
Assiduous to assuage, a messenger
Burst in and turned my conjugal distress
To fear and passion for the commonwealth.
No clue, no clue, though I have passed my time
Among the preachers, praying openly
Of God both to reveal and to revenge.

Morton
'Tis all conjecture; lacking evidence
We must refrain from judgment.

Bothwell
I will clear
My name, and quickly

Lethington
(Apart to Moray)
Would indeed we all
Had bosoms as transparent.—Good our host,
Methinks your dinner cools.

Moray
True, I have guests.
Be seated friends. (To Killegrew)

We are your mistress' servants
In all, and to her health and to the blest
Conjunction of these realms—we drink. A pledge!

(They drink, except Bothwell)
Morton
(Apart to him)
Drink to your blest conjunction.

Lethington
England holds
Our choicest hopes, and our young church in her
Must find a nursing-mother. (To Bothwell)

Earl, we find
Such comfort in your confidence to wipe
Stain from your honour and that dearer name
That is the treasure of our loyalty,
We drink to your acquittal.

Bothwell
Ay, the queen!
Couple my name with hers and I am blest.
God love her! Gentlemen, he is a traitor
Who harbours of the queen an evil thought.

(They drink)

Scene III

—Seton; the great hall
Mary Seton and Lady Lethington
Mary Seton
Methinks she grows each day more beautiful;
There's change, and when I go to waken her,
She is not lying dormant in her grace,
But ready for me, leaning toward the window
With her great, buoyant eyes; she has such talk
Of stars above the city seen at dawn,
Like flowers in blow, so round and luminous
They are a joy to look on; and the birds
Keep her alert from daybreak. Like a child,
With a soft wildness in serenity,
She lies, and I must love her.

Lady Lethington
Recollect,
Among the daffodils of Inchmahome
You found her perfect; she forgot too soon
When the young robins died. I thought her hard.

Mary Seton
She was not hard to the rough city-cries;
As often as they reached her she bent down,
And sobbed through heaving shoulders.

Lady Lethington
She neglects
Her broidery-frame for shooting at the butts;
'Tis ill advised.

Mary Seton
To take physicians' counsel?

Lady Lethington
But her dule!
At Seton she discards her heavy veil,
And glides, a shepherdess, among the trees,
Her head so lightly covered that the wind
Raises and drops her hair. It vexes me
More than aught else to see her noblemen
Gather together in a knot, while she
Carelessly paces up and down the sward,
With the Lord Bothwell as ambassador.

Mary Seton
He brings her tidings of the prince.

Lady Lethington
Ah, so;
If you believe it.
Enter the Queen and Bothwell
They will cross the room.
Seton, she lets him lead her by the hand.

Queen
This slander that is just hypocrisy
At gossip with dame malice in the sun!
Since you will have it so, an open trial!
Let your accusers look upon your brow;
They shall be summoned to the Tolbooth—there
To meet you, happy that you are a man
With sword to finger. When you are acquitted,
The traitor who still doubts you in his heart
Shall answer to your challenge, and myself
By regal proclamation stamp you pure:
For I have strangely felt about my heart
The blight of sudden, outward blackness cast
By winds, from who knows whence, upon my name.
I must be merry, or the withering threads
Would show among my hairs! This world of grass,
The sappy buds, and of the luting birds . . .
I run into the springtide for my trial;
The dews and lights acquit me. Yet, my lord,
The knowledge that another has been covered
With like suspicion, one who will be strong
To make men cry Not Guilty, is a pleasure
Beyond the voice of earth which sanctions all
That I can prove of innocence. Remember,
We are companions, and you fight for me
Slaying our accusation.

Bothwell
Gracious queen,
I am unworthy . . . I can only stablish
A point of law, an alibi.

Queen
Enough!
What twisted minds will after that dispute
Our foreignness to guilt. (To Mary Seton)
Here, sweet, unpin
My little hat of taffety.

Bothwell
(Apart
Amulets
Are always small, yet work on fate and hell:
That charm, that bit of black and feathered stuff,
Amid the glints of hair, is masterful
O'er sense and and reason—I could kiss the thing,
And half possess the owner: such distraction
Shoots from a trifle in a woman's dress,
If she conjure it to be beautiful
By what she is herself. That little hat!

Queen
I long to see you triumph! You must ride
Straight down the High Street back to Holyrood,
With flying banners. Is there anything
Can give you warrant of my favour? See,
This sleeve of my own stitching.

Mary Seton
Pardon, madam,
You wrought it for the king: it was not worn.

