Queen Mary; and, Harold

by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson

FIRST MEMBER. St. Andrew's day; sit close, sit close, we are friends.
Is reconciled the word? the Pope again?
It must be thus; and yet, cocksbody! how strange
That Gardiner, once so one with all of us
Against this foreign marriage, should have yielded
So utterly!—strange! but stranger still that he,
So fierce against the Headship of the Pope,
Should play the second actor in this pageant
That brings him in; such a cameleon he!
SECOND MEMBER. This Gardiner turn'd his coat in Henry's time;
The serpent that hath slough'd will slough again.
THIRD MEMBER. Tut, then we all are serpents.
SECOND MEMBER. Speak for yourself.
THIRD MEMBER. Ay, and for Gardiner! being English citizen,
How should he bear a bridegroom out of Spain?
The Queen would have him! being English churchman
How should he bear the headship of the Pope?
The Queen would have it! Statesmen that are wise
Shape a necessity, as a sculptor clay,
To their own model.
SECOND MEMBER. Statesmen that are wise
Take truth herself for model. What say you?
[To SIR RALPH BAGENHALL.
BAGENHALL. We talk and talk.
FIRST MEMBER. Ay, and what use to talk?
Philip's no sudden alien—the Queen's husband,
He's here, and king, or will be—yet cocksbody!
So hated here! I watch'd a hive of late;
My seven-years' friend was with me, my young boy;
Out crept a wasp, with half the swarm behind.
'Philip!' says he. I had to cuff the rogue
For infant treason.
THIRD MEMBER. But they say that bees,
If any creeping life invade their hive
Too gross to be thrust out, will build him round,
And bind him in from harming of their combs.
And Philip by these articles is bound
From stirring hand or foot to wrong the realm.
SECOND MEMBER. By bonds of beeswax, like your creeping thing;
But your wise bees had stung him first to death.
THIRD MEMBER. Hush, hush!
You wrong the Chancellor: the clauses added
To that same treaty which the emperor sent us
Were mainly Gardiner's: that no foreigner
Hold office in the household, fleet, forts, army;
That if the Queen should die without a child,
The bond between the kingdoms be dissolved;
That Philip should not mix us any way
With his French wars—
SECOND MEMBER. Ay, ay, but what security,
Good sir, for this, if Philip——
THIRD MEMBER. Peace—the Queen, Philip, and Pole.
[All rise, and stand.
Enter MARY, PHILIP, and POLE.
[GARDINER conducts them to the three chairs of state.
PHILIP sits on the QUEEN'S left, POLE on her right.
GARDINER. Our short-lived sun, before his winter plunge,
Laughs at the last red leaf, and Andrew's Day.
MARY. Should not this day be held in after years
More solemn than of old?
PHILIP. Madam, my wish
Echoes your Majesty's.
POLE. It shall be so.
GARDINER. Mine echoes both your Graces'; (aside) but the Pope—
Can we not have the Catholic church as well
Without as with the Italian? if we cannot,
Why then the Pope.
My lords of the upper house,
And ye, my masters, of the lower house,
Do ye stand fast by that which ye resolved?
VOICES. We do.
GARDINER. And be you all one mind to supplicate
The Legate here for pardon, and acknowledge
The primacy of the Pope?
VOICES. We are all one mind.
GARDINER. Then must I play the vassal to this Pole. [Aside.
[He draws a paper from under his robes and
presents it to the KING and QUEEN, who look
through it and return it to him; then ascends
a tribune, and reads.
We, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal,
And Commons here in Parliament assembled,
Presenting the whole body of this realm
Of England, and dominions of the same,
Do make most humble suit unto your Majesties,
In our own name and that of all the state,
That by your gracious means and intercession
Our supplication be exhibited
To the Lord Cardinal Pole, sent here as Legate
From our most Holy Father Julius, Pope,
And from the Apostolic see of Rome;
And do declare our penitence and grief
For our long schism and disobedience,
Either in making laws and ordinances
Against the Holy Father's primacy,
Or else by doing or by speaking aught
Which might impugn or prejudice the same;
By this our supplication promising,
As well for our own selves as all the realm,
That now we be and ever shall be quick,
Under and with your Majesties' authorities,
To do to the utmost all that in us lies
Towards the abrogation and repeal
Of all such laws and ordinances made;
Whereon we humbly pray your Majesties,
As persons undefiled with our offence,
So to set forth this humble suit of ours
That we the rather by your intercession
May from the Apostolic see obtain,
Thro' this most reverend Father, absolution,
And full release from danger of all censures
Of Holy Church that we be fall'n into,
So that we may, as children penitent,
Be once again received into the bosom
And unity of Universal Church;
And that this noble realm thro' after years
May in this unity and obedience
Unto the holy see and reigning Pope
Serve God and both your Majesties.
VOICES. Amen.
[All sit.
[He again presents the petition to the KING and QUEEN, who hand it reverentially to POLE.
POLE (sitting). This is the loveliest day that ever smiled
On England. All her breath should, incenselike,
Rise to the heavens in grateful praise of Him
Who now recalls her to His ancient fold.
