University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE FIRST.

Henry, Murray.
Hen.
Yes, I repeat it to thee, I come hither
To wreak full vengeance on my enemies,
Or bid eternal farewell to these walls.

Mur.
Thou doest well. But thou should'st not, oh king,
Flatter thyself with prosperous event
To thy designs, while thou dost steel thy heart
Against its inward conflicts of remorse,
Against the frequently-repeated signs
Of an offended God. Thou long hast been
Fully convinced of the errors of the faith
That thou professest: the dire vestiges,
At every step, by thousands and by thousands,
Of thy perverse and persecuting sect
Crowd on thy path: yet dar'st thou not shake off
The guilty yoke of sacrilegious Rome;
Whence in the sight of all the world thou art
Despised, and impious in the sight of God.
This is the first, too plainly, and, alas!
This the sole cause of thy adversity.

Hen.
More than convinced I am that I ought not
E'er to have sought this fatal royal marriage:
Not that the rank to which it raises me
O'erwhelms my faculties; this very sceptre
Was no unknown weight to my ancestors.
But I regret that I reflected not
What a capricious and unstable thing
The heart of woman is; and what a weight
A benefit imposes, when received
From one that is not skill'd to give it wisely.

Mur.
My soul is not cast in a vulgar mould:
Hear me, oh Henry. Favour in the court
I do not seek: the love of peace inspires me.
'Tis in thy power for all thy past mistakes
To make a full atonement, and to win
To paths of virtue thy bewilder'd consort;
To make thy people blest: the chosen sons,
Not of the terrible God of wrath and blood,
(Whose earthly type is fulminating Rome,)
But the true sons of the compassionate God,
Who are iniquitously trodden down,
These may'st thou rescue; and may'st dissipate
The impure mists, which from the Tyber's stream,
The corrupt source of tyranny and fraud,
With pestilential influence arise.

Hen.
And what? wilt thou that I mispend my time
In disputations vain about vain rites,
And frivolous subtleties of brain-sick fools,
When I am loudly call'd on to defend
My honour and my rank?

Mur.
Dar'st thou miscall
These questions vain, When they a thousand times
Have ta'en away and given realms and lives?
If thy heart feels a just contempt for Rome,
Why not confess it? Raise thy standard high,
And thou shalt have as many partizans
As there are here who execrate her rites.

Hen.
I do not feed myself with civil bloodshed:
To seek elsewhere that peace I have not here ...

Mur.
What are thy hopes? Will it bring peace to thee
To see from distant climes thy native country
Burn with intestine broils? For to fly hence
Is but assuredly to give the signal
For civil war.—To arms I prompt thee not;
I am not, no, the minister of blood.
To frustrate more atrocious grievances,
And from oppression liberate thy friends,
Ere to rebellion they be driven, to this,
Nought else, do I exhort thee. Violence
Thou should'st not use; but hinder that of others.
Mary, who with her foreign milk imbibed
As at a fountain inexhaustible
Foreign delusions; Mary, who unites,
For Scotland's ruin, in her youthful breast
The persecuting principles of Rome
With the soft manners of effeminate France,
I do not bid thee ever to forget
That the same Mary is thy spouse and sovereign:
Leave her at her own will to think and act:
We have not learn'd her persecuting tenets;
We wish alone for liberty and peace:
May they be gain'd through thee! Thou mayest at once
Procure thy peace and ours. An obscure storm
I see, which threatens us, which also may
Fall on thy head, if thou refuse to hear me.
The vilest miscreants in these precincts lurk,
And lurk in numbers, who would ruin thee,
And who at once calumniate and detest thee.
In vain thou would'st among them hope to find
Sincerity and honour; we are they,
If yet indeed there be true Scots; of Rome,
Of guilty, foreign, and effeminate fashions
The inveterate foes; and equally the foes
Of foreign and augmenting tyranny.
Would'st be the moderate king of worthy men?
'Tis yet within thy power: would'st rather be
The tyrant of the guilty? There are they
Who wish this more than thou. There are who have
Already made a sceptre of the sword:
The knot is too perplex'd; it must be cut,
It cannot be unloosed. Why thus I speak
Heaven knows; and if I wish for aught but peace.
Act then according to thy judgment: I
Already have resign'd the hope that truth
Should by a king be e'er from me believed.