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 JEsCH. Cho. 309-315. 
 
MARY STUART 
 
 A TRAGEDY 
 
 BY 
 
 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1881 
 
 ^ All rights reserved 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
I DEDICATE THIS PLAY, 
 
 NO LONGER, AS THE FIRST PART OF THE TRILOGY 
 
 WHICH IT COMPLETES WAS DEDICATED, 
 
 TO THE GREATEST EXILE, BUT SIMPLV 
 
 TO THE GREATEST MAN OF FRANCE : 
 
 TO THE CHIEF OF LIVING POETS : 
 
 TO THE FIRST DRAMATIST OF HIS AGE: 
 
 TO MY BELOVED AND REVERED MASTER 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Mary Stuart. 
 
 Mary Beaton. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Barbara Mowbray. 
 
 Lord Burghley. 
 
 Sir Francis Walsingham. 
 
 William Davison. 
 
 Robert Dudley, Earl of 
 
 Leicester. 
 George Talbot, Earl of 
 
 Shrewsbury. 
 Earl of Kent. 
 Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon. 
 Sir Christopher Hatton. 
 Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord 
 
 Chancellor. 
 Popham, Attorney-General. 
 Egerton, Solicitor-General. 
 Gawdy, the Queen s Sergeant. 
 Sir Amyas Paulet. 
 Sir Drew Drury. 
 
 Sir Thomas Gorges. 
 Sir William Wade. 
 Sir Andrew Melville. 
 Robert Beale, Clerk of the 
 
 Council. 
 CURLE and Nau, Secretaries 
 
 to the Queen of Scots. 
 GoRiON, her Apothecary. 
 Father John Ballard, 
 Anthony Babington, | ^• 
 Chidiock Tichborne, ^ 
 
 John Savage, | ^ 
 
 Charles Tilney, 
 Edward Abington, 
 Thomas Salisbury, 
 Robert Barnwell, 
 Thomas Phillipps, Secretary 
 
 to Walsingham. 
 M. de Chateauneuf. 
 M. de Belli^vre. 
 
 Commissioners, Privy Councillors, Sheriffs, Citizens, 
 and Attendants. 
 
 Time— Frou August 14, 1586, to February 18, 1587. 
 
ACT I. 
 
 ANTHONY BABINGTON. 
 
ACT I. 
 
 Scene I. Babington's Lodging: a veiled" 
 
 PICTURE ON THE WALL. 
 
 Enter Babington, Tichborne, Tilney, Abington, 
 Salisbury, and Barnwell. 
 
 Babington. Welcome, good friends, and welcome 
 this good day 
 That casts out hope and brings in certainty 
 To turn raw spring to summer. Now not long 
 The flower that crowns the front of all our faiths 
 Shall bleach to death in prison ; now the trust 
 That tobk the night with fire as of a star 
 Grows red and broad as sunrise in our sight 
 Who held it dear and desperate once, now sure, 
 But not more dear, being surer. In my hand 
 I hold this England and her brood, and all 
 That time out of the chance of all her fate 
 Makes hopeful or makes fearful : days and years, 
 Triumphs and changes bred for praise or shame 
 From the unborn womb of these unknown, are ours 
 That stand yet noteless here ; ours even as God's 
 Who puts them in our hand as his, to wield 
 
 B 2 
 
4 MAJ^V STUART, act i. 
 
 And shape to service godlike. None of you 
 But this day strikes out of the scroll of death 
 And writes apart immortal ; what we would, 
 That have we ; what our fathers, brethren, peers, 
 Bled and beheld not, died and might not win. 
 That may we see, touch, handle, hold it fast. 
 May take to bind our brows with. By my life, 
 I think none ever had such hap alive 
 As ours upon whose plighted lives are set 
 The whole good hap and evil of the state 
 And of the Church of God and world of men 
 And fortune of all crowns and creeds that hang 
 Now on the creed and crown of this our land, 
 To bring forth fruit to our resolve, and bear 
 What sons to time it please us ; whose mere will 
 Is father of the future. 
 
 Tilney. Have you Said ? 
 
 Babingion. I cannot say too much of so much good. 
 
 Tilney. Say nothing then a little, and hear one 
 while : 
 Your talk struts high and swaggers loud for joy, 
 And safely may perchance, or may not, here ; 
 But why to-day we know not. 
 
 Babington. No, I swear, 
 
 Ye know not yet, no man of us but one. 
 No man on earth ; one woman knows, and I, 
 I that best know her the best begot of man 
 And noblest ; no king born so kingly-souled. 
 Nor served of such brave servants. 
 
 Tichborne, What, as we ? 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 5 
 
 Bahington. Is there one vein in one of all our hearts 
 That is not blown aflame as fire with air 
 With even the thought to serve her ? and, by God, 
 They that would serve had need be bolder found 
 Than common kings find servants. 
 
 Salisbury. Well, your cause ? 
 
 What need or hope has this day's heat brought forth 
 To blow such fire up in you ? 
 
 Babington. Hark you, sirs ; 
 
 The time is come, ere I shall speak of this, 
 To set again the seal on our past oaths 
 And bind their trothplight faster than it is 
 With one more witness ; not for shameful doubt, 
 But love and perfect honour. Gentlemen, 
 Whose souls are brethren sealed and sworn to mine, 
 Friends that have taken on your hearts and hands 
 The selfsame work and weight of deed as I, 
 Look on this picture ; from its face to-day 
 Thus I pluck off the muffled mask, and bare 
 Its likeness and our purpose. Ay, look here ; 
 None of these faces but are friends of each. 
 None of these lips unsworn to all the rest, 
 None of these hands unplighted. Know ye not 
 What these have bound their souls to ? and myself, 
 I that stand midmost painted here of all, 
 Have I not right to wear of all this ring 
 The topmost flower of danger ? Who but I 
 Should crown and close this goodly circle up 
 Of friends I call my followers ? There ye stand, 
 Fashioned all five in likeness of mere life, 
 
6 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Just your own shapes, even all the man but speech, 
 As in a speckless mirror ; Tichborne, thou, 
 My nearest heart and brother next in deed, 
 Then Abington, there Salisbury, Tilney there, 
 And Barnwell, with the brave bright Irish eye 
 That burns with red remembrance of the blood 
 Seen drenching those green fields turned brown and 
 
 grey 
 Where fire can burn not faith out, nor the sword 
 That hews the boughs oif lop the root there set 
 To spread in spite of axes. Friends, take heed ; 
 These are not met for nothing here in show 
 Nor for poor pride set forth and boastful heart 
 To make dumb brag of the undone deed, and wear 
 The ghost and mockery of a crown unearned 
 Before their hands have wrought it for their heads 
 Out of a golden danger, glorious doubt. 
 An act incomparable, by all time's mouths 
 To be more blessed and cursed than all deeds done 
 In this swift fiery world of ours, that drives 
 On such hot wheels toward evil goals or good, 
 And desperate each as other ; but that each. 
 Seeing here himself and knowing why here, may set 
 His whole heart's might on the instant work, and hence 
 Pass as a man rechristened, bathed anew 
 And swordlike tempered from the touch that turns 
 Dull iron to the two-edged fang of steel 
 Made keen as fire by water ; so, I say, 
 Let this 4ead likeness of you wrought with hands 
 Whereof ye wist not, working for mine end 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART, 
 
 Even as ye gave them work, unwittingly, 
 
 Quicken with Hfe your vows and purposes 
 
 To rid the beast that troubles all the world 
 
 Out of men's sight and God's. Are ye not sworn 
 
 Or stand not ready girt at perilous need 
 
 To strike under the cloth of state itself 
 
 The very heart we hunt for ? 
 
 Tichborne. Let not then 
 
 Too high a noise of hound and horn give note 
 How hot the hunt is on it, and ere we shoot 
 Startle the royal quarry ; lest your cry 
 Give tongue too loud on such a trail, and we 
 More piteously be rent of our own hounds 
 Than he that went forth huntsman too, and cauie 
 To play the hart he hunted. 
 
 Babington. Ay, but, see. 
 
 Your apish poet's-likeness holds not here. 
 If he that fed his hounds on his changed flesh 
 Was charmed out of a man and bayed to death 
 But through pure anger of a perfect maid ; 
 For she that should of huntsmen turn us harts 
 Is Dian but in mouths of her own knaves. 
 And in paid eyes hath only godhead on 
 And light to dazzle none but them to death. 
 Yet I durst well abide her, and proclaim 
 As goddess-Hke as maiden. 
 
 Barnwell. Why, myself 
 
 Was late at court in presence, and her eyes 
 Fixed somewhile on me full in face ; yet, 'faith, 
 I felt for that no lightning in my blood 
 
8 MAJ?V STUART. act i. 
 
 Nor blast in mine as of the sun at noon 
 
 To blind their balls with godhead ; no, ye see, 
 
 I walk yet well enough. 
 
