University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

SCENE I.

—Walls of Berwick.
Two Gentlemen.
FIRST GENT.
Good-morrow, sir, your watch is now relieved
By yonder sun, who now peeps glimmering out
From his half-open'd casement in the east;
See'st thou his dazzling forehead?

SECOND GENT.
I behold him;
He's welcome to take up his watch in heaven,
And chase us bedward from our nightly posts.
I am a weary wight with vigilance.

FIRST GENT.
Was there aught stirring in the midnight field?
Heard you or saw you anything ambiguous,
Which cautious men, yet wav'ring in suspicion,
Might as a sign interpret that the foe
Had not decamp'd and vanish'd to his land?

SECOND GENT.
There was nor sight nor sound within the wall,
Saving the bat that flapp'd, and mole that scraped,
Crumbling up idle hillocks to the moon,
Where, but three days ago, thick-planted tents,
Peopled with surly soldiers, iron-clad,
Humm'd terribly with menaces of war.

FIRST GENT.
I think King Edward be withdrawn and gone;
We have not seen an English pennon flying
Since Monday's vesper-bell, when all their host
Moved westward with the moon's sole privity:
And yesterday a hind from Cheviot Hill
Reported that he heard their horses' hoofs
All on a clattering gallop towards England.

SECOND GENT.
I pray to Heaven that herdsman's news be true;
So we may spend Good-Friday yet in peace,
And recreate our souls with heavenly thoughts,
Our bodies with good things.

FIRST GENT.
Look how the sun,
His burnish'd feet now leaning on the sea,
Scatters his shot of many thousand rays,
On the black bosom of the occident,
Where Night, as if unwilling yet to go,
Coils and drags in her slow-receding tail.
Morn makes a goodly prospect.

SECOND GENT.
She does so
To him whose eyes, fresh with the dew of sleep,
Search round for jolly sights; but to the wight
For-spent with weary watch, I ween, a pallet
Of rich soft chaff is sweeter.

FIRST GENT.
See! what glitters
Low yonder in the north, like golden lace,
Hemming th'horizon.

SECOND GENT.
Tut, a dozen or two
Of milk-maids, with their pails of polish'd tin
Upon their heads, approaching to the town
To sell their milky merchandize.

FIRST GENT.
Look, look,
It is no dairy matter; pails of milk
Are silvery in their light; but yonder gleam
Is yellow, and seems shotten back from brass
And points of sparkling steel.

SECOND GENT.
By Heaven, a host!—
I mark their banners in the morning shine:
Spears bristle; helmets wave; and heads of heroes,
Distinctly now develop.

FIRST GENT.
Hark the sounds
Appertinent to military march!
I hear the hautboy's clamour; it rides whistling,
Upon the wind.

SECOND GENT.
See'st thou yon midmost banner,
Highest afloat and brightest? Can thy gaze
Detect its arms and painted imagery?

FIRST GENT.
The Lion sure—

SECOND GENT.
A troop, a troop from Scotland,
Fast hasting to our aid.

FIRST GENT.
I see, I see,
The Rothes griffins flapping hitherward
Their broider'd wings! Our countrymen of Fife
Approach; I know their various bannerols:
Triumph and joy await us: Hoa, friends,
All hail, and merry welcome!

SECOND GENT.
Let us hence
T'admit them—

FIRST GENT.
Down anon, and heave the gates
Off from their hinges, to let in with joy
And flying banners our good hearts of Fife!
Heav'n bless our little kingdom! Hoa! coming.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

