University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

Scene I.

The Queen's Closet, Whitehall.
Enter Queen and Cardinal.
CARDINAL.
I tell you this is wrong; your course is wicked.
Ay, wicked—I must speak. O Mary! shrink not.
This duty, trust me, is an agony.

QUEEN.
Go on, my lord.

CARDINAL.
Rogers died first: what then?
Keener Fanaticism from his ashes
Sprang up, a new-born Phœnix. Hooper, Ridley,
The venerable Latymer; now Cranmer—
You kindle fires to torture dying men:
These fires are lighting living hearts.

QUEEN.
What mean you?
Think you I love to kill? It is—It is—
A terrible duty! Pole, I cannot sleep:
Yet dreams are not more hideous than my thoughts.

CARDINAL.
Sometimes I hope you know not what fiends do,
Armed with your name.

QUEEN.
I know the men you named
Died, obstinate in crime.

CARDINAL.
The men I named!
The poor, by thousands, perish in your flames!

QUEEN.
The poor! the ignorant! I slay not these.

CARDINAL.
Yet these die daily.

QUEEN.
Would that I were dead!
The faculty of power slips from my grasp:
And I remain the servile tool of wrong.
Would I were dead!—It will soon be—What means this?
Enter Gardiner.
My lord of Winton. Does the Council doom
Our people without warrant from ourself?

GARDINER.
None but the obdurate in heresy.
For this we have our warrant: and no less
Will satisfy the Church. To stem the course
Of justice, Madam, trust me, shall endanger
Your precious soul:—nor would it now avail.
The Holy See in this hath masterdom.

QUEEN.
Mean you to menace?

GARDINER.
God forbid! But one
Sits on the Roman throne who knows its rights.

QUEEN.
Rights?

GARDINER.
Interdict and excommunication.

CARDINAL.
Trust me, my lord, the people will not bear
These dire severities.

GARDINER.
We'll look to that.
The people?—ever preaching of the people!
My lord, if they but budge, we'll ride them down.

CARDINAL.
I shame to hear you.

GARDINER.
Wherefore?

CARDINAL.
They are men!
What fills your treasury? The people's hands;
Which labour at the loom, the plough, the helm.
What nerves your power? The thews of common men.
Ye can transmute the peasant's blood to gold:
Refine his sweat to silken sheen and gems.
What then to you is basis of all gain?
The poor serf's heart, who smiles amid his labours,
And kisses every hand that spreads his dole;—
Yet, roused by wrong, in blindness of his strength,
Can pull the pillars of your temples down
In righteous ruin.

QUEEN.
Pole, thou speakest well.

GARDINER.
Under your leave, my liege, his Eminence
Speaks scholarly, not practically, well.
Wise sayings are the playthings of the wise.
As abstract propositions, in their closets,
Men sport with maxims which, in act, would peril
Their heads, and shake down kingdoms.

QUEEN.
Let this cease.
You named but now the Archbishop. He is safe
In recantation.

GARDINER.
He retracts the same.

CARDINAL.
Not so. Renewed persuasion binds him faster.

GARDINER.
I say the recreant shall retract once more,
When urged by hope, not fear.

CARDINAL.
A weak, good man.

GARDINER.
'Twere well to test this instability.
Therefore, upon the ground of his backsliding,
He shall be thoroughly probed.

QUEEN.
No torture, Sir!

GARDINER.
None—surely none—save torture of the mind.

CARDINAL.
Your meaning?

GARDINER.
Simply thus. He hath relapsed:
And therefore merits death. With due permission,
I purpose to prepare him for the stake:
The fear whereof will madden him. We, then,
May hint—that if he shall profess repentance,
From the high pulpit of Saint Mary's church,
The doom he hath incurred may be remitted.
Their leader's palinode shall scandalize
His faction sorely. What says my lord to this?

CARDINAL.
You study the sage Florentine. Your scheme
Is worthy Macchiavelli, and his “Tyrant.”

GARDINER.
The scholar will break out! You better suit
The cloister than the court. Time presses, Madam.

CARDINAL.
Madam, you speak not. Then 'tis time I go.

QUEEN.
Desert me not.

CARDINAL.
Desert not thou thyself.
I have once spoken plainly—twice to speak
Is once too often, when we speak in vain.
[Exit Cardinal.