Queen.
But he shall wear it who alone of all
My subjects never quarrelled with my lord,
But served him with a loyal constancy
No variable humour could remit. (To Bothwell)

Take this and cherish it as you have heard
Its history.

Bothwell
It would not fit my wrist.
Will you not broider me another sleeve,
With Kiip Trest, my own motto, for device,
So I be found by judgment of my peers,
Worthy such wondrous, condescending love?

Queen
I will not wait their verdict. To my silks
The first o'erclouded day! Farewell, my lord.
Exit Bothwell
Girls, you have stubborn brows, and, I must think,
Sweethearts among the Tolbooth renegades;
You stand as very elders of the kirk,
So rigid and admonishing. Go, play
Out in the sunshine; I will rest awhile:
Give me the amber cushions.
Exeunt Maries
'Tis for wrath
I weep, for very wrath; such hardihood,
And none conceive his stature! Ah, in all
A man, how he evokes my womanhood!
I have not dreamed so since I saw him first
As captain of the Scottish Guard in France.
How I remember!—for his hair and beard
Were brown, of colour like a squirrel, brighter
A little than his skin's deep-shadowed brown;
And it was magic to me how his eyes
Were grey with purple rims: my Maries then
Could see no beauty in his resolute,
Gashed brow, and hasty lips. I trusted him,
And turned me over many a night to dream
How he had dragged me from my enemies.
Ah, then, what golden rills
Of youth coursed through me, sudden bounties, gifts
Of goodness, incommensurable joys
That never had an issue. And to think
The name I honoured in my childish thoughts,
And wove my visions of . . . O monstrous world!

Re-enter Lady Lethington
Lady Lethington
Madam, the earl your brother is arrived,
And craves to speak with you—he stays without.

(She ushers in Moray and retires)
Moray
My dearest sister.

Queen
You return at last!
James, you have tarried cruelly in Fife,
And left me helpless in a ring of foes
Invisible. I know not who they are,
Who thus entoil me in mysterious,
Fresh hate: the principalities of hell
It seems are loosed against me. You are come,
I trust, to lay the storm of evil tongues,
And speed the trial.

Moray
If there were a way . . .

Queen
Be bold.

Moray
I cannot. Yet if you were truly
A Protestant—within the Bible leaves
There is an awful word . . .

Queen
Such tenderness
Is no wise to my mind. Since slander now
Shrieks on the housetops, let the truth be spread
From vantage as surpassing.

Moray
God Himself
Averts his eyes from such iniquity
As were exposed, if, with too pitiless
A zeal to punish, we laid bare the facts.

Queen
Whom can they injure? Noble names are hurt
In this unchecked suspicion: let me hear
The worst you can disclose. You have a gaunt
And hollow paleness, almost of the tint
Of very guilt itself.

Moray
I suffer, Mary.
It is incredible! Now God forgive
My weakness that I cannot bear the truth.

Queen
Dismiss this speech of broken sentences,
These peddling prayers that turn asquint to hell.
Arraign yourself! If through your ancient hate
To that poor, murdered boy, you could not brook
To see in place of kingship, you so far
Stooped as to mix in the conspiracy
For his undoing, speak!

Moray
(Apart)
A subtle Guise!
Mary, I am not come here to condemn—

Queen
That is my office, when the criminal
Hath made confession. Then you knew of this
From the beginning? Do not lower your eyes;
It was your way of vengeance for his fits
Of pouting insolence, to get him strangled,
My Henry, in his bed at Kirk o' Field?
You had no pity—such a very boy!
O vile—as your own origin! To think
That I have called you brother, set you up
As tutor to my youth . . .

Moray
I hold the keys
Of life and death to you—take note of that!
There is a ruin as of yawning hell
In which I can engulf your paramour.
Be patient! Cease from railing. You might hoot
From your own palace windows—the reply
Would be an execration. Mary Stuart,
Look in your heart, or, if you will not, turn
Your face and in that mirror recognize
Your husband's murderer. The accomplices
I will not question; to my heart it sticks
That you are tottering underneath a load
Of murderous guilt and lust so infinite . . .

Queen
Lust! Have you lost your senses?

Moray
So extreme
I cannot extricate you, cannot hope
To save you from the executioner,
If you confide not your whole sin to me,
And suffer me to arbitrate.

Queen
What sin?
I know not any sin. I am distraught.
Who are in league against me?

