University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

A Street in London.
Enter Pembroke, Arundel, Wyatt, Jerningham, Bedingfield.
BEDINGFIELD.
Be well assured the King is sick to death.

PEMBROKE.
Tush, Sir, the King is young, and young blood fires
Like flax.

BEDINGFIELD.
And dies as quickly. I repeat it,
Even now the King lies at the point of death.

WYATT.
How can it be? But one short month it seems
Since I beheld him on his jennet's back,
With hawk on wrist, his bounding hounds beside,
Charge up the hill side through the golden gorse,
Swallowing the west wind, till his cheeks glowed out
Like ripened pears. The whirring pheasant sprang
From the hedged bank; and, with a shout, in air
The bright boy tossed his falcon; then with spur
Pressed to his jennet's flank, and head thrown back,
And all the spirit of life within his eye
And voice, he drew not rein, till the spent quarry
Lay cowering 'neath the hawk's expanded wings.

ARUNDEL.
And what saith Sir John Cheke, his Grace's tutor?
That one so apt to learn, mature in judgment,
Ne'er hath o'erleaped the silken fence of childhood.

WYATT.
Too hotly from the deep well of his heart
Boils up his fevered blood.

BEDINGFIELD.
You miss the mark!
No fever pants upon King Edward's life;
Nor natural decay hath drained his heart.

PEMBROKE.
Then, by the Rood! John Dudley must be questioned
Wherefore he mews the King up thus at Greenwich,
With beldams, herberers, and wizard quacks?

BEDINGFIELD.
Too late! the axe, henceforth, shall answer make
To dangerous questioners.

WYATT.
He flies too high
This modern Dedalus!

ARUNDEL.
O royal seed
Of York and Lancaster, in Tudor blended,
How are ye fallen, when this base minion churl,
This felon-born, dares lift his ransomed hand
Against your sacred house—misrules your people—
Usurps your sceptre—decimates your peers—
Nay, holds the throne in his arbitrement!

BEDINGFIELD.
Aye—there you press the spring of his design.
No child of the eighth Harry shall be Queen
If Dudley's will be law.

ARUNDEL.
Pernicious Traitor!
Much hath he dared! but with plebeian hand
Dares he to clutch that crown the Norman rent
From Harold's helm—and lion-hearted Richard
Bore through the fields of Palestine redeemed,
At Ascalon, in the Crusaders' van?
O spirits of our old nobility!
Rise from your tombs and blast this upstart carle!
Mowbray is gone; but Thomas Howard lives!
The suns of Bohun and de Clare have set;
But Oxford's star beams brightly from his shield!
Nevilles there be, though Warwick's veins are cold!
Awake avengers! Bearders of kings arise!
And crush the caitiff!

BEDINGFIELD.
One and all we join
That cry, O Arundel! Well I remember
When from the midst of English Gentlemen
Great Somerset, the Uncle of the King,
Was, like some stag, the captain of the herd,
Torn down and throttled by this blood-hound Dudley!
How flashed your eyes above your half-drawn sword,
While muttered malisons hissed through your teeth!

WYATT.
Sirs, be ye calm, probing the kingdom's hurt.
She whom this Dudley wills to wear the crown
Descends, through Tudor, from Plantagenet:
And the two Roses on so fair a cheek
As Lady Jane's, the Duke of Suffolk's daughter,
Have never blended.

ARUNDEL.
The Duchess' mother lives—

PEMBROKE.
Nor she—nor any daughter of her house—
Not my son's wife, shall ever be my Queen!

WYATT.
Beshrew King Harry! had he loved one wife—
Or crowned no concubine—our course were plain.
But now—In sooth I trow not if to marry
One's brother's wife, be uncanonical,
But this I know, howe'er legitimate,
The Lady Mary's neither young nor fair,
But black Papistical. The Lady Bess
Loves the true Church, and is as fair withal
As her frail mother Boleyn.

BEDINGFIELD.
There's the rub.
Too sweetly Boleyn smiled on Harry's wooing
Ere he was severed by sufficient warrant
From the crowned Queen. But six short months divided
The bridal and the birth. Elizabeth
May not be hailed legitimately Queen:
But who shall gainsay Mary?

WYATT.
That dare I?
Unless the sacred charter of our church
Be well assured. If not, the Suffolk line,
The blood of Grey, aye, Dudley's, I prefer.

JERNINGHAM.
Sir Thomas Wyatt, you presume too far;
Disparaging the royal Mary's claim—
Which I aver—

ARUNDEL.
O peace! the time needs union.
Waste not in idle brawls your generous ardour.
But lift your swords, and swear, kissing the hilts,
That England shall not be a Traitor's prey—
Nor Tudor's heritage adorn a Grey!

[Exeunt.