University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

The Presence Chamber.
Shrewsbury, Kent, Paulet, Drury, Melville, and Attendants.
Kent.
The stroke is past of eight.

Shrewsbury.
Not far, my lord.

Kent.
What stays the provost and the sheriff yet
That went ere this to bring the prisoner forth?
What, are her doors locked inwards? then perchance
Our last night's auguries of some close design
By death contrived of her self-slaughterous hand
To baffle death by justice hit but right
The heart of her bad purpose.

Shrewsbury.
Fear it not:
See where she comes, a queenlier thing to see
Than whom such thoughts take hold on.

Enter Mary Stuart, led by two gentlemen and preceded by the Sheriff; Mary Beaton, Barbara Mowbray, and other ladies behind, who remain in the doorway.
Melville
(kneeling to Mary).
Woe am I,
Madam, that I must bear to Scotland back
Such tidings watered with such tears as these.

Mary Stuart.
Weep not, good Melville: rather should your heart
Rejoice that here an end is come at last
Of Mary Stuart's long sorrows; for be sure
That all this world is only vanity.
And this record I pray you make of me,
That a true woman to my faith I die,
And true to Scotland and to France: but God
Forgive them that have long desired mine end
And with false tongues have thirsted for my blood
As the hart thirsteth for the water-brooks.
O God, who art truth, and the author of all truth,
Thou knowest the extreme recesses of my heart,
And how that I was willing all my days
That England should with Scotland be fast friends.
Commend me to my son: tell him that I
Have nothing done to prejudice his rights
As king: and now, good Melville, fare thee well.
My lord of Kent, whence comes it that your charge
Hath bidden back my women there at door
Who fain to the end would bear me company?

Kent.
Madam, this were not seemly nor discreet,
That these should so have leave to vex men's ears
With cries and loose lamentings: haply too
They might in superstition seek to dip
Their handkerchiefs for relics in your blood.

Mary Stuart.
That will I pledge my word they shall not. Nay,
The queen would surely not deny me this,
The poor last thing that I shall ask on earth.
Even a far meaner person dying I think
She would not have so handled. Sir, you know
I am her cousin, of her grandsire's blood,
A queen of France by marriage, and by birth
Anointed queen of Scotland. My poor girls
Desire no more than but to see me die.

Shrewsbury.
Madam, you have leave to elect of this your train
Two ladies with four men to go with you.

Mary Stuart.
I choose from forth my Scottish following here
Jane Kennedy, with Elspeth Curle: of men,
Bourgoin and Gorion shall attend on me,
Gervais and Didier. Come then, let us go.

[Exeunt: manent Mary Beaton and Barbara Mowbray.
Barbara.
I wist I was not worthy, though my child
It is that her own hands made Christian: but
I deemed she should have bid you go with her.
Alas, and would not all we die with her?

Mary Beaton.
Why, from the gallery here at hand your eyes
May go with her along the hall beneath
Even to the scaffold: and I fain would hear
What fain I would not look on. Pray you, then,
If you may bear to see it as those below,
Do me that sad good service of your eyes
For mine to look upon it, and declare
All that till all be done I will not see;
I pray you of your pity.

Barbara.
Though mine heart
Break, it shall not for fear forsake the sight
That may be faithful yet in following her,
Nor yet for grief refuse your prayer, being fain
To give your love such bitter comfort, who
So long have never left her.

Mary Beaton.
Till she die—
I have ever known I shall not till she die.
See you yet aught? if I hear spoken words,
My heart can better bear these pulses, else
Unbearable, that rend it.

Barbara.
Yea, I see
Stand in mid hall the scaffold, black as death,
And black the block upon it: all around,
Against the throng a guard of halberdiers;
And the axe against the scaffold-rail reclined,
And two men masked on either hand beyond:
And hard behind the block a cushion set,
Black, as the chair behind it.

Mary Beaton.
When I saw
Fallen on a scaffold once a young man's head,
Such things as these I saw not. Nay, but on:
I knew not that I spake: and toward your ears
Indeed I spake not.

