University of Virginia Library

SCENE VII.

—Hall in the Palace of Scoon.
King Edward, Baliol, Lords, &c. as immediately after Baliol's consecration.
KING EDWARD.
Now that the oil of unction has been rain'd
Upon thy head, King John, and thou art seal'd
By this most grave inaugurating rite,
As one of Europe's Kings, one like ourself,
By Heaven's great golden charter privileged
To walk on high upon the heads of subjects,
And wield thy comprehensive rod of rule
From Earth to Heaven, sans limit but the stars,
I do enjoin thee, in the name of England,
And by the rights, which in thy privity
Thou wottest well that sovereign name includes,
Stand forth, and quit thy conscience of the debt
Thou ow'st, of fealty and due subjection,
Contracted even by th'act of consecration,
To me as to thy liege lord paramount:
Make forth and do the sign.

SIR WILLIAM DISHINGTON
, (aside.)
Ah ha, subjection!
What means this foreign and contemptuous word
Within these walls, that never yet have echoed
To its report?

SIR DAVID WEMYSS
, (aside.)
England hath coin'd it fresh;
Our eyes anon shall minister its meaning;
Look ye and understand.

MACDUFF
, (aside.)
Humph! A compact!
An infamous and damnable collusion,
Apparent most in its most shameful sequel.

BALIOL
, (stepping forward.)
Here I do kneel before your royal grace,
Ere yet Heaven's oil be dry upon my head,
To testify, by deed indisputable,
Even to these walls, that they may whisper it
Down to a long posterity of kings,
My homage as a faithful feudatory
To thee, my true liege lord, from whom I hold
In fee fair Scotland's crown and seigniories.
I kneel and do the sign.

[Kneels to King Edward.
MACDUFF
, (aside.)
Infamy! Shame!

SIR WILLIAM DOUGLAS
, (aside.)
Alas! disgraced Scotland!

SIR MICHAEL SCOT
, (aside.)
Sooner might
Heaven's sin-avenging fire have scathed our eyes,
Than they had witness'd such an ignominy!

SIR DAVID WEMYSS
, (aside.)
Tell not abroad this scandal, lest the hand
Of some bold freeman stab us for the utterance.

SIR WILLIAM DOUGLAS.
Hence, hence, my friends! an evil breath from hell
Hath blasted this apartment.

ABERNETHY
, (to them.)
Mutterings here?—
Stand more aloof, lest I should hit their meaning.

KING EDWARD.
King John, I do accept this corporal sign
As testimony of your spirit's homage;
And in my mem'ry's records, and my country's,
As such shall book it and entreasure it.
And now, O King, and lords, as all this day's
Most capital king-sealing ceremonies
Have been completed in the sequence due,
That nought but celebration now remains
Of pastime and proud pomp of festival
Befitting kings, that are consorted thus
In solemn brotherhood, to give and take,
On an occasion of such grave import,
Adjourn we hence for a brief hour or two,
That we may recreate and fan our brows
With the wind-purged sky; and, from remission,
Strain more delight, and exquisiter relish
For the large joys that yet unopen'd lie
In the rich bosom of the afternoon.

MACDUFF
, (aside.)
Aspics, alas! and venomous worms, twine round
The root of this fallacious joy—to eat
The false leaves up, and leave a hideous stalk
Of rottenness and canker.