ELIZABETH. [furious] S'blood! do I so? I will teach you—
THE DARK LADY. [rising from her knees and throwing herself between them] Will: in God's name anger her no further. It is death. Madam: do not listen to him.
SHAKESPEAR. Not were it een to save your life, Mary, not to mention mine own, will I flatter a monarch who forgets what is due to my family. I deny not that my father was brought down to be a poor bankrupt; but twas his gentle blood that was ever too generous for trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that were his undoing.
ELIZABETH. [grimly] The son of your father shall learn his place in the presence of the daughter of Harry the Eighth.
SHAKESPEAR. [swelling with intolerant importance] Name not that inordinate man in the same breath with Stratford's worthiest alderman. John Shakespear wedded but once: Harry Tudor was married six times. You should blush to utter his name.
THE DARK LADY. Will: for pity's sake— crying out together
ELIZABETH. Insolent dog—
SHAKESPEAR. [cutting them short] How know you that King Harry was indeed your father?
ELIZABETH. Zounds! Now by—she stops to grind her teeth with rage].
THE DARK LADY. She will have me whipped through the streets. Oh God! Oh God!