Moray
Do not fear
That death by stoning that the church declares
Your portion. If you heartily repent
Your former life, desist from your affection
For the Lord Bothwell— (The Queen makes an indignant movement)
Stay, you will not do't,
I know: therefore I must abandon you,
I must retire, and learn in Italy
That you have lost your kingdom.—Do not move!
I know your madness and persistency.
The time is come that I must give you up
To Satan for a season; while in peace
I spend my exile.

Queen
James, you frighten me.
Has Knox been dinning this into your brain?
Stay with me, let me understand. Protect
The earl—he is most innocent.

Moray
Alas,
You dare not plead I should extend protection
To your fair, ruined head.

Queen
You must not go.

Moray
Will you not suffer it? Must I remain
To have my blood shed in the open streets?
Lord Bothwell sets a price upon my life.

Queen
He has a violent temper. You must go;
But—then what is to follow?

Moray
Kiss me, Mary;
For all my life I would not have you guess
The wild work of the morrow. Fare you well.

Scene IV

—(Holyrood; by a window of the palace. The Queen and Lady Lethington
Lady Lethington
The space is over-packed with life—heads, heads,
And further heads: while everywhere, like stalks
Lifting proud flowers, the horses raise their men
Gaily above the citizens. These vassals
Of Hepburn have fine seat. The Douglas banner
Is coming forward; there is Morton's hat
A-peek above his eyes. The fussy sunshine
Makes Bothwell's trial seem a great event.

Queen
To clear one's name is signal and of gist
More grave than other actions. Think of it!
Lord Lennox, the accuser, is ashamed
To show his face, and speak his proofless charges,
Yet would delay his victim's just acquittal
From world-estranging slander. This live noon
Is almost welcome as if I myself
Were coming out of cloud.

Lady Lethington
There is a sway
Of faces toward the courtyard.

Queen
Ah, to shine
Clear as the light before those Argus-eyes,
That zealous crowd!

Lady Lethington
Earl Bothwell!

Queen
He is laughing,
And yet he is not—'tis so quickly gone:
His carriage is defiant, though he bends
As if to justice that's invisible.
Who rides alongside? Morton!

Lady Lethington
With the grin
Of some heraldic lion; a golden man,
Complexioned like his hoards.

Queen
And on the left
Who rides behind?

Lady Lethington
It is my husband, madam.
How cross his lips! He had a weary night,
And took no breakfast. He shall throw me favours:
To-day he kissed me inattentively
The first time since our marriage. (She waves)
He is riding
As if asleep. But, see, Lord Bothwell looks.

Queen
His sovereign's hand shall greet him (She waves) (Apart)
How his joy
Shot up like a first flame when it ignites.
(To Lady Lethington)
The earl is strangely altered—pale, across
His brow a sullen mark.

Lady Lethington
It is the scar
He got in youth when recklessly he stole
The English gold; and sometimes agitation
Will make such hurts flare red.

Queen
Within an hour
A page shall seek the Tolbooth and bring news
How justice prospers.—What triumphant noon!

Scene V

—The Hall of Seton Castle
Enter Morton and Bothwell
Morton
Where have you been, my lord?

Bothwell
A walk. The air
In country places helps me to make plain
My meshed and beating project to myself.

Morton
Last night I hardly slept at all, so joyous
Was Ainslie's wine within me. We are pledged,
By our rare tavern-fellowship, the greeting
We gave to your acquittal, the attention
With which your high proposals met our ear,
Across the cups and bounty of your feast,
To back you as the husband, for the queen,
Of our best, native choice: but you must play
The forthright wooer.

Bothwell
Ho! I need no lesson
In woman-winning.

Morton
Have you yet come near
Your proposition to her?

Bothwell
She has been
At mass this Sunday or in company;
Our elemental question to the sex
Forms not except in private.

Morton
(Glancing down a passage)
Man, she comes.
I meet her not too frequently; her eyes
Grow crystal points in scrutiny of one
Long absent from the court.

Exit
Bothwell
I have a fear
Before her, a firm seizure of my speech,
That dams up fate and passion. She is won—
Not as was Anna Throndssön, nor my dame,
Jane Gordon, nor the buxom waiting-girl,
Delighted Bessie Crawford: these were thrown
By my mere, single energy; it takes
Ancestral forces, bone-bred vehemence,
To compass what my fathers lusted for
In fiery years ago.

Enter the Queen
Queen
Help me, my lord;
I am in doubt and pain: all day my guards
Have had ill-brows about me. Yonder sky
Of wind and darkness cannot match the looks
These arquebusiers venture. On my word,
I am defenceless if they mutiny,
Save for your valour, Hepburn.