Lo! once again God to this realm hath given
A token of His more especial Grace;
For as this people were the first of all
The islands call'd into the dawning church
Out of the dead, deep night of heathendom,
So now are these the first whom God hath given
Grace to repent and sorrow for their schism;
And if your penitence be not mockery,
Oh how the blessed angels who rejoice
Over one saved do triumph at this hour
In the reborn salvation of a land
So noble. [A pause.
For ourselves we do protest
That our commission is to heal, not harm;
We come not to condemn, but reconcile;
We come not to compel, but call again;
We come not to destroy, but edify;
Nor yet to question things already done;
These are forgiven—matters of the past—
And range with jetsam and with offal thrown
Into the blind sea of forgetfulness. [A pause.
Ye have reversed the attainder laid on us
By him who sack'd the house of God; and we,
Amplier than any field on our poor earth
Can render thanks in fruit for being sown,
Do here and now repay you sixty-fold,
A hundred, yea, a thousand thousand-fold,
With heaven for earth.
[Rising and stretching forth his hands. All kneel but SIR RALPH BAGENHALL, who rises and remains standing.
The Lord who hath redeem'd us
With His own blood, and wash'd us from our sins,
To purchase for Himself a stainless bride;
He, whom the Father hath appointed Head
Of all his church, He by His mercy absolve you! [A pause.
And we by that authority Apostolic,
Given unto us, his Legate, by the Pope,
Our Lord and Holy Father, Julius,
God's Vicar and Vicegerent upon earth,
Do here absolve you and deliver you
And every one of you, and all the realm
And its dominions from all heresy,
All schism, and from all and every censure,
Judgment, and pain accruing thereupon;
And also we restore you to the bosom
And unity of Universal Church.
[Turning to GARDINER.
Our letters of commission will declare this plainlier.
[QUEEN heard sobbing. Cries of Amen! Amen! Some of the
Members embrace one another. All but SIR RALPH BAGENHALL
pass out into the neighboring chapel, whence is heard
the Te Deum.
BAGENHALL. We strove against the papacy from the first,
In William's time, in our first Edward's time,
And in my master Henry's time; but now,
The unity of Universal Church,
Mary would have it; and this Gardiner follows;
The unity of Universal Hell,
Philip would have it; and this Gardiner follows!
A Parliament of imitative apes!
Sheep at the gap which Gardiner takes, who not
Believes the Pope, nor any of them believe—
These spaniel-Spaniard English of the time,
Who rub their fawning noses in the dust,
For that is Philip's gold-dust, and adore
This Vicar of their Vicar. Would I had been
Born Spaniard! I had held my head up then.
I am ashamed that I am Bagenhall,
English.
Enter OFFICER.
OFFICER. Sir Ralph Bagenhall!
BAGENHALL. What of that?
OFFICER. You were the one sole man in either house
Who stood upright when both the houses fell.
BAGENHALL. The houses fell!
OFFICER. I mean the houses knelt
Before the Legate.
BAGENHALL. Do not scrimp your phrase,
But stretch it wider; say when England fell.
OFFICER. I say you were the one sole man who stood.
BAGENHALL. I am the one sole man in either house,
Perchance in England, loves her like a son.
OFFICER. Well, you one man, because you stood upright,
Her Grace the Queen commands you to the Tower.
BAGENHALL. As traitor, or as heretic, or for what?
OFFICER. If any man in any way would be
The one man, he shall be so to his cost.
BAGENHALL. What! will she have my head?
OFFICER. A round fine likelier.
Your pardon. [Calling to ATTENDANT.
By the river to the Tower.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.—WHITEHALL. A ROOM IN THE PALACE.
MARY, GARDINER, POLE, PAGET, BONNER, etc.

MARY. The King and I, my Lords, now that all traitors
Against our royal state have lost the heads
Wherewith they plotted in their treasonous malice,
Have talk'd together, and are well agreed
That those old statutes touching Lollardism
To bring the heretic to the stake, should be
No longer a dead letter, but requicken'd.
ONE OF THE COUNCIL. Why, what hath fluster'd Gardiner? how he rubs
His forelock!
PAGET. I have changed a word with him
In coming, and may change a word again.
GARDINER. Madam, your Highness is our sun, the King
And you together our two suns in one;
And so the beams of both may shine upon us,
The faith that seem'd to droop will feel your light,
Lift head, and flourish; yet not light alone,
There must be heat—there must be heat enough
To scorch and wither heresy to the root.
For what saith Christ? 'Compel them to come in.'
And what saith Paul? 'I would they were cut off
That trouble you.' Let the dead letter live!
Trace it in fire, that all the louts to whom
Their A B C is darkness, clowns and grooms
May read it! so you quash rebellion too,
For heretic and traitor are all one:
Two vipers of one breed—an amphisbaena,
Each end a sting: Let the dead letter burn!
PAGET. Yet there be some disloyal Catholics,
And many heretics loyal; heretic throats
Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane,
But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be
Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord.
To take the lives of others that are loyal,
And by the churchman's pitiless doom of fire,
Were but a thankless policy in the crown,
Ay, and against itself; for there are many.
MARY. If we could burn out heresy, my Lord Paget,
We reck not tho' we lost this crown of England—
Ay! tho' it were ten Englands!