GARDINER.
Now think, and act, as shall become a Queen;
Enervated no more by this man's folly!

QUEEN.
Presume not thou to slur the Cardinal.

GARDINER.
My liege, the time hath come when duty forces
Words from my lips which may affect my life.
Slay me, but hear me first: hear the King's voice—
The word a husband speaks; who will renounce you,
(In this I speak commissioned) if unheeded:
The word the Church, through me, her minister,
Pronounces; which can excommunicate
(I speak commissioned) all who disobey:
The word our venerable law declares,
Saying, the Sovereign who abandons duty
(I speak commissioned still) forfeits the rights
Accorded to her by her subjects' oaths;
Then when her oath gave pledge reciprocal.
[He kneels.
You are moved! O blame me not or strike me dead—
The death were welcome that might win you back
To the right path, whence if you now depart
You perish.

QUEEN
[much agitated].
I will do what you judge best.

GARDINER.
Nay what the Council judge—then you are safe.

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

Hatfield House.
Enter Elizabeth, Winchester, Pembroke, Oxford.
ELIZABETH.
A curse is on this kingdom! Each new day
Comes with the stamp of blood upon its forehead.
And though pale faces lurk 'neath smiling masks,
The hot heart palpitates for retribution.
My sister's miseries are manifest:
Yet still the royal monster who deserts her
Rules through his myrmidons. In vain doth Pole
His nobler counsels urge.

WINCHESTER.
Our hope lay there—
In our great enemy—'tis marvellous
How little Pole's commanding mind and will
Avail this day for England.

OXFORD.
He is cramped.
Within the jealous precinct of a court
Large energies like his lack room to move.
Pole cannot act with others. Men like him
Bear sway alone; or lie like stranded ship,
That hears the clarion of the seaward wind,
And waves no pennon.

ELIZABETH.
His ambition dead,
(For he has touched the summit and foregone it)
He fights with the left hand; and from his work
His heart is absent.

WINCHESTER.
Also his body fails him.

ELIZABETH.
The silver voice of Fakenham pleads in vain.
Philip commands; Bonner inveighs; at hand
Is wily Gardiner's whisper. Shall we wonder
If thus assailed, sapped, stung, her sick heart yields?

PEMBROKE.
We wonder not; but—let the word be spoken—
Shall we submit?

WINCHESTER.
Ridley and Latymer
Have perished: Cranmer, ere another day,
Dies too. Speak Madam! Shall the plague be stayed?

ELIZABETH.
I scarcely understand your aim, my lords:—
Perhaps I misconceive. What would you have?

PEMBROKE.
Elizabeth for Queen!

OXFORD.
You go too far.
I would to God her Highness ruled through law—
Not in despite of law. The Queen's distraught.
I claimed my right, an audience, hoping little,
Yet strenuous. Alas! what found I there?
Eyes wandering, thoughts perplexed, a broken voice—
The tower of mind down toppling to its earth!
She is half dead—

WINCHESTER.
Without sign manual
No convict dies.

OXFORD.
What knows she what she signs?
Parchments throng round—time presses—Gardiner frets—
With aching brain she strives to read; then sighs,
And wipes her eyes; and signs. God pardon her!
Her faculties are torpid. She will lie
Speechless as one that's dead: then wake with cries,
Her temples swollen with inward pain, teeth gnashing,
Her pale lips flecked with foam.

WINCHESTER.
God pity her!

OXFORD.
She dreamed to be the giver of new life:
But breeds disease, whose issue must be death.

WINCHESTER.
Is not this persecution a plain fact?

OXFORD.
Oh those incarnate devils, Gardiner and Bonner!
Flesh bred in murder! Blame those fiends, not her.
And blame your parliament with purse agape
For Noaille's gold; and ears for Renard's guile!
I say the Queen's distraught; she cannot govern—
A regency cures that.

PEMBROKE.
I love straight ways:
Bye paths mislead. Had Richmond grasped at Bosworth
Less than a crown, Richard had won the day.

ELIZABETH.
My lords, I pray you cease. I have ever found
The Queen exceeding kind. She spared me once;
When foes maligned me. I will not supplant her:—
Nor, were I so disposed, doth the time suit.
That time too swiftly comes;—but heralded
By death. Be patient.