 Abington. She gazed at you ? 
 
 Barnwell. Yes, 'faith ; yea, surely ; take a Puritan 
 oath 
 To seal my faith for Catholic. What, God help, 
 Are not mine eyes yet whole then ? am I blind 
 Or maimed or scorched, and know not ? by my head, 
 I find it sit yet none the worse for fear 
 To be so thunder -blasted. 
 
 Abington. Hear you, sirs ? 
 
 Tichborne. I was not fain to hear it. 
 
 Barnwell. Which was he 
 
 Spake of one changed into a hart ? by God, 
 There be some hearts here need no charm, I think, 
 To turn them hares of hunters ; or if deer. 
 Not harts but hinds, and rascal. 
 
 Babington. Peace, man, peace ! 
 
 Let not at least this noble cry of hounds 
 Flash fangs against each other. See what verse 
 I bade write under on the picture here : 
 These are my comrades^ whom the periVs self 
 Draws to it ; how say you? will not all in the end 
 Prove fellows to me ? how should one fall off 
 Whom danger lures and scares not? Tush, take 
 
 hands ; 
 It was to keep them fast in all time's sight 
 I bade my painter set you here, and me 
 Your loving captain ; gave him sight of each 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 9 
 
 And order of us all in amity. 
 And if this yet not shame you, or your hearts 
 Be set as boys' on wrangling, yet, behold, 
 I pluck as from my heart this witness forth 
 
 \_Taking out a letter. 
 To what a work we are bound to, even her hand 
 Whom we must bring from bondage, and again 
 Be brought of her to honour. This is she, 
 Mary the queen, sealed of herself and signed 
 As mine assured good friend for ever. Now, 
 Am I more worth or Ballard ? 
 
 Tilney. He it was 
 
 Bade get her hand and seal to allow of all 
 That should be practised ; he is wise. 
 
 Babington. Ay, wise ! 
 
 He was in peril too, he said, God wot. 
 And must have surety of her, he ; but I, 
 'Tis I that have it, and her heart and trust. 
 See all here else, her trust and her good love 
 Who knows mine own heart of mine own hand writ 
 And sent her for assurance. 
 
 Salisbury. This we know ; 
 
 What we would yet have certified of you 
 Is her own heart sent back, you say, for yours. 
 
 Babington. I say ? not I, but proof says here, cries 
 out 
 Her perfect will and purpose. Look you, first 
 She writes me what good comfort hath she had 
 To know by letter mine estate, and thus 
 Reknit the bond of our intelligence, 
 
lo MAJ^V STUART. act i. 
 
 As grief was hers to live without the same 
 
 This great while past ; then lovingly commends 
 
 In me her own desire to avert betimes 
 
 Our enemies' counsel to root out our faith 
 
 With ruin of us all ; for so she hath shown 
 
 All Catholic princes what long since they have wrought 
 
 Against the king of Spain ; and all this while 
 
 The Catholics naked here to all misuse 
 
 Fall off in numbered force, in means and power, 
 
 And if we look not to it shall soon lack strength 
 
 To rise and take that hope or help by the hand 
 
 Which time shall offer them ; and see for this 
 
 What heart is hers ! she bids you know of me 
 
 Though she were no part of this cause, who holds 
 
 Worthless her own weighed with the general weal, 
 
 She will be still most willing to this end 
 
 To employ therein her life and all she hath 
 
 Or in this world may look for. 
 
 Tichborne. This rings well ; 
 
 But by what present mean prepared doth hers 
 Confirm your counsel ? or what way set forth 
 So to prevent our enemies with good speed 
 That at the goal we find them not, and there 
 Fall as men broken ? 
 
 Babington. Nay, what think you, man. 
 
 Or what esteem of her, that hope should lack 
 Herein her counsel ? hath she not been found 
 Most wary still, clear-spirited, bright of wit. 
 Keen as a sword's edge, as a bird's eye swift, 
 Man- hearted ever? First, for crown and base 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. n 
 
 Of all this enterprise, she bids me here 
 Examine with good heed of good event 
 What power of horse and foot among us all 
 We may well muster, and in every shire 
 Choose out what captain for them, if we lack 
 For the main host a general ; — as indeed 
 Myself being bound to bring her out of bonds 
 Or here with you cut off the heretic queen 
 Could take not this on me j — what havens, towns, 
 What ports to north and west and south, may we 
 Assure ourselves to hold in certain hand 
 For entrance and receipt of help from France, 
 From Spain, or the Low Countries ; in what place 
 Draw our main head together ; for how long 
 Raise for this threefold force of foreign friends 
 Wage and munition, or what harbours choose 
 For these to land ; or what provision crave 
 Of coin at need or armour ; by what means 
 The six her friends deliberate to proceed ; 
 And last the manner how to get her forth 
 From this last hold wherein she newly lies : 
 These heads hath she set down, and bids me take 
 Of all seven points counsel and common care 
 With as few friends as may be of the chief 
 Ranged on our part for actors ; and thereon 
 Of all devised with diligent speed despatch 
 Word to the ambassador of Spain in France, 
 Who to the experience past of all the estate 
 Here on this side aforetime that he hath 
 Shall join goodwill to serve us. 
 
12 MAJ^V STUART. act t. 
 
 lilney. Ay, no more ? 
 
 Of us no more I mean, who being most near 
 To the English queen our natural mistress born 
 Take on our hands, her household pensioners', 
 The stain and chiefest peril of her blood 
 Shed by close violence under trust ; no word, 
 No care shown further of our enterprise 
 That flowers to fruit for her sake ? 
 
 Babington. Fear not that ; 
 
 Abide till we draw thither — ay — she bids 
 Get first assurance of such help to come. 
 And take thereafter, what before were vain, 
 Swift order to provide arms, horses, coin, 
 Wherewith to march at word from every shire 
 Given by the chief ; and save these principals 
 Let no man's knowledge less in place partake 
 The privy ground we move on, but set forth 
 For entertainment of the meaner ear 
 We do but fortify us against the plot 
 Laid of the Puritan part in all this realm 
 That have their general force now drawn to head 
 In the Low Countries, whence being home returned 
 They think to spoil us utterly, and usurp 
 Not from her only and all else lawful heirs 
 The kingly power, but from their queen that is 
 (As we may let the bruit fly forth disguised) 
 Wrest that which now she hath, if she for fear 
 Take not their yoke upon her, and therefrom 
 Catch like infection from plague-tainted air 
 The purulence of their purity ; with which plea 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^V STUART. 13 
 
 We so may stablish our confederacies 
 As wrought but for defence of lands, lives, goods. 
 From them that would cut off our faith and these ; 
 No word writ straight or given directly forth 
 Against the queen, but rather showing our will 
 Firm to maintain her and her lineal heirs, 
 Myself (she saith) not named. Ha, gallant souls, 
 Hath our queen's craft no savour of sweet wit. 
 No brain to help her heart with ? 
 
 Tichborne. But our end — 
 
 No word of this yet ? 
 
 Babington. And a good word, here, 
 
 And worth our note, good friend ; being thus pre- 
 pared, 
 Time then shall be to set our hands on work 
 And straight thereon take order that she may 
 Be suddenly transported out of guard. 
 Not tarrying till our foreign force come in. 
 Which then must make the hotter haste ; and seeing 
 We can make no day sure for our design 
 Nor certain hour appointed when she might 
 Find other friends at hand on spur of the act 
 To take her forth of prison, ye should have 
 About you always, or in court at least. 
 Scouts furnished well with horses of good speed 
 To bear the tiding to her and them whose charge 
 Shall be to bring her out of bonds, that these 
 May be about her ere her keeper have word 
 What deed is freshly done ; in any case, 
 Ere he can make him strong within the house 
 
14 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Or bear her forth of it : and need it were 
 
 By divers ways to send forth two or three 
 
 That one may pass if one be stayed ; nor this 
 
 Should we forget, to assay in the hour of need 
 
 To cut the common posts off; by this plot 
 
 May we steer safe, and fall not miserably, 
 
 As they that laboured heretofore herein, 
 
 Through overhaste to stir upon this side 
 
 Ere surety make us strong of strangers' aid. 
 
 And if at first we bring her forth of bonds, 
 
 Be well assured, she bids us — as I think 
 
 She doubts not me that I should let this slip, 
 
 Forget so main a matter — well assured 
 
 To set her in the heart of some strong host, 
 
 Or strength of some good hold, where she may stay 
 
 Till we be mustered and the ally drawn in ; 
 
 For should the queen, being scatheless of us yet 
 
 As we unready, fall upon her flight. 
 