GARDINER. Right, your Grace.
Paget, you are all for this poor life of ours,
And care but little for the life to be.
PAGET. I have some time, for curiousness, my Lord
Watch'd children playing at their life to be,
And cruel at it, killing helpless flies;
Such is our time—all times for aught I know.
GARDINER. We kill the heretics that sting the soul—
They, with right reason, flies that prick the flesh.
PAGET. They had not reach'd right reason; little children!
They kill'd but for their pleasure and the power
They felt in killing.
GARDINER. A spice of Satan, ha!
Why, good! what then? granted!—we are fallen creatures;
Look to your Bible, Paget! we are fallen.
PAGET. I am but of the laity, my Lord Bishop,
And may not read your Bible, yet I found
One day, a wholesome scripture, 'Little children,
Love one another.'
GARDINER. Did you find a scripture,
'I come not to bring peace but a sword'? The sword
Is in her Grace's hand to smite with. Paget,
You stand up here to fight for heresy,
You are more than guess'd at as a heretic,
And on the steep-up track of the true faith
Your lapses are far seen.
PAGET. The faultless Gardiner!
MARY. You brawl beyond the question; speak, Lord Legate!
POLE. Indeed, I cannot follow with your Grace:
Rather would say—the shepherd doth not kill
The sheep that wander from his flock, but sends
His careful dog to bring them to the fold.
Look to the Netherlands, wherein have been
Such holocausts of heresy! to what end?
For yet the faith is not established there.
GARDINER. The end's not come.
POLE. No—nor this way will come,
Seeing there lie two ways to every end,
A better and a worse—the worse is here
To persecute, because to persecute
Makes a faith hated, and is furthermore
No perfect witness of a perfect faith
In him who persecutes: when men are tost
On tides of strange opinion, and not sure
Of their own selves, they are wroth with their own selves,
And thence with others; then, who lights the faggot?
Not the full faith, no, but the lurking doubt.
Old Rome, that first made martyrs in the Church,
Trembled for her own gods, for these were trembling—
But when did our Rome tremble?
PAGET. Did she not
In Henry's time and Edward's?
POLE. What, my Lord!
The Church on Peter's rock? never! I have seen
A pine in Italy that cast its shadow
Athwart a cataract; firm stood the pine—
The cataract shook the shadow. To my mind,
The cataract typed the headlong plunge and fall
Of heresy to the pit: the pine was Rome.
You see, my Lords,
It was the shadow of the Church that trembled;
Your church was but the shadow of a church,
Wanting the Papal mitre.
GARDINER (muttering). Here be tropes.
POLE. And tropes are good to clothe a naked truth,
And make it look more seemly.
GARDINER. Tropes again!
POLE. You are hard to please. Then without tropes, my Lord,
An overmuch severeness, I repeat,
When faith is wavering makes the waverer pass
Into more settled hatred of the doctrines
Of those who rule, which hatred by and by
Involves the ruler (thus there springs to light
That Centaur of a monstrous Commonweal,
The traitor-heretic) then tho' some may quail,
Yet others are that dare the stake and fire,
And their strong torment bravely borne, begets
An admiration and an indignation,
And hot desire to imitate; so the plague
Of schism spreads; were there but three or four
Of these misleaders, yet I would not say
Burn! and we cannot burn whole towns; they are many,
As my Lord Paget says.
GARDINER. Yet my Lord Cardinal—
POLE. I am your Legate; please you let me finish.
Methinks that under our Queen's regimen
We might go softlier than with crimson rowel
And streaming lash. When Herod-Henry first
Began to batter at your English Church,
This was the cause, and hence the judgment on her.
She seethed with such adulteries, and the lives
Of many among your churchmen were so foul
That heaven wept and earth blush'd. I would advise
That we should thoroughly cleanse the Church within
Before these bitter statutes be requicken'd.
So after that when she once more is seen
White as the light, the spotless bride of Christ,
Like Christ himself on Tabor, possibly
The Lutheran may be won to her again;
Till when, my Lords, I counsel tolerance.
GARDINER. What, if a mad dog bit your hand, my Lord,
Would you not chop the bitten finger off,
Lest your whole body should madden with the poison?
I would not, were I Queen, tolerate the heretic,
No, not an hour. The ruler of a land
Is bounden by his power and place to see
His people be not poison'd. Tolerate them!
Why? do they tolerate you? Nay, many of them
Would burn—have burnt each other; call they not
The one true faith, a loathsome idol-worship?
Beware, Lord Legate, of a heavier crime
Than heresy is itself; beware, I say,
Lest men accuse you of indifference
To all faiths, all religion; for you know
Right well that you yourself have been supposed
Tainted with Lutheranism in Italy.
POLE (angered). But you, my Lord, beyond all supposition,
In clear and open day were congruent
With that vile Cranmer in the accursed lie
Of good Queen Catherine's divorce—the spring
Of all those evils that have flow'd upon us;
For you yourself have truckled to the tyrant,
And done your best to bastardise our Queen,
For which God's righteous judgment fell upon you
In your five years of imprisonment, my Lord,
Under young Edward. Who so bolster'd up
The gross King's headship of the Church, or more
Denied the Holy Father!