—Within the Gates of Berwick.
King Edward, De Bek, and Soldiers.
KING EDWARD.
Soldiers, 'tis gain'd; now, off with your disguises;
Away with your deceitful gabardines;
Down with your forged banners to the dust.
Be now yourselves and enemies; put off
All feignedness of face, and looks of lies,
And other foe-outwitting mummery;
But muster up into the mounting blood
Genuine wrath, honest hostility,
As edged and cutting as the steel it wields;
Convert your faces into flints; exclude
Each drop of milky mercy from your hearts,
That gentleness may be this day in heaven,
And cruelty hold revel upon earth.
Let the sword verify its temper now,
And smite, and spare not; let the self-same stab
That pins the infant, hugging at the breast,
Transfix the mother mortally; fair youth
Be saved not by her ringlets; and decrepit
Old age provoke the deadlier fell dispatch,
From his hoar pate and venerable ripeness
For a long-cheated grave; degree, age, sex,
Be huddled up in one huge slaughter-heap;
Let them all perish, for they all are Scottish;
That blasted name attaints them to the death:
Now then—branch forth, and parcel out the work;
Surrey, take thou the right; De Bek, the left;
Be mine the middle streets:—Let us all meet
Beside the garrison; Be that the crown
And glorious termination: Draw, my friends!—
On, on!

[Exeunt.
First Voice within.
Murder—oh mercy!

Second Voice within.
Ah, alas for him
That died to-day, sweet mercy, mercy, lord!

EDWARD'S
voice within.
Hew, hew them down, and spare not!

Confused voices.
Mercy, mercy!

SCENE III.

—Palace in Edinburgh.
Baliol, Abernethy, Donagill.
BALIOL.
Alas, my country, my dishonour'd crown!

DONAGILL.
O, be not quell'd, my lord, so easily;
Wind up your spirit to the Lion's pitch,
And set and keep it there heroically,
Till your insulting foe be counter-wrought
And backward spurn'd with shame into his land.
'Tis but a phantom this your degradation;
Let England's heralds, with their every trump,
Cry from your frontiers up unto the moon,
That you are but a fall'n and perish'd King.
Has their breath blown the purple from your back?
Sits not the crown as moveless on your head?
Is not the sceptre firm within your grasp?
Your people's love, does it not wrap you round
More warm than ever? Fy on these delusions!
Go, head your armies as the Lion did;
As your forefathers, with unshrinking sword,
Aggressors rather than repellers, plunged
Into the bowels of the rival land,
And hew'd out for themselves a reeking vengeance;
So do you—

Enter a Messenger hastily.
MESSENGER.
Fly, my liege! Edward has come
And handsell'd us with bloody butchery—
Hence, ere his sword o'ertake you.

BALIOL.
What has chanced
So horrible, and wild of character,
T'excuse such dreadful words?

MESSENGER.
Berwick is fall'n,
Destroy'd, dispeopled, drown'd in blood!

BALIOL.
Alas!
A fearful fell beginning.

MESSENGER.
O, my lord,
Heap, heap the dust upon thine honour'd head;
Exchange thy purple for the grave's sad crapes;
Weep for your murder'd subjects!

ABERNETHY.
Vengeance first,
Come Lamentation after; tell it all
Ere we cry Woe; and blench not to reveal
Its every terriblest particular,
That our excited and word-wounded ears
May kindle up our ireful hearts the hotter;
My hand is on my sword.

MESSENGER.
The men of Fife,
That had arrived to garrison the town,
Gallantly stood upon the environ'd walls,
Annoying with the tempest of their bows
The faces of th'assailants, that full oft
To rid them of that arrowy chastisement,
They turn'd in trepidation their mail'd backs
Towards the barbed shower; and, oftentimes,
Excursive from the gates in sudden sally,
The Scottish spearmen dash'd the English ranks
Into disaster, garnishing the field
With all the ghastly-glorious wreck of Mars—
Steeds, men, and arms, and banners of St George.
At last King Edward, desp'rate of success
From manly brunt of war, betook himself
To sneaking shifts of Grecian stratagem:
A day or two he to the hills retired,
Feigning departure; on the fourth, at dawn,
He re-appear'd with well-dissembled shields,
And counterfeited blazonry of banners,
As if a Scottish troop were from the hills
A-coming to relieve the straiten'd place:
Whereat the men upon the walls deceived,
Open joyously their gates; and in a stream
Let in their false-faced foes, that Sinon-like
Came cringingly, dissembling to destroy.
Too soon 'twas found that that admitted troop
Bore no fraternal greetings: In a moment,
Greetings of blood were given; a thousand swords
Burn'd from their sheaths, and in unguarded breasts
Housed their life-searching points.

