University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

ELIZABETH.

Scene I.

Richmond.
Walsingham and Davison.
Walsingham.
It is God's wrath, too sure, that holds her hand;
His plague upon this people, to preserve
By her sole mean her deadliest enemy, known
By proof more potent than approof of law
In all points guilty, but on more than all
Toward all this country dangerous. To take off
From the court held last month at Fotheringay
Authority with so full commission given
To pass upon her judgment—suddenly
Cut short by message of some three lines writ
With hurrying hand at midnight, and despatched
To maim its work upon the second day,
What else may this be in so wise a queen
But madness, as a brand to sear the brain
Of one by God infatuate? yea, and now
That she receives the French ambassador
With one more special envoy from his king,
Except their message touch her spleen with fire
And so undo itself, we cannot tell
What doubt may work upon her. Had we but
Some sign more evident of some private seal
Confirming toward her by more personal proof
The Scottish queen's inveteracy, for this
As for our country plucked from imminent death
We might thank God: but with such gracious words
Of piteous challenge and imperial plea
She hath wrought by letter on our mistress' mind,
We may not think her judgment so could slip,
Borne down with passion or forgetfulness,
As to leave bare her bitter root of heart
And core of evil will there labouring.

Davison.
Yet
I see no shade of other surety cast
From any sign of likelihood. It were
Not shameful more than dangerous, though she bade,
To have her prisoner privily made away;
Yet stands the queen's heart wellnigh fixed hereon
When aught may seem to fix it; then as fast
Wavers, but veers to that bad point again
Whence blowing the wind blows down her honour, nor
Brings surety of life with fame's destruction.

Walsingham.
Ay,
We are no Catholic keepers, and his charge
Need fear no poison in our watch-dog's fang,
Though he show honest teeth at her, to threat
Thieves' hands with loyal danger.

Enter Queen Elizabeth, attended by Burghley, Leicester, Hunsdon, Hatton, and others of the Council.
Elizabeth.
No, my lords,
We are not so weak of wit as men that need
Be counselled of their enemies. Blame us not
That we accuse your friendship on this cause
Of too much fearfulness: France we will hear,
Nor doubt but France shall hear us all as loud
As friend or foe may threaten or protest,
Of our own heart advised, and resolute more
Than hearts that need men's counsel. Bid them in.
Enter Châteauneuf and Bellièvre, attended.
From our fair cousin of France what message, sirs?

Bellièvre.
I, madam, have in special charge to lay
The king's mind open to your majesty,
Which gives my tongue first leave of speech more free
Than from a common envoy. Sure it is,
No man more grieves at what his heart abhors,
The counsels of your highness' enemies,
Than doth the king of France: wherein how far
The queen your prisoner have borne part, or may
Seem of their works partaker, he can judge
Nought: but much less the king may understand
What men may stand accusers, who rise up
Judge in so great a matter. Men of law
May lay their charges on a subject: but
The queen of Scotland, dowager queen of France,
And sister made by wedlock to the king,
To none being subject, can be judged of none
Without such violence done on rule as breaks
Prerogative of princes. Nor may man
That looks upon your present majesty
In such clear wise apparent, and retains
Remembrance of your name through all the world
For virtuous wisdom, bring his mind to think
That England's royal-souled Elizabeth,
Being set so high in fame, can so forget
Wise Plato's word, that common souls are wrought
Out of dull iron and slow lead, but kings
Of gold untempered with so vile alloy
As makes all metal up of meaner men.
But say this were not thus, and all men's awe
Were from all time toward kingship merely vain,
And state no more worth reverence, yet the plea
Were nought which here your ministers pretend,
That while the queen of Scots lives you may live
No day that knows not danger. Were she dead,
Rather might then your peril wax indeed
To shape and sense of heavier portent, whom
The Catholic states now threat not, nor your land,
For this queen's love, but rather for their faith's,
Whose cause, were she by violent hand removed,
Could be but furthered, and its enterprise
Put on more strong and prosperous pretext; yea,
You shall but draw the invasion on this land
Whose threat you so may think to stay, and bring
Imminence down of inroad. Thus far forth
The queen of Scots hath for your person been
Even as a targe or buckler which has caught
All intercepted shafts against your state
Shot, or a stone held fast within your hand,
Which, if you cast it thence in fear or wrath
To smite your adversary, is cast away,
And no mean left therein for menace. If
You lay but hand upon her life, albeit
There were that counselled this, her death will make
Your enemies weapons of their own despair
And give their whetted wrath excuse and edge
More plausibly to strike more perilously.
Your grace is known for strong in foresight: we
These nineteen years of your wise reign have kept
Fast watch in France upon you: of those claims
Which lineally this queen here prisoner may
Put forth on your succession have you made
The stoutest rampire of your rule: and this
Is grown a byword with us, that their cause
Who shift the base whereon their policies lean
Bows down toward ruin: and of loyal heart
This will I tell you, madam, which hath been
Given me for truth assured of one whose place
Affirms him honourable, how openly
A certain prince's minister that well
May stand in your suspicion says abroad
That for his master's greatness it were good
The queen of Scots were lost already, seeing
He is well assured the Catholics here should then
All wholly range them on his master's part.
Thus long hath reigned your highness happily,
Who have loved fair temperance more than violence: now,
While honour bids have mercy, wisdom holds
Equal at least the scales of interest. Think
What name shall yours be found in time far hence,
Even as you deal with her that in your hand
Lies not more subject than your fame to come
In men's repute that shall be. Bid her live,
And ever shall my lord stand bound to you
And you for ever firm in praise of men.

Elizabeth.
I am sorry, sir, you are hither come from France
Upon no better errand. I appeal
To God for judge between my cause and hers
Whom here you stand for. In this realm of mine
The queen of Scots sought shelter, and therein
Hath never found but kindness; for which grace
In recompense she hath three times sought my life.
No grief that on this head yet ever fell
Shook ever from mine eyes so many a tear
As this last plot upon it. I have read
As deep I doubt me in as many books
As any queen or prince in Christendom,
Yet never chanced on aught so strange and sad
As this my state's calamity. Mine own life
Is by mere nature precious to myself,
And in mine own realm I can live not safe.
I am a poor lone woman, girt about
With secret enemies that perpetually
Lay wait for me to kill me. From your king
Why have not I my traitor to my hands
Delivered up, who now this second time
Hath sought to slay me, Morgan? On my part,
Had mine own cousin Hunsdon here conspired
Against the French king's life, he had found not so
Refuge of me, nor even for kindred's sake
From the edge of law protection: and this cause
Needs present evidence of this man's mouth.

Bellièvre.
Madam, there stand against the queen of Scots
Already here in England on this charge
So many and they so dangerous witnesses
No need can be to bring one over more:
Nor can the king show such unnatural heart
As to send hither a knife for enemies' hands
To cut his sister's throat. Most earnestly
My lord expects your resolution: which
If we receive as given against his plea,
I must crave leave to part for Paris hence.
Yet give me pardon first if yet once more
I pray your highness be assured, and so
Take heed in season, you shall find this queen
More dangerous dead than living. Spare her life,
And not my lord alone but all that reign
Shall be your sureties in all Christian lands
Against all scathe of all conspiracies
Made on her party: while such remedies' ends
As physic states with bloodshedding, to cure
Danger by death, bring fresh calamities
Far oftener forth than the old are healed of them
Which so men thought to medicine. To refrain
From that red-handed way of rule, and set
Justice no higher than mercy sits beside,
Is the first mean of kings' prosperity
That would reign long: nor will my lord believe
Your highness could put off yourself so much
As to reverse and tread upon the law
That you thus long have kept and honourably:
But should this perilous purpose hold right on,
I am bounden by my charge to say, the king
Will not regard as liable to your laws
A queen's imperial person, nor will hold
Her death as but the general wrong of kings
And no more his than as his brethren's all,
But as his own and special injury done,
More than to these injurious.

Elizabeth.
Doth your lord
Bid you speak thus?

Bellièvre.
Ay, madam: from his mouth
Had I command what speech to use.