 The bird untimely fled from snare to snare 
 
 Should find being caught again a narrower hold 
 
 Whence she should fly forth never, if cause indeed 
 
 Should seem not given to use her worse ; and we 
 
 Should be with all extremity pursued, 
 
 To her more grief; for this should grieve her more 
 
 Than what might heaviest fall upon her. 
 
 Tilney. Ay ? 
 
 She hath had then work enough to do to weep 
 For them that bled before ; Northumberland, 
 The choice of all the north spoiled, banished, slain, 
 Norfolk that should have ringed the fourth sad time 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 15 
 
 The fairest hand wherewith fate ever led 
 So many a man to deathward, or sealed up 
 So many an eye from sunlight. 
 
 Babington. By my head, 
 
 Which is the main stake of this cast, I swear 
 There is none worth more than a tear of hers 
 That man wears living or that man might lose, 
 Borne upright in the sun, or for her sake 
 Bowed down by theirs she weeps for : nay, but hear ; 
 She bids me take most vigilant heed, that all 
 May prosperously find end assured, and you 
 Conclude with me in judgment ; to myself 
 As chief of trust in my particular 
 Refers you for assurance, and commends 
 To counsel seasonable and time's advice 
 Your common resolution ; and again, 
 If the design take yet not hold, as chance 
 For all our will may turn it, we should not 
 Pursue her transport nor the plot laid else 
 Of our so baffled enterprise ; but say 
 When this were done we might not come at her 
 Being by mishap close guarded in the Tower 
 Or some strength else as dangerous, yet, she saith, 
 For God's sake leave not to proceed herein 
 To the utmost undertaking ; for herself 
 At any time shall most contentedly 
 Die, knowing of our deliverance from the bonds 
 Wherein as slaves we are holden. 
 
 Barnwell. So shall I, 
 
 Knowing at the least of her enfranchisement 
 
i6 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Whose life were worth the whole blood shed o' the 
 
 world 
 And all men's hearts made empty. 
 
 Babington. Ay, good friend, 
 
 Here speaks she of your fellows, that some stir 
 Might be in Ireland laboured to begin 
 Some time ere we take aught on us, that thence 
 The alarm might spring right on the part opposed 
 To where should grow the danger : she meantime 
 Should while the work were even in hand assay 
 To make the Catholics in her Scotland rise 
 And put her son into their hands, that so 
 No help may serve our enemies thence ; again. 
 That from our plots the stroke may come, she thinks 
 To have some chief or general head of all 
 Were now most apt for the instant end ; wherein 
 I branch not off from her in counsel, yet 
 Conceive not how to send the appointed word 
 To the earl of Arundel now fast in bonds 
 Held in the Tower she spake of late, who now 
 Would have us give him careful note of this, 
 Him or his brethren ; and from oversea 
 Would have us seek, if he be there at large, 
 To the young son of dead Northumberland, 
 And Westmoreland, whose hand and name, we know, 
 May do much northward ; ay, but this we know, 
 How much his hand was lesser than his name 
 When proof was put on either ; and the lord 
 Paget, whose power is in some shires of weight 
 To incline them usward ; both may now be had. 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 17 
 
 And some, she saith, of the exiles principal, 
 If the enterprise be resolute once, with these 
 May come back darkling ; Paget lies in Spain, 
 Whom we may treat with by his brother's mean, 
 Charles, who keeps watch in Paris : then in the end 
 She bids beware no messenger sent forth 
 That bears our counsel bear our letters ; these 
 Must through blind hands precede them or ensue 
 By ignorant posts and severally despatched ; 
 And of her sweet wise heart, as we were fools, 
 — But that I think she fears not — bids take heed 
 Of spies among us and false brethren, chief 
 Of priests already practised on, she saith. 
 By the enemy's craft against us ; what, forsooth. 
 We have not eyes to set such knaves apart 
 And look their wiles through, but should need mis- 
 doubt 
 — Whom shall I say the least on all our side ? — 
 Good Gilbert Gilford with his kind boy's face 
 That fear's lean self could fear not ? but God knows 
 Woman is wise, but woman ; none so bold. 
 So cunning none, God help the soft sweet wit, 
 But the fair flesh with weakness taints it ; why, 
 She warns me here of perilous scrolls to keep 
 That I should never bear about me, seeing 
 By that fault sank all they that fell before 
 Who should have walked unwounded else of proof, 
 Unstayed of justice : but this following word 
 Hath savour of more judgment ; we should let 
 As little as we may our names be known 
 
 c 
 
i8 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Or purpose here to the envoy sent from France, 
 Whom though she hears for honest, we must fear 
 His master holds the course of his design 
 Far contrary to this of ours, which known 
 Might move him to discovery. 
 
 Tichborne. Well forewarned : 
 
 Forearmed enough were now that cause at need 
 Which had but half so good an armour on 
 To fight false faith or France in. 
 
 Babington. Peace awhile ; 
 
 Here she winds up her craft. She hath long time sued 
 To shift her lodging, and for answer hath 
 None but the Castle of Dudley named as meet 
 To serve this turn ; and thither may depart. 
 She thinks, with parting summer ; whence may we 
 Devise what means about those lands to lay 
 For her deliverance ; who from present bonds 
 May but by one of three ways be discharged : 
 When she shall ride forth on the moors that part 
 Her prison-place from Stafford, where few folk 
 Use to pass over, on the same day set. 
 With fifty or threescore men well horsed and armed. 
 To take her from her keeper's charge, who rides 
 With but some score that bear but pistols j next. 
 To come by deep night round the darkling house 
 And fire the barns and stables, which being nigh 
 Shall draw the household huddling forth to help. 
 And they that come to serve her, wearing each 
 A secret sign for note and cognizance. 
 May some of them surprise the house, whom she 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 19 
 
 Shall with her servants meet and second ; last, 
 When carts come in at morning, these being met 
 In the main gateway's midst may by device 
 Fall or be sidelong overthrown, and we 
 Make in thereon and suddenly possess 
 The house whence lightly might we bear her forth 
 Ere help came in of soldiers to relief 
 Who lie a mile or half a mile away 
 In several lodgings : but howe'er this end 
 She holds her bounden to me all her days 
 Who proffer me to hazard for her love, 
 And doubtless shall as well esteem of you 
 Or scarce less honourably, when she shall know 
 Your names who serve beneath me ; so commends 
 Her friend to God, and bids me burn the word 
 That I would wear at heart for ever ; yet. 
 Lest this sweet scripture haply write us dead, 
 Where she set hand I set my lips, and thus 
 Rend mine own heart with her sweet name, and end. 
 
 \Tears the letter, 
 
 Salisbury. She hath chosen a trusty servant. 
 
 Babington. Ay, of me ? 
 
 What ails you at her choice ? was this not I 
 That laid the ground of all this work, and wrought 
 Your hearts to shape for service ? or perchance 
 The man was you that took this first on him. 
 To serve her dying and living, and put on 
 The bloodred name of traitor and the deed 
 Found for her sake not murderous ? 
 
 Salisbury Why, they say 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 First GifTord put this on you, Ballard next, 
 Whom he brought over to redeem your heart 
 Half lost for doubt already, and refresh 
 The flagging flame that fired it first, and now , 
 Fell faltering half in ashes, whence his breath 
 Hardly with hard pains quickened it and blew 
 The grey to red rekindling. 
 
 Babington. Sir, they lie 
 
 Who say for fear I faltered, or lost heart 
 For doubt to lose life after ; let such know 
 It shames me not though I were slow of will 
 To take such work upon my soul and hand 
 As killing of a queen ; being once assured. 
 Brought once past question, set beyond men's doubts 
 By witness of God's will borne sensibly, 
 Meseems I have swerved not. 
 
 Salisbury. Ay, when once the word 
 
 Was washed in holy water, you would wear 
 Lightly the name so hallowed of priests' lips 
 That men spell murderer ; but till Ballard spake 
 The shadow of her slaying whom we shall strike 
 Was ice to freeze your purpose. 
 
 Tichborne. Friend, what then ? 
 
 Is this so small a thing, being English born. 
 To strike the living empire here at heart 
 That is called England ? stab her present state. 
 Give even her false- faced likeness up to death, 
 With hands that smite a woman ? I that speak. 
 Ye know me if now my faith be firm, and will 
 To do faith's bidding ; yet it wrings not me 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 21 
 
 To say I was not quick nor light of heart, 
 Though moved perforce of will unwillingly, 
 To take in trust this charge upon me. 
 
 Barnwell. I 
 
 With all good will would take, and give God thanks. 
 The charge of all that falter in it : by heaven. 
 To hear in the end of doubts and doublings heaves 
 My heart up as with sickness. Why, by this 
 The heretic harlot that confounds our hope 
 Should be made carrion, with those following four 
 That were to wait upon her dead : all five 
 Live yet to scourge God's servants, and we prate 
 And threaten here in painting : by my life, 
 I see no more in us of life or heart 
 Than in this heartless picture. 
 