ABERNETHY.
What, no death
Dealt back in recompence? Stood England whole,
Unscath'd with mortal detriment? O, tell me,
My squires of Fife gave wrathful retribution,
And I will hear in patience.

MESSENGER.
They were ta'en
At unawares; unarm'd from house and fort,
Forth had they rush'd as for a friendly meeting.
Their plated coats had not been buckled on;
Their swords were left behind them in their chambers;
They were beset with perils ere they list;
They fell an easy conquest: Ne'ertheless,
Despair to some gave arms and hardiment,
That in the threshold even of victory,
England did reel and stagger for a space.
At last her numbers and advantages
O'erbore unaided valour; like a flood
She swept the total city with destruction,
Encumbering all her vacancies with dead.
Houses were ransack'd to their topmost garrets,
For pastime to the sword; age-wither'd men
And bed-rid women from their pallets dragg'd,
Perish'd upon their hearths; th'inviolate cradle
To the poor sleeping babe was not a sanctuary;
Temples were cramm'd with murder'd worshippers,
Who died with blessed Jesu on their lips;
Jesu preserve us! cried they piteously.
Slay on, slay on! cried homicidal Edward.

DONAGILL.
O mercy!

BALIOL.
O my country! O the blood
Charged, charged to me most miserable!

ABERNETHY.
Fy!
Leave whimp'ring to our grandames; seas of tears
Redeem no lives; arms, arms redeem lost fame;
Go, let us study vengeance.

MESSENGER.
I did leave him
Throned on his mountain of slain innocents,
Exulting in the vast Aceldama
Created by his voice—

Enter a Second Messenger.
MESSENGER.
—Fly, fly, my lord;
Edward is at our heels with fire and sword;
'Tis time to hurry upward to the hills,
And interpose between you and his wrath,
Mountains, and friths, and rivers!

BALIOL.
More disaster?
Was not the first enough, that thus a second
Comes backing it with quick succession so?
O utter all at once, and press me down
With large accumulation of despair!
I am prepared for falling.

SECOND MESSENGER.
May my Lord
Excuse my tongue for what it now must utter
Of tidings irksome, yet inevitable;
Even were I mute, the overloaded air,
Charged with the heavy groans of dying men,
And cries of panic-stricken fugitives,
And shoutings of blood-thirsty foes in chase,
Would overtake us with her clam'rous echo,
And of herself, without a mouth, report
The terrible disasters of the time.
Edward is near, my Lord! His steed I mark'd
On Musselburgh Bridge; I saw him there
Dismount, and in the pure white-sanded stream
Wash his blood-bolter'd boots and hands, that dripp'd
Horrible drops, whereby the tainted stream
Ran from the place all ruddy to the sea.
I saw him range his host upon the bank,
Giving them merciless instructions; and
Ere the dim wings of twilight shade the world,
He will be at the gates of Canongate,
Demanding entrance, that he may to-morrow
Triumphantly ascend the Castle-Hill,
And in St Giles's rear his hands to heaven,
To thank the God of peace for victory.

BALIOL.
O heaven, so soon!

DONAGILL.
Alas, for us and Scotland!

ABERNETHY.
What, at our gates so quick?—Has the Earl of Ross,
To whom that middle tract was given in charge,
Been loit'ring round Dunbar?—Sir Patrick Graham,
With his good trusty troop of chosen squires,—
Has sloth and rust suppress'd their idle swords,
That thus the foe comes knocking at our doors
So unexpected?—Tell us aught of them,
If thou hast learn'd?

