University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

SCENE I.

—An Eminence commanding the Sea, in the eastern extremity of Fife.
Seer and Attendant.
SEER.
Guide me, O friend, to where the loftiest point,
Marring the level of this land of Fife,
O'erlooks the broadest circuit of the main;
A sight is there I am ordain'd to see,
And weep, and cry aloud upon.

ATTENDANT.
Stand here;
This is the place;—cast eastward hence thine eyes;—
Lo! Ocean spread before thee in her huge
Out-scooped basin of world-washing waves;
Here seen embarr'd by her bare belt of rocks,
Yonder far off mingling insensibly
With heaven's great span of blue, that sea from sky
Cannot by sight be sunder'd.

SEER.
So man's life
Is at the present broken and barr'd in
By the harsh rocks of daily misery,
Whereon his passing peace is ever dash'd;
But in the distant future mingles down
Insensibly with heaven, till heaven and life
Seem one, alike eternal and serene.
What seest thou yonder? Strain thine eyes athwart
The floods; haply thy young eye's nerve may note
Low on th'horizon's uttermost confine
Some mote which mine, by sorrow's mists o'er-run,
May not discern.

ATTENDANT.
There's nought upon the deep
Save the white crests of waves that the eastern wind
Whips sportfully into small curls of foam,
As o'er their heaving and unnumber'd tops
He gallops in his gladness to the shore.

SEER.
O name not gladness, for that word to-day
Is banish'd from the rich dawn-cradling east;
The morn may from her sapphire chambers come,
Besprinkling all the universe with beams;
But joy comes not for Scotland! Yet dost thou
See nothing?

ATTENDANT.
I behold a puny point,
A pin-head of dim dusk, dimensionless,
Far in the east, even in the act of birth
From very nothing.

SEER.
Turn thine eye now southward;—
What seest thou there?

ATTENDANT.
I see a darksome cloud
Up-steaming from the bowels of the sea
In haste to meet the sun, and twine itself
About his sheeny and meridian horns,
And muffle him in sables.

SEER.
Ay,—'tis so;
I know it well; I knew it should be so;
The germ of black misfortune bourgeons now,
And swells with death just just about to break:—
Once more look tow'rd the east;—Has that dim point
As yet evolv'd and clear'd itself into
Distinguishable shape of diving hulk,
Tall mast, and curved sail?

ATTENDANT.
Methinks it does;
I see a gallant frigate marching on
As if instinct with living glee, her sails
Bolstering th'up-hoisted yards, and her huge hull
In blackness all distinct.

SEER.
'Tis she; 'tis she;
Black, black, tomb-black as the calamitous
And dismal freight she is surcharged with!
Disaster rides upon her rolling mast;
The moon-ey'd moping Melancholy sits
Astern, and hardly guides her erring helm;
Black-stoled Grief presides upon the prow,
Making her ever and anon duck down
For tears into the saltish floods below!
I see the vesture that so late did pall
A maiden's corse, now topmost-high unroll'd,
Wreathing its dusky deathful drapery
Within th'embraces of the flapping wind:
O thou dull symbol of announced death!
O vessel, vessel, would I could not see thee!
Would but the western wind arise and blow
Thy dead unwhisper'd tidings with thee back
Into the unopen'd chambers of the east!
Alas, thou struttest on with stately pomp,
As if in pride presenting to our shores
The gallantry of mourning thou hast on!
Like simple child following his mother's bier,
Proud in his sables and long-flowing crapes:—
Thou comest,—and I weep; and all our land,
Awaked to bitter consciousness, shall weep,
Dating her troublous period from what time
Thy sullen hulk o'er-peers above the sea:
O thou dear, dreary, queen-bereaved land!
Tears, many tears await thee, more than those
Big drops of rain that now conglobe beneath
The muffled sun, to fall upon thy soil,
Mix'd with the lightning's grisly arrow'd bolts;—
Hark, hark, the thunder rolls, and o'er the Frith
Growls his tempestuous trumpet-peal; fit note
T'upstart the land to anguish, and prelude
The storms and bloody turbulence of men!
Enough: I see, I hear it all; O mouth,
Be silent now; tear-pregnant eyes now speak,
Tears are the comeliest language for the time!