Elizabeth.
You have done
Better to speak than he to send it. Sir,
You shall not presently depart this land
As one denied of mere discourtesy.
I will return an envoy of mine own
To speak for me at Paris with the king.
You shall bear back a letter from my hand,
And give your lord assurance, having seen,
I cannot be so frighted with men's threats
That they shall not much rather move my mind
To quicken than to slack the righteous doom
Which none must think by menace to put back,
Or daunt it with defiance. Sirs, good day.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.
I were as one belated with false lights
If I should think to steer my darkling way
By twilight furtherance of their wiles and words.
Think you, my lords, France yet would have her live?

Burghley.
If there be other than the apparent end
Hid in this mission to your majesty,
Mine envoys can by no means fathom it,
Who deal for me at Paris: fear of Spain
Lays double hand as 'twere upon the king,
Lest by removal of the queen of Scots
A way be made for peril in the claim
More potent then of Philip; and if there come
From his Farnese note of enterprise
Or danger this way tending, France will yet
Cleave to your friendship though his sister die.

Elizabeth.
So, in your mind, this half-souled brother would
Steer any way that might keep safe his sail
Against a southern wind, which here, he thinks,
Her death might strengthen from the north again
To blow against him off our subject straits,
Made servile then and Spanish? Yet perchance
There swells behind our seas a heart too high
To bow more easily down, and bring this land
More humbly to such handling, than their waves
Bow down to ships of strangers, or their storms
To breath of any lord on earth but God.
What thinks our cousin?

Hunsdon.
That if Spain or France
Or both be stronger than the heart in us
Which beats to battle ere they menace, why,
In God's name, let them rise and make their prey
Of what was England: but if neither be,
The smooth-cheeked French man-harlot, nor that hand
Which holp to light Rome's fires with English limbs,
Let us not keep to make their weakness strong
A pestilence here alive in England, which
Gives force to their faint enmities, and burns
Half the heart out of loyal trust and hope
With heat that kindles treason.

Elizabeth.
By this light,
I have heard worse counsel from a wise man's tongue
Than this clear note of forthright soldiership.
How say you, Dudley, to it?

Leicester.
Madam, ere this
You have had my mind upon the matter, writ
But late from Holland, that no public stroke
Should fall upon this princess, who may be
By privy death more happily removed
Without impeach of majesty, nor leave
A sign against your judgment, to call down
Blame of strange kings for wrong to kingship wrought
Though right were done to justice.

Elizabeth.
Of your love
We know it is that comes this counsel; nor,
Had we such friends of all our servants, need
Our mind be now distraught with dangerous doubts
That find no screen from dangers. Yet meseems
One doubt stands now removed, if doubt there were
Of aught from Scotland ever: Walsingham,
You should have there intelligence whereof
To make these lords with us partakers.

Walsingham.
Nay,
Madam, no more than from a trustless hand
Protest and promise: of those twain that come
Hot on these Frenchmen's heels in embassy,
He that in counsel on this cause was late
One with my lord of Leicester now, to rid
By draught of secret death this queen away,
Bears charge to say as these gone hence have said
In open audience, but by personal note
Hath given me this to know, that howsoe'er
His king indeed desire her life be spared
Much may be wrought upon him, would your grace
More richly line his ragged wants with gold
And by full utterance of your parliament
Approve him heir in England.

Elizabeth.
Ay! no more?
God's blood! what grace is proffered us at need,
And on what mild conditions! Say I will not
Redeem such perils at so dear a price,
Shall not our pensioner too join hands with France
And pay my gold with iron barter back
At edge of sword he dares not look upon,
They tell us, for the scathe and scare he took
Even in this woman's womb when shot and steel
Undid the manhood in his veins unborn
And left his tongue's threats handless?

Walsingham.
Men there be,
Your majesty must think, who bear but ill,
For pride of country and high-heartedness,
To see the king they serve your servant so
That not his mother's life and once their queen's
Being at such point of peril can enforce
One warlike word of his for chance of war
Conditional against you. Word came late
From Edinburgh that there the citizens
With hoot and hiss had bayed him through the streets
As he went heartless by; of whom they had heard
This published saying, that in his personal mind
The blood of kindred or affinity
So much not binds us as the friendship pledged
To them that are not of our blood: and this
Stands clear for certain, that no breath of war
Shall breathe from him against us though she die,
Except his titular claim be reft from him
On our succession: and that all his mind
Is but to reign unpartnered with a power
Which should weigh down that half his kingdom's weight
Left to his hand's share nominally in hold:
And for his mother, this would he desire,
That she were kept from this day to her death
Close prisoner in one chamber, never more
To speak with man or woman: and hereon
That proclamation should be made of her
As of one subject formally declared
To the English law whereby, if she offend
Again with iterance of conspiracy,
She shall not as a queen again be tried,
But as your vassal and a private head
Live liable to the doom and stroke of death.

Elizabeth.
She is bounden to him as he long since to her,
Who would have given his kingdom up at least
To his dead father's slayer, in whose red hand
How safe had lain his life too doubt may guess,
Which yet kept dark her purpose then on him,
Dark now no more to usward. Think you then
That they belie him, whose suspicion saith
His ear and heart are yet inclined to Spain,
If from that brother-in-law that was of ours
And would have been our bridegroom he may win
Help of strange gold and foreign soldiership,
With Scottish furtherance of those Catholic lords
Who are stronger-spirited in their faith than ours,
Being harried more of heretics, as they say,
Than these within our borders, to root out
The creed there stablished now, and do to death
Its ministers, with all the lords their friends,
Lay hands on all strong places there, and rule
As prince upon their party? since he fain
From ours would be divided, and cast in
His lot with Rome against us too, from these
Might he but earn assurance of their faith,
Revolting from his own. May these things be
More than mere muttering breath of trustless lies,
And half his heart yet hover toward our side
For all such hope or purpose?

Walsingham.
Of his heart
We know not, madam, surely; nor doth he
Who follows fast on their first envoy sent,
And writes to excuse him of his message here
On her behalf apparent, but in sooth
Aimed otherwise; the Master I mean of Gray,
Who swears me here by letter, if he be not
True to the queen of England, he is content
To have his head fall on a scaffold: saying,
To put from him this charge of embassy
Had been his ruin, but the meaning of it
Is modest and not menacing: whereto
If you will yield not yet to spare the life
So near its forfeit now, he thinks it well
You should be pleased by some commission given
To stay by the way his comrade and himself,
Or bid them back.

Elizabeth.
What man is this then, sent
With such a knave to fellow?

Walsingham.
No such knave,
But still your prisoner's friend of old time found:
Sir Robert Melville.

Elizabeth.
And an honest man
As faith might wish her servants: but what pledge
Will these produce me for security
That I may spare this dangerous life and live
Unscathed of after practice?

Walsingham.
As I think,
The king's self and his whole nobility
Will be her personal pledges; and her son,
If England yield her to his hand in charge,
On no less strait a bond will undertake
For her safe keeping.

Elizabeth.
That were even to arm
With double power mine adversary, and make him
The stronger by my hand to do me hurt—
Were he mine adversary indeed: which yet
I will not hold him. Let them find a mean
For me to live unhurt and save her life,
It shall well please me. Say this king of Scots
Himself would give his own inheritance up
Pretended in succession, if but once
Her hand were found or any friend's of hers
Again put forth upon me for her sake,
Why, haply so might hearts be satisfied
Of lords and commons then to let her live.
But this I doubt he had rather take her life
Himself than yield up to us for pledge: and less,
These men shall know of me, I will not take
In price of her redemption: which were else,
And haply may in no wise not be held,
To this my loyal land and mine own trust
A deadlier stroke and blast of sound more dire
Than noise of fleets invasive.

Walsingham.
Surely so
Would all hearts hold it, madam, in that land
That are not enemies of the land and yours;
For ere the doom had been proclaimed an hour
Which gave to death your main foe's head and theirs
Yourself have heard what fire of joy brake forth
From all your people: how their church-towers all
Rang in with jubilant acclaim of bells
The day that bore such tidings, and the night
That laughed aloud with lightning of their joy
And thundered round its triumph: twice twelve hours
This tempest of thanksgiving roared and shone
Sheer from the Solway's to the Channel's foam
With light as from one festal-flaming hearth
And sound as of one trumpet: not a tongue
But praised God for it, or heart that leapt not up,
Save of your traitors and their country's: these
Withered at heart and shrank their heads in close,
As though the bright sun's were a basilisk's eye,
And light, that gave all others comfort, flame
And smoke to theirs of hell's own darkness, whence
Such eyes were blinded or put out with fire.