WINCHESTER.
Cranmer loved your Mother.

ELIZABETH.
Where was his aid in her extremity?
Weak pilot, veering with each shift of wind!
Think you he will recant again?

OXFORD.
Not now.

ELIZABETH.
Then is he doomed. Christ succour his frail flesh!
How can I save a self-abandoned man?
No man is safe. All are hemmed in by spies.
Men watch while we talk here. Farewell, my lords.

[Exeunt.

Scene III.

Oxford, the Queen's Chamber.
Enter, to her, Gardiner.
QUEEN.
Why stand'st thou gasping thus?

GARDINER.
Scarce can I speak.
I am well nigh choked with anger and amaze.
This smooth, fair-spoken, lying, cringing Cranmer
Hath turned upon us, like a boar at bay!
Ay, of a truth, he bared his tusks on us,
In such a sort, these gray hairs stood on end.

QUEEN.
Dares he to tempt us—peril his soul's safety—
Even in the doomster's grasp?

GARDINER.
Let me take breath!
Heart-sick and brain-sick am I—Miscreant! traitor!—
We led the arch heretick to Mary's church;
Trusting that there he would abjure his sin;
And so improve short respite to full pardon.
The “nunc dimittis” sung, we let him mount
The step beneath the pulpit; where he knelt,
And wept so piteously, that many, trust me,
Shed tears in sympathy; specially those
Who felt most hopeful in his late conversion.
But scarce had Doctor Cole his worthy sermon
Concluded, in the which he set forth stoutly
The heresies of this blind man; expounding
How men are tempted, not beyond endurance;
And that his hope, even like the penitent thief
Might mount to Paradise; with many more
Like comfortable charges—this, concluded,
Cranmer arose, with tearful eyes to heaven.
Our hopes stood tiptoe: but, this mumming ended,
Did he profess the truth? Not so!—Quoth he,
“The time hath passed that I should more dissemble.”
And then he swore his conscience pricked him most
For his feigned recantation, to save life:
And that the hand which signed should burn the first.
Then did he ban the Pope:—We stood aghast!

QUEEN.
Now, by the God that made me!—but, go on.

GARDINER.
We bade him be a Christian, and submit.
But momently he grew more contumacious:
Until, our patience gone, we packed him off
Unto the stocks.

QUEEN.
Inveigh against the Pope?
Revile our holy Church?—incite the People?—

GARDINER.
We wait your pleasure.

QUEEN.
Let him die the death!

GARDINER.
Suspense is torture. He must die! The state—
God's holy Church—your oath to both demand it.

QUEEN.
Spurned as a rabid dog—shunned as a leper—
Let his foul ashes scatter on the wind!
So be the violated Faith avenged:
Away! away! I pant for thy return!

[Exeunt severally.

Scene IV.

A Street in Oxford.
Enter Winchester, Oxford, and Pembroke.
PEMBROKE.
The Princess fails us: let us try the People,
Or he is lost.

WINCHESTER.
Consistency, forsooth!
Stand up to death!—all for a name—a shadow!
A martyr truly! Better live a saint!
To die untimely shall not profit him,
Nor his disciples. Let him live; that so
Hereafter he may preach.

OXFORD.
What matters it—
Or soon or late? Our mission here is closed,
Duty fulfilled: and when this world fades from us
The better dawns. Scandal too much hath fallen
Upon the Church by his backsliding once.
Be firm, O Cranmer, to the end!

WINCHESTER.
I grant you,
The trouble of the time requires calm courses.

PEMBROKE.
Calm courses! Have I challenged on his path
That bear, Northumberland, to quail at curs?

WINCHESTER.
You knew your man, and weighed the times: that bear
Fell in your pit—sorely we smote him in it—
Marry I spared not!

OXFORD.
I had no part therein.
I scorned the vermin, and withheld from Court.
But to the matter. Count not on the people:
'Tis manifest they side with the old Church.
To strike with half a weapon—charge unbacked—
Were but scant wisdom.

WINCHESTER.
We must bide our time.

PEMBROKE.
Farewell, my lords!—So be it!—Sink, good sword
In Isis fathoms five—I need you not!