SCENE II.

—Between Balcomie Castle and the Sea-shore.
Enter Sir Michael Scot and Sir David Wemyss, as just landing from shipboard; with them Duncan, Earl of Fife, Archbishop Fraser, and Sir John Cuming.
FRASER.
Five weeks have we been lingering by the shore,
From hill and turret that command the sea
Watchful of each uncertain speck that rose
Afloat upon the horizon's fluid ring,
Our eyes interpreting it into the bark
Joy-freighted, dancing onward to our shores,
Rich with the jewel of Queen Margaret.
Alas, thus has your ship arriv'd at last
Gloomy and coffin-black with death, her sails
And streamers of the dun disastrous pall
That mantled the Norwegian maiden's corse!

SIR DAVID WEMYSS.
Alas, alas! we are unwillingly
The heralds of affliction; would to God
Th'unpitying deep had swallow'd us in mercy,
And with our life had choked our utterance,
That other lips than ours had been the first
T'announce our country's terrible bereavement!

EARL OF FIFE.
O heavy news for Scotland! never came
To our sweet shores a ship so melancholy,
To chill with disappointment all the land,
And blast it suddenly from joy to grief.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Ha, dead! how pregnant is that little word!

[Aside.
SIR MICHAEL SCOT.
Even from the first, methought the elements
Warr'd inauspiciously against our voyage:
Ere we attain'd the port of Elsinore,
Three perilous and blustering weeks were past
Amid the tossings of the eastern deep;
The skies seem'd surly with hostility,
Lest we should foot th'unwilling land before
The spirit of our gentle Queen was gone;
For she had died the morning of the day
Whereon we landed; and we found her, not
A joyous queen, bedeck'd with marriage-robes,
To welcome us to palace-banquetings;
But a poor corpse trimm'd out for burial,
Her bridemaids changed to mourners round her bier,
And her bereaved father sitting lone
Amid his chamber, inconsolable,
Forbidding us to see th'excess of grief
That did unking his lofty royalty.

ARCHBISHOP FRASER.
O Haquo, Haquo, doleful was the day
That broke thy aged heart, and snapp'd asunder
The golden chain of life that bound thee to us!
Thou art left desolate and childless; we
An orphan people; both alike in tears!

SIR MICHAEL SCOT.
And when we left the Norway land, to bear
The message home which death gave us to carry,
Again the spirit of the skies was up
Against our voyage, and assail'd our masts
With angry squalls, that seem'd to flout at us
For wafting home so terrible a tale;
Thrice did our ship, when half-way o'er the flood,
Rebound before the thwartings of the west
Into the harbour whence she sail'd before:
At last, sea-batter'd, and consumed with storm,
Watchings, and fast, we re-salute our land,
Though late, alas! too soon, afflicting it,
By our arrival and our first few words,
Into a speechless, helpless, endless sorrow.

EARL OF FIFE.
I see, I see in this woe-pregnant death
A cloud of mischief, as a man's hand small,
Low in the horizon of futurity,
Which soon dilating up into our sky
Will drench poor Scotland with a bloody rain.
In Marg'ret's grave, our Alexander's name
And line is buried; and the Scottish crown
Now lies unown'd, a disputable thing,
To be tugg'd for by hot competitors,
In fields where bitter and confronting factions
Will congregate, and roll into themselves
The pith of all the land, to settle it
With swords in bloody barb'rous controversy.

ARCHBISHOP FRASER.
Heaven's mercy interpose itself to save
Our country from that fearful termination!
In Heaven alone is remedy; for man
Has in him only all the sinful seeds
Of jealousy, and strife, and bad ambition,
Which, when contested crowns provoke to sin,
Sprout out into the fellest outrages.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Beshrew me, but a crown's too rich a pearl
Not to be dived for through a sea of blood;
He is a weakling, and affronts his sires,
Rebelling 'gainst the blood his veins inherit,
That will not doff his subject garb, and dip
For royalty, were't to the ocean's bottoms!—
My cousin Baliol at this woeful news,
I hope, will brisk him like a cockerel up,
And fire his every feather with ambition:
If he be slack, I'll dash for it myself
Some pretty enterprise.—But we let sleep
The news too long;—I'll be myself the post
To Galloway, to greet my grieving coz
With advertisement of the maiden's death.
[Exit Sir John.