Bothwell
Hark! Their growls!
Madam, the varlets come. Rest tremorless,
I will obstruct this insolence.

Enter Arquebusiers
1st Arquebusier
We need;
Give us our pay.

2nd Arquebusier
Or we will use our weapons
To do offence.

3rd Arquebusier
Money! Our silver pay!

Bothwell
(Seizing the ring-leader)
Choke down your greed, you villain! Pay and hire!
You dun a lovely majesty as if
She held the common purse. A beggar, clipt
By fortune of all gear, would have a sense
Less ribald than you show. Advance one step—
All shall be hanged as traitors, and the boughs
Swing heavier favours than their leaves above
The daylit ground to-morrow.

Queen
Do they lack,
And feel the nip of that which is to us
A winter—empty pockets? They shall have
Two florins each, the utmost a crowned lady
Can find within her coffers.

Bothwell
Do you hear?
No jolting me, no rescue of this rogue,
Your frothy leader, till I let him free,
His wind-pipe swollen. Your queen is merciful,
And honours you with silver, who deserve
Cord for your noise.

2nd Arquebusier
Down with the payment then.
No promises!

Queen
It is with grievous sorrow
We take in such distrust.

Bothwell
Hence, quit the room.
The chancellor will give you audience duly
At eight o'clock. Why, why! I say begone!
And when I say it, go!

2nd Arquebusier
The bully!

Bothwell
(Loosening the leader's throat with a shake)
March,
With inclination to the graciousness
That spares to trounce your swerving. Out, I say,
And to your places!
Exeunt Arquebusiers
They have vanished.—Oh,
You flutter like a star through widow'd black,
That night-hood round the pallor of your face!
You had been undefended in this strait,
Except for my bluff service.

Queen
Which we thank.
Such rancour in my household was disclosed
So suddenly it shook me.

Bothwell
My loved queen,
The men you rule are heady as the blasts
That veer about our hills, and weariness
Of colour in your beauty testifies
The hard pitch of your toil. Take thought how far
A close devotion manly at your side
Would comfort and disburthen you, a love
Obedient and executive,—as always
Your general is the actor of your wrath
When deeds to do must be unwomanlike.
(Apart)
She doth not flush; the crystals in her cheek
Are growing sharp and brilliant.—All the land
Sighs at your lonesome task; your nobles join
To urge you to more livelihood of health
Than moping labour brings you. . . . There is none
To whom you have more lent in condescension,
More trusted with those offices that irk
The English foe than—
(Suddenly throwing himself before her)
I confess the fact;
I love you with a man's love, deep as hell,
Wild as the sea's for earth. My life has been
Spent under hatred, solitude, misfortune,
But ever with a singleness of hope
To serve you in the highest.

Queen
(Distractedly)
I am struck,
As if the roof had fallen.

Bothwell
What, you can wonder
That men should throw whole years of loyalty
Beneath your feet as trash, you masterpiece
Of world's enchantment; who in gait and speech
Are lovelier than the beauties of old praise;
Your steps surpass their kisses, and your voice
Makes their best glance unwished for.

Queen
Are you mad?
Well may you kneel: my other noblemen
Have trespassed out of hatred, or at least
Indifference to my reign. I have not found
The insult of base love in any one,
Save you alone. I am a widow, scarce
Of two month's dule, a murder's remnant—you,
A man but nine months married to a lady
I first bespoke as friend. How dare you rouse
The Bruce within me, the untempered fire
Of king on king I carry to the grave
In pledge of my descent? Henceforth, be sure,
You are an exile from my confidence.
Banished again! What reason do I find
In Arran's frenzy, which accused your faith
As liegeman to your princess! Self-condemned,
You may not hope for mercy from my doubt.
(Apart)
How still he is, how still!—We do not need
Your convoy or attendance as we journey
Through Lothian on the morrow. To remain
Even where you are displeases us. Goodnight.