Elizabeth.
Yea, I myself, I mind me, might not sleep
Those twice twelve hours thou speak'st of. By God's light,
Be it most in love of me or fear of her
I know not, but my people seems in sooth
Hot and anhungered on this trail of hers:
Nor is it a people bloody-minded, used
To lap the life up of an enemy's vein
Who bleeds to death unweaponed: our good hounds
Will course a quarry soldierlike in war,
But rage not hangmanlike upon the prey,
To flesh their fangs on limbs that strive not: yet
Their hearts are hotter on this course than mine,
Which most was deadliest aimed at.

Walsingham.
Even for that
How should not theirs be hot as fire from hell
To burn your danger up and slay that soul
Alive that seeks it? Thinks your majesty
There beats a heart where treason hath not turned
All English blood to poison, which would feel
No deadlier pang of dread more deathful to it
To hear of yours endangered than to feel
A sword against its own life bent, or know
Death imminent as darkness overhead
That takes the noon from one man's darkening eye
As must your death from all this people's? You
Are very England: in your light of life
This living land of yours walks only safe,
And all this breathing people with your breath
Breathes unenslaved, and draws at each pulse in
Freedom: your eye is light of theirs, your word
As God's to comfort England, whose whole soul
Is made with yours one, and her witness you
That Rome or hell shall take not hold on her
Again till God be wroth with us so much
As to reclaim for heaven the star that yet
Lights all your land that looks on it, and gives
Assurance higher than danger dares assail
Save in this lady's name and service, who
Must now from you take judgment.

Elizabeth.
Must! by God,
I know not must but as a word of mine,
My tongue's and not mine ear's familiar. Sirs,
Content yourselves to know this much of us,
Or having known remember, that we sent
The Lord of Buckhurst and our servant Beale
To acquaint this queen our prisoner with the doom
Confirmed on second trial against her, saying
Her word can weigh not down the weightier guilt
Approved upon her, and by parliament
Since fortified with sentence. Yea, my lords,
Ye should forget not how by message then
I bade her know of me with what strong force
Of strenuous and invincible argument
I am urged to hold no more in such delay
The process of her execution, being
The seed-plot of these late conspiracies,
Their author and chief motive: and am told
That if I yield not mine the guilt must be
In God's and in the whole world's suffering sight
Of all the miseries and calamities
To ensue on my refusal: whence, albeit
I know not yet how God shall please to incline
My heart on that behalf, I have thought it meet
In conscience yet that she should be forewarned,
That so she might bethink her of her sins
Done both toward God offensive and to me
And pray for grace to be true penitent
For all these faults: which, had the main fault reached
No further than mine own poor person, God
Stands witness with what truth my heart protests
I freely would have pardoned. She to this
Makes bitter answer as of desperate heart
All we may wreak our worst upon her; whom
Having to death condemned, we may fulfil
Our wicked work, and God in Paradise
With just atonement shall requite her. This
Ye see is all the pardon she will ask,
Being only, and even as 'twere with prayer, desired
To crave of us forgiveness: and thereon
Being by Lord Buckhurst charged on this point home
That by her mean the Catholics here had learnt
To hold her for their sovereign, on which cause
Nor my religion nor myself might live
Uncharged with danger while her life should last,
She answering gives God thanks aloud to be
Held of so great account upon his side,
And in God's cause and in the church of God's
Rejoicingly makes offering of her life;
Which I, God knows how unrejoicingly,
Can scarce, ye tell me, choose but take, or yield
At least for you to take it. Yet, being told
It is not for religion she must die,
But for a plot by compass of her own
Laid to dethrone me and destroy, she casts
Again this answer barbed with mockery back,
She was not so presumptuous born, to aspire
To two such ends yet ever: yea, so far
She dwelt from such desire removed in heart,
She would not have me suffer by her will
The fillip of a finger: though herself
Be persecuted even as David once
And her mishap be that she cannot so
Fly by the window forth as David: whence
It seems she likens us to Saul, and looks
Haply to see us as on Mount Gilboa fallen,
Where yet, for all the shooters on her side,
Our shield shall be not vilely cast away,
As of one unanointed. Yet, my lords,
If England might but by my death attain
A state more flourishing with a better prince,
Gladly would I lay down my life; who have
No care save only for my people's sake
To keep it: for myself, in all the world
I see no great cause why for all this coil
I should be fond to live or fear to die.
If I should say unto you that I mean
To grant not your petition, by my faith,
More should I so say haply than I mean:
Or should I say I mean to grant it, this
Were, as I think, to tell you of my mind
More than is fit for you to know: and thus
I must for all petitionary prayer
Deliver you an answer answerless.
Yet will I pray God lighten my dark mind
That being illumined it may thence foresee
What for his church and all this commonwealth
May most be profitable: and this once known,
My hand shall halt not long behind his will.

Scene II.

Fotheringay.
Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury.
Paulet.
I never gave God heartier thanks than these
I give to have you partner of my charge
Now most of all, these letters being to you
No less designed than me, and you in heart
One with mine own upon them. Certainly,
When I put hand to pen this morning past
That Master Davison by mine evidence
Might note what sore disquietudes I had
To increase my griefs before of body and mind,
I looked for no such word to cut off mine
As these to us both of Walsingham's and his.
Would rather yet I had cause to still complain
Of those unanswered letters two months past
Than thus be certified of such intents
As God best knoweth I never sought to know,
Or search out secret causes: though to hear
Nothing at all did breed, as I confessed,
In me some hard conceits against myself,
I had rather yet rest ignorant than ashamed
Of such ungracious knowledge. This shall be
Fruit as I think of dread wrought on the queen
By those seditious rumours whose report
Blows fear among the people lest our charge
Escape our trust, or as they term it now
Be taken away,—such apprehensive tongues
So phrase it—and her freedom strike men's hearts
More deep than all these flying fears that say
London is fired of Papists, or the Scots
Have crossed in arms the Border, or the north
Is risen again rebellious, or the Guise
Is disembarked in Sussex, or that now
In Milford Haven rides a Spanish fleet—
All which, albeit but footless floating lies,
May all too easily smite and work too far
Even on the heart most royal in the world
That ever was a woman's.

Drury.
Good my friend,
These noises come without a thunderbolt
In such dense air of dusk expectancy
As all this land lies under; nor will some
Doubt or think much to say of those reports
They are broached and vented of men's credulous mouths
Whose ears have caught them from such lips as meant
Merely to strike more terror in the queen
And wring that warrant from her hovering hand
Which falters yet and flutters on her lip
While the hand hangs and trembles half advanced
Upon that sentence which, the treasurer said,
Should well ere this have spoken, seeing it was
More than a full month old and four days more
When he so looked to hear the word of it
Which yet lies sealed of silence.

Paulet.
Will you say,
Or any as wise and loyal, say or think
It was but for a show, to scare men's wits,
They have raised this hue and cry upon her flight
Supposed from hence, to waken Exeter
With noise from Honiton and Sampfield spread
Of proclamation to detain all ships
And lay all highways for her day and night,
And send like precepts out four manner of ways
From town to town, to make in readiness
Their armour and artillery, with all speed,
On pain of death, for London by report
Was set on fire? though, God be therefore praised,
We know this is not, yet the noise hereof
Were surely not to be neglected, seeing
There is, meseems, indeed no readier way
To levy forces for the achieving that
Which so these lewd reporters feign to fear.

Drury.
Why, in such mighty matters and such mists
Wise men may think what hardly fools would say,
And eyes get glimpse of more than sight hath leave
To give commission for the babbling tongue
Aloud to cry they have seen. This noise that was
Upon one Arden's flight, a traitor, whence
Fear flew last week all round us, gave but note
How lightly may men's minds take fire, and words
Take wing that have no feet to fare upon
More solid than a shadow.