 Babington. Peace again ; 
 
 Our purpose shall not long lack life, nor they 
 Whose life is deadly to the heart of ours 
 Much longer keep it ; Burghley, Walsingham, 
 Hunsdon and Knowles, all these four names writ out, 
 With hers at head they worship, are but now 
 As those five several letters that spell death 
 In eyes that read them right. Give me but faith 
 A little longer : trust that heart awhile 
 Which laid the ground of all our glories ; think 
 I that was chosen of our queen's friends in France, 
 By Morgan's hand there prisoner for her sake 
 On charge of such a deed's device as ours 
 Commended to her for trustiest, and a man 
 More sure than might be Ballard and more fit 
 
22 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 To bear the burden of her counsels — I 
 
 Can be not undeserving, whom she trusts, 
 
 That ye should likewise trust me ; seeing at first 
 
 She writes me but a thankful word, and this, 
 
 God wot, for little service ; I return 
 
 For aptest answer and thankworthiest meed 
 
 Word of the usurper's plotted end, and she 
 
 With such large heart of trust and liberal faith 
 
 As here ye have heard requites me : whom, I think. 
 
 For you to trust is no too great thing now 
 
 For me to ask and have of all. 
 
 Tichborne. Dear friend, 
 
 Mistrust has no part in our mind of you 
 More than in hers ; yet she too bids take heed, 
 As I would bid you take, and let not slip 
 The least of her good counsels, which to keep 
 No whit proclaims us colder than herself 
 Who gives us charge to keep them ; and to slight 
 No whit proclaims us less unserviceable 
 Who are found too hot to serve her than the slave 
 Who for cold heart and fear might fail. 
 
 Babington. Too hot ! 
 
 Why, what man's heart hath heat enough or blood 
 To give for such good service ? Look you, sirs, 
 This is no new thing for my faith to keep. 
 My soul to feed its fires with, and my hope 
 Fix eyes upon for star to steer by ; she 
 That six years hence the boy that I was then. 
 And page, ye know, to Shrewsbury, gave his faith 
 To serve and worship with his body and soul 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 23 
 
 For only lady and queen, with power alone 
 
 To lift my heart up and bow down mine eyes 
 
 At sight and sense of her sweet sovereignty, 
 
 Made thence her man for ever ; she whose look 
 
 Turned all my blood of life to tears and fire. 
 
 That going or coming, sad or glad — for yet 
 
 She would be somewhile merry, as though to give 
 
 Comfort, and ease at heart her servants, then 
 
 Weep smilingly to be so light of mind. 
 
 Saying she was like the bird grown blithe in bonds 
 
 That if too late set free would die for fear, 
 
 Or wild birds hunt it out of life — if sad. 
 
 Put madness in me for her suffering's sake. 
 
 If joyous, for her very love's sake — still 
 
 Made my heart mad alike to serve her, being 
 
 I know not when the sweeter, sad or blithe. 
 
 Nor what mood heavenliest of her, all whose change 
 
 Was as of stars and sun and moon in heaven ; 
 
 She is well content, — ye have heard her — she, to die, 
 
 If we without her may redeem ourselves 
 
 And loose our lives from bondage ; but her friends 
 
 Must take forsooth good heed they be not, no, 
 
 Too hot of heart to serve her ! And for me. 
 
 Am I so vain a thing of wind and smoke 
 
 That your deep counsel must have care to keep 
 
 My lightness safe in wardship ? I sought none — 
 
 Craved no man's counsel to draw plain my plot. 
 
 Need no man's warning to dispose my deed. 
 
 Have I not laid of mine own hand a snare 
 
 To bring no less a lusty bird to lure 
 
24 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Than Walsingham with proffer of myself 
 
 For scout and spy on mine own friends in France 
 
 To fill his wise wide ears with large report 
 
 Of all things wrought there on our side, and plots 
 
 Laid for our queen's sake ? and for all his wit 
 
 This politic knave misdoubts me not, whom ye 
 
 Hold yet too light and lean of wit to pass 
 
 Unspied of wise men on our enemies' part, 
 
 Who have sealed the subtlest eyes up of them all. 
 
 Tichborne. That would I know ; for if they be not 
 blind, 
 But only wink upon your proffer, seeing 
 More than they let your own eyes find or fear. 
 Why, there may lurk a fire to burn us all 
 Masked in them with false blindness. 
 
 Babington, Hear you, sirs ? 
 
 Now by the faith I had in this my friend 
 And by mine own yet flawless toward him, yea 
 By all true love and trust that holds men fast, 
 It shames me that I held him in this cause 
 Half mine own heart, my better hand and eye. 
 Mine other soul and worthier. Pray you, go ; 
 Let us not hold you ; sir, be quit of us \ 
 Go home, lie safe, and give God thanks ; lie close, 
 Keep your head warm and covered ; nay, be wise ; 
 W^e are fit for no such wise folk's fellowship, 
 No married man's who being bid forth to fight 
 Holds his wife's kirtle fitter wear for man 
 Than theirs who put on iron : I did know it. 
 Albeit I would not know ; this man that was, 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^Y STUART. 25 
 
 This soul and sinew of a noble seed, 
 
 Love and the lips that burn a bridegroom's through 
 
 Have charmed to deathward, and in steel's good 
 
 stead 
 Left him a silken spirit. 
 
 Tichborne. By that faith 
 
 Which yet I think you have found as fast in me 
 As ever yours I found, you wrong me more 
 Than were I that your words can make me not 
 I had wronged myself and all our cause ; I hold 
 No whit less dear for love's sake even than love 
 Faith, honour, friendship, all that all my days 
 Was only dear to my desire, till now 
 This new thing dear as all these only were 
 Made all these dearer. If my love be less 
 Toward you, toward honour or this cause, then thmk 
 I love my wife not either, whom you know 
 How close at heart I cherish, but in all 
 Play false alike. Lead now which way you will, 
 And wear what likeness ; though to all men else 
 It look not smooth, smooth shall it seem to me. 
 And danger be not dangerous ; where you go, 
 For me shall wildest ways be safe, and straight 
 For me the steepest ; with your eyes and heart 
 Will I take count of life and death, and think 
 No thought against your counsel : yea, by heaven, 
 I had rather follow and trust my friend and die 
 Than halt and hark mistrustfully behind 
 To live of him mistrusted. 
 
 Babington. Why, well said : 
 
26 MAI^V STUART. act i 
 
 Strike hands upon it ; I think you shall not find 
 A trustless pilot of me. Keep we fast, 
 And hold you fast my counsel, we shall see 
 The state high-builded here of heretic hope 
 Shaken to dust and death. Here comes more proof 
 To warrant me no liar. You are welcome, sirs ; 
 
 Enter Ballard, disguised^ and Savage. 
 
 Good father captain, come you plumed or cowled. 
 Or stoled or sworded, here at any hand 
 The true heart bids you welcome. 
 
 Ballard. Sir, at none 
 
 Is folly welcome to mine ears or eyes. 
 Nay, stare not on me stormily ; I say, 
 I bid at no hand welcome, by no name, 
 Be it ne'er so wise or valiant on men's lips. 
 Pledge health to folly, nor forecast good hope 
 For them that serve her, I, but take of men 
 Things ill done ill at any hand alike. 
 Ye shall not say I cheered you to your death. 
 Nor would, though nought more dangerous than your 
 
 death 
 Or deadlier for our cause and God's in ours 
 Were here to stand the chance of, and your blood 
 Shed vainly with no seed for faith to sow 
 Should be not poison for men's hopes to drink. 
 What is this picture ? Have ye sense or souls. 
 Eyes, ears, or wits to take assurance in 
 Of how ye stand in strange men's eyes and ears. 
 How fare upon their talking tongues, how dwell 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 27 
 
 In shot of their suspicion, and sustain 
 How great a work how Ughtly ? Think ye not 
 These men have ears and eyes about your ways, 
 Walk with your feet, work with your hands, and watch 
 When ye sleep sound and babble in your sleep ? 
 What knave was he, or whose man sworn and spy, 
 That drank with you last night ? whose hireling lip 
 Was this that pledged you. Master Babington, 
 To a foul quean's downfall and a fair queen's rise ? 
 Can ye not seal your tongues from tavern speech, 
 Nor sup abroad but air may catch it back. 
 Nor think who set that watch upon your lips 
 Yourselves can keep not on them ? 
 
 Babington. What, my friends ! 
 