[Exit, flinging away his sword.
WINCHESTER.
We have chafed our noble friend a whit too sharply.

OXFORD.
Give the hot horse the rein—he'll stop when breathless.
But what avails complaint. 'Tis time we part.

WINCHESTER.
Oxford, farewell! Heaven bless thy noble heart.

[Exeunt severally.

Scene V.

Oxford. A Gallery.
Queen, alone.
QUEEN.
Why comes not Gardiner?—this is horrible.
He tempted me, he terrified, he goaded;—
The homicide I fiated is doing—
And like the victim I stand shivering here,
In the mind's ague. Hark! was not that a cry?
What do I watch?—Inexorable minutes,
How swift ye speed!—too late—too late to save!
O mad precipitation of my will!
Even while I speak, the future grows the past!
[Shouting heard.
The shout of thousands, from the scene of death
Murmuring hoarsely—what is doing now?

Enter Gardiner [staggering feebly].
You come at last—I have waited long—speak—speak!
Hush—that dread sound again! My temples burn
Hot as the martyr's pile. 'Tis doing—Bishop!
The deed you longed for—why not look on it
With your red, hungry eyes? The man you hate
Even now consumes in his great agony.
O Cranmer! See him, as I see him now—
His arms flung forth, thus—thus: the tongues of flame
Eating into him like Megæra's vipers!
The agony of hell is in that cry!
It hath gone up before the Son of God
Appealing; ay—and we must answer it.
Well may you tremble, prelate! Ho! some light!
A preternatural shadow falls upon us.
I shall grow mad—why speak you not, pale wretch?

GARDINER.
Pardon! My voice sticks in my throat. In truth
I am very feeble—sick almost to death.

QUEEN.
Light! light! what means this darkness? Hark! the voice
Of God in thunder! who hath seen before
A cloud like that o'ercast the evening sky?
Black as a pall—it grows—it hovers o'er us—
A demon's wing, dun with the soot of hell!
Come hither—nay, you shall come—mark yon glare!
It is not lightning—it abides: not lightning,
It grows—look on it—priest of peace! look on it!
Know you what that betides? I charge you, speak.

GARDINER.
I can endure no more!

[He rushes out.
Enter Fakenham.
QUEEN.
Welcome, good Fakenham!
Speak, I conjure you! let me hear some voice!

FAKENHAM.
What can I say?—Thought sickens—

QUEEN.
While you pause
Fancy is busy—anything but silence!
I am nerved to hear the worst.

FAKENHAM.
What shall I say?
His death—that white-haired man—had graced a martyr?

QUEEN.
What did he do—what say?

FAKENHAM.
He never shrank
From torment—nay, ere the flame reached his body,
He stretched his hand forth to it, and there held it—
A black and shrivel'd shape—pah! I am sick!—
Saying, “Weak member! thou hast wrought my sin;
Perish thou first!”

QUEEN.
I think my senses fail:
What more—what more?

FAKENHAM.
He never breathed a groan;
But bowed his head amid the flames and died.

QUEEN.
A martyr! ha! ha! martyr—said you not?

FAKENHAM.
His death became the saints of better days.

Enter Margaret Douglas.
MARGARET.
O my sweet mistress!

QUEEN.
What new stroke of horror
Falls on us now?

MARGARET.
Scarce had my lord of Winton
Reached his own house, where friends had come to feast,
Sudden, as though by lightning, he fell dead.

QUEEN.
Support me, I am giddy!

FAKENHAM.
Hold her up—
Dead! Gardiner dead! He hath been sick of late.
Yet it is strange. Watch our sad mistress well.
[Exeunt Queen and Margaret.
Ay—strange—both die: both—victim, and oppressor—
At the same moment die: and die unshriven.
Be masses sung!—let prayer unceasingly
Rise to the throne of God!—Mediate, good Saints!
Two grievous sinners sleep: may both awake
To mercy! Which needs most?—I am sore disturbed.

[Exit.

Scene VI.

Richmond Place, Queen's Chamber.
Queen asleep on a couch, with Margaret Douglas near her. Enter Cardinal and Oxford.
CARDINAL.
I fear I task your friendly aid, my lord;
This fever eats into my bones: I move
Feebly and painfully.

OXFORD.
Your Eminence
Is not so stricken as our mistress yonder.
I do begin to fear her end is nigh.