Paulet.
Nay, he was
Escaped indeed: and every day thus brings
Forth its new mischief: as this last month did
Those treasons of the French ambassador
Designed against our mistress, which God's grace
Laid by the knave's mean bare to whom they sought
For one to slay her, and of the Pope's hand earn
Ten thousand blood-encrusted crowns a year
To his most hellish hire. You will not say
This too was merely fraud or vision wrought
By fear or cloudy falsehood?

Drury.
I will say
No more or surelier than I know: and this
I know not thoroughly to the core of truth
Or heart of falsehood in it. A man may lie
Merely, or trim some bald lean truth with lies,
Or patch bare falsehood with some tatter of truth,
And each of these pass current: but of these
Which likeliest may this man's tale be who gave
Word of his own temptation by these French
To hire them such a murderer, and avowed
He held it godly cunning to comply
And bring this envoy's secretary to sight
Of one clapped up for debts in Newgate, who
Being thence released might readily, as he said,
Even by such means as once this lady's lord
Was made away with, make the queen away
With powder fired beneath her bed—why, this,
Good sooth, I guess not; but I doubt the man
To be more liar than fool, and yet, God wot,
More fool than traitor; most of all intent
To conjure coin forth of the Frenchman's purse
With tricks of mere effrontery: thus at least
We know did Walsingham esteem of him:
And if by Davison held of more account,
Or merely found more serviceable, and made
A mean to tether up those quick French tongues
From threat or pleading for this prisoner's life,
I cannot tell, and care not. Though the queen
Hath stayed this envoy's secretary from flight
Forth of the kingdom, and committed him
To ward within the Tower while Châteauneuf
Himself should come before a council held
At my lord treasurer's, where being thus accused
At first he cared not to confront the man,
But stood upon his office, and the charge
Of his king's honour and prerogative—
Then bade bring forth the knave, who being brought forth
Outfaced him with insistence front to front
And took the record of this whole tale's truth
Upon his soul's damnation, challenging
The Frenchman's answer in denial hereof,
That of his own mouth had this witness been
Traitorously tempted, and by personal plea
Directly drawn to treason: which awhile
Struck dumb the ambassador as amazed with wrath,
Till presently, the accuser being removed,
He made avowal this fellow some while since
Had given his secretary to wit there lay
One bound in Newgate who being thence released
Would take the queen's death on his hand: whereto
Answering, he bade the knave avoid his house
On pain, if once their ways should cross, to be
Sent bound before the council: who replied
He had done foul wrong to take no further note,
But being made privy to this damned device
Keep close its perilous knowledge; whence the queen
Might well complain against him; and hereon
They fell to wrangling on this cause, that he
Professed himself to no man answerable
For declaration or for secret held
Save his own master: so that now is gone
Sir William Wade to Paris, not with charge
To let the king there know this queen shall live,
But to require the ambassador's recall
And swift delivery of our traitors there
To present justice: yet may no man say,
For all these half-faced scares and policies,
Here was more sooth than seeming.

Paulet.
Why, these crafts
Were shameful then as fear's most shameful self,
If thus your wit read them aright; and we
Should for our souls and lives alike do ill
To jeopard them on such men's surety given
As make no more account of simple faith
Than true men make of liars: and these are they,
Our friends and masters, that rebuke us both
By speech late uttered of her majesty
For lack of zeal in service and of care
She looked for at our hands, in that we have not
In all this time, unprompted, of ourselves
Found out some way to cut this queen's life off,
Seeing how great peril, while her enemy lives,
She is hourly subject unto: saying, she notes,
Besides a kind of lack of love to her,
Herein we have not that particular care
Forsooth of our own safeties, or indeed
Of the faith rather and the general good,
That politic reason bids; especially,
Having so strong a warrant and such ground
For satisfaction of our consciences
To Godward, and discharge of credit kept
And reputation toward the world, as is
That oath whereby we stand associated
To prosecute inexorably to death
Both with our joint and our particular force
All by whose hand and all on whose behalf
Our sovereign's life is struck at: as by proof
Stands charged upon our prisoner. So they write,
As though the queen's own will had warranted
The words that by her will's authority
Were blotted from the bond, whereby that head
Was doomed on whose behoof her life should be
By treason threatened: for she would not have
Aught pass which grieved her subjects' consciences,
She said, or might abide not openly
The whole world's view: nor would she any one
Were punished for another's fault: and so
Cut off the plea whereon she now desires
That we should dip our secret hands in blood
With no direction given of her own mouth
So to pursue that dangerous head to death
By whose assent her life were sought: for this
Stands fixed for only warrant of such deed,
And this we have not, but her word instead
She takes it most unkindly toward herself
That men professing toward her loyally
That love that we do should in any sort,
For lack of our own duty's full discharge,
Cast upon her the burden, knowing as we
Her slowness to shed blood, much more of one
So near herself in blood as is this queen,
And one with her in sex and quality.
And these respects, they find, or so profess,
Do greatly trouble her: who hath sundry times
Protested, they assure us, earnestly,
That if regard of her good subjects' risk
Did not more move her than the personal fear
Of proper peril to her, she never would
Be drawn to assent unto this bloodshedding:
And so to our good judgments they refer
These speeches they thought meet to acquaint us with
As passed but lately from her majesty,
And to God's guard commend us: which God knows
We should much more need than deserve of him
Should we give ear to this, and as they bid
Make heretics of these papers; which three times
You see how Davison hath enforced on us:
But they shall taste no fire for me, nor pass
Back to his hands till copies writ of them
Lie safe in mine for sons of mine to keep
In witness how their father dealt herein.

Drury.
You have done the wiselier: and what word soe'er
Shall bid-them know your mind, I am well assured
It well may speak for me too.

Paulet.
Thus it shall:
That having here his letters in my hands,
I would not fail, according to his charge,
To send back answer with all possible speed
Which shall deliver unto him my great grief
And bitterness of mind, in that I am
So much unhappy as I hold myself
To have lived to look on this unhappy day,
When I by plain direction am required
From my most gracious sovereign's mouth to do
An act which God forbiddeth, and the law.
Hers are my goods and livings, and my life,
Held at her disposition, and myself
Am ready so to lose them this next day
If it shall please her so, acknowledging
I hold them of her mere goodwill, and do not
Desire them to enjoy them but so long
As her great grace gives leave: but God forbid
That I should make for any grace of hers
So foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or
Leave ever to my poor posterity
So great a blot, as privily to shed blood
With neither law nor warrant. So, in trust
That she, of her accustomed clemency,
Will take my dutiful answer in good part,
By his good mediation, as returned
From one who never will be less in love,
Honour, obedience, duty to his queen,
Than any Christian subject living, thus
To God's grace I commit him.

Drury.
Though I doubt
She haply shall be much more wroth hereat
Than lately she was gracious, when she bade
God treblefold reward you for your charge
So well discharged, saluting you by name
Most faithful and most careful, you shall do
Most like a wise man loyally to write
But such good words as these, whereto myself
Subscribe in heart: though being not named herein
(Albeit to both seem these late letters meant)
Nor this directed to me, I forbear
To make particular answer. And indeed,
Were danger less apparent in her life
To the heart's life of all this living land,
I would this woman might not die at all
By secret stroke nor open sentence.

Paulet.
I
Will praise God's mercy most for this of all,
When I shall see the murderous cause removed
Of its most mortal peril: nor desire
A guerdon ampler from the queen we serve,
Besides her commendations of my faith
For spotless actions and for safe regards,
Than to see judgment on her enemy done;
Which were for me that recompense indeed
Whereof she writes as one not given to all,
But for such merit reserved to crown its claim
Above all common service: nor save this
Could any treasure's promise in the world
So ease those travails and rejoice this heart
That hers too much takes thought of, as to read
Her charge to carry for her sake in it
This most just thought, that she can balance not
The value that her grace doth prize me at
In any weight of judgment: yet it were
A word to me more comfortable at heart
Than these, though these most gracious, that should speak
Death to her death's contriver.

