University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

Queen's Closet, Whitehall.
Queen and Cardinal.
CARDINAL.
The silent moth gnaws not more fatally
Tissue of gold, than sadness gnaws our heart.
Let us apply the moral.

QUEEN.
Cousin, why blame
Me, not my fate?

CARDINAL.
Fate?—In your body dwells there
An evil spirit, that your life must be
A purgatory? Think you God directs
'Gainst you alone his thunders? arms 'gainst you
His judgments? O what torture like self-torture!
See yourself as I see you, heavy-browed,
With troubled eye, and countenance aghast—

QUEEN.
God made me weak and fallible.

CARDINAL.
Poor Soul!
Be to yourself more charitable. Think
That One there is who answers for your faults,
And multiplies your merits.

QUEEN.
Hope rests there:
Or I were mad.

CARDINAL.
All men are born to suffer.
What are the consolations of the Scripture,
The fruit of exhortation and of prayer,
If now you quail? No, you shall quail no more.

QUEEN.
My web of life was woven with the nettle:
My very triumphs were bedewed with tears.
What now is left?

CARDINAL.
Religion. As the sunbow
Shines in the showery gloom, and makes the cloud
A shape of glory, in thy path she stands
A herald of high promise. Blessed emblem!
Religion bids thee hope! This gloomy life
Must be amended; we must draw thee hence.

QUEEN.
Thanks be to God! time works while we grieve on.
Deprive not sorrow of the shade she needs;
The sad quiescence of desponding thought.
Job also raised his voice, and wailed aloud,
And so was comforted. Remember, also,
In weeping I can pray: should I not?

CARDINAL.
Yea.
Pray with thanksgiving: 'tis the sum of duty!

QUEEN.
Whene'er I turn my thoughts to God, one image
Stands between me and heaven. Instead of prayer
A sigh for Philip trembles on my lip.

CARDINAL.
To pine thus for the absent, as men mourn
The dead, is sinful.

QUEEN.
Speak no more of him.
Thoughts holier be my guide. You pity one
Who twines her heart to the decaying creature,
Yet may earn heaven. All earthly vows are light
As winds; faithless as ice. I raise my eyes:
There find I love enduring—ever loyal!
Ay, loyal; for the Saviour, through our flesh,
Hath bound himself to man's community;
And with immortal garlands, without thorns,
Shall crown his chosen.

CARDINAL.
Hear me, Queen of England!
Thus I preach comfort to thee. Live for thy People!
Make England happy! It is a noble thing
To stablish thrones on bounty; reign through love:
To make the spacious heart of man our kingdom.
O'er such a Prince the hand of God shakes forth
Blessings like rain on the green lap of Spring.
For him no stabber lurks in palace courts:
His march is tranquil in the front of battle:
Good luck attends his counsels. Prosperous
At home, and reverenced in lands remote,
All eyes wake for him, and all tongues pray for him:
His life shall be a blessing to his people;
And his just memory their rightful dower.

QUEEN.
But how make good the portraiture? alas!
We cannot pace the avenue to glory,
Until with blood its sacred palms are sprinkled.
Our churches were baptized with martyrs' gore,
Which holocausts must purge!

CARDINAL.
I spake not, daughter,
Of glory: I besought thee to be good.
The chief of greatness is surpassing goodness:
And that outsoars the ken of mortal eyes;
Hidden with God. Yet I would have thee glorious:
Radiant with all heroic qualities;
Magnanimously bent on great designs;
Profuse in liberality; sedate
Even in devotion; scrupulously just;—
All this hath Mary been: why not so still?

QUEEN.
O Reginald! thou guiding, this might be.
To thy pure hands I would confide the staff
Now feebly held by the apostate Cranmer.

CARDINAL.
To speak of him I sought you.

QUEEN.
First decide:
Will you accept this charge?

CARDINAL.
And Winton curse
The hand that doth supplant him?

QUEEN.
He deserves
Promotion: but not thus—

CARDINAL
[musing].
He who hath stood
Upon the first step of the Papal throne,
And vacant left the Vatican, may look
With eye undazzled on the chair of Lambeth.

QUEEN.
The Church requires your service: you must yield it.

CARDINAL.
I answer to her call, and yours. A wrong
It were to both if Stephen Gardiner made
The crozier but a bloody battle-axe.
You must spare Cranmer. Hear me. He hath been
Your mother's foe—a false friend to her rival:
Therefore 'tis great to spare. But in the main,
Though weak, he is good; ardent in search of truth,
Though apt to wander; generous when not fearful;
Clear-sighted, where self-interest blinds him not.
Such men are dangerous, if desperate:
We must not make him so—for such make martyrs;
And martyrdoms make error popular.

QUEEN.
I wish not for his death.

CARDINAL.
But Gardiner wills it:
Ay, and will have it, if you be not watchful.
Strange things are rumoured of the Council's doings
While you lay sick.

QUEEN.
What can I do?

CARDINAL.
No evil,
That good may follow. Openly remove
The heretick prelate by prerogative;
And, though most irksome, I will bear his burthen.

QUEEN.
I have long thought it strange that you refused
The greater honour though the heavier burthen:
The proffered crown of Rome.

CARDINAL
[after much agitation].
Look not alarmed—
[A pause.
You touch the mind's immedicable wound.—
O God! that I had died before I knew thee!—
Pardon me—pardon me!

QUEEN.
We both need pardon.
Let us forget the past. God strengthen us!

CARDINAL.
Fear not. Henceforth we gaze upon each other,
As the two Cherubim upon the Ark;
The living God between!

QUEEN.
Then take my hand.
—It will be colder soon. May God be with you!

[Exeunt.