University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—Room in the Palace at Edinburgh.
Baliol, Abernethy, Sir John Cuming, Lady Donagill.
BALIOL.
It was even so—

LADY DONAGILL.
And from a lower place
Contemptuously up-cited—

ABERNETHY.
And my lands
Blown by the breath of his despotic mouth
Back from my grasp—

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Now, by St Andrew's cross,
Had I been scant of stuff to bicker with him,
I'd rather have unsandal'd both my feet,
And hurl'd my shoon into his English face!
Your grace was too forbearing—

LADY DONAGILL.
What, to stand
Amid his Parliament a mocking-stock,
Pillory'd up to view and staged to shame
Upon a scaffold so notorious!
It would have fever'd my weak womanish blood
Up to a frenzy!

ABERNETHY.
To be forced to hear
A sland'rous accusation volley'd from
A subject's traitor-throat!

SIR JOHN CUMING.
I would have raked
The inmost chambers of my brain for words
As bitter and as canker'd as the devil,
To batter at him;—marry, the King of Scotland,
Anointed as himself with as good oil,
William the Lyon's successor and heir,
Th'inheritor of good King Donald's glory,
Made thus a spectacle!—Fy, fy, 'tis foul;
Detestable and bitter to my soul,
As Styx's brimstone wave!
All this, my liege, proceeds from homage-doing;—
Tut, tut—a murrain catch all supple joints!
King Donald was a hero on his rocks;
His knees were as unbendable as boughs.
Of crabbed oak; they did disdain to stoop,
Except to gather limpets; by the mass,
He'd sooner lived for aye on barren Barra,
And breakfasted on crabs and perriwinkles,
Than fawn'd his gallant head into a crown
By cringing cravenly the knee.

BALIOL.
I stay'd not;
I took no leave; I hurried home abrupt,
From that affront, without the ceremony
That clogs and cripples monarchs.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Ere your highness
Had gone, thou should'st have snatch'd a burning torch,
And at her northern suburb lighted up
Proud London, with a prayer for Aquilo
To crack and burst his puffy cheeks upon't,
Till it shone out a bonfire.

ABERNETHY.
And we must,
Forsooth, sit here like whimpering school-boys dreading
Their master's lash—till Anthony de Bek
Come with his scourge of southern myrmidons
To whip degraded Scotland from her peace,
And me from my possessions.

BALIOL.
Be assured
He will be here.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
I smell his sweet arrival;
'Tis in the wind already, and provokes
My nostrils to abhorrence.

DONAGILL.
Come, defy him;
Command him pass not o'er our frontier,
Else war, the stiffest, sternest hostility
To him and to his lord.

ABERNETHY.
Down with subjection—
Away with fealty—let the winds take it—
And whiff and fritter it about the world,
Till it be worn to nothing, and evanish—
At least for Scotland.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Revoke is my advice;
Unswear, write out a scroll of revocation
In letters broad and blazing as the moon,
That the whole world may read; and should there lack
A saucy-visaged churl to be the bearer,
I'll be myself the post, and paste it up
On London Tower, maugre her million mouths
A-barking to devour me.

BALIOL.
'Tis all good:—
Were I to travel through the past again,
Better that act of homage were forborne.

ABERNETHY.
'Twas a forced act, imposed usurpingly
By one whose right was only impudence;
One who abused his trust of arbiter
T'obtrude his proud pretensions, and betray'd
Fair confidence, that heavenly stay of kings,
To his own selfish 'vantage.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
'Twas an act
Privately promised, and although perform'd
In public, it remains yet unconfirm'd
By necessary sanction of the States,
Without the which all individual deeds
Of majesty are nugatory things
Of no account or binding.

DONAGILL.
It hath been
Disclaim'd already by the public voice,
That hath been loudly clamouring upon it,
In mobs and riots up to th'palace-windows.

ABERNETHY.
True, true, the public voice hath growl'd upon it;
Here it should be respected.

BALIOL.
Reasons rise,
I do confess, many and plausible,
For th'abrogation of an homage-plight
Extorted with injustice, and therefore
Even by its origin invalidated.
Thereto, that last, shame-branding disrespect,
Across me with its adder-virulence
Comes ever stinging.

ABERNETHY.
Rest assured, whatever
Your grace determines, be it to remain
Liegeman to England, or t'abjure subjection,
Like sequel will accrue:—He will be here
In either case alike tyrannically
T'avenge and to enslave.

DONAGILL.
Far nobler, then,
Beseeming more our country's dignity,
T'anticipate him in the utterance
Of indignation, and t'example him
With frank defiance.

BALIOL.
Be it then defiance,
Though danger dangle o'er it.

ABERNETHY.
Let not fear
Depress the royal heart;—we have good swords;
France will abet us.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
France will holla to us,
And bid us beard the saucy chin of England,
Till every hair be agony.

DONAGILL.
Let letters,
Penn'd rich with the abjuration of knee-duty,
Sign'd with the glorious roundel of our names,
And flaming with the great seal's red impressure,
Fly straight to England.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Now, I do bethink me,
There is a man I know whose mould is cast
By very nature for their carrier;
A soul hewn from the bowels of the flint,
As sullen as December's rainy day,
Yet, when it likes him, as jocund as June;
As bold as boisterous Ocean in her chafe;
As fertile in fantastic stratagem
As the Old Serpent on a Christmas morn;
As callous-faced and imperturbable
As weather-beaten Mary in her niche;
One who can worm his wily way unscathed
Through a whole nation of mouth-grinning foes.

BALIOL.
Get him ready;
We'll have the writ of abjuration penn'd;—
He shall be sent forthwith;—I long to wreak,
Thus faced and fortified with your concurrence,
On England that contemptuous usage.

ABERNETHY.
Come, then,
Let us about it straight.