SECOND MESSENGER.
I saw the bloody heads
Of Graham, and twenty of his trusty squires,
Prick'd upon pikes, and carried scornfully
Before the vanguard of the conqueror,
Announcing to poor Scotland, in their mute
And miserable ghastliness, what doom
Hangs o'er her heroes.

BALIOL.
To the north, O mother!—
Dangers rush in and thicken.—To the north,
For shelter and for life!

ABERNETHY.
Abide we here;
This crag is stronger than the house of Badenoch;
Here have we rocks, and bolts, and barricadoes;
Only let hearts suffice and do their duty,
Here may we in defiance teaze the foe
With our prolong'd existence.

DONAGILL.
Alas! we have not
Or friends, or fit provision to stand out
Th'incensed leaguer of our adversaries.
The north will find us readier defence;
Hence then—

Enter Sir John Cuming, hastily.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
Away, away, my gracious liege!
What, stand you here a-piddling about trifles,
When life and death hang balancing upon
The loss or the advantage of a minute?
Look from your eastern window, and behold
Yon hither-coming pyramid of dust,
Excited towards heaven by English hoofs,
Warning you hence, if you have wish to 'scape
A cruel death, or vile captivity.
Already Horror has possess'd the city;
Confusion is abroad; men's faces are
I'll-omen'd, and in gloominess forbode
An universal black calamity
About to fall; cries in the streets are heard,
The King! the King!

BALIOL.
Their King? Can he avail them?
Alas! a poor unprofitable name!—
Utter not that sad syllable to me!—
Perish'd be royalty;—let us but look
For safety—'tis high time—Oh whither—

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Out
At the west gate; I have a faithful troop
Appointed to receive your highness there;—
Moments are now momentous—come,—away—
For Death is in the wind.

[Exeunt King, Donagill, and Cuming.
ABERNETHY.
I hear him sawing
The thin air with his scythe; we must off too;—
A curse light on the jade Necessity,
That forces even the valiant to retreat.

[Exit.

SCENE IV.

—A Room in Edinburgh Castle.
KING EDWARD, DE BEK.
KING EDWARD.
The nest is taken, but the eagle flown;
Nought have you heard of him, De Bek?

DE BEK.
He fled
Out at the western gate as we did enter;
The cunning Cuming, with a thousand horse,
Stole him away, and on his scudding wing
Now wafts him tow'rds the north; I saw their skirts
Just disappearing as the battlements
I mounted to explore.

KING EDWARD.
Another chase!
Why, we must ferret out the fugitive,
Even from his farthest, darkest hiding-hole;
The hyperborean house of John O'Groat
Must be ripp'd up; if he should burrow there
Beneath the hearth, we'll tear it up and have him:
That is resolved.

DE BEK.
To pay us for his loss,
Th'expectant Bruce comes prancing from the south,
T'attend with gratulation thine arrival,
And fling himself into your grace's arms:
He prays admission to your highness.

KING EDWARD.
Humph!
So soon to vex me with remembrances;
I know the drift of his besieging suit:—
Howbeit, admit him.—
[Exit De Bek.
—This good man is too
Exact and scrupulous in all his points;
Would that his memory were less compact,
More of the nature of sea-govern'd sand,
That the quick waves of days might wear away
Half of its troublesome too-deep impressions:—
He must be clamour'd down, out-faced, out-voiced
With opposition and flat gain-saying;—
For why?—King's promises are high as heaven
Above exaction of precise fulfilment;
Nor be it his to dun and persecute
High Majesty for words of courteous course:
He comes;—I must conform my face to meet him.
Enter De Bek with Bruce; De Bek exit.
Hail, hail, my lord, and welcome!

LORD BRUCE.
Happiness
Circle your grace's person, and success,
With glory, sit upon your crown for ever,
Sov'reign of England!

