Pym. No recreant yet!
The great word went from England to my soul,
And I arose. The end is very near.
Lady Carlisle. I am to save him! All have shrunk beside;
'Tis only I am left. Heaven will make strong
The hand now as the heart. Then let both die!
In the last act Browning has drawn upon his imagination more than in any other part of the play. Strafford in prison in the Tower is the center around which all the other elements of the drama are made to revolve. A glimpse, the first, of the man in a purely human capacity is given in the second scene with Strafford and his children. From all accounts little Anne was a precocious child and Browning has sketched her accordingly. The scene is like a gleam of sunshine in the gathering gloom.
The genuine grief felt by the historical Charles over the part he played in the ruin of Strafford is brought out in an interview between Strafford and Charles, who is represented as coming disguised to the prison. Strafford who has been hoping for pardon[168] from the King learns from Hollis, in the King's presence, that the King has signed his death warrant. He receives this shock with the remark which history attributes to him.
"Put not your trust
In princes, neither in the sons of men,
In whom is no salvation!"
History tells us of two efforts to rescue Strafford. One of these was an attempt to bribe Balfour to allow him to escape from the tower. This hint the Poet has worked up into the episode of Charles, calling Balfour and begging him to go at once to Parliament, to say he will grant all demands, and that he chooses to pardon Strafford. History, however, does not say that Lady Carlisle was implicated in any plan for the rescue of Strafford, of which Browning makes so much. According to Gardiner, she was by this time bestowing her favors upon Pym. Devotion to the truth here on Browning's part would have completely ruined the inner unity of the play. Carlisle, the woman ready to devote herself to Strafford's utmost need, while Strafford is more or less indifferent to her is the artistic compliment of Strafford the man devoted to the unresponsive King. The failure of the escape through Pym's intervention is a[169] final dramatic climax bringing face to face not so much the two individual men as the two principles of government for which England was warring, the Monarchical and the Parliamentary. To the last, Strafford is loyal to the King and the Kingly idea, while Pym crushing his human feelings under foot, calmly contemplates the sacrifice not only of Strafford, but even of the King, if England's need demand it.
In this supreme moment of agony when Strafford and Pym meet face to face both men are made to realize an abiding love for each other beneath all their earthly differences. "A great poet of our own day," writes Gardiner, "clothing the reconciling spirit of the nineteenth century in words which never could have been spoken in the seventeenth, has breathed a high wish. On his page an imaginary Pym, recalling an imaginary friendship, looks forward hopefully to a reunion in a better and brighter world."
Scene II.—The Tower.
Strafford sitting with his Children. They sing.
O bell 'andare
Per barca in mare,
Verso la sera
Di Primavera!