GARDINER. Ha! what! eh?
But you, my Lord, a polish'd gentleman,
A bookman, flying from the heat and tussle,
You lived among your vines and oranges,
In your soft Italy yonder! You were sent for.
You were appeal'd to, but you still preferr'd
Your learned leisure. As for what I did
I suffer'd and repented. You, Lord Legate
And Cardinal-Deacon, have not now to learn
That ev'n St. Peter in his time of fear
Denied his Master, ay, and thrice, my Lord.
POLE. But not for five-and-twenty years, my Lord.
GARDINER. Ha! good! it seems then I was summon'd hither
But to be mock'd and baited. Speak, friend Bonner,
And tell this learned Legate he lacks zeal.
The Church's evil is not as the King's,
Cannot be heal'd by stroking. The mad bite
Must have the cautery—tell him—and at once.
What would'st thou do hadst thou his power, thou
That layest so long in heretic bonds with me;
Would'st thou not burn and blast them root and branch?
BONNER. Ay, after you, my Lord.
GARDINER. Nay, God's passion, before me! speak'
BONNER. I am on fire until I see them flame.
GARDINER. Ay, the psalm-singing weavers, cobblers, scum—
But this most noble prince Plantagenet,
Our good Queen's cousin—dallying over seas
Even when his brother's, nay, his noble mother's,
Head fell—
POLE. Peace, madman!
Thou stirrest up a grief thou canst not fathom.
Thou Christian Bishop, thou Lord Chancellor
Of England! no more rein upon thine anger
Than any child! Thou mak'st me much ashamed
That I was for a moment wroth at thee.
MARY. I come for counsel and ye give me feuds,
Like dogs that set to watch their master's gate,
Fall, when the thief is ev'n within the walls,
To worrying one another. My Lord Chancellor,
You have an old trick of offending us;
And but that you are art and part with us
In purging heresy, well we might, for this
Your violence and much roughness to the Legate,
Have shut you from our counsels. Cousin Pole,
You are fresh from brighter lands. Retire with me.
His Highness and myself (so you allow us)
Will let you learn in peace and privacy
What power this cooler sun of England hath
In breeding godless vermin. And pray Heaven
That you may see according to our sight.
Come, cousin.
[Exeunt QUEEN and POLE, etc.
GARDINER. Pole has the Plantagenet face,
But not the force made them our mightiest kings.
Fine eyes—but melancholy, irresolute—
A fine beard, Bonner, a very full fine beard.
But a weak mouth, an indeterminate—ha?
BONNER. Well, a weak mouth, perchance.
GARDINER. And not like thine
To gorge a heretic whole, roasted or raw.
BONNER. I'd do my best, my Lord; but yet the Legate
Is here as Pope and Master of the Church,
And if he go not with you—
GARDINER. Tut, Master Bishop,
Our bashful Legate, saw'st not how he flush'd?
Touch him upon his old heretical talk,
He'll burn a diocese to prove his orthodoxy.
And let him call me truckler. In those times,
Thou knowest we had to dodge, or duck, or die;
I kept my head for use of Holy Church;
And see you, we shall have to dodge again,
And let the Pope trample our rights, and plunge
His foreign fist into our island Church
To plump the leaner pouch of Italy.
For a time, for a time.
Why? that these statutes may be put in force,
And that his fan may thoroughly purge his floor.
BONNER. So then you hold the Pope—
GARDINER. I hold the Pope!
What do I hold him? what do I hold the Pope?
Come, come, the morsel stuck—this Cardinal's fault—
I have gulpt it down. I am wholly for the Pope,
Utterly and altogether for the Pope,
The Eternal Peter of the changeless chair,
Crown'd slave of slaves, and mitred king of kings,
God upon earth! what more? what would you have?
Hence, let's be gone.
Enter USHER.
USHER. Well that you be not gone,
My Lord. The Queen, most wroth at first with you,
Is now content to grant you full forgiveness,
So that you crave full pardon of the Legate.
I am sent to fetch you.
GARDINER. Doth Pole yield, sir, ha!
Did you hear 'em? were you by?
USHER. I cannot tell you,
His bearing is so courtly-delicate;
And yet methinks he falters: their two Graces
Do so dear-cousin and royal-cousin him,
So press on him the duty which as Legate
He owes himself, and with such royal smiles—
GARDINER. Smiles that burn men. Bonner, it will be carried.
He falters, ha? 'fore God, we change and change;
Men now are bow'd and old, the doctors tell you,
At three-score years; then if we change at all
We needs must do it quickly; it is an age
Of brief life, and brief purpose, and brief patience,
As I have shown to-day. I am sorry for it
If Pole be like to turn. Our old friend Cranmer,
Your more especial love, hath turn'd so often,
He knows not where he stands, which, if this pass,
We two shall have to teach him; let 'em look to it,
Cranmer and Hooper, Ridley and Latimer,
Rogers and Ferrar, for their time is come,
Their hour is hard at hand, their 'dies Irae'
Their 'dies Illa,' which will test their sect.