ARCHBISHOP FRASER.
It works already; hardly hath the grief
Just grazed upon the surface of our hearts,
When the vile sleeping asp of emulation,
That lurks within, reanimates and stirs,
Rejoicing in the tears that quicken him.
Cuming is gone, and bears upon his lips
Words that will sicken Scotland, but excite
To bustling hopes the race of Huntington.

SIR MICHAEL SCOT.
Let us within, my friends; for much our hearts
Need to be 'stablish'd by good household cheer
From stomach-qualms and dizzyings of the wave;
We'll talk then of our voyage more at large,
And of the joyless prospects of this land.

SCENE III.

—Castle in Galloway.
Enter Lady Donagill and Lady Marjory Cuming.
LADY DONAGILL.
This peevish wind, that puffs so sharp from th'east,
Has blown into our western nook to-day
Strange rumours, that cause tingle both my ears:
Ere I was well awake this morn, there stood
Beneath my casement, in the dusk of dawn,
An obscure half-distinguishable form,
That cry'd aloud, Wake, Lady Donagill!
Wake to thy grandeur! for the maid is dead
That stood between high royalty and thee!
And I have heard it rattled from the tongues
Of gypsies and tale-telling vagabonds
All day who have caress'd my castle-gate,
That stirring news, rejoicing to our house,
Come marching merrily from yon dull east.

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
It is the idle wind that generates
Upon the clouds such babbled vanities,
And fly-blows all the rotten public ear
With shapeless maggots of absurd reports;
Trust them not, sister; were there sooth in them,
They'd not been carry'd by the courier wind,
Sir John had borne them on his trustier lip.

LADY DONAGILL.
Ay, but it haps oftimes that the dull crowd,
Inexplicably sensitive, do catch
The coming issues of yet-lab'ring fate.
I will not trust them; yet my aug'ring heart
Belies me much if they be fabulous.

Enter Sir John Cuming.
SIR JOHN.
Ha, spouse, bonjour! my Lady Donagill
Brisk up—now spread your peacock feathers wide;
The Norway maid is dead, whose slender life,
Though but a breath, was as a brazen wall
To barricade our house from royalty:
She's dead—and all our hopes are now alive!

LADY DONAGILL.
Marg'ret of Norway dead! What mighty issues
For me, and my De Baliol, and yourself,
Hang on these short and soon-announced news!
Ah! the poor lady dead?—Pray, did she die
A-bed at home, or hammock'd in your ship?—
I grieve for Marg'ret, for men say she was
A goodly, promising, kind-hearted girl;—
And yet th'inheritors of crowns will die,
And to their kinsfolk leave their heritage.—
Where, where art thou, my John De Baliol?—
These news affect thee;—I will bless thee with them.—
Sir John, Sir John, excuse a mother's zeal.
[Exit Lady Donagill.

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
To Baliol only do these news pertain?
Husband, has not the Cuming name also
A spice of blessed royalty within it?
I think it sounds and syllables as well
As your De Baliol; and some poor nine months
Make up my sister's vain priority;—
A poor nine months, a particle of time!
The infant which it fashions may e'en span it;
In a long life it is not worth the naming;
Pity such preference, Sir John, should hang
Upon a trifle.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Yea, 'tis pity, dame,
You are not older; I'd have liked to see
Some dozen or two of excellent hoar hairs
Up bristling on your head their privilege
Of primogeniture o'er sister Donagill,
Whose cheeks and tresses would to God they were
All sleek and golden with the light of youth,
Confounding you with useless victory!
Then had I pick'd a pretty diadem
Out of the rubbish of your hoary hairs.