Exit by inside door
(Bothwell rises and stands straight up without the least motion)
Bothwell
This woman! Somewhere she has pledged my soul;
We have drunk wine together on some bare,
Brown hill of chaos, while the wanton lights,
Young meteors flaming lawless through the heaven,
Peered at our rampant revel. We were one
Before the stars were broken to their spheres;
Part of the huge, unsevered element
When day and darkness hugged. I know that far
Below the rise of rivers, underneath
The sowing of the mine's unfathomed seed,
There was this sunken bond. She flings me now
Contempt, my lass, my lass! What should we find
In woman but the lavish side of God,
Before the thought of judgment crippled Him,
When He was soft, creative, fostering, free?
Contempt, contempt! Night's stinging moments spin,
And stir me to an act: the regicides
With their dismaying weapons shall have done
By far less intimate irreverence
On majesty than I in person dare.
Hell will be puzzled what to do with such
As I shall show myself, it has no code
That can entangle me, no quarter builded
That might immure my unimagined courage,
No flames to equal mine. The royal witch,
She sought to disenchant me in the guise
Of formal coldness, she the beauty, she
The madding, unfoiled beauty. How the air
Dreads me, I breathe on lion-like! She has said
She needs no convoy! I will furnish one:
She must with me the merry, downward way,
Where demons cackle. I will meet my bride
At Foulsbrigg with an army. This contempt
Is an infectious plague!

Exit by outside door

Scene VI

—Dunbar; a room opening on the courtyard. Lethington is discovered guarded by Blackadder
Lethington

So we are captives!

Blackadder

With the queen's consent: 'tis her doing.

Lethington

It was her grace's command that she should
be met at Foulsbrigg, that her bridle-rein should be turned
by Lord Bothwell, her people disarmed and led captive to
Dunbar! All this is of her connivance!

Blackadder

Well, she provoked it. A lack of gunners
on the walls gives permission to enter the keep. I pray
you let not my lord find you in this temper, or, I advertise
you, you will get but slaughter at his hands.

Lethington

You give honest counsel. I have already
had contest for my life; if my sovereign lady had not
laid her white hands upon my breast, I had perished like
Riccio at her feet.

Blackadder

I must now release my lord Melvil.

Lethington

And detain an honest penman, a poor
secretary, worth no man's malice? I shall scratch the
stones with my sonnets if you do not deliver me.

Blackadder

I doubt not, when you have slept on this
business, you will devise a method of escape. Mr. Secretary,
I shall not too narrowly observe you. 'Tis the lady
must be guarded for my master with all vigilance.

Exit
Lethington

Will that villain mishandle her? Morton
blurted out the miscreant had hope to be her bridegroom,
and I let it pass. By heaven, I am persuaded responsibility
lies about the purlieus of inaction. The stripping
thieves may be corrigible; the core of evil is in the eye of
the Levite. (Pacing.)
A pretty adventure for St. Mark's
Even, the April sunshine tracing my prison-bars against
the wall. I have been an unfaithful witness; but my
sovereign lady shall never know of my infamy: for I had
as lief speak of the base things of my nature to God as to
a woman. There are vaults for the lodging of vileness:
bats are but birds of a sick conscience. Yet I know not
why I should take on me the whole enormity of her perdition,
seeing she is wrecked of her own nature, as our
first Mother, though the snake lay in the grass. Would
that Eve had been longer in the tutelage of the serpent,
and refrained from blabbing to her husband of matter that,
delicately handled, had secured her supremacy! But a
woman can by no means keep a good thing to herself.
My mistress stuffs every smile with incomparable favours.
Then to repulse him!—That repulse has been her ruin.
Let a woman set the man who loves her at her left hand,
if she crave a fiend for her torment. Alack, she has
lost God's favour, her own reputation, and the hearts of

all England, Ireland, and Scotland. All hearts? Yes, she
has lost them all; but she has covered me, the chameleon,
with the very hue of her misfortune. I am hers till death.
She shall undo me slowly.

Scene VII

—Dunbar; a chilling, gusty April afternoon: the Queen is seated in a window-seat, overlooking the sea
Queen
(Glancing toward the door)
But this is surely how they turn the key
Upon a captive! What strange dealings now
Would fortune have with me? Ah, the blithe morn
We journeyed here escaped from Holyrood!
This is the very room, where I, a' hungered,
Ate the fresh eggs, and sang for simple joy
Of liberty, while our good host looked on,
A great God love her! in his glowing eyes.
To-day he had another look; he pulled
My bridle-rein, and I forbore to strive;
As in a fortress, when they hear the step
Of foemen climbing up the secret stair,
They make no more contention on the walls.
I listen at the heart . . . Oh, foolishness!
In all that ragged country of wild sea
There is no comfort for the eye until
It rests upon the solemn light-house rock,
Whence light will issue, as the darkness spreads,
And found a safety for the mariner:
My good Lord Admiral has been to me,
In my perplexed and tempest-beaten life,
So sure a lode-star.
(The door is unlocked)
Enter Bothwell
Had you entered softly,
My earl, you would have heard me praising you;
But what new danger is a-foot that thus—
Pardon, my lord!—as a rough borderer
You intercepted us as we rode back
To Holyrood, and, darkly hinting peril,
Made us your sudden guest?