CARDINAL.
Our birth is the beginning of our dying!
It matters little when the end shall be.

OXFORD.
Much to our woful country. Heaven avert it!

CARDINAL.
To suit one creature, universal laws
Are not revoked. Swift be thy homeward voyage,
O Mary, to the haven of thy rest!
The providential current, followed out,
Will lead thee onward to the pleasant sea;
From cataract and rock devolving smoothly
To the great symbol of eternity;
Which, seeming to dispart, links all together.

OXFORD.
Think you, my lord, King Philip will come back?

CARDINAL.
I fear me not.

OXFORD.
Nor guess a cause?

CARDINAL.
'Tis clear
He loves her not. Alas! he knows her not,
Thus thralled, thus masked, in premature decay,
Sprung from unworthy slight, care, grief, remorse.

OXFORD.
He may be jealous.

CARDINAL.
No! he does not love!

OXFORD.
His natural condition is distrust:
His ear needs but some venemous tongue to sting it,
And he shall be as dangerous as the abyss,
Whose smoke makes dark the sun!

CARDINAL.
Alas! alas!
Behold the end. Here lies a great heart blasted!

[He kneels at the couch and kisses the Queen's hand.
QUEEN.
The Cardinal—O joy!—How sweet to waken
Toward a loved face with a smile! Whence come you?
Why look you sad?

CARDINAL.
I came to lighten sorrow.

QUEEN.
Is the King well?

CARDINAL.
The King is well, but comes not.

QUEEN.
Oh me! when I look back on what I have been;
The strange vicissitudes that marked my way;
I shudder for the future. I have been
As one who saw some vision in the air
Of elemental beauty, which, when grasped at,
Vanished: and left instead a grinning devil.
Too late I find how far from good I've wandered.
Oh! never may you feel the agony
Which weighs a heart down that hath earned despair.
You stare at me as one of sense deprived,
Or a sleep-walker crouching o'er a gulf.
I am no maniac, Pole, but very wretched.

CARDINAL.
Why will you judge the worst? prognosticate
Nought but disaster? This is no regal spirit!
It is to be a dastard to complain.

QUEEN.
There was a time—O Reginald! our youth
Was not bound down by frosty forms: pray with me!
Pray for me!—pray for hope!

CARDINAL.
There was a time
When all your thoughts were to this heart laid open:
And then to comfort your's was joy to mine.
Methought God gave you, as I prayed for you—
Now graver state, stern duties interpose;
And reverence chains down favour.

QUEEN.
God! thou knowest
What, under better guidance, I had been.
Marvels perplex; torments, despised while suffered,
Master the spirit; blind forebodings mock us:
And, though the eye marks not, the inner soul,
Trembling, responds to outward influences.
Therefore I deem this shadow on my mind
The skirts of that dark pall which swathes my fortunes.

CARDINAL.
This from a Christian?

Enter Lord Wentworth, Governor of Calais.
QUEEN.
Hold! if I read aright
A face of woe, this justifies my fear,
Why come you, Wentworth, from your precious charge?

WENTWORTH.
Woe's me! my charge is lost. Calais hath yielded.

QUEEN.
What man—art mad? unsay thy tidings, traitor!
Calais, the brightest gem of Harry's crown!
Our badge on France's cap—our sallyport
To his rich manors! O dishonoured Queen!
Talk not to me of patience—speak of vengeance,
Or I shall madden.

WENTWORTH.
Hear a little further.
The King hath triumphed nobly at Saint Quentin.
The Spanish infantry there pushed the French
From a fair field; and took their Constable,
The famous Montmorency, and the Rhinegrave,
Montpensier, Longueville and Gonzaga;
Leaving the son of Bourbon, duke of Enghien,
Young Roche du Maine, and others, men of note,
Dead on the field.

QUEEN.
And this, Sir, you call comfort:
That Spanish swords are flushed with victory
While our's are doomed to rust, our banners drooping,
In the aisles of Notre Dame. O shame! where sleep
The destriers that swept the field of Spurs!
Degenerate daughter, thou should'st have died and left
The sceptre to a man—More grief—more shame?