Drury.
Nay, myself
Were fain to see this coil wound up, and her
Removed that makes it: yet such things will pluck
Hard at men's hearts that think on them, and move
Compassion that such long strange years should find
So strange an end: nor shall men ever say
But she was born right royal; full of sins,
It may be, and by circumstance or choice
Dyed and defaced with bloody stains and black,
Unmerciful, unfaithful, but of heart
So fiery high, so swift of spirit and clear,
In extreme danger and pain so lifted up,
So of all violent things inviolable,
So large of courage, so superb of soul,
So sheathed with iron mind invincible
And arms unbreached of fireproof constancy—
By shame not shaken, fear or force or death,
Change, or all confluence of calamities—
And so at her worst need beloved, and still,
Naked of help and honour when she seemed,
As other women would be, and of hope
Stripped, still so of herself adorable
By minds not always all ignobly mad
Nor all made poisonous with false grain of faith,
She shall be a world's wonder to all time,
A deadly glory watched of marvelling men
Not without praise, not without noble tears,
And if without what she would never have
Who had it never, pity—yet from none
Quite without reverence and some kind of love
For that which was so royal. Yea, and now
That at her prayer we here attend on her,
If, as I think, she have in mind to send
Aught written to the queen, what we may do
To further her desire shall on my part
Gladly be done, so be it the grace she craves
Be nought akin to danger.

Paulet.
It shall be
The first of all then craved by her of man,
Or by man's service done her, that was found
So harmless ever.

Enter Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton.
Mary Stuart.
Sirs, in time past by
I was desirous many times, ye know,
To have written to your queen: but since I have had
Advertisement of my conviction, seeing
I may not look for life, my soul is set
On preparation for another world:
Yet none the less, not for desire of life,
But for my conscience's discharge and rest,
And for my last farewell, I have at heart
By you to send her a memorial writ
Of somewhat that concerns myself, when I
Shall presently be gone out of this world.
And to remove from her, if such be there,
Suspicion of all danger in receipt
Of this poor paper that should come from me,
Myself will take the assay of it, and so
With mine own hands to yours deliver it.

Paulet.
Will you not also, madam, be content
To seal and close it in my presence up?

Mary Stuart.
Sir, willingly: but I beseech your word
Pledged for its safe delivery to the queen.

Paulet.
I plight my faith it shall be sent to her.

Mary Stuart.
This further promise I desire, you will
Procure me from above certificate
It hath been there delivered.

Drury.
This is more
Than we may stand so pledged for: in our power
It is to send, but far beyond our power,
As being above our place, to promise you
Certificate or warrant.

Mary Stuart.
Yet I trust
Consideration may be had of me
After my death, as one derived in blood
From your queen's grandsire, with all mortal rites
According with that faith I have professed
All my life-days as I was born therein.
This is the sum of all mine askings: whence
Well might I take it in ill part of you
To wish me seal my letter in your sight,
Bewraying your hard opinion of me.

Paulet.
This
Your own words well might put into my mind,
That so beside my expectation made
Proffer to take my first assay for me
Of the outer part of it: for you must think
I was not ignorant that by sleight of craft
There might be as great danger so conveyed
Within the letter as without, and thus
I could not for ill thoughts of you be blamed,
Concurring with you in this jealousy:
For had yourself not moved it of yourself
Sir Drew nor I had ever thought on it.

Mary Stuart.
The occasion why I moved it was but this,
That having made my custom in time past
To send sometimes some tokens to your queen,
At one such time that I sent certain clothes
One standing by advised her cause my gifts
To be tried thoroughly ere she touched them; which
I have since observed, and taken order thus
With Nau, when last he tarried at the court,
To do the like to a fur-fringed counterpane
Which at that time I sent: and as for this,
Look what great danger lies between these leaves
That I dare take and handle in my hands,
And press against my face each part of them
Held open thus, and either deadly side,
Wherein your fear smells death sown privily.

Paulet.
Madam, when so you charged your secretary
Her majesty was far from doubt, I think,
Or dream of such foul dealing: and I would
Suspicion since had found no just cause given,
And then things had not been as now they are.

Mary Stuart.
But things are as they are, and here I stand
Convicted, and not knowing how many hours
I have to live yet.

Paulet.
Madam, you shall live
As many hours as God shall please: but this
May be said truly, that you here have been
Convicted in most honourable sort
And favourable.

Mary Stuart.
What favour have I found?

Paulet.
Your cause hath been examined scrupulously
By many our eldest nobles of this realm,
Whereas by law you should but have been tried
By twelve men as a common person.

Mary Stuart.
Nay,
Your noblemen must by their peers be tried.

Paulet.
All strangers of what quality soe'er
In matter of crime are only to be tried
In other princes' territories by law
That in that realm bears rule.

Mary Stuart.
You have your laws:
But other princes all will think of it
As they see cause; and mine own son is now
No more a child, but come to man's estate,
And he will think of these things bitterly.

Drury.
Ingratitude, whate'er he think of them,
Is odious in all persons, but of all
In mightiest personages most specially
Most hateful: and it will not be denied
But that the queen's grace greatly hath deserved
Both of yourself and of your son.

Mary Stuart.
What boon
Shall I acknowledge? Being in bonds, I am set
Free from the world, and therefore am I not
Afraid to speak; I have had the favour here
To have been kept prisoner now these many years
Against my will and justice.

Paulet.
Madam, this
Was a great favour, and without this grace
You had not lived to see these days.

Mary Stuart.
How so?

Paulet.
Seeing your own subjects did pursue you, and had
The best in your own country.

Mary Stuart.
That is true,
Because your Mildmay's ill persuasions first
Made me discharge my forces, and then caused
Mine enemies to burn my friends' main holds,
Castles and houses.

Paulet.
Howsoe'er, it was
By great men of that country that the queen
Had earnest suit made to her to have yourself
Delivered to them, which her grace denied,
And to their great misliking.

Drury.
Seventeen years
She hath kept your life to save it: and whereas
She calls your highness sister, she hath dealt
In truth and deed most graciously with you
And sisterlike, in seeking to preserve
Your life at once and honour.

Mary Stuart.
Ay! wherein?

Drury.
In that commission of your causes held
At York, which was at instance of your friends
Dissolved to save your honour.

Mary Stuart.
No: the cause
Why that commission was dissolved indeed
Was that my friends could not be heard to inform
Against my loud accusers.

Paulet.
But your friend
The bishop's self of Ross, your very friend,
Hath written that this meeting was dismissed
All only in your favour: and his book
Is extant: and this favour is but one
Of many graces which her majesty
Hath for mere love extended to you.

Mary Stuart.
This
Is one great favour, even to have kept me here
So many years against my will.

Paulet.
It was
For your own safety, seeing your countrymen
Sought your destruction, and to that swift end
Required to have you yielded up to them,
As was before said.

Mary Stuart.
Nay, then, I will speak.
I am not afraid. It was determined here
That I should not depart: and when I was
Demanded by my subjects, this I know,
That my lord treasurer with his own close hand
Writ in a packet which by trustier hands
Was intercepted, and to me conveyed,
To the earl of Murray, that the devil was tied
Fast in a chain, and they could keep her not,
But here she should be safely kept.

Drury.
That earl
Was even as honourable a gentleman
As I knew ever in that country bred.

Mary Stuart.
One of the worst men of the world he was:
A foul adulterer, one of general lust,
A spoiler and a murderer.

Drury.
Six weeks long,
As I remember, here I saw him; where
He bore him very gravely, and maintained
The reputation even on all men's tongues
In all things of a noble gentleman:
Nor have I heard him evil spoken of
Till this time ever.

Mary Stuart.
Yea, my rebels here
Are honest men, and by the queen have been
Maintained.

Paulet.
You greatly do forget yourself
To charge her highness with so foul a fault,
Which you can never find ability
To prove on her.

Mary Stuart.
What did she with the French,
I pray you, at Newhaven?

Paulet.
It appears
You have conceived so hardly of the queen
My mistress, that you still inveterately
Interpret all her actions to the worst,
Not knowing the truth of all the cause: but yet
I dare assure you that her majesty
Had most just cause and righteous, in respect
As well of Calais as for other ends,
To do the thing she did, and more to have done,
Had it so pleased her to put forth her power:
And this is in you great unthankfulness
After so many favours and so great,
Whereof you will acknowledge in no wise
The least of any: though her majesty
Hath of her own grace merely saved your life,
To the utter discontentment of the best
Your subjects once in open parliament
Who craved against you justice on the charge
Of civil law-breach and rebellion.