Bothwell
(In a low mutter)
And prisoner.—Why,
There are some dangers that you must not know;
We keep the details from a princess' ear
Of meditated treason. You are safe
Within these walls . . . most safe from all pursuit,
And rid of evil counsellors.

Queen
How safe?
Safe! That was Ruthven's cry; I was secure
When my robe bore a streak of Riccio's blood,
When my child leapt in terror! Safe . . . from whom?

Bothwell
From meddling intervention, from the need
Of playing widow, and, in policy's
Dull phrase, refusing me your hand. My love,
Now are you safe from the confederate eyes
Of blinking, envious gossips. The blank sea
Before us—look at it!—a pure, white sheet;
No cipher possible: yet in its sight,
Its unrecording sight, there shall be action
Would bring great kings to key-hole of that door
Were there but bruit of it: an enterprise
More hazardous and unappalled than aught
On earth attempted. Can you not conjecture,
My beauty? 'Tis more telling in effect
Than in rehearsal. How your colour rises,
Blood-red as your carnations! Ah, more wonders!
I knew you would be wonderful the moment
I had you thus discrowned and unattended:
Like some great sight of nature you must be
Explored in solitude. How magical
The alteration in your lips and brow—
A fearful, fluttering woman! Oh, you needed
This sequestration, this harsh discipline
To bring you to your sense—mark the phrase!—
Your womanly, warm senses. Seated there,
By the chink casement high above the sea,
It is a throne that has but one descent,
One deep humiliation. You refused
So simply, absolutely all my proffered
And honourable homage . . . A fair princess!
The falcon to the prey; and what a quarry!
A queen? Aye, queen all over to the small,
Protesting foot that beats against my words.
Will you not deign a parley?

Queen
James of Hepburn,
Out of your mouth there shall not rise such words
As burn my cheek; for I have found no treason
In any of your actions.

Bothwell
None in this?
It has a fair complexion . . . What a sudden,
Sharp storm is rushing in! It covers you
With flecks of foam. I love the lashing wind.
(Putting up a shutter; then bending over her)
You thought I was the Lord High Admiral,
Sleek and submissive, fitting you a pinnace
To sail to Alloa, proud to steer your craft
Though the Lord Darnley were a passenger:
I am a pirate, and I take my pleasure
Thus, thus!
(Passionately seizing her hand and kissing her)
Oh, you are proud, you do not wince!
I pray you cry me mercy, for I have
No grace for those dark, alienated eyes:
I know they glittered thus on Châtelar,
Ordering the headsman. He insulted you,
You say; I urge he found you heavenly fair,
High, unattainable except by force:
He crept to you the lad's vile, sneaking way;
I take possession of you as a man.
Make free surrender, would you have my triumph
Unmixed with your despair. To gain my prize
I have made desperate havoc with events;
'Twixt me and my ambition you have set
Such obstacles! But I have hewn them down;
Now you alone stand between me and all
I covet.

Queen
The crown matrimonial?

Bothwell
I dare you mock me in the lisping tones
Of your young, craven dotard. I shall take
All matrimonial rights, all dignities,
And never harry you with petulance.
Do not fold down those lovely marble hands
As they would never tremble any more.
Breathe on me, touch me!

Queen
You would be a king,
Loaded with honour. 'Twas my husband's first
Entreaty the ambassadors should give him
Full royal title—hand-plight on the bond.

Bothwell
These dead, chill fingers!

Queen
(Rising)
Let us ride to town.

Bothwell
To-night?

Queen
This instant. There will be suspicion
I am detained against my pleasure, which
My subjects scarce will brook.

Bothwell
We will ride forth
Together when the briny air has given
My bride another cheek; two triumphing,
Young lovers. Curse this arid pensiveness;
Will nothing break you in? Why, I have seen you
Let your soft, ruddy hair blow in my face
As a flapped banner, you who banish me
Your smiles, your lips. Deep, dominating clouds
Are on your brow. I tell you, Marie Stuart,
If you bend on me those remorseless eyes
You will arouse the dull pangs of such hate
As kept the devil patient in the glades
Of Eden. I esteem you now a thing
To cow and trample.

Queen
One who doubted you
Less than all other creatures in the world,
My once-belovèd servant.

Bothwell
Ah, your tones
Have broken from their ice; the great, slow tears
Are come at last. Dearest, you have been wed,
Twice-wedded,—never loved.

Queen
Yea, on this wise,
How often by the king!