I feel it but a duty—you will find in it
Pleasure as well as duty, worthy Bonner,—
To test their sect. Sir, I attend the Queen
To crave most humble pardon—of her most
Royal, Infallible, Papal Legate-cousin.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.—WOODSTOCK.
ELIZABETH, LADY IN WAITING.

ELIZABETH. So they have sent poor Courtenay over sea.
LADY. And banish'd us to Woodstock, and the fields.
The colours of our Queen are green and white,
These fields are only green, they make me gape.
ELIZABETH. There's whitethorn, girl.
LADY. Ay, for an hour in May.
But court is always May, buds out in masques,
Breaks into feather'd merriments, and flowers
In silken pageants. Why do they keep us here?
Why still suspect your Grace?
ELIZABETH. Hard upon both.
[Writes on the window with a diamond.
Much suspected, of me
Nothing proven can be.
Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.
LADY. What hath your Highness written?
ELIZABETH. A true rhyme.
LADY. Cut with a diamond; so to last like truth.
ELIZABETH. Ay, if truth last.
LADY. But truth, they say, will out,
So it must last. It is not like a word,
That comes and goes in uttering.
ELIZABETH. Truth, a word!
The very Truth and very Word are one.
But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl,
Is like a word that comes from olden days,
And passes thro' the peoples: every tongue
Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks
Quite other than at first.
LADY. I do not follow.
ELIZABETH. How many names in the long sweep of time
That so foreshortens greatness, may but hang
On the chance mention of some fool that once
Brake bread with us, perhaps: and my poor chronicle
Is but of glass. Sir Henry Bedingfield
May split it for a spite.
LADY. God grant it last,
And witness to your Grace's innocence,
Till doomsday melt it.
ELIZABETH. Or a second fire,
Like that which lately crackled underfoot
And in this very chamber, fuse the glass,
And char us back again into the dust
We spring from. Never peacock against rain
Scream'd as you did for water.
LADY. And I got it.
I woke Sir Henry—and he's true to you
I read his honest horror in his eyes.
ELIZABETH. Or true to you?
LADY. Sir Henry Bedingfield!
I will have no man true to me, your Grace,
But one that pares his nails; to me? the clown!
ELIZABETH. Out, girl! you wrong a noble gentleman.
LADY. For, like his cloak, his manners want the nap
And gloss of court; but of this fire he says.
Nay swears, it was no wicked wilfulness,
Only a natural chance.
ELIZABETH. A chance—perchance
One of those wicked wilfuls that men make,
Nor shame to call it nature. Nay, I know
They hunt my blood. Save for my daily range
Among the pleasant fields of Holy Writ
I might despair. But there hath some one come;
The house is all in movement. Hence, and see.
[Exit LADY.
MILKMAID (singing without).
Shame upon you, Robin,
Shame upon you now!
Kiss me would you? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Daisies grow again,
Kingcups blow again,
And you came and kiss'd me milking the cow.
Robin came behind me,
Kiss'd me well I vow;
Cuff him could I? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Swallows fly again,
Cuckoos cry again,
And you came and kiss'd me milking the cow.
Come, Robin, Robin,
Come and kiss me now;
Help it can I? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Ringdoves coo again,
All things woo again.
Come behind and kiss me milking the cow!
ELIZABETH. Right honest and red-cheek'd; Robin was violent,
And she was crafty—a sweet violence,
And a sweet craft. I would I were a milkmaid,
To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and die,
Then have my simple headstone by the church,
And all things lived and ended honestly.
I could not if I would. I am Harry's daughter:
Gardiner would have my head. They are not sweet,
The violence and the craft that do divide
The world of nature; what is weak must lie;
The lion needs but roar to guard his young;
The lapwing lies, says 'here' when they are there.
Threaten the child; 'I'll scourge you if you did it:'
What weapon hath the child, save his soft tongue,
To say 'I did not?' and my rod's the block.
I never lay my head upon the pillow
But that I think, 'Wilt thou lie there to-morrow?'
How oft the falling axe, that never fell,
Hath shock'd me back into the daylight truth
That it may fall to-day! Those damp, black, dead
Nights in the Tower; dead—with the fear of death
Too dead ev'n for a death-watch! Toll of a bell,
Stroke of a clock, the scurrying of a rat
Affrighted me, and then delighted me,
For there was life—And there was life in death—
The little murder'd princes, in a pale light,
Rose hand in hand, and whisper'd, 'come away!
The civil wars are gone for evermore:
Thou last of all the Tudors, come away!
With us is peace!' The last? It was a dream;
I must not dream, not wink, but watch. She has gone,
Maid Marian to her Robin—by and by
Both happy! a fox may filch a hen by night,
And make a morning outcry in the yard;
But there's no Renard here to 'catch her tripping.'
Catch me who can; yet, sometime I have wish'd
That I were caught, and kill'd away at once
Out of the flutter. The gray rogue, Gardiner,
Went on his knees, and pray'd me to confess
In Wyatt's business, and to cast myself
Upon the good Queen's mercy; ay, when, my Lord?
God save the Queen! My jailor—
Enter SIR HENRY BEDINGFIELD.
BEDINGFIELD. One, whose bolts,
That jail you from free life, bar you from death.
There haunt some Papist ruffians hereabout
Would murder you.
