Before the gate of the palace, however, Richard Burbage had to call a halt. Certain formalities had to be observed before the halberdiers on guard could be induced to pass a stranger through. And to their question of who this stranger was and what was his pleasure, the two comrades of the actor were able to come up to the gate just in time to hear his reply.
“I am Richard Burbage, the tragedian, and I desire to see the Queen without delay on a matter of the most urgent importance.”
Moreover, these words were spoken in that magnificently rotund and authoritative voice that never failed to send a thrill through the Globe Theatre.
And even now in these strange circumstances, it did not fail of its effect. The guards of the Queen were no more than mortal men. And this man with great eyes burning in an ashen face was more than mortal now. He was in the thrall of a divine idea. It was not for those on a lower plane of being to deny such an imperious instancy. Without delay, Richard Burbage, the tragedian, was permitted to pass through the gate.
William Kemp and John Heming stood at the threshold of the Queen’s palace to watch the tragedian pass from their view. But when they also were asked by the sentinels at the gate who they were and what they sought, they did not venture to proclaim either their business or themselves.
They drew off silently a little way into the bracken, there to await the issue. Sick at heart, overcome with despair, they flung their completely exhausted bodies into the wet grass.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE Queen was taking counsel already with the Lord Treasurer, Cecil, her all-wise and all-powerful minister. This morning, she was in a harsh and vengeful mood. Many were the plots she had known in the course of a troubled life against the security of that person for whose well-being she had so great a reverence. And each one, as it occurred, had the effect of hardening that naturally ruthless temper to which, like others of her race, she was never afraid to give free play.
The young man, Gervase Heriot, had been proved guilty upon that which was held to be good and sufficient evidence, of a plot against her life. He had been condemned to death by the Court of Star Chamber sitting in camera. But by the wanton and wicked connivance of the young daughter of Sir John Feversham, in whose custody he was held in Nottingham Castle against the time of his execution, Heriot had been able to break out of his prison. Subsequently, the condemned man, in the company of this wicked girl, had wandered about the country many weeks, finally falling in with one Shakespeare, an actor and writer for the theater, who, well knowing they were proscribed, had actively befriended them. Moreover, with unforgivable effrontery, this play-actor had chosen to make public confession of his guilt at a singularly ill-chosen time.
The Queen was not in a mood to hear of leniency in this heinous matter. But Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, was a very wise man, deliberate in speech, tardy in judgment. And the view he held was at direct variance with that of his august mistress.