KING EDWARD.
Lord De Bruce, I thank thee
For these thy wishes and too plain deserts,
In thus contributing with all thy force
To bring about this joyous winding-up.
Thou see'st we lord it in this royal crag;
The town, the castle, all the land is mine
Southward to Tweed.

LORD BRUCE.
I with my armament
From Annandale up-ranging, have reduced
The midland shires, compelling them to acknowledge
Th'authority of our combined names.
And Stirling Fort, ere this same hour to-morrow,
Possess'd by Marr and Athol, shall have shut
Her gates on flying Baliol, and up-rear'd
Predominant in kingly elevation,
The banner of our house, wedded full close
With England's staff of mightier majesty.

KING EDWARD.
The banner of thine house!—And wedded close
With England's majesty! England abjures
All intermarriage with a stranger's flag:
She conquers for herself, and will not brook
An interloper to come dabblingin
To challenge what her toilsome sword has gain'd:
Look up, my lord—the flag of England waves
Alone from this your fort;—if thou shalt see it
Twined in expanded amity with yours,
Then, then, thou may'st imagine to thyself
A right t'intrude upon me with requests,
And challenge kingdoms which thou conquer'dst not.

LORD BRUCE.
Not such, O King of England; were the terms
And golden lure of large encouragement,
What day thou stood'st upon our frontiers
Craving my name to shadow and excuse
Thy now-avow'd aggression on our land;—
Recall thy words.—

KING EDWARD.
I will recall no words;
Words perish with the breath that wraps them up.
My sword is trusty and imperishable;
My sword had ever but this one intent;
My sword hath conquer'd Scotland—not for thee,
But for herself:—What! had I nought to do
But go a kingdom-hunting for another,
Squandering the treasure of my subjects' blood,
And the dear sweat of mine own precious brows,
To fix th'invidious circlet upon thine?
Away, my lord, with these remembrances;
Time and occurrences have made them stale;
I hate them, and do hang them up for ever
Upon Oblivion's gibbet, that they may
Henceforth upbraid me not.

LORD BRUCE.
If so—my lord,
Farewell;—I leave thee with thine own glad heart
T'enjoy the bitter prize of perfidy;—
I go to weep for Scotland!
[Exit De Bruce.

KING EDWARD.
Go thy ways;
Weep down thy big-swoln haughtiness with tears,
And let thy mortified o'er-reached soul
Fasten avengingly upon herself
Self-accusation's ever-gnawing teeth,
Till she with fretting eat herself away,
And perish in a pet:—With thee I've done;
Thou shalt not plague me more. Thy kinsman now,
That ghost of royalty, remains to be
Laid in Annihilation's silent grave,
That he may not out-stare me in my joys.
About it, then, my heart; St Edward, aid me,
And grant our wish its glorious corollary.

SCENE V.

—Castle of Montrose.
King Edward, Sir John Cuming.
KING EDWARD.
Cuming, thou comest from thy kinsman; what
Means he to do? Interpret his intention;
If still he scorns to yield his body up,
And, maugre fortune, will persist to be
Hunted up to the margins of the world,
Why, we will bay him round about with mouths
Of howling and determined enemies,
Until he shall be straiten'd and hemm'd in
Unto a coffin's length:—If, diffident
Of his affairs, and confident in us,
He throw himself beseeching at our feet,
We will not stint our tender mercies then;
We will let peer our goodness, and despoil him,
Not of his life, but of his taberd merely,
And ship him, shorn and disencumber'd thus
Of all oppressive ornament, for London,
Where some beneficent and kindly roof
Shall fend the bleak winds of adversity
From farther beating on his batter'd locks.
Speak, Cuming, what he wills.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Most honour'd sire,
My kinsman John, a-weary now of pomp,
Sick with the tossings of disastrous days,
Seeks only rest, most willing to forego
Into your hands that crown that has to him
Been but a thorny coronet of cares:
His prayer has stirr'd me hither to your grace,
That I might proffer for him, and receive
Your royal pleasure.