Bothwell
You shed no tears
On him, no great, unspeakable reproach;
He could not hurt you. O my soft-browed queen,
Have we not shared a secret, you and I,
On through your plighted bondage to the hour
Of your deliverance, and 'tis broken now
With terror, as the shaking up of tombs
Upon the day of judgment. Were you roused
After a dusty, unsuspicious sleep
A thousand years in Holyrood, and bidden
Go fetch your husband—would you dare unlock
The neighbour tomb?

Queen
Nay, but I do not doubt
With half-affrighted wits I should look out,
And bribe an angel to bring thitherward
My trusty earl . . .

Bothwell
O excellent caprice!
And with his arm around you . . .

Queen
I would say
In simple hardihood I loved the man,
I held him worthy, and to him would cling
Silent, the while my clamorous lords rehearsed
Their memories of me. Now indeed you laugh.
Ay, let us laugh together; yet I fear
These good men are conspirators: I could
Unfold my reasons, but to-night I tire,
As once before after too long a ride.
Send Melvil to me, it is growing dusk.

Bothwell
Melvil is gone.

Queen
I am right weary, cold,
And sick at heart. The flame is almost ash
Upon the stone. Go, fetch my women to me.
I would have rest and warmth.

Bothwell
Your maids are back
At Holyrood.

Queen
Then do you light the fire,
And bring me supper. O believe me, earl,
I know a prisoner's shifts; in my own palace
I and Argyle have broken bread together
For very hunger. Give me entertainment;
Retain the borderer's virtues: to a guest
Shelter and safe repose.

Bothwell
I will return.

Exit
Queen
To keep him human! 'Tis my single safety
To show him all my love; I ne'er have wanted
Resource. I will make speed to victory
Under the lowering heavens.
Re-enter Bothwell with firewood, food, and wine
Why, we are back
To simple manners, yet I keep my state.
You bring a light, and, see! my dripping cloak
Is a wet shroud about me.—Can you find
The clasp?—Unbuckle it, and set to dry:
Now make a ruddy blaze. Here at Dunbar
I must be merry, for I feel at home
In this great room with access to the air,
Free winds, and hurricane.

Bothwell
(Unclasping and shaking her cloak)
A stormy petrel
With spray upon her wings!

Queen
Now let us eat;
But, as a grace, if I have used you hardly
Think it my rash, quick temper, and forgive.
So now you have your will; at supper-time
I never can be formal: 'tis the hour
For much unburthening of the heart. My lord,
Would you but give safe-conduct to my speech . . . .

Bothwell
I will lie down low at your feet, and gaze
At your great beauty kindling in the flame,
With all the vaporous glooms about your head.
Ah, I grow humble in this happiness,
Your slave! But first, my despot, knot the smile,
The rare smile of your lips, into a kiss.

Queen
At my lips' leisure. I shall dream to-night
O' my babe asleep at Stirling. I would fain
Lay the boy in your keeping: we will plot
To-morrow how to make the claim on Mar.

Bothwell
Still ice these hands.

Queen
I have been much distempered
Of late—Will you not chafe them?—With no loyal,
True-hearted friend to be my counsellor.
O Hepburn, ill-suspicion drives me mad;
I could not toss an apple to my child
But they must snatch it from him. Lethington
Does not support me; I can find no way
Of pleasing my vexed subjects.

Bothwell
(Rising)
I could name you
A score of Scotland's weightiest, bonded men
To force you into marriage.

Queen
They are traitors.
Is it to save me from them you pursued
This morn your rough, unwarrantable course?

Bothwell
'Tis to enact their policy. At supper
One night at Ainslie's tavern I was host
To the good houses that acquitted me,
Moray, Argyle, Huntly and Cassilis—
You know the faction—Eglinton slipped off:
We fell to loyal drinking of your health,
Praise of your beauty, and Lord Huntly swore
I was your darling; ay, my mermaid, so
They painted you, with the eyes' furious flash,
Across the banner where with double thong
You beat the hounds off from your hunted love.
Your face confirms conjecture. To be brief,
My merry mates signed this.

(Presenting the Bond)
Queen
(Overlooking the page)
Not Eglinton . . .
Morton and Moray.—Where is Maitland's name?
We will consider these ill-worded clauses,
Conceived in wantonness, and, as our judgment
Directs, yield them response. Release my hand!
It was the earl's; I give no drunken suitor
Such privilege.

(She rises and goes to a window)
Bothwell
Affix your signature,
And then, the business of the day at end,
I will retire.