ELIZABETH. I thank you heartily, sir,
But I am royal, tho' your prisoner,
And God hath blest or cursed me with a nose—
Your boots are from the horses.
BEDINGFIELD. Ay, my Lady.
When next there comes a missive from the Queen
It shall be all my study for one hour
To rose and lavender my horsiness,
Before I dare to glance upon your Grace.
ELIZABETH. A missive from the Queen: last time she wrote,
I had like to have lost my life: it takes my breath:
O God, sir, do you look upon your boots,
Are you so small a man? Help me: what think you,
Is it life or death.
BEDINGFIELD. I thought not on my boots;
The devil take all boots were ever made
Since man went barefoot. See, I lay it here,
For I will come no nearer to your Grace;
[Laying down the letter.
And, whether it bring you bitter news or sweet,
And God hath given your Grace a nose, or not,
I'll help you, if I may.
ELIZABETH. Your pardon, then;
It is the heat and narrowness of the cage
That makes the captive testy; with free wing
The world were all one Araby. Leave me now,
Will you, companion to myself, sir?
BEDINGFIELD. Will I?
With most exceeding willingness, I will;
You know I never come till I be call'd.
[Exit.
ELIZABETH. It lies there folded: is there venom in it?
A snake—and if I touch it, it may sting.
Come, come, the worst!
Best wisdom is to know the worst at once. [Reads:
'It is the King's wish, that you should wed Prince Philibert of Savoy.
You are to come to Court on the instant; and think of this in your
coming. 'MARY THE QUEEN.'
Think I have many thoughts;
I think there may be birdlime here for me;
I think they fain would have me from the realm;
I think the Queen may never bear a child;
I think that I may be some time the Queen,
Then, Queen indeed: no foreign prince or priest
Should fill my throne, myself upon the steps.
I think I will not marry anyone,
Specially not this landless Philibert
Of Savoy; but, if Philip menace me,
I think that I will play with Philibert,
As once the Holy Father did with mine,
Before my father married my good mother,—
For fear of Spain.
Enter LADY.
LADY. O Lord! your Grace, your Grace,
I feel so happy: it seems that we shall fly
These bald, blank fields, and dance into the sun
That shines on princes.
ELIZABETH. Yet, a moment since,
I wish'd myself the milkmaid singing here,
To kiss and cuff among the birds and flowers—
A right rough life and healthful.
LADY. But the wench
Hath her own troubles; she is weeping now;
For the wrong Robin took her at her word.
Then the cow kick'd, and all her milk was spilt.
Your Highness such a milkmaid?
ELIZABETH. I had kept
My Robins and my cows in sweeter order
Had I been such.
LADY (slyly). And had your Grace a Robin?
ELIZABETH. Come, come, you are chill here; you want the sun
That shines at court; make ready for the journey.
Pray God, we 'scape the sunstroke. Ready at once.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.—LONDON. A ROOM IN THE PALACE.
LORD PETRE and LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.

PETRE. You cannot see the Queen. Renard denied her,
Ev'n now to me.
HOWARD. Their Flemish go-between
And all-in-all. I came to thank her Majesty
For freeing my friend Bagenhall from the Tower;
A grace to me! Mercy, that herb-of-grace,
Flowers now but seldom.
PETRE. Only now perhaps.
Because the Queen hath been three days in tears
For Philip's going—like the wild hedge-rose
Of a soft winter, possible, not probable,
However you have prov'n it.
HOWARD. I must see her.
Enter RENARD.
RENARD. My Lords, you cannot see her Majesty.
HOWARD. Why then the King! for I would have him bring it
Home to the leisure wisdom of his Queen,
Before he go, that since these statutes past,
Gardiner out-Gardiners Gardiner in his heat,
Bonner cannot out-Bonner his own self—
Beast!—but they play with fire as children do,
And burn the house. I know that these are breeding
A fierce resolve and fixt heart-hate in men
Against the King, the Queen, the Holy Father,
The faith itself. Can I not see him?
RENARD. Not now.
And in all this, my Lord, her Majesty
Is flint of flint, you may strike fire from her,
Not hope to melt her. I will give your message.
[Exeunt PETRE and HOWARD.
Enter PHILIP (musing)
PHILIP. She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy,
I talk'd with her in vain—says she will live
And die true maid—a goodly creature too.
Would she had been the Queen! yet she must have him;
She troubles England: that she breathes in England
Is life and lungs to every rebel birth
That passes out of embryo.
Simon Renard!
This Howard, whom they fear, what was he saying?
RENARD. What your imperial father said, my liege,
To deal with heresy gentlier. Gardiner burns,
And Bonner burns; and it would seem this people
Care more for our brief life in their wet land,
Than yours in happier Spain. I told my Lord
He should not vex her Highness; she would say
These are the means God works with, that His church
May flourish.
PHILIP. Ay, sir, but in statesmanship
To strike too soon is oft to miss the blow.
Thou knowest I bad my chaplain, Castro, preach
Against these burnings.
RENARD. And the Emperor
Approved you, and when last he wrote, declared
His comfort in your Grace that you were bland
And affable to men of all estates,
In hope to charm them from their hate of Spain.