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Talk not, dear Cuming, of what might have been;
We have enow realities, whereon
To rear our claims, which if but weak disjoin'd,
Yet clasp'd and interwov'n with one another,
Will give and gather strength unmatchable;
Like two fair trees that on the upland's height,
By interlacing their united boughs,
Shoot up the taller to affront the wind,
And overtop their brethren of the wood
By their conjunction.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Good, my dame, thou meanest—

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
I mean that Huntington's rich blood is in me,
Arousing me to shout unto the world
That I do heir it not unconsciously;—
I mean, that I am also link'd to blood
That has been sluiced out from the royal stream,
From Fergus floating downwards to our days.
Does Cuming now forget his ancestry
From Donald Bane? I've heard him boast of it
Vain-gloriously at table, 'mong his guests,
When no need was, sith pretty Marg'ret liv'd;
Now that there's need, sith pretty Marg'ret's dead,
'Twill vantage him to rake and furbish up
That time-obscured lineage, whereby he
May fortify with superadded claim
What may be slender in his lady's title.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
True—Donald Bane, whom Malcolm's bastard son
Ejected from his throne for eighteen months,
Compelling him to roam the western isles,
And feed on unboil'd limpets from the rocks,
Till he with brib'd Macpendir bounded out
From his Æbudan hiding-place, and slew
The Bastard at Monteith, and, crown'd again,
Once more digested royal delicates.
He left a daughter, Bethok, who did leave
A daughter, Hexild, who did leave a son,
Who left—

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Hold, Cuming, hold, I know it all,
Trunk, scion, branch, and bud in your huge tree
Of boasted pedigree; the priest we hear
On Sunday's in our Abbey, does not know
So well his pater-noster's six petitions,
As I your five descents from Donald White:
'Twill do, Sir John; but blab it not henceforth
In mine, so much as in your country's ears;
Convince the people, and march off for Scoon.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
My nephew most, your elder sister's son,
I fear, this Baliol lad, who'll try to scrape
A preference from his mother's eldership.

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Mark, if De Bruce will mince or hesitate,
Because his mother is a younger birth,
T'erect his claims o'er sister Donagill,
And me, the children of the elder daughter.
If he forbear, thou may'st; if he set up
Against his cousins of the senior branch,
Thou may'st with equal confidence obtrude
Thy equal rights, and pester and confound
Their competitions with upheaped claims.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
We must admonish, then, and rouse our friends.

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Ay, let Monteith, and Mar, and Buchan, now
Be stirred up to royalise their name,
And push it up to grandeur.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
This resolved,
We must, as caution dictates, instantly
Make preparation for our going hence:
One castle cannot in its bounded walls
Contain th'unbounded and ambitious souls
Of royalty's twin-candidates.

LADY MARJORY CUMING.
Yea, such
In the same hall can't elbow one another;
They must expatiate, and have room to jar
Abroad from territorial bound to bound,
Like meteors in free sky.

SIR JOHN CUMING.
Let us then
Make ready, and be bustling for the business;—
Hands must not sleep, if heads affect a crown.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

—Another Room in the Castle.
Enter Lady Donagill and John Baliol.
LADY DONAGILL.
The maid is dead, my son, whose slender life
Dissever'd thee from royalty.

BALIOL.
Woe, woe
For our bereaved land, at these sad news!

LADY DONAGILL.
If it is woe for Scotland, it is well
For thee, John Baliol, and thy family;
Blew ne'er a wind so boisterous and barren
But some rich wreck came hulling to the shores,
Which most it batters with its surly surge.