Mary Stuart.
I
Know no such matter, but full well I know
Sir Francis Walsingham hath openly,
Since his abiding last in Scotland, said
That I should rue his entertainment there.

Paulet.
Madam, you have not rued it, but have been
More honourably entertained than ever yet
Was any other crown's competitor
In any realm save only this: whereof
Some have been kept close prisoners, other some
Maimed and unnaturally disfigured, some
Murdered.

Mary Stuart.
But I was no competitor:
All I required was in successive right
To be reputed but as next the crown.

Paulet.
Nay, madam, you went further, when you gave
The English arms and style, as though our queen
Had been but an usurper on your right.

Mary Stuart.
My husband and my kinsmen did therein
What they thought good: I had nought to do with it.

Paulet.
Why would you not then loyally renounce
Your claim herein pretended, but with such
Condition, that you might be authorized
Next heir apparent to the crown?

Mary Stuart.
I have made
At sundry times thereon good proffers, which
Could never be accepted.

Paulet.
Heretofore
It hath been proved unto you presently
That in the very instant even of all
Your treaties and most friendlike offers were
Some dangerous crafts discovered.

Mary Stuart.
You must think
I have some friends on earth, and if they have done
Anything privily, what is that to me?

Paulet.
Madam, it was somewhat to you, and I would
For your own sake you had forborne it, that
After advertisement and conscience given
Of Morgan's devilish practice, to have killed
A sacred queen, you yet would entertain
The murderer as your servant.

Mary Stuart.
I might do it
With as good right as ever did your queen
So entertain my rebels.

Drury.
Be advised:
This speech is very hard, and all the case
Here differs greatly.

Mary Stuart.
Yea, let this then be;
Ye cannot yet of my conviction say
But I by partial judgment was condemned,
And the commissioners knew my son could have
No right, were I convicted, and your queen
Could have no children of her womb; whereby
They might set up what man for king they would.

Paulet.
This is in you too great forgetfulness
Of honour and yourself, to charge these lords
With two so foul and horrible faults, as first
To take your life by partial doom from you,
And then bestow the kingdom where they liked.

Mary Stuart.
Well, all is one to me: and for my part
I thank God I shall die without regret
Of anything that I have done alive.

Paulet.
I would entreat you yet be sorry at least
For the great wrong, and well deserving grief,
You have done the queen my mistress.

Mary Stuart.
Nay, thereon
Let others answer for themselves: I have
Nothing to do with it. Have you borne in mind
Those matters of my monies that we last
Conferred upon together?

Paulet.
Madam, these
Are not forgotten.

Mary Stuart.
Well it is if aught
Be yet at all remembered for my good.
Have here my letter sealed and superscribed,
And so farewell—or even as here men may.
[Exeunt Paulet and Drury.
Had I that old strength in my weary limbs
That in my heart yet fails not, fain would I
Fare forth if not fare better. Tired I am,
But not so lame in spirit I might not take
Some comfort of the winter-wasted sun
This bitter Christmas to me, though my feet
Were now no firmer nor more helpful found
Than when I went but in my chair abroad
Last weary June at Chartley. I can stand
And go now without help of either side,
And bend my hand again, thou seest, to write:
I did not well perchance in sight of these
To have made so much of this lame hand, which yet
God knows was grievous to me, and to-day
To make my letter up and superscribe
And seal it with no outward show of pain
Before their face and inquisition; yet
I care not much in player's wise piteously
To blind such eyes with feigning: though this Drew
Be gentler and more gracious than his mate
And liker to be wrought on; but at last
What need have I of men?

Mary Beaton.
What then you may
I know not, seeing for all that was and is
We are yet not at the last; but when you had,
You have hardly failed to find more help of them
And heartier service than more prosperous queens
Exact of expectation: when your need
Was greater than your name or natural state,
And wage was none to look for but of death,
As though the expectancy thereof and hope
Were more than man's prosperities, men have given
Heart's thanks to have this gift of God and you
For dear life's guerdon, even the trust assured
To drink for you the bitterness of death.

Mary Stuart.
Ay, one said once it must be—some one said
I must be perilous ever, and my love
More deadly than my will was evil or good
Toward any of all these that through me should die—
I know not who, nor when one said it: but
I know too sure he lied not.

Mary Beaton.
No; I think
This was a seer indeed. I have heard of men
That under imminence of death grew strong
With mortal foresight, yet in life-days past
Could see no foot before them, nor provide
For their own fate or fortune anything
Against one angry chance of accident
Or passionate fault of their own loves or hates
That might to death betray them: such an one
Thus haply might have prophesied, and had
No strength to save himself.

Mary Stuart.
I know not: yet
Time was when I remembered.

Mary Beaton.
It should be
No enemy's saying whom you remember not;
You are wont not to forget your enemies; yet
The word rang sadder than a friend's should fall
Save in some strange pass of the spirit or flesh
For love's sake haply hurt to death.

Mary Stuart.
It seems
Thy mind is bent to know the name of me
That of myself I know not.

Mary Beaton.
Nay, my mind
Has other thoughts to beat upon: for me
It may suffice to know the saying for true
And never care who said it.

Mary Stuart.
True? too sure,
God to mine heart's grief hath approved it. See,
Nor Scot nor Englishman that takes on him
The service of my sorrow but partakes
The sorrow of my service: man by man,
As that one said, they perish of me: yea,
Were I a sword sent upon earth, or plague
Bred of aerial poison, I could be
No deadlier where unwillingly I strike,
Who where I would can hurt not: Percy died
By his own hand in prison, Howard by law,
These young men with strange torments done to death,
Who should have rid me and the world of her
That is our scourge, and to the church of God
A pestilence that wastes it: all the north
Wears yet the scars engraven of civil steel
Since its last rising: nay, she saith but right,
Mine enemy, saying by these her servile tongues
I have brought upon her land mine own land's curse,
And a sword follows at my heel, and fire
Is kindled of mine eyeshot: and before,
Whom did I love that died not of it? whom
That I would save might I deliver, when
I had once but looked on him with love, or pledged
Friendship? I should have died I think long since,
That many might have died not, and this word
Had not been written of me nor fulfilled,
But perished in the saying, a prophecy
That took the prophet by the throat and slew—
As sure I think it slew him. Such a song
Might my poor servant slain before my face
Have sung before the stroke of violent death
Had fallen upon him there for my sake.

Mary Beaton.
Ah!
You think so? this remembrance was it not
That hung and hovered in your mind but now,
Moved your heart backward all unwittingly
To some blind memory of the man long dead?

Mary Stuart.
In sooth, I think my prophet should have been
David.

Mary Beaton.
You thought of him?

Mary Stuart.
An old sad thought:
The moan of it was made long since, and he
Not unremembered.

Mary Beaton.
Nay, of him indeed
Record was made—a royal record: whence
No marvel is it that you forgot not him.

Mary Stuart.
I would forget no friends nor enemies: these
More needs me now remember. Think'st thou not
This woman hates me deadlier—or this queen
That is not woman—than myself could hate
Except I were as she in all things? then
I should love no such woman as am I
Much more than she may love me: yet I am sure,
Or so near surety as all belief may be,
She dare not slay me for her soul's sake: nay,
Though that were made as light of as a leaf
Storm-shaken, in such stormy winds of state
As blow between us like a blast of death,
For her throne's sake she durst not, which must be
Broken to build my scaffold. Yet, God wot,
Perchance a straw's weight now cast in by chance
Might weigh my life down in the scale her hand
Holds hardly straight for trembling: if she be
Woman at all, so tempered naturally
And with such spirit and sense as thou and I,
Should I for wrath so far forget myself
As these men sometime charge me that I do,
My tongue might strike my head off. By this head
That yet I wear to swear by, if life be
Thankworthy, God might well be thanked for this
Of me or whoso loves me in the world,
That I spake never half my heart out yet,
For any sore temptation of them all,
To her or hers; nor ever put but once
My heart upon my paper, writing plain
The things I thought, heard, knew for truth of her,
Believed or feigned—nay, feigned not to believe
Of her fierce follies fed with wry-mouthed praise,
And that vain ravin of her sexless lust
Which could not feed nor hide its hunger, curb
With patience nor allay with love the thirst
That mocked itself as all mouths mocked it. Ha,
What might the reading of these truths have wrought
Within her maiden mind, what seed have sown,
Trow'st thou, in her sweet spirit, of revenge
Toward me that showed her queenship in the glass
A subject's hand of hers had put in mine
The likeness of it loathed and laughable
As they that worshipped it with words and signs
Beheld her and bemocked her?

