University of Virginia Library

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!