BALIOL.
'Twill be a wreck, I fear me, with these realms.—
Sweet Marg'ret dead! and with her all the hopes
That blossom'd thick around her precious life,
Blown off, and perish'd in the rotting grave!
How will the English Edward grieve to hear
Her death, that was betroth'd his daughter-queen!
Whose life, had God prolong'd it, would have soon
Solder'd into one great glad monarchy
These kingdoms, that have stood aloof too long,
Scornfully butting with their horns of pride
Each at the other's proud defying front:
I thought to see them wedded happily,
And that false, forged, erroneous frontier-line,
Which honest-hearted Nature never meant,
But warring brothers traced with bloody streaks,
Erazed eternally, and joyous flowers
Covering the ravaged bounds, and cancelling
The blood of ages with the bloom of peace:—
Alas, these hopes are perish'd, or adjourn'd
To latest generations after us;
And we must see Contention yet again
Rise from that grave, where long he has been buried,
The fiercer from long languor, to embroil
The passive people with soul-vexing feuds.

LADY DONAGILL.
Frett'st thou, De Baliol, at what God hath done?
Death's issues are all his; nor hath he will'd
That England's King should over-lord it now
From sea to sea, engrossing all the isle
Beneath his southern sceptre's tyranny.
He wills Earl David's heir, thy father's son,
Should catch the crown that now descends to him,
And wear it stoutly in his mother's right.
Else shall his mother, in her right's defence,
Shaking off strengthless age and sex infirm,
Assume the spirit that should fire her son,
And to her temples challenge sovereignty.

BALIOL.
Ne'er shall Earl David's and great Roland's heir
Deserve his mother's reprehension so,
By trembling to receive the golden gift
Bequeath'd him from his noble ancestry.
No—I should fail to thee, myself, and God,
By a faint-hearted sneaking from the glory,
And coying off, with worse than cowardice,
Th'hereditary honour from my head.

LADY DONAGILL.
There, there, my son, speaks royally in thee,
Earl David's spirit, glimmering forth a glimpse
Even through the softness of thy nature's mould,
Of kingly mettle bottom'd in thy heart:
Rouse, then, thy prouder nature; put it forth
In open deed, and challenge to the world
Of what is thine from God and from thy mother:—
David of Huntington, my grandsire, was
King William Lion's brother, and begat
Three daughters only, whereof Margaret,
My mother, was the eldest, so that now
King William's progeny extinct, thou art,
In virtue of thy mother's right and mine,
The fam'ly's lineal representative,
And rightful owner of the crown: De Bruce,
My cousin, though with me co-equal in
Degree and distance from our race's root,
Is but the younger daughter's son, and thence
In claim as in descent subordinate
To you, descended from the senior branch.

BALIOL.
De Bruce, I fear me, will not less put up
His plausible pretensions to perplex
My better rights, and captivate the crowd
Into his faction.

LADY DONAGILL.
Let him cast about,
And try to catch the people with mean arts,
That only prove his insecurity.
Thy footing is secure, and stablish'd firm
Upon hereditary rights and usage,
Which are too weighty to be blown aside
By the poor puff of any rabble's breath.
Muster thy friends in Scotland and in France,
Address our States, and clamour in their ears
Thy preference; let Edward's ear be twitch'd
With words conducive to thy benefit.
Even Philip may be hinted to, and help
Away with obstacles.

BALIOL.
I'll advise anon
With all our friends, and, by prevention, try
To win opinion.

LADY DONAGILL.
Instantly;—for Bruce,
More rapid in his bearing, will be flying
Abroad on expedition's every wing,
To give the thoughts of men their first impulse,
And curry with the simple populace.
Away then, John De Baliol, to the work
Of kingdom-courting:—craft and diligence
Are needful for up-scrambling to a throne.

[Exit Baliol.
LADY DONAGILL
, (sola.)
He is too softly-virtuous, this my son;
His soul has not enough of sinew in her,
Whereon to ground resolve; yet whensoever
He is excited by some rousing voice,
He plucks up kingly heart, and slides again
Into his kindred's magnanimity.
Therefore he must be baited and provoked
To embrace the glory, else his soul, abandon'd
To her soft self, will droop and dwindle down
T'ambitionless content:—He must be king;
That is his destiny; that hath been impress'd
Upon my heart by signs and auguries
Of fortune-tellers and astrologers,
Even from the day my knees received him first.
Albeit he seem too gentle and too weak
To brawl a stormy competition out,
That weakness shall his mother's strength supply;
I'll be his counsellor, his setter-on,
His heartner in the chase of royalty,
That, as his blood derives from me the right,
He from his mother too may catch the vigour
T'invest him in that birth-right's privilege.