PHILIP. In hope to crush all heresy under Spain.
But, Renard, I am sicker staying here
Than any sea could make me passing hence,
Tho' I be ever deadly sick at sea.
So sick am I with biding for this child.
Is it the fashion in this clime for women
To go twelve months in bearing of a child?
The nurses yawn'd, the cradle gaped, they led
Processions, chanted litanies, clash'd their bells,
Shot off their lying cannon, and her priests
Have preach'd, the fools, of this fair prince to come;
Till, by St. James, I find myself the fool.
Why do you lift your eyebrow at me thus?
RENARD. I never saw your Highness moved till now.
PHILIP. So weary am I of this wet land of theirs,
And every soul of man that breathes therein.
RENARD. My liege, we must not drop the mask before
The masquerade is over—
PHILIP. —Have I dropt it?
I have but shown a loathing face to you,
Who knew it from the first.
Enter MARY.
MARY (aside). With Renard. Still
Parleying with Renard, all the day with Renard,
And scarce a greeting all the day for me—
And goes to-morrow.
[Exit MARY.
PHILIP (to RENARD, who advances to him).
Well, sir, is there more?
RENARD (who has perceived the QUEEN).
May Simon Renard speak a single word?
PHILIP. Ay.
RENARD. And be forgiven for it?
PHILIP. Simon Renard
Knows me too well to speak a single word
That could not be forgiven.
RENARD. Well, my liege,
Your Grace hath a most chaste and loving wife.
PHILIP. Why not? The Queen of Philip should be chaste.
RENARD. Ay, but, my Lord, you know what Virgil sings,
Woman is various and most mutable.
PHILIP. She play the harlot! never.
RENARD. No, sire, no,
Not dream'd of by the rabidest gospeller.
There was a paper thrown into the palace,
'The King hath wearied of his barren bride.'
She came upon it, read it, and then rent it,
With all the rage of one who hates a truth
He cannot but allow. Sire, I would have you—
What should I say, I cannot pick my words—
Be somewhat less—majestic to your Queen.
PHILIP. Am I to change my manners, Simon Renard,
Because these islanders are brutal beasts?
Or would you have me turn a sonneteer,
And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers?
RENARD. Brief-sighted tho' they be, I have seen them, sire,
When you perchance were trifling royally
With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill
With such fierce fire—had it been fire indeed
It would have burnt both speakers.
PHILIP. Ay, and then?
RENARD. Sire, might it not be policy in some matter
Of small importance now and then to cede
A point to her demand?
PHILIP. Well, I am going.
RENARD. For should her love when you are gone, my liege,
Witness these papers, there will not be wanting
Those that will urge her injury—should her love—
And I have known such women more than one—
Veer to the counterpoint, and jealousy
Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse
Almost into one metal love and hate,—
And she impress her wrongs upon her Council,
And these again upon her Parliament—
We are not loved here, and would be then perhaps
Not so well holpen in our wars with France,
As else we might be—here she comes.
Enter MARY.
MARY. O Philip!
Nay, must you go indeed?
PHILIP. Madam, I must.
MARY. The parting of a husband and a wife
Is like the cleaving of a heart; one half
Will flutter here, one there.
PHILIP. You say true, Madam.
MARY. The Holy Virgin will not have me yet
Lose the sweet hope that I may bear a prince.
If such a prince were born and you not here!
PHILIP. I should be here if such a prince were born.
MARY. But must you go?
PHILIP. Madam, you know my father,
Retiring into cloistral solitude
To yield the remnant of his years to heaven,
Will shift the yoke and weight of all the world
From off his neck to mine. We meet at Brussels.
But since mine absence will not be for long,
Your Majesty shall go to Dover with me,
And wait my coming back.
MARY. To Dover? no,
I am too feeble. I will go to Greenwich,
So you will have me with you; and there watch
All that is gracious in the breath of heaven
Draw with your sails from our poor land, and pass
And leave me, Philip, with my prayers for you.
PHILIP. And doubtless I shall profit by your prayers.
MARY. Methinks that would you tarry one day more
(The news was sudden) I could mould myself
To bear your going better; will you do it?
PHILIP. Madam, a day may sink or save a realm.
MARY. A day may save a heart from breaking too.
PHILIP. Well, Simon Renard, shall we stop a day?
RENARD. Your Grace's business will not suffer, sire,
For one day more, so far as I can tell.
PHILIP. Then one day more to please her Majesty.
MARY. The sunshine sweeps across my life again.
O if I knew you felt this parting, Philip,
As I do!
PHILIP. By St. James I do protest,
Upon the faith and honour of a Spaniard,
I am vastly grieved to leave your Majesty.
Simon, is supper ready?
RENARD. Ay, my liege,
I saw the covers laying.
PHILIP. Let us have it.
[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.—A ROOM IN THE PALACE.
MARY, CARDINAL POLE.

MARY. What have you there?
POLE. So please your Majesty,
A long petition from the foreign exiles
To spare the life of Cranmer. Bishop Thirlby,
And my Lord Paget and Lord William Howard,
Crave, in the same cause, hearing of your Grace.
Hath he not written himself—infatuated—
To sue you for his life?