 Here is one come to counsel, God be thanked, 
 That bears commission to rebuke us all. 
 Why, hark you, sir, you that speak judgment, you 
 That take our doom upon your double tongue 
 To sentence and accuse us with one breath. 
 Our doomsman and our justicer for sin, 
 Good Captain Ballard, Father Fortescue, 
 W^ho made you guardian of us poor men, gave 
 Your wisdom wardship of our follies, chose 
 Your faith for keeper of our faiths, that yet 
 Were never taxed of change or doubted ? You^ 
 'Tis you that have an eye to us, and take note 
 What time we keep, what place, what company, 
 How far may wisdom trust us to be wise 
 Or faith esteem us faithful, and yourself 
 Were once the hireling hand and tongue and eye 
 
28 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 That waited on this very Walsingham 
 To spy men's counsels and betray their blood 
 Whose trust had sealed you trusty ? By God's light, 
 A goodly guard I have of you, to crave 
 What man was he I drank with yesternight, 
 What name, what shape, what habit, as, forsooth. 
 Were I some statesman's knave and spotted spy. 
 The man I served, and cared not how, being dead. 
 His molten gold should glut my throat in hell. 
 Might question of me whom I snared last night. 
 Make inquisition of his face, his gait, 
 His speech, his likeness. Well, be answered then ; 
 By God, I know not ; but God knows I think 
 The spy most dangerous on my secret walks 
 And witness of my ways most worth my fear 
 And deadliest listener to devour my speech 
 Now questions me of danger, and the tongue 
 Most like to sting my trust and life to death 
 Now taxes mine of rashness. 
 
 Ballard. Is he mad ? 
 
 Or are ye brainsick all with heat of wine 
 That stand and hear him rage like men in storms 
 Made drunk with danger ? have ye sworn with him 
 To die the fool's death too of furious fear 
 And passion scared to slaughter of itself? 
 Is there none here that knows his cause or me. 
 Nor what should save or spoil us ? 
 
 Tichborne. Friend, give ear ; 
 
 For God's sake, yet be counselled. 
 
 Babington. Ay, for God's ! 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^V STUART. 29 
 
 What part hath God in this man's counsels ? nay, 
 Take you part with him ; nay, in God's name go ; 
 What should you do to bide with me ? turn back ; 
 There stands your captain. 
 
 Savage. Hath not one man here 
 
 One spark in spirit or sprinkling left of shame ? 
 I that looked once for no such fellowship, 
 But soldier's hearts in shapes of gentlemen, 
 I am sick with shame to hear men's jangling tongues 
 Outnoise their swords unbloodied. Hear me, sirs ; 
 My hand keeps time before my tongue, and hath 
 But wit to speak in iron ; yet as now 
 Such wit were sharp enough to serve our turn 
 That keenest tongues may serve not. One thing sworn 
 Calls on our hearts ; the queen must singly die. 
 Or we, half dead men now with dallying, must 
 Die several deaths for her brief one, and stretched 
 Beyond the scope of sufferance ; wherefore here 
 Choose out the man to put this peril on 
 And gird him with this glory ; let him pass 
 Straight hence to court, and through all stays of state 
 Strike death into her heart. 
 
 Babington. Why, this rings right ; 
 
 Well said, and soldierlike ; do thus, and take 
 The vanguard of us all for honour. 
 
 Savage. Ay, 
 
 Well would I go, but seeing no courtly suit 
 Like yours, her servants and her pensioners, 
 The doorkeepers will bid my baseness back 
 From passage to her presence. 
 
30 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Babhigton. O, for that, 
 
 Take this and buy ; nay, start not from your word ; 
 You shall not. 
 
 Savage. Sir, I shall not. 
 
 Babingfon. Here's more gold ; 
 
 Make haste, and God go with you ; if the plot 
 Be blown on once of men's suspicious breath, 
 We are dead, and all die bootless deaths — be swift — 
 And her we have served we shall but surely slay. 
 I will make trial again of Walsingham 
 If he misdoubt us. O, my cloak and sword — 
 
 [^Knocking within. 
 I will go forth myself What noise is that ? 
 Get you to Gage's lodging ; stay not here ; 
 Make speed without for Westminster ; perchance 
 There may we safely shift our shapes and fly. 
 If the end be come upon us. 
 
 Ballard. It is here. 
 
 Death knocks at door already. Fly ; farewell. 
 
 Bahington. I would not leave you — but they know 
 you not — 
 You need not fear, being found here singly. 
 
 Ballard. No. 
 
 Bahington. Nay, halt not, sirs ; no word but haste ; 
 this way. 
 Ere they break down the doors. God speed us well ! 
 [Exeunt all but Ballard. As they go out 
 enter an Officer with Soldiers. 
 
 Officer. Here's one fox yet by the foot ; lay hold on 
 him. 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^V STUART. 31 
 
 Ballard. What would you, sirs ? 
 
 Officer. Why, make one foul bird fast. 
 
 Though the full flight be scattered : for their kind 
 Must prey not here again, nor here put on 
 The jay's loose feathers for the raven priest's 
 To mock the blear-eyed marksman : these plucked off 
 Shall show the nest that sent this fledgeling forth, 
 Hatched in the hottest holy nook of hell. 
 
 Ballard. I am a soldier. 
 
 Officer. Ay, the badge we know 
 
 Whose broidery signs the shoulders of the file 
 That Satan marks for Jesus. Bind him fast : 
 Blue satin and slashed velvet and gold lace, 
 Methinks we have you, and the hat's band here 
 So seemly set with silver buttons, all 
 As here was down in order ; by my faith, 
 A goodly ghostly friend to shrive a maid 
 As ever kissed for penance : pity 'tis 
 The hangman's hands must hallow him again 
 When this lay slough slips off, and twist one rope 
 For priest to swing with soldier. Bring him hence. 
 
 \Exe2mt. 
 
32 MARY STUART, act i. 
 
 Scene II. Chartley. 
 
 Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton. 
 
 Mary Stuart. We shall not need keep house for 
 fear to-day ; 
 The skies are fair and hot ; the wind sits well 
 For hound and horn to chime with. I will go. 
 
 Mary Beaton. How far from this to Tixall ? 
 
 Mary Stuart. Nine or ten 
 
 Or what miles more I care not ; we shall find 
 Fair field and goodly quarry, or he lies, 
 The gospeller that bade us to the sport. 
 Protesting yesternight the shire had none 
 To shame Sir Walter Aston's. God be praised, 
 I take such pleasure yet to back my steed 
 And bear my crossbow for a deer's death well, 
 I am almost half content — and yet I lie — 
 To ride no harder nor more dangerous heat 
 And hunt no beast of game less gallant. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Nay, 
 
 You grew long since more patient. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ah, God help ! 
 
 What should I do but learn the word of him 
 These years and years, the last word learnt but one, 
 That ever I loved least of all sad words ? 
 The last is death for any soul to learn. 
 The last save death is patience. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Time enough 
 
 We have had ere death of life to learn it in 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART, 33 
 
 Since you rode last on wilder ways than theirs 
 That drive the dun deer to his death. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Eighteen — 
 
 How many more years yet shall God mete out 
 For thee and me to wait upon their will 
 And hope or hope not, watch or sleep, and dream 
 Awake or sleeping ? surely fewer, I think, 
 Than half these years that all have less of life 
 Than one of those more fleet that flew before. 
 I am yet some ten years younger than this queen, 
 Some nine or ten ; but if I die this year 
 And she some score years longer than I think 
 Be royal-titled, in one year of mine 
 I shall have lived the longer life, and die 
 The fuller-fortuned woman. Dost thou mind 
 The letter that I writ nigh two years gone 
 To let her wit what privacies of hers 
 Our trusty dame of Shrewsbury's tongue made mine 
 Ere it took fire to sting her lord and me ? 
 How thick soe'er o'erscurfed with poisonous lies, 
 Of her I am sure it lied not ; and perchance 
 I did the wiselier, having writ my fill. 
 Yet to withhold the letter when she sought 
 Of me to know what villainies had it poured 
 In ears of mine against her innocent name : 
 And yet thou knowest what mirthful heart was mine 
 To write her word of these, that had she read 
 Had surely, being but woman, made her mad. 
 Or haply, being not woman, had not. 'Faith, 
 How say'st thou ? did I well ? 
 
 D 
 
34 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Ay, surely well 
 
 To keep that back you did not ill to write. 
 