Queen
(Looking out)
There are no stars to-night;
I simply catch the roaring of the sea
When I look out. I used to call my mother
On nights like these—I was a timid child—
Till she refused to come, and bid me lie
And trust in God. I have learnt confidence;
No fear is in my soul.

Bothwell
Sign me the bond.

Queen
No, no; 'tis for my bosom,
A casket letter, a most precious scroll;
Let me peruse it fully. One by one
I shall learn all my enemies by name;
Never will I be parted from this bond,
This drunken, crazy prayer, this publican
And rank solicitation. Give me leisure . . .
My husband haunted taverns.

Bothwell
You were best
Call me your husband also—You look calm,
And smooth your ruffled laces while I speak—
Let us forget him! Come, let's clink the cups!
What is it scares you? There shall be a parson
To put us in the noose. I mean to rule:
Jane Gordon knows my tactics—a divorce
Grounded on our affinity; meanwhile . . .

Queen
(Descending from the window, where she has stood, reading the bond)
Will you bring candles; there is this to read;
'Tis a state-paper and of much concern.
No, put the wine away; my head is giddy;
I must be vigilant: set me a taper.
I shall be busy till the morning break;
Then come to me; you will find all prepared.
(Apart)
—Oh, trust me, I will tell a score of lies
To save him from this infamy.—I feel
A promptness and despatch. What, faint again!
You should have kept my women, for I fear
This sickness may be fatal.

Bothwell
(Supporting her)
Give me leave.
Marie, these tears upon me!

Queen
Nay, good-night.
I have no malice being nigh to death.
How strange it is! Are all the hangings black?
You used to love gay tapestry.

Bothwell
My queen,
Your mind is wandering; you need food and rest.
I swear I will not pester you; be calm,
Sleep safe till daybreak.

Queen
Then the warders come
And open. Ay, you asked me for a kiss.
Goodnight, good earl.

(She kisses him)
Bothwell
My pardon!

Queen
If I die,
All's fresh with morning. I must presently
Con this untoward paper. Leave me, earl;
You have no head for crises.

Bothwell
(Slowly retiring and glancing back doubtfully)
A great figure!
How all her youth is gone—I scarce desire her,
Sick and enfeebled; and the touch of scorn.
If she should circumvent me! We are both
In hell, which is but unfulfilment, power
Looking across a waste.

Exit
Queen
Throughout the night
No change of posture—I must weary him
With court formalities and Europe's front:
So dies the girl in me. Ah, God, I would
I were in Holyrood to close this breach
I' my honour by the headsman. Violence, threats!
What is there more to suffer? The young sea-mews
Wheel free about their nests, and, if they fall,
Dash bloody in the spray. I fear no ruin
That's sudden and precipitous—The bond!

(She lays it out before her; then falls into a fit of abstraction; her head bows over her hands, and she sleeps)

Scene VIII

—Dunbar: ante-chamber to the room in which the Queen is captive
Enter Bothwell
Bothwell
She leans her ear for ever toward the bridge
Across which press the armaments of wind,
But no leal rescue. I importuned her
Seven blank and awful days, until I breathed
Within a vacuum; the estrangement grew
So heavy, insupportable, I fain
Had murdered her to crush the anguish out,
But then I knew her smile would welcome death,
And leave me stunned and jealous. Once indeed
She flooded me with a wide gaze of love
Dazzling, forlorn: and I beholding it
Could make no sign,—it was as if a damned,
A new-damned soul had caught God's agony
At sight of the impenetrable fosse.
Since then I have not plagued her. Horrible
This lonesomeness, abandon! I have wandered
Two days among the gullies on the coast,
And watched the embattled breakers bursting through
Their narrow, counter archways in the rocks,
To heave together in a central mound
Of foam, then fall back in a refluent peace.
A stormy clash of marriage! Why this harass,
Withdrawal and exclusion? In her heart
She keeps the bounties of her nature guarded
For my attainment, yet suppresses them,
Wronging herself, polluting me. I never
Will take what is a rapture in the gift;
But force the tardy welcome in her blood
To speak truth to me, for there is a truth
Between us: I have lived on it from day
To stormy daybreak.
(To Paris who has entered with food and wine)
Paris, go within;
Say I have fallen from the cliff, and lie
Below stark in the courtyard. Do my will,
And leave the door flung open.
(Paris passes within)
(Listening and repeating the Queen's words)
He is dead!
How shall I wait the issue? There is pause,
And then a fond, low sobbing, and a cry—
(Springing to the open doorway)
My love, my love!