Enter Lord Paget.
PAGET.
My liege, scarce had the late King's counterfeit
Been captured, when another knave sprang up,
Assuming the false name of Exeter:
Who straight made proclamation, by the style
Of the seventh Edward: daring audaciously
Therein to call your royal sister Queen,
And his affianced wife.

QUEEN.
O heavy day!
The old wound bleeds afresh. Spare me, good God!

PAGET.
How will's your Grace to deal with these?

QUEEN.
Who knows not
The punishment of traitors? Smite their necks—
As they have smit this heart! Not for myself—
Not for myself, thou knowest O God, I strike—
But for my country, bleeding through my wounds!
Enter Lord Howard of Effingham.
I see disaster couched within thine eye.
Speak on—speak out.

LORD HOWARD.
The Scot hath passed the border,
In swarms, devastating our lands, defiling
Our household honour; slaughtering our babes!

MARY
[springing up].
Bring forth my chariot, and my battle horses!
Princes should head their armies, and partake
The peril they provoke. The cry of war
Renerves my vigour. From my couch of pain
See, I have leaped, and flung my staff away,
Even as the cripple at the voice of Christ!

CARDINAL.
He is a God of peace. Link not his name
With thoughts of strife.

QUEEN.
God is the God of battles!
And rides forth in the vanward of His chosen.
Marvels he wrought in the old time by the hands
Of his anointed. Bring my regal helm—
And panoply of mail: and redcross shield.
I will go forth like Miriam, and hymn
The triumph of the Lord before His people!
Down-trampled Treason in the mire shall writhe
Like a crushed adder. We shall spurn the Scots;
And lash the hounds of France back to their kennel—
To horse—I cry aloud!

OXFORD
[aside].
Obstruct her not.
This passion must have way. Already, mark you,
Her power collapses.

CARDINAL.
Fearful 'tis to witness
This conflict of fierce wrath with corporal weakness—
Thus devils rebuked, rend, ere they leave, their victims.

QUEEN.
I am very faint. Bring me a cup of water.
Time was—but it is gone: Time is—swift passing:
Time comes—but no reality for me!
I have reigned—I am lost! Let me die!

CARDINAL.
Break not—break not our hearts—Better the rage
That nerved you at the first.

QUEEN.
Dear Reginald!
We both are bound for death: which first I know not.
I shall not see the end: but what that end
I know. The spirit of prophecy is o'er me.
Cloud after cloud, great woes come frowning on:
A nation's wreck—the bloody death of Kings.
Call not, O Reginald, this mood despair.
That I have done with earth, and sigh for peace,
Need waken no man's wonder. Not disease—
Hearts of good cheer might conquer that—but grief,
Remorse, shame, strike me with stern gauntlets down:
While daily cares, petty anxieties,
Fret me to madness.

CARDINAL.
Great of soul wert thou,
And strong of heart, till now. Be so again.

QUEEN.
The strength of England, in my heart till now
Concentred, melting, leaves me but myself—
Sum up my personal life. You knew me first,
A daughter, witness of her mother's wrongs—
A daughter, conscious of her father's crimes—
A princess, shorn of her inheritance—
A lady, taunted with foul bastardy—
A sister, from her brother's heart estranged—
A sister, by a sister's hand betrayed—
A rightful queen, hemmed by usurping bands—
A reigning queen, baited by slaves she spared—
A maid betrothed, stung by the love she trusted—
A wedded wife, spurned from the hand that won her—
A Christian, reeking with the blood of martyrs—
And now, at length, a hated tyrant, dragging
Her People to unprofitable wars;
And from her feeble hold basely resigning
The trophy of long centuries of fame.
I have reigned—I am lost—let me die!

CARDINAL.
Is Calais worth these pangs? Ineptitude
Hath lost what valour shall regain.

QUEEN.
'Tis gone!—
For ever!—England's heritage of glory—
When shall her banner wave in France again?

CARDINAL.
When France outstrips her in the race of crime.

QUEEN.
Prophetick be thy words! But I shall lie
Forgotten in my grave ere then—Forgotten?
Forgotten! no! Shame's never dying echoes
Shall keep the memory of the bloody Mary
Alive in England. Vampyre calumny
Shall prey on my remains. My name shall last
To fright the children of the race I love.

CARDINAL.
Daughter, you err; forgetting in this passion
The justice of your Maker.

