Mary Tudor An Historical Drama |
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 | Mary Tudor |  |
Scene II.
Greenwich—the King's Bedchamber.King Edward on a Couch: Lady Jane reading.
JANE.
How fares your Highness now?
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Thy sweet voice, Jane,
Soothes every pain. A film grew o'er mine eyes;
A murmur, as of breezes on the shore,
Or waters lapping in some gelid cave,
Coiled round my temples; and I slept.
JANE.
Ah cousin!
Not in my voice the charm. Within this volume
A sanatory virtue lives enshrined,
As in Bethesda's pool.
EDWARD.
By an angel stirred!
I slept—methought the merry, chiming birds
Were round me, and the bleating of the lambs,
And cheerful harmony of hounds and horn.
And murmuring winds, and waters among trees,
Making the diapason of our Earth;
While by my side dear Uncle Somerset
Rode, stately with grave smile. Where is he now?
Ah, fatal falsehoods! fatal credulity!
Look at this hand! health withered in its veins
Signing the unnatural warrant.
JANE.
Judge less hardly.
You were the instrument, but not the doer,
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EDWARD.
I am too young—too young
For sorrow and remorse; yet both are here!
I yearn for freedom, like some callow scholar
Over his task perplexed; and it will come.
Soon shall I leap forth like the lark at morn
Into the pathless sky—and through the gates
Of light, on—on—to heaven! Hark! some noise.
Who thus disturbs the last rest of a King?
Enter Northumberland and Cranmer.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
We come, my liege, deputed by the Council,
To lay before your Grace the realm's sad state
Thus widowed of your presence; and abashed
By the frowns of coming wrong. Am I permitted?
EDWARD.
Permitted? ah my Lord, custom permits—
You seldom tread the paths of ceremony.
Say on—my soul is sad, but I will hear you.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
My Lord Archbishop will explain how far
Zeal strengthens us to stem the tide of evils
Which, should it please high heaven to take your Grace,
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CRANMER.
May I speak?
We pray you judge, should harm befall your Grace,
The dangers of the Church; no pious Prince,
Versed in true doctrine of our Faith, succeeding.
How ill the Lady Mary stands affected
Unto the Church is known. Elizabeth
Gives, peradventure, better hope; but here
Their claims make up a tissue so perplexed
The undoing of the woof destroys the web.
We must eschew both, or hold fast to both.
And thus by right of primogeniture
The Lady Mary at our peril succeed.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Mark well! to England's and the Church's ruin!
CRANMER.
Now well we know, a wise Prince and religious,
God's glory and his kingdom's weal endangered,
Will put aside all weak respects of blood—
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Else would God's vengeance mete out doom hereafter!
CRANMER.
But other hope remains. Three noble daughters
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Most near, and by their virtues well commended.
Through these—
JANE.
Nay! I must speak. My Lord Archbishop,
I must protest—
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Be silent: the church speaks!
CRANMER.
Through these nor persecutor of our faith,
Nor foreign yoke, through marriage may be feared:
For these have been brought up with spiritual food;
Suckled with christian doctrine undefiled;
And matched with husbands zealous for the truth.
That these, firm pledged the true Church to maintain,
Should be successively the kingdom's heirs
Most humbly we advise: and for this Lady,
Eldest of that illustrious house, Jane Grey,
If all her virtues, which speak trumpet-tongued,
Suffice not, we, her father, all the Council,
The Peers of England, yea the Realm itself,
Impledge our lives to back her constancy!
JANE.
O no! not me! This remediless wrong
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Great Harry's daughter's—England's manifest heirs.
Leave right its way, and God will guard His own!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
The manifest heirs of England! tush! you see not
The very point at issue. Counsellors
Learned in the laws, hold the king's heir to be
Whom the king's testament shall nominate.
Besides, the child of the incestuous Katherine
May not be Queen: nor wanton Boleyn's daughter.
CRANMER.
Too harshly spoken! Hold him up! he faints—
So—he revives—Sir, look upon this Lady,
This Angel that shall win a crown in heaven,
Worthier than all of Earth! King Edward! hear me!
Uphold your people in her!
EDWARD.
God be my guide!
Now and forever! Sense and thought forsake me.
O sisters! ye desert me! yet I love ye—
How much I love!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
They come not at your bidding.
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EDWARD.
Ah yes—my People!
To them, and to my God—be duty done!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Sign then—
JANE.
Sign not!
EDWARD
[signing].
Come weal, come woe—'tis signed!
Now take me, Lord, from this calamitous life!
Yet if to live and suffer be thy will,
And to thy chosen People serviceable,
I am contented to abide, and serve.
Enter from the side, the Princess Mary, followed by Bedingfield, Jerningham and Fakenham.
At last—and yet too late—I bless thee, sister!
Why comes not Bess?
BEDINGFIELD.
She lay, my Liege, too far
From Framlingham, and time, so rumour ran,
Pressed hardly on your Grace.
MARY
[kissing Edward].
How wan! how wasted!
My dear, lost brother!
[Northumberland attempts to pass out.
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Go not forth, my Lord,
While here her Highness stays.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
How, Varlet, how?
Who shall debar my way?
BEDINGFIELD.
I will—
JERNINGHAM.
And I.
EDWARD.
What means this timeless brawl? Northumberland,
I deemed my sister's visit due to thee:
Whence then this heat? I am too weak to bear it.
MARY.
My Lord of Lisle! or—pardon me—Lord Duke!
(To such a height your style hath grown, I learn)
Your message came—and I am here! but not
Without precaution that secures return.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Madam, you err: know your friends better.
