University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—An anteroom at Court. Two Courtiers in conversation. Evening.
1st Gentleman.
Good ev'ning, sir; you do not wear a mask?

2nd Gentleman.
I only wait to speak with Mr. Walsingham.
I am not of the company to-night.

1st Gentleman.
Then let us wait here, in this anteroom,
Whence he and all the other notables
Must pass towards the presence.

2nd Gentleman.
He will pass,
Knowing I wait him. He confides to me,
To-night, a letter to Lord Shrewsbury,
Touching the Queen of Scots. I start to-morrow
Upon an embassage to Tutbury,
Bearing his papers.

1st Gentleman.
What think you of Shrewsbury?

2nd Gentleman.
True as tried steel—all Papist tho' he be.
He is too near this queen to see in her
Aught save the painted Jezebel she is.
He sickens of her whims—as well he may—
Seeing a woman one day make her bath
Of good veal broth amidst the starving poor,
And then of wine. Why, waste is not the word!
And all to smooth her wrinkles, so they say,
And thus inflame the hearts of foolish boys,
Who die for her ere they have seen the face
She smooths for them!

1st Gentleman.
Nor will they ever see it.
Nor her head crown'd as they would have it crown'd;
She smooths it for the headsman. Mark my words!

2nd Gentleman.
Well, so she must coquette, no matter how;
It may as well be with the headsman's axe,
For that will kiss her close for good and all.

1st Gentleman.
Hush! she may still reign over us.

2nd Gentleman.
Ah well,
If so (we live in times of change, good sooth!)
I'll never see her wrinkles, and if needs,
I'll kiss her all as closely as the axe.
We live in times of change.

[Whistles.
1st Gentleman.
Yet God is merciful—most merciful!
This is for some good end. 'Tis often thus.
I, in mine own short life, an hundred times
Have seen how Satan's Babel Tow'r of cards
Fell as he rais'd the topmost card.

2nd Gentleman.
A queen?

1st Gentleman.
Ha, ha! A queen or knave, or sometimes both.

2nd Gentleman.
God raises kings; these queens are of the devil—
They have such whims and such infirmities.

1st Gentleman.
Hush, hush! thou knowest they are none the less
The Lord's anointed. All things have a purpose;
And e'en a scourge may guide us the right way.

2nd Gentleman.
I am awearied of these wholesome scourges.
If the Lord's mercy would but grant we went
Right of ourselves! I hold with none of this.

1st Gentleman.
I hold with it just now for my head's sake.
Once off, this head of mine will gabble treason
And blasphemies enow, I warrant you.
I feel my lips will not keep ever silent;
But till the day that I am cleft asunder
I am a Protestant and queen's good courtier.

2nd Gentleman.
Methought anon you were for all these things,
Being foreshadow'd in the Word of God?

1st Gentleman.
Another time I will expound to you
The contradictions that there seem in me.
Not now, not now; these very walls have ears,
And might betray my idle words. But hush!
Here comes the topmost card in Satan's pack.

[Enter the Earl of Leicester, dressed in magnificent costume.]
2nd Gentleman.

Good night, my lord. It were vain to ask how
the world fares with one of so pleasant a countenance.

Leicester.

Thanks, my good friend. I am as well as a man
may be in troublous times—his brain so harassed by
the State's complexion that he hath no time to mark

that of his own face. Happy that only a few thus
sweat for the million.

1st Gentleman.

My lord is the very Atlas of our State. This is
well known—the masses speak of it.

Leicester.

Nay, then, they are not so dunder-headed as I
deemed. Her Grace is at the helm. I watch the
stars.

1st Gentleman
(aside).

Were I a fiery star whose writhing tail must
switch the earth, he would not watch me long for
lack of eyes.

2nd Gentleman
(aside).

Report saith he knows as little of the real state
of the realm as may be with one so pampered, and
that her grace will show him rather the colour
of her garters than that of her mind.

Leicester.
Good ev'ning, sirs. I pass into the presence.

1st and 2nd Gentlemen.
Your servants, good my lord.

[Exit Leicester.
[Enter Sir F. Walsingham.]
Walsingham
(giving paper to 2nd Gentleman).
Here is the letter
Of which I spoke; give it my lord of Shrewsbury,
With loving greeting. Rest not by the road,
And bring his answer to me presently.
Saddle to-morrow early, and be sure
You take the safest way.

2nd Gentleman.
Your servant, sir;
I do as you desire me, and depart
To make me ready.

[Exeunt the two Gentlemen.
[Enter Cecil.]
Cecil.
Ah! good ev'ning, Walsingham!