Mary Beaton.
Certainly,
I think that soul drew never breath alive
To whom this letter might seem pardonable
Which timely you forbore to send her.

Mary Stuart.
Nay,
I doubt not I did well to keep it back—
And did not ill to write it: for God knows
It was no small ease to my heart.

Mary Beaton.
But say
I had not burnt it as you bade me burn,
But kept it privily safe against a need
That I might haply sometime have of it?

Mary Stuart.
What, to destroy me?

Mary Beaton.
Hardly, sure, to save.

Mary Stuart.
Why shouldst thou think to bring me to my death?

Mary Beaton.
Indeed, no man am I that love you; nor
Need I go therefore in such fear of you
As of my mortal danger.

Mary Stuart.
On my life,
(Long life or short, with gentle or violent end,
I know not, and would choose not, though I might
So take God's office on me) one that heard
Would swear thy speech had in it, and subtly mixed,
A savour as of menace, or a sound
As of an imminent ill or perilous sense
Which was not in thy meaning.

Mary Beaton.
No: in mine
There lurked no treason ever; nor have you
Cause to think worse of me than loyally,
If proof may be believed on witness.

Mary Stuart.
Sure,
I think I have not nor I should not have:
Thy life has been the shadow cast of mine,
A present faith to serve my present need,
A foot behind my footsteps; as long since
In those French dances that we trod, and laughed
The blithe way through together. Thou couldst sing
Then, and a great while gone it is by this
Since I heard song or music: I could now
Find in my heart to bid thee, as the Jews
Were once bid sing in their captivity
One of their songs of Sion, sing me now,
If one thou knowest, for love of that far time,
One of our songs of Paris.

Mary Beaton.
Give me leave
A little to cast up some wandering words
And gather back such memories as may beat
About my mind of such a song, and yet
I think I might renew some note long dumb
That once your ear allowed of.—I did pray, [Aside.

Tempt me not, God: and by her mouth again
He tempts me—nay, but prompts me, being most just,
To know by trial if all remembrance be
Dead as remorse or pity that in birth
Died, and were childless in her: if she quite
Forget that very swan-song of thy love,
My love that wast, my love that wouldst not be,
Let God forget her now at last as I
Remember: if she think but one soft thought,
Cast one poor word upon thee, God thereby
Shall surely bid me let her live: if none,
I shoot that letter home and sting her dead.
God strengthen me to sing but these words through
Though I fall dumb at end for ever. Now—
[She sings.

Mary Stuart.
Nay, I should once have known that song, thou say'st,
And him that sang it and should now be dead:
Was it—but his rang sweeter—was it not
Remy Belleau?

Mary Beaton.
(My letter—here at heart!)
[Aside.
I think it might be—were it better writ
And courtlier phrased, with Latin spice cast in,
And a more tunable descant.

Mary Stuart.
Ay; how sweet
Sang all the world about those stars that sang
With Ronsard for the strong mid star of all,
His bay-bound head all glorious with grey hairs,
Who sang my birth and bridal! When I think
Of those French years, I only seem to see
A light of swords and singing, only hear
Laughter of love and lovely stress of lutes,
And in between the passion of them borne
Sound of swords crossing ever, as of feet
Dancing, and life and death still equally
Blithe and bright-eyed from battle. Haply now
My sometime sister, mad Queen Madge, is grown
As grave as I should be, and wears at waist
No hearts of last year's lovers any more
Enchased for jewels round her girdlestead,
But rather beads for penitence; yet I doubt
Time should not more abash her heart than mine,
Who live not heartless yet. These days like those
Have power but for a season given to do
No more upon our spirits than they may,
And what they may we know not till it be
Done, and we need no more take thought of it,
As I no more of death or life to-day.

Mary Beaton.
That shall you surely need not.

Mary Stuart.
So I think,
Our keepers being departed: and by these,
Even by the uncourtlier as the gentler man,
I read as in a glass their queen's plain heart,
And that by her at last I shall not die.

Scene III.

Greenwich Palace.
Queen Elizabeth and Davison.
Elizabeth.
Thou hast seen Lord Howard? I bade him send thee.

Davison.
Madam,
But now he came upon me hard at hand
And by your gracious message bade me in.

Elizabeth.
The day is fair as April: hast thou been
Abroad this morning? 'Tis no winter's sun
That makes these trees forget their nakedness
And all the glittering ground, as 'twere in hope,
Breathe laughingly.

Davison.
Indeed, the gracious air
Had drawn me forth into the park, and thence
Comes my best speed to attend upon your grace.

Elizabeth.
My grace is not so gracious as the sun
That graces thus the late distempered air:
And you should oftener use to walk abroad,
Sir, than your custom is: I would not have
Good servants heedless of their natural health
To do me sickly service. It were strange
That one twice bound as woman and as queen
To care for good men's lives and loyalties
Should prove herself toward either dangerous.

Davison.
That
Can be no part of any servant's fear
Who lives for service of your majesty.

Elizabeth.
I would not have it be—God else forbid—
Who have so loyal servants as I hold
All now that bide about me: for I will not
Think, though such villainy once were in men's minds,
That twice among mine English gentlemen
Shall hearts be found so foul as theirs who thought,
When I was horsed for hunting, to waylay
And shoot me through the back at unawares
With poisoned bullets: nor, thou knowest, would I,
When this was opened to me, take such care,
Ride so fenced round about with iron guard,
Or walk so warily as men counselled me
For loyal fear of what thereafter might
More prosperously be plotted: nay, God knows,
I would not hold on such poor terms my life,
With such a charge upon it, as to breathe
In dread of death or treason till the day
That they should stop my trembling breath, and ease
The piteous heart that panted like a slave's
Of all vile fear for ever. So to live
Were so much hatefuller than thus to die,
I do not think that man or woman draws
Base breath of life the loathsomest on earth
Who by such purchase of perpetual fear
And deathless doubt of all in trust of none
Would shudderingly prolong it.

Davison.
Even too well
Your servants know that greatness of your heart
Which gives you yet unguarded to men's eyes,
And were unworthier found to serve or live
Than is the unworthiest of them, did not this
Make all their own hearts hotter with desire
To be the bulwark or the price of yours
Paid to redeem it from the arrest of death.

Elizabeth.
So haply should they be whose hearts beat true
With loyal blood: but whoso says they are
Is but a loving liar.

Davison.
I trust your grace
Hath in your own heart no such doubt of them
As speaks in mockery through your lips.

Elizabeth.
By God,
I say much less than righteous truth might speak
Of their loud loves that ring with emptiness,
And hollow-throated loyalties whose heart
Is wind and clamorous promise. Ye desire,
With all your souls ye swear that ye desire
The queen of Scots were happily removed,
And not a knave that loves me will put hand
To the enterprise ye look for only of me
Who only would forbear it.

Davison.
If your grace
Be minded yet it shall be done at all,
The way that were most honourable and just
Were safest, sure, and best.

Elizabeth.
I dreamt last night
Our murderess there in hold had tasted death
By execution of the sentence done
That was pronounced upon her; and the news
So stung my heart with wrath to hear of it
That had I had a sword—look to't, and 'ware!—
I had thrust it through thy body.

Davison.
God defend!
'Twas well I came not in your highness' way
While the hot mood was on you. But indeed
I would know soothly if your mind be changed
From its late root of purpose.

Elizabeth.
No, by God:
But I were fain it could be somewise done
And leave the blame not on me. And so much,
If there were love and honesty in one
Whom I held faithful and exact of care,
Should easily be performed; but here I find
This dainty fellow so precise a knave
As will take all things dangerous on his tongue
And nothing on his hand: hot-mouthed and large
In zeal to stuff mine ears with promises,
But perjurous in performance: did he not
Set hand among you to the bond whereby
He is bound at utmost hazard of his life
To do me such a service? Yet I could
Have wrought as well without him, had I wist
Of this faint falsehood in his heart: there is
That Wingfield whom thou wot'st of, would have done
With glad goodwill what I required of him,
And made no Puritan mouths on't.