MARY.
Yes.
I know them at their worth.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Lady, you mark not
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And fear no foe.
MARY.
God's death! my Lord, nor I!
I bid you silence, Sir.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
What? menace me?
BEDINGFIELD.
Beware this sword—if you advance, it strikes!
JANE.
O peace, good father, peace! the King sinks fast.
MARY.
Perils beset me—scorning all I come:
Shall I abide with thee?
EDWARD.
This gentle Jane
Hath been a sister in my sister's absence.
MARY.
Why was I bade to go? He bade me fly,—
Ah Traitor!
[pointing to Northumberland.
EDWARD.
It is now too late—too late!
I have done what it were well had ne'er been done.
JANE.
O would to God that act might be recalled!
MARY.
What act?
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That makes me Queen.
MARY.
Thou Queen! O never
Shall regal crown clasp that unwrinkled brow!
Thou Queen? go, girl—betake thee to thy mappets!
Call Ascham back—philosophize—but never
Presume to parley with grey counsellors,
Nor ride forth in the front of harnessed knights!
Leave that to me, the daughter of a King.
EDWARD.
I have wronged thee to save the state from wrong.
I had much to say; but faltering thought and tongue
Forbid. Never shall foreign Prince or Prelate
Bear sway in England. So my father willed.
Cranmer, speak thou.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Nay, I speak now. The King
Still, madam, proffers hope, on penitence.
The crown may yet be your's—this act annulled;
If here before this dying Saint, in presence
Of this most holy Prelate, and this Lady
Wise past her years, your errors you renounce.
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Sir, have you done? simply I thus reply.
Not to drag England from this slough of treason—
Nor save this lady's head—nor your's, Archbishop;—
Not even my brother's life—would I abjure
My faith, and forfeit heaven!
CRANMER.
Pause, proud Lady!
The end hath come. Lo! one among us stands
Chainer of every tongue! queller of Princes!
One moment more, and penitence were vain.
[All kneel by the King's couch.
EDWARD.
Lord! keep thy People steadfast in the Faith!
I die—bless all—Jesus receive my soul.
[Dies.
CRANMER.
He's dead!—and never passed a purer spirit,
Stored with more graces of humanity,
More fraught with truths divine, than this lost King.
For he was grave, as well beseemed a King,
Though joyous in his spirit as a child.
Of wit so keen, that all expectancy
Of nature was outstripped: and thus he dies
Consumed in his own brightness. Had he lived
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Had won all good men's love, as they have long
The hope of all the learned: for he began
To favour learning ere he knew it fully;
And knew, ere time remained to use it well.
Too soon he dies! yet not without memorials
That shall be storied long and treasured fondly.
He lacked but time to leave the world example
Of all a King, so trained and graced, might be!
MARY.
And thou art gone! hast left me unforgiven!—
O brother! was this righteous? gloomier now
This dreary world frowns on me, and its cares.
Womanly dreams, farewell! stern truths of life
Stamp on my heart all that becomes a Queen!
Dudley, you have dared much; yet, standing here
By my poor brother's clay, I can forgive.
Will you kneel, Dudley?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Never to thee—but here—
To Jane, true Queen I kneel. God save Queen Jane!
BEDINGFIELD.
Ha! traitor!
MARY.
Sheath your swords! here, in Death's chamber,
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NORTHUMBERLAND.
No traitor I. I spurn
Your favour, even with these odds—away!
Keep from my path, Fakenham and Bedingfield,
Or by my surging hopes I strike you dead!
Ho! Guards, without! Guilford! your wife to rescue!
MARY.
Again I say—here shed no blood for me!
JERNINGHAM.
I hear thick beating footsteps on the stair—
My liege, 'tis time to fly.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
I stay you not—
Begone!
[Exit Mary attended.
FAKENHAM.
We meet hereafter!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Out, vile worm!
No deed of mine mates me with thee hereafter.
FAKENHAM.
I spake not of that judgement. We shall meet
In this world—by the scaffold—at the grave.
[Exit.
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GUILFORD.
What means this tumult—thy distracted bearing?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
The king is dead.
GUILFORD.
By you?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
He died by nature.
The Queen hath scaped.
GUILFORD.
The Queen! my Jane is Queen.
What mean you?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Tush—the tongue misquotes the mind.
I spake of Mary Tudor.
GUILFORD.
Mary—here?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Aye—Traitors are within these gates: look round.
I like not Pembroke's mien—nor Winchester's.
I am glad she stayed not here. Urge no pursuit.
The eighth Harry's soul lives in her voice and eye.
It were not well if she had stayed—and lived.
[He muses for a time.
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We lack but time—time satisfies all scruples—
Silence in treason is complicity:—
Whoso connives conspires. [Aloud]
You know, my Lords,
The late King's testament. It pleased the Council.
Pembroke, your son stands on the throne's first step.
PEMBROKE.
Which yours doth mount.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Holding it safe for your's.
We'll talk of this hereafter: now our cares
Attend the late king's obsequies. My Lord
Of Winchester, be pleased to marshal forth
The sad procession to the Tower. Within
The chapel lay the body, near the altar;
Light tapers, and let solemn psalms be sung.
Guilford, attend the Queen. Pembroke, we'll talk
Of these things privily. Herbert already,
As next of blood, is Captain of the guard:
Suffolk Lord Constable: you—dear friend! choose.
What Pembroke asks can grateful Jane refuse?
[Exeunt severally.
| Mary Tudor | |