Heaven cannot look on anything more holy,
Or earth be proud of anything more fair. [Exit.
Gonzales, the monk, is despatched by the Queen to Bourbon in prison. At the door he meets Margaret, who had bribed her way to her lover, and was returning after ineffectual attempts to soothe him into submission, shame-struck at the exposure of her mother's guilt. The Queen intrusts Gonzales with a signet ring as the means of liberating him and conducting him to the royal chamber. Bourbon is immovable; and in revenge upon the Court, he falls in with a private scheme of Gonzales, which is to accept of his liberty, and set off to the Court of Spain. The undisguising of the treacherous monk is in these powerful lines:
GONZALES.
Now,
That day is come, ay, and that very hour:
Now shout your war-cry; now unsheath your sword;
I'll join the din, and make these tottering walls
Tremble and nod to hear our fierce defiance.
Nay, never start, and look upon my cowl—