 Mary Stuart I think so, and again I think not ; yet 
 The best I did was bid thee burn it. She, 
 That other Bess I mean of Hardwick, hath 
 Mixed with her gall the fire at heart of hell, 
 And all the mortal medicines of the world 
 To drug her speech with poison ; and God wot 
 Her daughter's child here that I bred and loved, 
 Bess Pierpoint, my sweet bedfellow that was, 
 Keeps too much savour of her grandam's stock 
 For me to match with Nau ; my secretary 
 Shall with no slip of hers engraft his own. 
 Begetting shame or peril to us all 
 From her false blood and fiery tongue ; except 
 I find a mate as meet to match with him 
 For truth to me as Gilbert Curie hath found, 
 I will play Tudor once and break the banns. 
 Put on the feature of Elizabeth 
 To frown their hands in sunder. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Were it not 
 
 Some tyranny to take her likeness on 
 And bitter-hearted grudge of matrimony 
 For one and not his brother secretary. 
 Forbid your Frenchman's banns for jealousy 
 And grace your English with such liberal love 
 As Barbara fails not yet to find of you 
 Since she writ Curie for Mowbray ? and herein 
 There shows no touch of Tudor in your mood 
 More than its wont is ; which indeed is nought ; 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 35 
 
 The world, they say, for her should waste, ere man 
 Should get her virginal goodwill to wed. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I would not be so • tempered of my 
 blood, 
 So much mismade as she in spirit and flesh, 
 To be more fair of fortune. She should hate 
 Not me, albeit she hate me deadly, more 
 Than thee or any woman. By my faith. 
 Fain would I know, what knowing not- of her now 
 I muse upon and marvel, if she have 
 Desire or pulse or passion of true heart 
 Fed full from natural veins, or be indeed 
 All bare and barren all as dead men's bones 
 Of all sweet nature and sharp seed of love, 
 And those salt springs of life, through fire and tears 
 That bring forth pain and pleasure in. their kind 
 To make good days and evil, all in her 
 Lie sere and sapless as the dust of death. 
 I have found no great good hap in all my days 
 Nor much good cause to make me glad of God, 
 Yet have I had and lacked not of my life 
 My good things and mine evil : being not yet 
 Barred from life's natural ends of evil and good 
 Foredoomed for man and woman through the world 
 Till all their works be nothing : and of mine 
 I know but this — though I should die to-day, 
 I would not take for mine her fortune. 
 
 Mary Beaton. No ? 
 
 Myself perchance I would not. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Dost thou think 
 
 D 2 
 
36 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 That fire-tongued witch of Shrewsbury spake once 
 
 truth 
 Who told me all those quaint foul merry tales 
 Of our dear sister that at her desire 
 I writ to give her word of, and at thine 
 Withheld and put the letter in thine hand 
 To burn as was thy counsel ? for my part, 
 How loud she lied soever in the charge 
 That for adultery taxed me with her lord 
 And being disproved before the council here 
 Brought on their knees to give themselves the lie 
 Her and her sons by that first lord of four 
 That took in turn this hell-mouthed hag to wife 
 And got her kind upon her, yet in this 
 I do believe she lied not more than I 
 Reporting her by record, how she said 
 What infinite times had Leicester and his queen 
 Plucked all the fruitless fruit of baffled love 
 That being contracted privily tliey might, 
 With what large gust of fierce and foiled desire 
 This votaress crowned, whose vow could no man 
 
 break. 
 Since God whose hand shuts up the unkindly womb 
 Had sealed it on her body, man by man 
 Would course her kindless lovers, and in quest 
 Pursue them hungering as a hound in heat, 
 Full on the fiery scent and slot of lust. 
 That men took shame and laughed and marvelled ; 
 
 one, 
 Her chamberlain, so hotly would she trace 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 37 
 
 And turn perforce from cover, that himself 
 
 Being tracked at sight thus in the general eye 
 
 Was even constrained to play the piteous hare 
 
 And wind and double till her amorous chase 
 
 Were blind with speed and breathless ; but the worst 
 
 Was this, that for this country's sake and shame's 
 
 Our huntress Dian could not be content 
 
 With Hatton and another born her man 
 
 And subject of this kingdom, but to heap 
 
 The heavier scandal on her countrymen 
 
 Had cast the wild growth of her lust away 
 
 On one base-born, a stranger, whom of nights 
 
 Within her woman's chamber would she seek 
 
 To kiss and play for shame with secretly ; 
 
 And with the duke her bridegroom that should be. 
 
 That should and could not, seeing forsooth no man 
 
 Might make her wife or woman, had she dealt 
 
 As with this knave his follower ; for by night 
 
 She met him coming at her chamber door 
 
 In her bare smock and night-rail, and thereon 
 
 Bade him come in ; who there abode three hours : 
 
 But fools were they that thought to bind her will 
 
 And stay with one man or allay the mood 
 
 That ranging still gave tongue on several heats 
 
 To hunt fresh trails of lusty love ; all this, 
 
 Thou knowest, on record truly was set down, 
 
 With much more villainous else : she prayed me write 
 
 That she might know the natural spirit and mind 
 
 Toward her of this fell witch whose rancorous mouth 
 
 Then bayed my name, as now being great with child 
 
 I 
 
38 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 By her fourth husband, in whose charge I lay 
 
 As here in Paulet's ; so being moved I wrote, 
 
 And yet I would she had read it, though not now 
 
 Would I re -write each word again, albeit 
 
 I might, or thou, were I so minded, or 
 
 Thyself so moved to bear such witness ; but 
 
 'Tis well we know not how she had borne to read 
 
 All this and more, what counsel gave the dame. 
 
 With loud excess of laughter urging me 
 
 To enter on those lists of love-making 
 
 My son for suitor to her, who thereby 
 
 Might greatly serve and stead me in her sight ; 
 
 And I replying that such a thing could be 
 
 But held a very mockery, she returns. 
 
 The queen was so infatuate and distraught 
 
 With high conceit of her fair fretted face 
 
 As of a heavenly goddess, that herself 
 
 Would take it on her head with no great pains 
 
 To bring her to beUeve it easily ; 
 
 Being so past reason fain of flattering tongues 
 
 She thought they mocked her not nor lied who said 
 
 They might not sometimes look her full in face 
 
 For the light glittering from it as the sun; 
 
 And so perforce must all her women say 
 
 And she herself that spake, who durst not look 
 
 For fear to laugh out each in other's face 
 
 Even while they fooled and fed her vein with words, 
 
 Nor let their eyes cross when they spake to her 
 
 And set their feature fast as in a frame 
 
 To keep grave countenance with gross mockery lined ; 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 39 
 
 And how she prayed me chide her daughter, whom 
 She might by no means move to take this way. 
 And for her daughter Talbot was assured 
 She could not ever choose but laugh outright 
 Even in the good queen's flattered face. God wot, 
 Had she read all, and in my hand set down, 
 I could not blame her though she had sought to take 
 My head for payment ; no less poise on earth 
 Had served, and hardly, for the writer's fee ; 
 I could not much have blamed her ; all the less, 
 That I did take this, though from slanderous lips, 
 For gospel and not slander, and that now 
 I yet do well believe it. 
 
 Mary Beaton. And herself 
 
 Had well believed so much, and surely seen, 
 For all your protest of discredit made 
 With God to witness that you could not take 
 Such tales for truth of her nor would not, yet 
 You meant not she should take your word for this. 
 As well I think she would not. 
 
 Mary Sl-uart. Haply, no. 
 
 We do protest not thus to be believed. 
 And yet the witch in one thing seven years since 
 Belied her, saying she then must needs die soon 
 For timeless fault of nature. Now belike 
 The soothsaying that speaks short her span to be 
 May prove more true of presage. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Have you hope 
 
 The chase to-day may serve our further ends 
 Than to renew your spirit and bid time speed ? 
 
40 MARY STUART, act i. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I see not but I may ; the hour is full 
 Which I was bidden expect of them to bear 
 More fruit than grows of promise ; Babington 
 Should tarry now not long ; from France our friends 
 Lift up their heads to usward, and await 
 What comfort may confirm them from our part 
 Who sent us comfort ; Ballard's secret tongue 
 Has kindled England, striking from men's hearts 
 As from a flint the fire that slept, and made 
 Their dark dumb thoughts and dim disfigured hopes 
 Take form from his and feature, aim and strength, 
 Speech and desire toward action ; all the shires 
 Wherein the force lies hidden of our faith 
 Are stirred and set on edge of present deed 
 And hope more imminent now of help to come 
 And work to do than ever ; not this time 
 We hang on trust in succour that comes short 
 By Philip's fault from Austrian John, whose death 
 Put widow's weeds on mine unwedded hope, 
 Late trothplight to his enterprise in vain 
 That was to set me free, but might not seal 
 The faith it pledged nor on the hand of hope 
 Make fast the ring that weds desire with deed 
 And promise with performance ; Parma stands 
 More fast now for us in his uncle's stead, 
 Albeit the lesser warrior, yet in place 
 More like to avail us, and in happier time 
 To do like service ; for my cousin of Guise, 
 His hand and league hold fast our kinsman king, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. ^\ 
 
 If not to bend and shape him for our use, 
 
 Yet so to govern as he may not thwart 
 
 Our forward undertaking till its force 
 
 Discharge itself on England : from no side 
 
 I see the shade of any fear to fail 
 
 As those before so baffled ; heart and hand 
 
 Our hope is armed with trust more strong than steel 
 
 And spirit to strike more helpful than a sword 
 
 In hands that lack the spirit ; and here to-day 
 
 It may be I shall look this hope in the eyes 
 
 And see her face transfigured. God is good ; 
 
 He will not fail his faith for ever. O, 
 
 That I were now in saddle ! Yet an hour, 
 
 And I shall be as young again as May 
 
 Whose life was come to August ; like this year, 
 
 I had grown past midway of my life, and sat 
 
 Heartsick of summer ; but new-mounted now 
 
 I shall ride right through shine and shade of spring 
 
 With heart and habit of a bride, and bear 
 
 A brow more bright than fortune. Truth it is. 
 