Davison.
Madam, yet
Far better were it all should but be done
By line of law and judgment.

Elizabeth.
There be men
Wiser than thou that see this otherwise.

Davison.
All is not wisdom that of wise men comes,
Nor are all eyes that search the ways of state
Clear as a just man's conscience.

Elizabeth.
Proverbs! ha?
Who made thee master of these sentences,
Prime tongue of ethics and philosophy?

Davison.
An honest heart to serve your majesty;
Nought else nor subtler in its reach of wit
Than very simpleness of meaning.

Elizabeth.
Nay,
I do believe thee; heartily I do.
Did my lord admiral not desire thee bring
The warrant for her execution?

Davison.
Ay,
Madam; here is it.

Elizabeth.
I would it might not be,
Or being so just were yet not necessary.
Art thou not heartily sorry—wouldst thou not,
I say, be sad—to see me sign it?

Davison.
Madam,
I grieve at any soul's mishap that lives,
And specially for shipwreck of a life
To you so near allied: but seeing this doom
Wrung forth from justice by necessity,
I had rather guilt should bleed than innocence.

Elizabeth.
When I shall sign, take thou this instantly
To the lord chancellor; see it straight be sealed
As quietly as he may, not saying a word,
That no man come to know it untimely: then
Send it to the earls of Kent and Shrewsbury
Who are here set down to see this justice done:
I would no more be troubled with this coil
Till all be through. But, for the place of doom,
The hall there of the castle, in my mind,
Were fitter than the court or open green.
And as thou goest betake thee on thy way
To Walsingham, where he lies sick at home,
And let him know what hath of us been done:
Whereof the grief, I fear me, shall go near
To kill his heart outright.

Davison.
Your majesty
Hath yet not signed the warrant.

Elizabeth.
Ha! God's blood!
Art thou from tutor of philosophy late
Grown counsellor too and more than counsellor, thou
To appoint me where and what this hand of mine
Shall at thy beck obsequiously subscribe
And follow on thy finger? By God's death,
What if it please me now not sign at all?
This letter of my kinswoman's last writ
Hath more compulsion in it, and more power
To enforce my pity, than a thousand tongues
Dictating death against her in mine ear
Of mine own vassal subjects. Here but now
She writes me she thanks God with all her heart
That it hath pleased him by the mean of me
To make an end of her life's pilgrimage,
Which hath been weary to her: and doth not ask
To see its length drawn longer, having had
Too much experience of its bitterness:
But only doth entreat me, since she may
Look for no favour at their zealous hands
Who are first in councils of my ministry,
That only I myself will grant her prayers;
Whereof the first is, since she cannot hope
For English burial with such Catholic rites
As here were used in time of the ancient kings,
Mine ancestors and hers, and since the tombs
Lie violated in Scotland of her sires,
That so soon ever as her enemies
Shall with her innocent blood be satiated,
Her body by her servants may be borne
To some ground consecrated, there to be
Interred: and rather, she desires, in France,
Where sleep her honoured mother's ashes; so
At length may her poor body find the rest
Which living it has never known: thereto,
She prays me, from the fears she hath of those
To whose harsh hand I have abandoned her,
She may not secretly be done to death,
But in her servants' sight and others', who
May witness her obedience kept and faith
To the true church, and guard her memory safe
From slanders haply to be blown abroad
Concerning her by mouths of enemies: last,
She asks that her attendants, who so well
And faithfully through all her miseries past
Have served her, may go freely where they please,
And lose not those small legacies of hers
Which poverty can yet bequeath to them.
This she conjures me by the blood of Christ,
Our kinship, and my grandsire's memory,
Who was her father's grandsire and a king,
And by the name of queen she bears with her
Even to the death, that I will not refuse,
And that a word in mine own hand may thus
Assure her, who will then as she hath lived
Die mine affectionate sister and prisoner. See,
Howe'er she have sinned, what heart were mine, if this
Drew no tears from me: not the meanest soul
That lives most miserable but with such words
Must needs draw down men's pity.

Davison.
Sure it is,
This queen hath skill of writing: and her hand
Hath manifold eloquence with various voice
To express discourse of sirens or of snakes,
A mermaid's or a monster's, uttering best
All music or all malice. Here is come
A letter writ long since of hers to you
From Sheffield Castle, which for shame or fear
She durst not or she would not thence despatch,
Sent secretly to me from Fotheringay,
Not from her hand, but with her own hand writ,
So foul of import and malignity
I durst not for your majesty's respect
With its fierce infamies afire from hell
Offend your gracious eyesight: but because
Your justice by your mercy's ignorant hand
Hath her fair eyes put out, and walks now blind
Even by the pit's edge deathward, pardon me
If what you never should have seen be shown
By hands that rather would take fire in hand
Than lay in yours this writing.

[Gives her a letter.
Elizabeth.
By this light,
Whate'er be here, thou hadst done presumptuously,
And Walsingham thy principal, to keep
Aught from mine eyes that being to me designed
Might even with most offence enlighten them.
Here is her hand indeed; and she takes up
[Reading.
In gracious wise enough the charge imposed
By promise on her and desire of ours,
How loth soe'er she be, regretfully
To bring such things in question of discourse,
Yet with no passion but sincerity,
As God shall witness her, declares to us
What our good lady of Shrewsbury said to her
Touching ourself in terms ensuing; whereto
Answering she chid this dame for such belief,
And reprehended for licentious tongue,
To speak so lewdly of us: which herself
Believes not, knowing the woman's natural heart
And evil will as then to usward. Here
She writes no more than I would well believe
Of her as of the countess. Ha!

Davison.
Your grace
Shall but defile and vex your eyes and heart
To read these villainies through.

Elizabeth.
God's death, man! peace:
Thou wert not best incense me toward thine own,
Whose eyes have been before me in them. What!
Was she not mad to write this? One that had
Your promise—lay with you times numberless—
All license and all privateness that may
Be used of wife and husband! yea, of her
And more dead men than shame remembers. God
Shall stand her witness—with the devil of hell
For sponsor to her vows, whose spirit in her
Begot himself this issue. Ha, the duke!
—Nay, God shall give me patience—and his knave,
And Hatton—God have mercy! nay, but hate,
Hate and constraint and rage have wrecked her wits,
And continence of life cut off from lust,
—This common stale of Scotland, that has tried
The sins of three rank nations, and consumed
Their veins whose life she took not—Italy,
France that put half this poison in her blood,
And her own kingdom that being sick therewith
Vomited out on ours the venomous thing
Whose head we set not foot on—but may God
Make my fame fouler through the world than hers
And ranker in men's record, if I spare
The she-wolf that I saved, the woman-beast,
Wolf-woman—how the Latin rings we know,
And what lewd lair first reared her, and whose hand
Writ broad across the Louvre and Holyrood
Lupanar—but no brothel ever bred
Or breathed so rank a soul's infection, spawned
Or spat such foulness in God's face and man's
Or festered in such falsehood as her breath
Strikes honour sick with, and the spirit of shame
Dead as her fang shall strike herself, and send
The serpent that corruption calls her soul
To vie strange venoms with the worm of hell
And make the face of darkness and the grave
Blush hotter with the fires wherein that soul
Sinks deeper than damnation.

Davison.
Let your grace
Think only that but now the thing is known
And self-discovered which too long your love
Too dangerously hath cherished; and forget
All but that end which yet remains for her,
That right by pity be not overcome.

Elizabeth.
God pity so my soul as I do right,
And show me no more grace alive or dead
Than I do justice here. Give me again
That warrant I put by, being foolish: yea,
Thy word spake sooth—my soul's eyes were put out—
I could not see for pity. Thou didst well—
I am bounden to thee heartily—to cure
My sight of this distemper, and my soul.
Here in God's sight I set mine hand, who thought
Never to take this thing upon it, nor
Do God so bitter service. Take this hence:
And let me see no word nor hear of her
Till the sun see not such a soul alive.