QUEEN.
Humbly I own it:
Impugning not the ways of Providence
Because I suffer. Justly the penalty
Of sin is meted to me.

CARDINAL.
With that thought
Consent to peace were easy.

QUEEN.
Peace? no peace
Till Calais be regained. No peace! my People—
All England shouts upon my dying ear.
No peace—no peace—till Calais be won back!

CARDINAL.
Peace is God's gift.

QUEEN.
Calais! thy name is graven
Upon my heart—You'll find it when I die!

[Exeunt.

Scene VII.

St. James's Palace, Queen's Chamber.
Queen, Margaret Douglas, Fakenham.
QUEEN.
When shall my foot have rest? You led me first
To Hampton Court from Richmond: then you said
The banks of Thame were marshy; and with pain
I have crept hither to St James's towers.
Holy the name! 'Twere well should I die here.
Why comes not the lord Cardinal?

FAKENHAM.
Too weak
He is to move. Slow fever racks his limbs.

QUEEN.
Our fates are strangely linked. We'll die together.
I have so dreamed before. Have you no news?

MARGARET.
Yes, madam, heavy news. The Emperor—

QUEEN.
Is dead? I know it ere you answer. Blest
Is he to be released from worldly cares,
And public calumny; his dying ears
Soothed by the prayers of saintly men; his limbs
By holy hands composed!—Who is it that comes?
Enter Count de Feria.
I see not plainly.

MARGARET.
Count de Feria.

COUNT
[kneeling].
I seek your Grace with missives from the King.

QUEEN.
Will he not come to soothe a dying woman?

COUNT.
Pressing emergencies of state constrain him.
He prays your Grace to wear this jewelled ring,
In pledge of amity: and bids you live
In cheerful hope of bodily amendment.

QUEEN.
I shall not trouble him long. There is no hope.

COUNT.
And if there be no hope—which God forefend!—
He owns the Princess as your proper heir.

QUEEN.
This gives me joy unlooked for. Tell him, good Feria,
I pledge him as he hopes for God's reward,
That he, when I am gone, unto my People
Shall prove himself a father in his care;
A brother in his love: and, furthermore,
In his great power a frank and ready friend
Unto my heir. Take this, a precious diamond,
His father's gift—and this, his own dear pledge—
These bid him keep—in memory of the Dead.
It pleased not God that I should leave behind me
A pledge of my affection—I am choked
With strange emotions—I must speak no more
Of this—nor Philip—Pardon my wanderings!—
O Virgin Mother! intercede for one
Whose thoughts—thus on the threshold of thy glory—
Still earthward turn—

FAKENHAM.
You are exhausted, daughter.
Haply you might have sleep, if we retired.

QUEEN.
The last sleep comes! Call in my gentlewomen—
Let no strange hand profane my poor remains.
O heavy eyes! O fluttering heart! the hour
Is come that wafts you to eternity!
Where are you, Fakenham? Go not—

FAKENHAM.
I am here.

QUEEN.
I thought you gone, not seeing well. Some cordial—
For somewhat I have still to say. Where are you?

MARGARET.
We are, and shall be, near you.

QUEEN.
Give me your hand—
Why not my sister's hand? Ah, poor Jane Grey!
She was to Edward, while he died, a sister.
I am a sinful creature—bless you, sister!
—I would have speech with Pembroke.

MARGARET.
He is gone
To Hatfield.

QUEEN.
Winchester?

FAKENHAM.
He, too, is gone.

QUEEN.
Deserted on my deathbed!—Yet not so—
Dear friends, how many of ye still cling round me!
I am content. In truth, the agony
Is not what I had feared—Why this is nothing.
Be satisfied—I do not fear to die:
And, to say truth, have long time wished to die.
The mist that brooded o'er the face of things
Is lifted. Death is sent to make us sane.
—Bear to my cousin Pole—friend of my youth—
My last, last blessing. If he live, I charge him
To watch my sister with exceeding love.
If he be bound for heaven, his orisons
Shall plead for her he loved—too well—too sadly—
Before the all-seeing Judge. Take these, my jewels—
And that best gift of earth, a deathbed blessing,
Unto my sister. Not to strongly rule
This kingdom, (for I know, and fully trust
Her noble intellect) but fondly rule it,
Leaving the issue of her cares with God,
I supplicate, and warn her. For religion,
I know she is no Puritan; yet fear
She stumbles in her faith. At least, I pray her,
To be to others, as I was to her,
Indulgent. Let my debts be justly paid—
And from my goods endow an hospital
For worn out soldiers. Re-endow three convents
For the Observants, and, at Schene and Sion,
For charitable watching of the Poor.
No more—my breath comes painfully—dull sounds
Murmur around—Bury me with my Mother—
Raise tombs of honour—to our memory—
And grave on mine—the motto I have loved—
Prophetick—may it prove—Time unveils Truth!