Walsingham.
Hast heard these papist cries of exultation
That echo thro' the land?

Cecil.
To me the cries
Of tinkling cymbal. Mark me, blatant brass.

Walsingham.
Hast heard their threats directed 'gainst the life
Of the queen's highness?

Cecil.
Measured to a cry!
Mark me, cried only to excite the masses
To some untoward act, reactionary
Against the Catholics; who henceforth, wrong'd
(As they will prove), will wear a martyr's mien
And spur their partisans to contumacy.
Such seem to me to mean these late reports
Floating around us—idle, aimless threats,
Made for a purpose.

Walsingham.
Yet it might be well
To fence her highness, were it but to prove
My thought the more unmeaning; for to me
These seem less idle threats than warning words,
Flung e'en to warn Her Highness. Making sure
To spill her blood, it even seems to me
Their hearts wax pitiful, and counting her
E'en as the hang'd who walks to meet his death,
They make a truce of hatred, for the queen
Feeling that full forgiveness men may feel
Towards one doomed to die, e'en if in life
He crossed their purpose.

Cecil.
I am with you there,
To fence Her Highness from all shadow of harm.
But she is hard to fence. Such iron courage
Mix'd often with such flippancy of mood,
I marvel at the medley.

Walsingham.
Ah, forsooth
Her Highness is a woman.

Cecil.
Aye, indeed,
The very veriest woman in the land!
[Exit Cecil.

Walsingham
(musing).
I had a mind to tell him of my plot
To counterplot these plotters. Yet maybe
'Tis yet o'er soon, each moment makes more ripe.
Yet, as I wait, the queen's most precious life
May be in jeopardy. See, here they stand.
[Opens paper with the picture by Babington.
Curse you for traitors! Yes, I see his face
Whom but an hour from now I saw abide
A bow-shot from her! Who may say the names
Of those whose faces start not, like his own,
To my remembrance? Ah, he comes this way.
Now to dissemble!

[Enter Robert Barnwell.]
Barnwell.
Ah, good ev'ning, sir!
A splendid entertainment, well conceived.
In my poor country such high junketing,
With so great hospitality, withal
So merrily attuned, had bred, with time,
A spirit far more loyal than exists
In that misguided land towards the queen.
Such bravery makes Irish loyalty.

Walsingham.
Is Irish loyalty in aught allied
To loyalty in England?

Barnwell.
It is said
An Irish heart, newly awakening
To loyalty, love, honour, duty, hate,
Or vengeance, stays at nothing.

Walsingham.
So, indeed!
But they avenge, at times, e'en benefits
With thrust of knife or blow of knotted club
In that your Ireland.

Barnwell
(lightly).
There be caitiffs, sir,
And knaves—born knaves—in all lands o' the earth.
They lurk in court and camp, and not alone
'Midst my gray mist-capp'd mountains—this is truth.
Your servant, sir, good ev'ning!

Walsingham
(aside).
Ah, too true!
“They lurk in court and camp—and this is truth.”
[Aloud]
Your servant, sir, good ev'ning! [Aside]
Ah, I would
I could unmask the traitor! Yet at present
My one thought is to let her highness know
Her near destruction, meditated e'en
By those she fear'd the least. I hear the strains
Of merry-making music. Now to show
My fears less idle than she deem'd. God grant
I find her highness predisposed to list
To my entreaties.
[Exit Walsingham.

[Enter Edward Windsor.]
Barnwell.
Well, my brother-in-arms!

Windsor.
How goes the cause? No need to say to you
Our watchword of green Yule and harvest time,
And yet, God speed the harvest!

Barnwell.
So say I.
And yet there doth appear to hang some charm
About her life. I was as near to her
To-day as now you stand—the wherewithal
To do the deed I held tight in my grasp—
When, lo! I met her eye; it made me quail.
She is King Harry's daughter.

Windsor.
Some do say
She was but father'd on him.

Barnwell.
Nay, I knew
One who, in liquor, used to say he knew
The late King Henry, and I feel assured
This queen proceeds from him. A royal temper—
A real right royal temper.

Windsor.
You, indeed,
Seem not to breathe in vain the air of courts—
You know to flatter even while you stab.

Barnwell.

Yes, we have flattered her grace. We have fawned
upon her, and come near to stabbing her with a
knife; we have called her a lily and a rose; her two
buck teeth have been call'd pearls, and her hair
gold.

Windsor.

I have christened her a very queen of quicksilver—
there is none can change like the queen. But stay
—by the sound of the music methinks she hath
enter'd the ball-room. I wish you well, and success
to your undertaking.

[Exeunt.