SCENE V.

—Garden of Lord Bruce's Castle in Lochmaben.
Enter Lord Robert Bruce and Martha his Countess.
LORD BRUCE.
My lady all mind-stricken with a dream!
Fy on it, dame!—the minds of cottagers,
That sleep in ragged and uncurtain'd pallets,
May be afeard at visions of the night,
That through the crannies of their mud-built walls
Are sifted in with Heaven's nocturnal wind,
To persecute their simple brains with terrors;
But ladies, that do sleep in golden couches,
Amid embroider'd coverlets and curtains,
To be so pester'd with such vulgar frights—
Fie on the folly!

MARTHA.
O my lord, 'tis not
The poor straw-pallet that does most attract
These gilded wasps of persecuting fancy;
On beds of state and purple canopies,
Drawn by the glare they light, to sting within
The high-born sleepers with fantastic pangs.
'Tis but a brain-born vanity, and yet
Its airy misery is not felt the less.

LORD BRUCE.
Give us the figment, good my lady-dreamer;
I hope some dreary part of it is mine,
That I may show some heart in bearing up
Against its black abodements manfully.

MARTHA.
Methought I was a-walking with my lord,
As now we do in our fair garden here;
The skies were flooded round from rim to rim,
As with a boundless sea of summer shine;
Around us our dear children, with their cousins,
Were playing on the rose-befringed walks,
With shouts and merry pranks of younker glee,
As in their jolly school-days they were wont;
And I was plucking lilies where they grew,
Tall nodding to the sun their paramour;
When all at once, as I put out my hand
To crop one of the fairest, there up rose,
In lieu of it, a prickly dangerous plant,
Surmounted by a crown, which well I knew:
Back, back I started, from that spectacle;
My hand abhorr'd the smiling invitation;
I shrunk; but round it, keenly clust'ring, came
Children and cousins, whose sweet childish mood
Of pastime now was poison'd and perverted
Into a wrathful burning emulation,
That madden'd each against the other's life;
Then, then methought the sky wax'd dim and dimmer,
And shrouded up his silver face with clouds
Up-racking black as from the mouth of hell.
Heaven, earth, and men, as if in sympathy,
Partook of our commotion, till there dropt
From the sick firmament an ugly dew,
A dark, dim drizzle of disastrous blood,
Which lay upon my garments heavily.
I shook it from my garments off in terror;
And I beheld our garden cover'd thick
With ghastly shapes of death, my children slain,
And half my kindred bleeding mortally;
Even then I heard some angel-voice on high
Round heaven's dusk cope resounding, “Fear not, lady!
A remnant shall be pluck'd from this destruction,
To make thee mother of a hundred kings!”
And I awoke, alarmed at that cry.

LORD BRUCE.
Tush, lady!—Here's a tail of consolation,
Tack'd to the body of this boding vision;
'Tis as an ugly comet, dusk with blood,
Whose tail is bright as silvery Mercury,
Illuming stronger than the body dims.
Cheer up, my Lady Carrick; there is hope
Amid the horrors of your fantasy,
Albeit it be but brain-born vapour all.—
But who comes here, so booted and so spurr'd,
Torrid with haste?
Enter Sir William Dishington.
Sir William of Ardross!
How now, good knight?—What unexpected hap
Hath blown you on the whirlwind to our shire?
Is our Queen landed?—Has St Andrew's pier
As yet been kissed by her silver slipper?

SIR WILLIAM DISHINGTON.
Lord Bruce, our Queen is dead!—Alas! the grave
Hath gaped upon her virgin innocence,
And swallow'd all our hopes!

MARTHA.
Ah! woe the while,
Poor pretty Margaret dead, and in her grave!—
Said'st thou not wrong, Sir William? I do hope
Thy tongue did stumble.—O, unspeak thy words,
And bless us with confession of mistake!