Barbara.
All those faces change;
She comes more royally than ever yet
Fell foot of man triumphant on this earth,
Imperial more than empire made her, born
Enthroned as queen sat never. Not a line
Stirs of her sovereign feature: like a bride
Brought home she mounts the scaffold; and her eyes
Sweep regal round the cirque beneath, and rest,
Subsiding with a smile. She sits, and they,
The doomsmen earls, beside her; at her left
The sheriff, and the clerk at hand on high,
To read the warrant.

Mary Beaton.
None stands there but knows
What things therein are writ against her: God
Knows what therein is writ not. God forgive
All.

Barbara.
Not a face there breathes of all the throng
But is more moved than hers to hear this read,
Whose look alone is changed not.

Mary Beaton.
Once I knew
A face that changed not in as dire an hour
More than the queen's face changes. Hath he not
Ended?

Barbara.
You cannot hear them speak below:
Come near and hearken; bid not me repeat
All.

Mary Beaton.
I beseech you—for I may not come.

Barbara.
Now speaks Lord Shrewsbury but a word or twain,
And brieflier yet she answers, and stands up
As though to kneel, and pray.

Mary Beaton.
I too have prayed—
God hear at last her prayers not less than mine,
Which failed not, sure, of hearing.

Barbara.
Now draws nigh
That heretic priest, and bows himself, and thrice
Strives, as a man that sleeps in pain, to speak,
Stammering: she waves him by, as one whose prayers
She knows may nought avail her: now she kneels,
And the earls rebuke her, and she answers not,
Kneeling. O Christ, whose likeness there engraved
She strikes against her bosom, hear her! Now
That priest lifts up his voice against her prayer,
Praying: and a voice all round goes up with his:
But hers is lift up higher than climbs their cry,
In the great psalms of penitence: and now
She prays aloud in English; for the Pope
Our father, and his church; and for her son,
And for the queen her murderess; and that God
May turn from England yet his wrath away;
And so forgives her enemies; and implores
High intercession of the saints with Christ,
Whom crucified she kisses on his cross,
And crossing now her breast—Ah, heard you not?
Even as thine arms were spread upon the cross,
So make thy grace, O Jesus, wide for me,
Receive me to thy mercy so, and so
Forgive my sins.

Mary Beaton.
So be it, if so God please.
Is she not risen up yet?

Barbara.
Yea, but mine eyes
Darken: because those deadly twain close masked
Draw nigh as men that crave forgiveness, which
Gently she grants: for now, she said, I hope
You shall end all my troubles. Now meseems
They would put hand upon her as to help,
And disarray her raiment: but she smiles—
Heard you not that? can you nor hear nor speak,
Poor heart, for pain? Truly, she said, my lords,
I never had such chamber-grooms before
As these to wait on me.

Mary Beaton.
An end, an end.

Barbara.
Now come those twain upon the scaffold up
Whom she preferred before us: and she lays
Her crucifix down, which now the headsman takes
Into his cursed hand, but being rebuked
Puts back for shame that sacred spoil of hers.
And now they lift her veil up from her head
Softly, and softly draw the black robe off,
And all in red as of a funeral flame
She stands up statelier yet before them, tall
And clothed as if with sunset: and she takes
From Elspeth's hand the crimson sleeves, and draws
Their covering on her arms: and now those twain
Burst out aloud in weeping: and she speaks—
Weep not; I promised for you. Now she kneels;
And Jane binds round a kerchief on her eyes:
And smiling last her heavenliest smile on earth,
She waves a blind hand toward them, with Farewell,
Farewell, to meet again: and they come down
And leave her praying aloud, In thee, O Lord,
I put my trust: and now, that psalm being through,
She lays between the block and her soft neck
Her long white peerless hands up tenderly,
Which now the headsman draws again away,
But softly too: now stir her lips again—
Into thine hands, O Lord, into thine hands,
Lord, I commend my spirit: and now—but now,
Look you, not I, the last upon her.

Mary Beaton.
Ha!
He strikes awry: she stirs not. Nay, but now
He strikes aright, and ends it.

Barbara.
Hark, a cry.

Voice
below.
So perish all found enemies of the queen!

Another Voice.
Amen.

Mary Beaton.
I heard that very cry go up
Far off long since to God, who answers here.