KING EDWARD.
I am glad of this;
Cuming, thou dealest well; I do commend
Thy forward zeal, for thy poor kinsman's sake;
'Tis for his own and for his country's weal,
That he endure demission:—Bid him come
To-morrow, decorated cap-a-pee,
With diadem, and ring, and robe, and sceptre;
And strip himself with voluntary hand,
Of all these vain misplaced appendages,
Freely to put them in the hands of him
To whom they appertain.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
He shall be here,
At the due hour, in all th'accoutrements
Of royalty, about to be thrown off
By him, for ever.

KING EDWARD.
We shall have a ship,
Equipt with mariners and goodly tackle,
Riding within the basin, ready to slip
Her haulsers, and put straightway out to sea;
Her cabin shall be wainscotted and warm,
Appointed well with viands and with wines.
We will inship him on the instant after
His resignation; he'll be quite at home
Under the hatches; and, as now the weather
Seems smooth and untormented with loud winds,
He'll find a nimble voyage, and arrive
Soon at his gladsome port.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
'Tis well arranged;
To-morrow we will wait upon your grace,
And celebrate demission in due form.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

—Montrose.
Baliol, Sir John Cuming.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
My liege, I have a leter from the North,
Enveloping black news that touch us both;—
Your lady-mother, Donagill, is dead.—

BALIOL.
Misery on misery heap'd! Me miserable!
My mother dead! Alas!—
Grief for her wretched son hath laid her low;
O, would to God I had preceded her,
And she had clad me in my coffin-clothes,
Ere I had seen such cruel, cruel times!
Bereft of peace, of mother, and of friends,
I do not live—I die upon the earth,
Dragging such heavy days of dismal dole,
As make me gratulate the churchyard dead,
On being couched in their beds of rest:
O, Cuming! I am sick of persecution!
Find out a grave for me; I'll lay me down
And court the shelter of its wormy mould
From an enraged, false, unworthy world;
Yet tear from me these rags of royalty
Ere I be bury'd; they would spoil my rest,
And make me shudder deep within my grave,
Remembering me of what calamities
They brought so thick upon me:—Take them off;—
Hence every rag; Cuming, I fain would go
To heaven without them.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Good my liege, the hour
Is come that shall relieve you of th'oppression
Of these heart-breaking symbols:—England's King
Waits to receive them.

BALIOL.
Let us go to him:
O, how I long to be despoil'd! Come, come!
I faint till I be lighten'd.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

—Montrose Castle.
King Edward, De Bek, and Lords.
KING EDWARD.
Is the ship ready?

DE BEK.
All prepared, my liege,
Even to the biscuit in her cabin-lockers;
She strings upon her cables restlessly
Impatient for her freight—

KING EDWARD.
And the wind sits
In a propitious quarter.

DE BEK.
Very fair;
Thin gentle puffs come winnowing from the hills,
Making the mainsail hollow.

KING EDWARD.
I am glad on't.
I would not wish John Baliol to be toss'd
Into heart-racking nausea by storms:
He's had enough on land: Bid Cuming now
Conduct him in—'tis time.—Ere an hour pass,
Winds may prove false.—Stand back, my lords, expand
Free space for this depriving ceremony.
Ranged amply round, your eyes can feed the fuller
On the despoiling.

Enter Cuming with Baliol, who comes arrayed in all the badges of royalty. He takes his place opposite Edward.
SIR JOHN CUMING.
O! much-honour'd King,
Behold before thine eyes King John of Scotland,
Prepared to give his glories up to thee,
From whom they emanated.

KING EDWARD.
Comes King John
All free and uncompell'd to render back
His honours and their symbols?

SIR JOHN CUMING.
He comes free,
Without hypocrisy of heart, sincere
Almost to joy, that he is to resign
A weight of honour too intolerable.