SIR WILLIAM DISHINGTON.
I saw the pall-black ship that brought the news
Gloomily anchor'd by Balcomie shore;
Her decks were silent as a funeral;
The seamen shouted not that row'd her in;
Their faces, wet with weeping, were averted
From their own much-beloved land, as if
They had no heart, no liking, to approach
And stun her with the dread intelligence;
I heard the tidings falter'd from the lips
Of those who saw our coffin'd queen let down
Into the greedy and remorseless tomb;
She's gone, and leaves poor lonesome Scotland weeping
Through all her valleys and her thousand hills!

MARTHA.
Ah, beauteous blossom, too, too delicate
To bide the bite of Norway's bitter blast!
Thine should have been a clime more merciful,
To fan thy beauty with a balmy breeze,
And bless us with thy ripen'd excellence!
Alas! I had a gift prepared for thee,
Sew'd by my hand, and blossom'd bright with gold,
Awaiting thine arrival in our land;
Now, it must lie conceal'd within its coffer,
Disown'd for ever by the hand that wrought it;
The moths and worms of death that prey upon
Thy bury'd beauty, shall appropriate, too,
And ravage its designed ornament.
Ah, cruel, partial Death! to seize upon
The beauteous just-appearing bud of youth,
And leave the aged, those who court a grave,
Hanging upon the wither'd tree of life
To drop upon the dust from rottenness!

LORD BRUCE.
Queen Margaret dead!—Ha!—Alexander's line
Extinct and in the dust! Now—now—The crown?
Whose is the crown?—Ah me—what piteous tidings!—
Death never from the palace of existence
Purloin'd a gem of life so precious:—
The crown?—Am I not Isabella's son,
Earl David's grandson?—Mine—'tis surely mine.—
My cousin, Donagill, with whom I stand
In like degree of distance from Earl David,
Though born of th'elder daughter, cannot plead,
Being female, claims like mine; and what she has,
Feeble herself, must feebler be, transmitted
To her but feeble son, John Baliol.
'Tis mine, Sir William.

MARTHA.
O, my lord, my lord,
Let the grief die, and sob itself away,
Ere Emulation fret herself to life;
Think on thy country, all at once bereaved,
And dash'd into confusion at one stroke;
But yesterday she sat upon her hill,
Exulting in her gaudiest robes of joy,
In expectation to keep holiday,
And shout a sounding welcome to her Queen:
To-day she, with her widow's wimple on,
Loathing the sunlight, shut and tombs herself
Within her darkest cavern, where she sits
A-sighing for her poor dead Margaret;—
And I, with her, must weep for Margaret:
Ah, sorrow, sorrow!—Poor dead Margaret!
[Exit Martha.

LORD BRUCE.
So—grief must have its way; 'tis honourable
Unto the living to bewail the dead:
Yet we must live, Sir William; men can't make
A meal on tears, and diet on dry sobs;
Above the grave, we must be trampling on it
As if disdainfully, and meditating
High schemes of life, and of prosperity,
Honour, and fame, in a forgetful scorn
Of all the shrouds and coffins cramm'd below.
The crown, Sir William? What think'st thou of it?
This sad demise will set a-bustling all
Earl David's progeny; but yet I think
The preference is ours; the nearest male
I to the stock; Hastings will never stir;
John Baliol only through his mother boasts
A poor pretension, more remote than mine
By one degree; his mother's claim I have
In point of distance of descent, but stronger
By preference of sex.

SIR WILLIAM DISHINGTON.
It must be yours,
As David's nearest heir; the country's voice
I hope will have it so; the House of Carrick,
Warm in the people's love, will thence derive
O'erbalance of advantage great enough
T'outweigh the shyer Baliol, to whose name
The multitude are cold and phlegmatic.