 Those words of bride and May should on my tongue 
 
 Sound now not merry, ring no joy-bells out 
 
 In ears of hope or memory ; not for me 
 
 Have they been joyous words ; but this fair day 
 
 All sounds that ring delight in fortunate ears 
 
 And words that make men thankful, even to me 
 
 Seem thankworthy for joy they have given me not 
 
 And hope which now they should not. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Nay, who knows ? 
 
42 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 The less they have given of joy, the more they may ; 
 And they who have had their happiness before 
 Have hope not in the future ; time o'erpast 
 And time to be have several ends, nor wear 
 One forward face and backward. 
 
 Mary Stuart. God, I pray, 
 
 Turn thy good words to gospel, and make truth 
 Of their kind presage ! but our Scotswomen 
 Would say, to be so joyous as I am, 
 Though I had cause, as surely cause I have, 
 Were no good warrant of good hope for me. 
 I never took such comfort of my trust 
 In Norfolk or Northumberland, nor looked 
 For such good end as .now of all my fears 
 From all devices past of policy 
 To join my name with my misnatured son's 
 In handfast pledge with England's, ere my foes 
 His counsellors had flawed Jiis craven faith 
 And moved my natural blood to cast me off 
 Who bore him in my body, to come forth 
 Less childlike than a changeling. But not long 
 Shall they find means by him to work their will, 
 Nor he bear head against me ; hope was his 
 To reign forsooth without my fellowship, 
 And he that with me would not shall not now 
 Without or with me wield not or divide 
 Or part or all of empire. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Dear my queen. 
 
 Vex not your mood with sudden change of thoughts ; 
 Your mind but now was merrier than the sun 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 43 
 
 Half rid by this through morning : we by noon 
 Should blithely mount and meet him. 
 
 Mary Stuart So I said. 
 
 My spirit is fallen again from that glad strength 
 Which even but now arrayed it ; yet what cause 
 Should dull the dancing measure in my blood * 
 For doubt or wrath, I know not. Being once forth, 
 My heart again will quicken. \Sings. 
 
 And ye maun braid your yellow hair 
 
 And busk ye like a bride ; 
 Wi' sevenscore men to bring ye bame, 
 
 And ae true love beside ; 
 Between the birk and the green rowan 
 • Fu' blithely shall ye ride. 
 
 O ye maun braid my yellow hair, 
 
 But braid it like nae bride ; 
 And I maun gang my ways, mither, 
 
 Wi':nae true love beside ; 
 Between the kirk and the kirkyard 
 
 Fu' sadly shall I ride. 
 
 How long since, 
 How long since was it last I heard or sang 
 Such light lost ends of old faint rhyme worn thin 
 With use of country songsters ? When we twain 
 Were maidens but some twice a span's length high, 
 Thou hadst the happier memory to hold rhyme. 
 But not for songs the merrier. 
 
 Mary Beaton. This was one 
 
 That I would sing after my nurse, I think, 
 And weep upon in France at six years old 
 To think of Scotland. 
 
44 MARY STUART, act i. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Would I weep for that, 
 
 Woman or child, I have had now years enough 
 To weep in ; thou wast never French in heart. 
 Serving the queen of France. Poor queen that was, 
 Poor boy that played her bridegroom ! now they seem 
 In these mine eyes that were her eyes as far 
 Beyond the reach and range of oldworld time 
 As their first fathers' graves. 
 
 Enter Sir Amy as Paulet. 
 
 Paulet. Madam, if now 
 
 It please you to set forth, the hour is full. 
 And there your horses ready. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Sir, my thanks. 
 
 We are bounden to you and this goodly day 
 For no small comfort. Is it your will we ride 
 Accompanied with any for the nonce 
 Of our own household ? 
 
 Paulet. If you will, to-day 
 
 Your secretaries have leave to ride with you. 
 
 Mary Stuart. We keep some state then yet. I 
 pray you, sir, 
 Doth he wait on you that came here last month, 
 A low-built lank-cheeked Judas-bearded man. 
 Lean, supple, grave, pock-pitten, yellow-polled, 
 A smiling fellow with a downcast eye ? 
 
 Paulet. Madam, I know the man for none of mine. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I give you joy as you should give 
 God thanks. 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 45 
 
 Sir, if I err not ; but meseemed this man 
 Found gracious entertainment here, and took 
 Such counsel with you as I surely thought 
 Spake him your friend, and honourable ; but now 
 If I misread not an ambiguous word 
 It seems you know no more of him or less 
 Than Peter did, being questioned, of his Lord. 
 
 Paulet. I know not where the cause were to be 
 sought 
 That might for likeness or unlikeness found 
 Make seemly way for such comparison 
 As turns such names to jest and bitterness ; 
 Howbeit, as I denied not nor disclaimed 
 To know the man you speak of, yet I may 
 With very purity of truth profess 
 The man to be not of my following. 
 
 Mary Stuart. See 
 
 How lightly may the tongue that thinks no ill 
 Or trip or slip, discoursing that or this 
 With grave good men in purity and truth. 
 And come to shame even with a word ! God wot, 
 We had need put bit and bridle in our lips 
 Ere they take on them of their foolishness 
 To change wise words with wisdom. Come, sweet 
 
 friend. 
 Let us go seek our kind with horse and hound 
 To keep us witless company ; belike, 
 There shall we find our fellows. 
 
 [Exeunt Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton. 
 
 Taukt. Would to God 
 
46 MARY STUART. act r. 
 
 This day had done its office ! mine till then 
 Holds me the verier prisoner. 
 
 Enter Phillipps. 
 
 Phillipps. She will go ? 
 
 Paulet. Gladly, poor sinful fool ; more gladly, sir, 
 Than I go with her. 
 
 Phillipps. Yet you go not far j 
 
 She is come too near her end of wayfaring 
 To tire much more men's feet that follow. 
 
 Paulet. Ay. 
 
 She walks but half blind yet to the end ; even now 
 She spake of you, and questioned doubtfully 
 What here you came to do, or held what place 
 Or commerce with me : when you caught her eye. 
 It seems your courtesy by some graceless chance 
 Found but scant grace with her. 
 
 Phillipps. 'Tis mine own blame, 
 
 Or fault of mine own feature ; yet forsooth 
 I greatly covet not their gracious hap 
 Who have found or find most grace with her. I pray, 
 Doth Wade go with you ? 
 
 Paulet. Nay, — what, know you not ? — 
 
 But with Sir Thomas Gorges, from the court, 
 To drive this deer at Tixall. 
 
 Phillipps. Two years since. 
 
 He went, I think, commissioned from the queen 
 To treat with her at Sheffield ? 
 
 Paulet. Ay, and since 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 47 
 
 She hath not seen him ; who being known of here 
 Had haply given her swift suspicion edge 
 Or cause at least of wonder. 
 
 Phillipps. And I doubt 
 
 His last year's entertainment oversea 
 As our queen's envoy to demand of France 
 Her traitor Morgan's body, whence he brought 
 Nought save dry blows back from the duke d'Aumale 
 And for that prisoner's quarters here to hang 
 His own not whole but beaten, should not much 
 Incline him to more good regard of her 
 For ^hose love's sake her friends have dealt with him 
 So honourably, nor she that knows of this 
 Be the less like to take his presence here 
 For no good presage to her : you have both done well 
 To keep his hand as close herein as mine. 
 
 Paulet Sir, by my faith I know not, for myself, 
 What part is for mine honour, or wherein 
 Of all this action laid upon mine hand 
 The name and witness of a gentleman 
 May gain desert or credit, and increase 
 In seed and harvest of good men's esteem 
 For heritage to his heirs, that men unborn 
 Whose fame is as their name derived from his 
 May reap in reputation ; and indeed 
 I look for none advancement in the w^orld 
 Further than this that yet for no man's sake 
 Would I forego, to keep the name I have 
 And honour, which no son of mine shall say 
 I have left him not for any deed of mine 
 
48 MARY STUART act i. 
 
 As perfect as my sire bequeathed it me : 
 
 I say, for any word or work yet past 
 
 No tongue can thus far tax me of decline 
 
 From that fair forthright way of gentleman, 
 
 Nor shall for any that I think to do 
 
 Or aught I think to say alive : howbeit, 
 
 I were much bounden to the man would say 
 
 But so much for me in our mistress' ear, 
 
 The treasurer's, or your master Walsingham's, 
 
 Whose office here I have undergone thus long 
 
 And had I leave more gladly would put off 
 
 Than ever I put on me ; being not one 
 
 That out of love toward England even or God 
 
 At mightiest men's desire would lightly be 
 
 For loyalty disloyal, or approved 
 
 In trustless works a trusty traitor ; this 
 
 He that should tell them of me, to procure 
 
 The speedier end here of this work imposed, 
 
 Should bind me to him more heartily than thanks 
 
 Might answer. 
 