MARY. His life? Oh, no;
Not sued for that—he knows it were in vain.
But so much of the anti-papal leaven
Works in him yet, he hath pray'd me not to sully
Mine own prerogative, and degrade the realm
By seeking justice at a stranger's hand
Against my natural subject. King and Queen,
To whom he owes his loyalty after God,
Shall these accuse him to a foreign prince?
Death would not grieve him more. I cannot be
True to this realm of England and the Pope
Together, says the heretic.
POLE. And there errs;
As he hath ever err'd thro' vanity.
A secular kingdom is but as the body
Lacking a soul; and in itself a beast.
The Holy Father in a secular kingdom
Is as the soul descending out of heaven
Into a body generate.
MARY. Write to him, then.
POLE. I will.
MARY. And sharply, Pole.
POLE. Here come the Cranmerites!
Enter THIRLBY, LORD PAGET, LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.
HOWARD. Health to your Grace! Good morrow, my Lord Cardinal;
We make our humble prayer unto your Grace
That Cranmer may withdraw to foreign parts,
Or into private life within the realm.
In several bills and declarations, Madam,
He hath recanted all his heresies.
PAGET. Ay, ay; if Bonner have not forged the bills. [Aside.
MARY. Did not More die, and Fisher? he must burn.
HOWARD. He hath recanted, Madam.
MARY. The better for him.
He burns in Purgatory, not in Hell.
HOWARD. Ay, ay, your Grace; but it was never seen
That any one recanting thus at full,
As Cranmer hath, came to the fire on earth.
MARY. It will be seen now, then.
THIRLBY. O Madam, Madam!
I thus implore you, low upon my knees,
To reach the hand of mercy to my friend.
I have err'd with him; with him I have recanted.
What human reason is there why my friend
Should meet with lesser mercy than myself?
MARY. My Lord of Ely, this. After a riot
We hang the leaders, let their following go.
Cranmer is head and father of these heresies,
New learning as they call it; yea, may God
Forget me at most need when I forget
Her foul divorce—my sainted mother—No!—
HOWARD. Ay, ay, but mighty doctors doubted there.
The Pope himself waver'd; and more than one
Row'd in that galley—Gardiner to wit,
Whom truly I deny not to have been
Your faithful friend and trusty councillor.
Hath not your Highness ever read his book.
His tractate upon True Obedience,
Writ by himself and Bonner?
MARY. I will take
Such order with all bad, heretical books
That none shall hold them in his house and live,
Henceforward. No, my Lord.
HOWARD. Then never read it.
The truth is here. Your father was a man
Of such colossal kinghood, yet so courteous,
Except when wroth, you scarce could meet his eye
And hold your own; and were he wroth indeed,
You held it less, or not at all. I say,
Your father had a will that beat men down;
Your father had a brain that beat men down—
POLE. Not me, my Lord.
HOWARD. No, for you were not here;
You sit upon this fallen Cranmer's throne;
And it would more become you, my Lord Legate,
To join a voice, so potent with her Highness,
To ours in plea for Cranmer than to stand
On naked self-assertion.
MARY. All your voices
Are waves on flint. The heretic must burn.
HOWARD. Yet once he saved your Majesty's own life;
Stood out against the King in your behalf.
At his own peril.
MARY. I know not if he did;
And if he did I care not, my Lord Howard.
My life is not so happy, no such boon,
That I should spare to take a heretic priest's,
Who saved it or not saved. Why do you vex me?
PAGET. Yet to save Cranmer were to serve the Church,
Your Majesty's I mean; he is effaced,
Self-blotted out; so wounded in his honour,
He can but creep down into some dark hole
Like a hurt beast, and hide himself and die;
But if you burn him,—well, your Highness knows
The saying, 'Martyr's blood—seed of the Church.'
MARY. Of the true Church; but his is none, nor will be.
You are too politic for me, my Lord Paget.
And if he have to live so loath'd a life,
It were more merciful to burn him now.
THIRLBY. O yet relent. O, Madam, if you knew him
As I do, ever gentle, and so gracious,
With all his learning—
MARY. Yet a heretic still.
His learning makes his burning the more just.
THIRLBY. So worshipt of all those that came across him;
The stranger at his hearth, and all his house—
MARY. His children and his concubine, belike.
THIRLBY. To do him any wrong was to beget
A kindness from him, for his heart was rich,
Of such fine mould, that if you sow'd therein
The seed of Hate, it blossom'd Charity.
POLE. 'After his kind it costs him nothing,' there's
An old world English adage to the point.
These are but natural graces, my good Bishop,
Which in the Catholic garden are as flowers,
But on the heretic dunghill only weeds.
HOWARD. Such weeds make dunghills gracious.
MARY. Enough, my Lords.
It is God's will, the Holy Father's will,
And Philip's will, and mine, that he should burn.
He is pronounced anathema.
HOWARD. Farewell, Madam,
God grant you ampler mercy at your call
Than you have shown to Cranmer.
[Exeunt LORDS.
POLE. After this,
Your Grace will hardly care to overlook
This same petition of the foreign exiles
For Cranmer's life.
MARY. Make out the writ to-night.
[Exeunt.