An adventurer—neither Spanish nor Italian, and still less English, thank God! These men without a country have no pity on a country, when they become powerful.
LORD MONTAGUE.
Didn't you say the Queen was ill, Chandos? That does not hinder her from leading a very gay life with her favorite!
LORD CLINTON.
A gay life! A gay life! The people weep while the Queen laughs and the favorite is gorged. This man eats silver and drinks gold! The Queen has given him the estates of Lord Talbot, the great Lord Talbot! The Queen has made him Earl of Clanbrassil and Baron of Dinasmonddy, this Fabiano Fabiani who says he belongs to the Spanish family of Peñalver, and who lies when he says it. He is an English peer like you, Montague, like you, Chandos, like Stanley, like Norfolk, like myself, like the King! He has the garter, the same as the Infante of Portugal, as the King of Denmark, as Thomas Percy, seventh Earl of Northumberland. And what a tyrant is this tyrant who rules us from his bed! Never did such a curse rest upon England! And yet I have seen much—I, who am old! There are seventy new gallows at Tyburn; the stakes are always embers and never ashes; the executioner's ax is sharp every morning and blunted every night. Every day some great nobleman is slaughtered; the day before yesterday it was Blantyre, yesterday Northcurry, to-day South-Reppo, to-morrow Tyrconnel. Next week it will be you, Chandos, and next month it will be I. My lords, my lords, it is shameful and outrageous that all these honest English heads should fall to please a miserable adventurer who does not even belong to our country! It is a frightful and unbearable thing, to think that a Neapolitan favorite can drag as many blocks as he likes from under this Queen's bed. These two lead a gay life, you say? By Heaven, it is infamous! Ah, they lead a gay life, these lovers, while the headsman, at their door, makes widows and orphans! Oh, their Italian guitar is too well accompanied by the clank of chains! Madame Queen! you send to the chapel of Avignon for your singers; every day in your palace, you have comedies, plays, and a stage crowded with musicians! Upon my life, madame, less joy at your house and less mourning at ours, if you please; fewer dancers there, and fewer executioners here; fewer farces at Westminster, and fewer scaffolds at Tyburn!
LORD MONTAGUE.
Have a care, my Lord Clinton! We are loyal subjects! Not a word against the Queen, everything against Fabiani.
SIMON RENARD (laying his hand on Lord Clinton's shoulder).
Have patience!
LORD CLINTON.