KING EDWARD.
Chimes John De Baliol in this fair reply?

BALIOL.
Oh, my good Lord! see, see these gushing tears
That through the liquid sockets of mine eyes
Come raining from my anguish-pressed heart,
To tell thee in their simple eloquence,
What sorrow has been mine since I put on
This joy-undoing garniture of kings.
O take it in thy mercy back again;
Restore me to my happy humble self,
My little, little self:—Take, take, oh take—
[Steps forward and divests himself.
'Tis all thine own; and disencumber me
For ever of a grandeur not belonging;
For ever I renounce it for myself;
For ever I renounce it for my boy;
O no, he shall not touch it; 'twould be cruel
To curse him with such high inheritance.
So—so—with this
(giving the sceptre)
I give, and roll away
Into thy capabler and mightier hand,
That insupportable great golden weight,
That nearly crush'd me in the sepulchre.
'Twas mine—'tis thine—now, now, restore, my lord,
What price too dear I sacrificed for it,
The blessings of sequester'd privacy;
Th'unclouded day; the nought-suspecting night,
Unvex'd with dread of bloody stratagem;
The dwelling on the hill; the forest walk;
The abandonment to meditation,
And all a subject's paradise of peace.
These are the solid gifts, my Lord, I crave
For what of glory's gauds I render up;
'Tis but a cheap, a little boon—O bless me,
Bless me immensely with it.

KING EDWARD.
So I will.
I do not turn a deaf ear to the cries
Of woeful men, beseeching my protection.
My lap of mercy is replete with gifts
For weeping, needy supplicants, like thee.
I have a house in London, whose apartments
Keep Comfort prison'd; whose great doors are barr'd
Against aggression of night-noying Care;
Sleep settles in it; and this world's disturbance
Batters in vain upon its flinty walls,
That not a sound can penetrate their thickness.
Baliol, I recommend it for thy mansion;
Till thy sky clear, and every cloud is off,
There thou shalt house securely. For this end,
To lose no time to waft thee into happiness,
A vessel, by me freighted, in the basin,
Hangs on her cables; at the helmsman's shout,
Ready to bolt abroad into the deep,
Whene'er her happy hatches catch thy foot.
The wind blows fair, my Lord; descend, and take
Thy little, mincing, pretty boy with thee;
His playful speech and interrogatories,
Sweet childish pranks, and dandlings on the knee,
Will much amuse thee in thy rolling cabin.
And when thou touchest mine own Thames's wharf,
My well-instructed servants shall be seen
There waiting, to escort thee gaily home
To thy sojourn. Go then, my Lord, in peace,
Nor think thou more of Scotland.

BALIOL.
Then farewell,
My native land!—O be thou happier
Under another's guidance than mine own!—
Come, Cuming, come away. Adieu, adieu,
My gracious Lord of England!

[Exit with Cuming.
KING EDWARD.
See him down,
De Bek; convoy him safely to the beach,
And hand him snug aboard.
[Exit De Bek.
He's off!—he's gone!—
And Scotland is all mine!—The grudging Bruce,
I hear, pines down so fast, that scarce his pillow
Hears the death-gargle in his grumbling throat;
He will be dead to-morrow.
Spread out then, lords, divide and seize the land;
Warren, waste thou the west; good Cressingham,
Inhabit thou the north; Plantagenet,
Plunder the east. See to't, my gallant lords,
That they be spoil'd. Let your investing wings,
Like sponges, lick up every crumb of substance,
Gold every driblet, that the pilfer'd peasant
Have not a penny for the church on Sundays;
Let captain and let soldier revel it,
And ramp at large, untether'd by restraint,
In th'unforbidden pastures of this land;
Be conqueror's every mad, fierce, hair-brain'd frolic,
Play'd roundly off upon these homage-breakers,
That they at last may meditate repentance,
And know the value of a cringe o'th' knee.—
Away, then, lords!—seize, plunder, occupy!