LORD BRUCE.
The States must of necessity convene,
On this our country's dismal deprivation,
To counsel for her weal, and ratify
In this dire blank and void of sov'reignty,
The crown's succession to the rightful heir.
Be it our business to pre-occupy
And ravish to ourselves, by loving-kindness,
As well as bold enforcement of our plea,
Men's minds, that ere the Parliament be met,
The bias may be given too generally,
Too strongly, to be thwarted, or oppugn'd:
Thus shall we best effectuate our scheme
Of soaring up to royalty, for the which
My temples, though time-batter'd they do seem,
Sown prematurely with some snowy specks,
Shall not unfit be proved, but bear the weight
Gloriously; giving a contrasted grace,
Even by their partial and precursive whiteness,
To the bright gemmed gold that sits upon them.

SCENE VI.

—Parliament House in Edinburgh.
Macduff Earl of Fife, Sir David Wemyss, Sir Michael Scot, Archbishop Fraser, Baliol, Bruce, and other Lords, as met for deliberation.
EARL OF FIFE.
To what conclusion come we then, my lords?
Or, find we no release, our wits, forsooth,
After the brangling of some dozen hours,
Empuzzled and entangled more and more,
'Mid such beguiling contrarieties?

SIR DAVID WEMYSS.
Between the Lords De Baliol and De Bruce
Seems now the competition to be narrow'd:
But so perplexing are their urged claims,
So dang'rous were an over-quick decision,
That one day's diet cannot well suffice
To pass a judgment, which for ages must
Affect afflicted Scotland, and perhaps
Be summon'd up against our memories,
As an unsafe, imprudent precedent.
Adjourn we then, till Time, that teaches all,
Instruct us better in this weighty cause.

SIR MICHAEL SCOT.
I fear me, Scotland never can herself
Herein decide unbiass'd, and with safety:
We are so wound by prejudice together,
So intertwisted by the ties of blood,
So hamper'd in from free arbitrement,
By all our native partialities,
That right opinion scarcely can o'erbear
The press of prejudice that pushes on her
What then we, from the truth diverted so
By favour, cannot honestly determine,
Let us commit to one, who, far aloof,
And purify'd by distance from these frailties,
Can arbitrate according to the right,
And with authority enforce his dictate.

ARCHBISHOP FRASER.
To Edward let us tender the decision;
He is the proper umpire; and to him,
Close wedded to us by long years of peace,
By present sympathy and share of loss,
In this bereavement of our blessed Queen,
To him, whose honour and unblamed discretion
Match his unmatched prowess in rough arms,
We may with safety delegate the trust
Of choosing from the noble candidates:
He has no interest to weigh him down
In prepossession towards either side;
Truth and the laws alone will shape his choice;
And whom his wisdom chooses, can his power
Protect from rival's disappointed grudge.
Then, whoso trusteth that his claim is just,
Let him submit to this just umpirage,
Acknowledging submission by assent;
Whoso distrusts let him in silence pass
Hence to the shelter of his partisans,
And trust to faction rather than to right.

JOHN BALIOL.
My Lords, I do acknowledge this proposal
As emanating fair from equity;
And I should manifest a mean distrust
Of what I deem my right's validity,
By hesitation to accede thereto:—
Let Edward arbitrate on Scotland's crown!

LORD BRUCE.
May my claims perish in deserved contempt,
If, being fearless of their falsity,
I should be fearful to commit to one,
Holding with equal hands Decision's balance,
Determination of this high dispute.—
Let Edward arbitrate on Scotland's crown!

EARL OF FIFE.
Here then it rests, my lords; and in this close,
Unanimous at last, we shut our counsels:
To Edward let us instantly dispatch
A delegation of our primest nobles,
Instructed to adjure him by all ties
Of blood that bind him to our royal race,
Of friendship, whereby to our nation's heart
He is incorporate in sweet affection,
That of his grace he would, for the dear sake
Of otherwise distracted, warring Scotland,
Adjudge, according to his princely wisdom,
Our crown to whomsoe'er of these he finds
Possess'd of indefeasible true right.
Thus shall we 'scape by happy compromise
The dangers else ensuing to our state;
And Scotland, happy in her gratitude,
Receive from him a father and a king:—
Be then our court dissolved on this conclusion;—
To-morrow we shall choose commissioners
To carry to fair England our resolves.