FAKENHAM.
Her last words!—her lips quiver—her eyes close—
Hold up the cross! she sees—she—smiles—she dies!

[The Queen dies.
Enter Oxford and Underhill.
FAKENHAM.
Too late you come, my lord—all that remains
Of Mary Tudor sleeps till the last trumpet!
How fares the Cardinal?

OXFORD.
He too is gone.
Some one brought rumour that the Queen was dying—
Whereat he suddenly grew pale; then smiled;
And cried, in act of death, “Receive my soul!—
Together we will rise to our Redeemer!”

FAKENHAM.
So, at our need, hath perished our last hope!
For first in worth, as place, was he in council;
And knew so well the interests of the State
Were with God's law entwined, that he became
Restorer of Religion; and made perfect
The shattered superstructure of the realm.
—What birth, outside the purple, was so glorious
As his, whose sire and mother both derived
Their lineage from the throne? The Church's champion,
He of her sons was the most moderate.
His learning was profound; his heart all bounty.
From youth he shunned the world. The privacy
Of rural life, pure air, the quiet stars,
Enamel'd meadows, breath of woods and streams—
At these, the breasts of Nature, he imbibed
Devotion—and so nursed his soul for heaven.
He travelled through that land whose names are story;
Beheld Rome's wonders; spiritually tasting
The intellectual flavour of an age
Whose noblest were his mates in after time.
When Harry probed him touching the divorce,
He lashed the royal vice, and woke its fury:
But God was his protection. Long he lived
A voluntary exile; watchful, studious.
Behold him next, a Cardinal, at Trent,
Presiding o'er the Council: then at Rome,
Refusing the great Christian bishoprick:
At Mentz, once more, a mild recluse; his soul
To letters, which he loved, and pious needs,
Devoted: and at last, recalled to England;
Restorer of the Cross!

OXFORD.
Amid the torrent
Of manifold opinions stood the Queen;
A rock, whose firm-fixed base defied all floods.
God set her on the throne of his own tower:
And, in his mercy, sent this Cardinal
To strengthen and to guide her.

FAKENHAM.
His was not
The tactique of the soldier: he advanced
His counsel with persuasion; ever suing
The royal heart for merciful awards;
While sterner men, or weaker, frowned or wavered.

OXFORD.
We have beheld these lights—but not preserved them;
Now quenched for ever!

FAKENHAM.
England! my poor country!
Soiled with impiety, and blood of martyrs;
Shall Henry's sin never be expiated?
Shall his blind passions through our pangs be punished?
His blasphemies entail persistent error?
The limit and far scope of evil deeds
God metes alone, who metes their punishment.
Man has but to revere while he submits!

OXFORD.
If ever victim to a broken heart
Hath died, she lies before us. Awful Queen!
Hardly of thee Posterity shall judge—
For they shall measure thee—

UNDERHILL.
Let me speak, Sir;
For I have known, and been protected by her,
When fierce men thirsted for my blood. I say not
That she was innocent of grave offence;
Nor aught done in her name extenuate.
But I insist upon her maiden mercies,
In proof that cruelty was not her nature.
She abrogated the tyrannic laws
Made by her father. She restored her subjects
To personal liberty; to judge and jury;
Inculcating impartiality.
Good laws, made or revived, attest her fitness
Like Deborah to judge. She loved the Poor:
And fed the destitute: and they loved her.
A worthy Queen she had been, if as little
Of cruelty had been done under her,
As by her. To equivocate she hated:
And was just what she seemed. In fine she was
In all things excellent while she pursued
Her own free inclination without fear!

[The curtain falls.