 Phillipps. Good Sir Amyas, you and I 
 Hold no such office in this dangerous time 
 As men make love to for their own name's sake 
 Or personal lust of honour ; but herein 
 I pray you yet take note, and pardon me 
 If I for the instance mix your name with mine. 
 That no man's private honour lies at gage. 
 Nor is the stake set here to play for less 
 Than what is more than all men's names alive. 
 The great life's gage of England ; in whose name 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 
 
 49 
 
 Lie all our own impledged, as all our lives 
 For her redemption forfeit, if the cause 
 Call once upon us ; not this gift or this, 
 Or what best likes us or were gladliest given 
 Or might most honourably be parted with 
 For our more credit on her best behalf, 
 Doth she we serve, this land that made us men, 
 Require of all her children ; but demands 
 Of our great duty toward her full deserts 
 Even all we have of honour or of life. 
 Of breath or fame to give her. What were I 
 Or what were you, being mean or nobly born, 
 Yet moulded both of one land's natural womb 
 And fashioned out of England, to deny 
 What gift she crave soever, choose and grudge 
 What grace we list to give or what withhold, 
 Refuse and reckon with her when she bids 
 Yield up forsooth not life but fame to come, 
 A good man's praise or gentleman's repute, 
 Or lineal pride of children, and the light 
 Of loyalty remembered? which of these 
 Were worth our mother's death, or shame that might 
 Fall for one hour on England ? She must live 
 And keep in all men's sight her honour fast 
 Though all we die dishonoured ; and myself 
 Know not nor seek of men's report to know 
 If what I do to serve her till I die 
 Be honourable or shameful, and its end 
 Good in men's eyes or evil ; but for God, 
 I find not why the name or fear of him 
 
 £ 
 
50 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 Herein should make me swerve or start aside 
 Through faint heart's falsehood as a broken bow 
 Snapped in his hand that bent it, ere the shaft 
 Find out his enemies' heart, and I that end 
 Whereto I am sped for service even of him 
 Who put this office on us. 
 
 Paukt. Truly, sir, 
 
 I lack the wordy wit to match with yours. 
 Who speak no more than soldier \ this I know, 
 I am sick in spirit and heart to have in hand 
 Such work or such device of yours as yet 
 For fear and conscience of what worst may come 
 I dare not well bear through. 
 
 Phillipps. Why, so last month 
 
 You writ my master word and me to boot 
 I had set you down a course for many things 
 You durst not put in execution, nor 
 Consign the packet to this lady's hand 
 That was returned from mine, seeing all was well. 
 And you should hold yourself most wretched man 
 If by your mean or order there should spring 
 Suspicion 'twixt the several messengers 
 W^hose hands unwitting each of other ply 
 The same close trade for the same golden end, 
 While either holds his mate a faithful fool 
 And all their souls, baseborn or gently bred, 
 Are coined and stamped and minted for our use 
 And current in our service ; I thereon 
 To assuage your doubt and fortify your fear 
 Was posted hither, where by craft and pains 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 51 
 
 The web is wound up of our enterprise 
 
 And in our hands we hold her very heart 
 
 As fast as all this while we held impawned 
 
 The faith of Barnes that stood for Gifford here 
 
 To take what letters for his mistress came 
 
 From southward through the ambassador of France 
 
 And bear them to the brewer, your honest man, 
 
 Who wist no further of his fellowship 
 
 Than he of Gifford's, being as simple knaves 
 
 As knavish each in his simplicity, 
 
 And either serviceable alike, to shift 
 
 Between my master's hands and yours and mine 
 
 Her letters writ and answered to and fro ; 
 
 And all these faiths as weathertight and safe 
 
 As was the box that held those letters close 
 
 At bottom of the barrel, to give up 
 
 The charge there sealed and ciphered, and receive 
 
 A charge as great in peril and in price 
 
 To yield again, when they drew off the beer 
 
 That weekly served this lady's household whom 
 
 We have drained as dry of secrets drugged with death 
 
 As ever they this vessel, and return 
 
 To her own lips the dregs she brewed or we 
 
 For her to drink have tempered. What of this 
 
 Should seem so strange now to you, or distaste 
 
 So much the daintier palate of your thoughts. 
 
 That I should need reiterate you by word 
 
 The work of us o'erpast, or fill your ear 
 
 With long foregone recital, that at last 
 
 Your soul may start not or your sense recoil 
 
 £ 2 
 
52 MARY STUART. act i, 
 
 'i'o know what end we are come to, or what hope 
 We took in hand to cut this peril off 
 By what close mean soe'er and what foul hands 
 Unwashed of treason, which it yet mislikes 
 Your knightly palm to touch or close with, seeing 
 The grime of gdid is baser than of blood 
 That barks their filthy fingers ? yet with these 
 Must you cross hands and grapple, or let fall 
 The trust you took to treasure. 
 
 Paulet. Sir, I will. 
 
 Even till the queen take back that gave it \ yet 
 Will not join hands with these, nor take on mine 
 The taint of their contagion ; knowing no cause 
 That should confound or couple my good name 
 With theirs more hateful than the reek of hell. 
 You had these knaveries and these knaves in charge. 
 Not I that knew not how to handle them 
 Nor whom to choose for chief of treasons, him 
 That in mine ignorant eye, unused to read 
 The shameful scripture of such faces, bare 
 Graved on his smooth and simple cheek and brow 
 No token of a traitor ; yet this boy, 
 This milk-mouthed weanling with his maiden chin, 
 This soft-lipped knave, late suckled as on blood 
 And nursed of poisonous nipples, have you not 
 Found false or feared by this, whom first you found 
 A trustier thief and worthier of his wage 
 Than I, poor man, had wit to find him ? I, 
 That trust no changelings of the church of hell, 
 No babes reared priestlike at the paps of Rome, 
 
SCENE II. MAJ^V STUART. 53 
 
 Who have left the old harlot's deadly dugs drawn dry, 
 I lacked the craft to rate this knave of price, 
 Your smock-faced Gifford, at his worth aright, 
 Which now comes short of promise. 
 
 Fhillipps. O, not he ; 
 
 Let not your knighthood for a slippery word 
 So much misdoubt his knaveship ; here from France, 
 On hint of our suspicion in his ear 
 Half jestingly recorded, that his hand 
 Were set against us in one politic track 
 With his old yoke-fellows in craft and creed. 
 Betraying not them to us but ourselves to them, 
 My Gilbert writes me with such heat of hand 
 Such piteous protestation of his faith 
 So stuffed and swoln with burly-bellied oaths 
 And God and Christ confound him if he lie 
 And Jesus save him as he speaks mere truth, 
 My gracious godly priestling, that yourself 
 Must sure be moved to take his truth on trust 
 Or stand for him approved an atheist. 
 
 Paulet. Well, 
 
 That you find stuff of laughter in such gear 
 And mirth to make out of the godless mouth 
 Of such a twice-turned villain, for my part 
 I take in token of your certain trust, 
 And make therewith mine own assurance sure. 
 To see betimes an end of all such craft 
 As takes the faith forsworn of loud-tongued liars 
 And blasphemies of brothel-breathing knaves 
 To build its hope or break its jest upon ; 
 
54 MARY STUART. ACT i. 
 
 And so commend you to your charge, and take 
 
 Mine own on me less gladly ; for by this 
 
 She should be girt to ride, as the old saw saith. 
 
 Out of God's blessing into the warm sun 
 
 And out of the warm sun into the pit 
 
 That men have dug before her, as herself 
 
 Had dug for England else a deeper grave 
 
 To hide our hope for ever : yet I would 
 
 This day and all that hang on it were done. \Exeu7it. 
 
 Scene HI. Before Tixall Park. 
 
 Mary Stuart, Mary Beaton, Paulet, Curle, 
 Nau, and Attendants. 
 
 Mary Stuart. If I shou^ld never more back steed 
 alive 
 But now had ridden hither this fair day 
 The last road ever I must ride on earth, 
 Yet would I praise it, saying of all days gone 
 And all roads ridden in sight of stars and sun 
 Since first I sprang to saddle, here at last 
 I had found no joyless end. These ways are smooth. 
 And all this land's face merry; yet I find 
 The ways even therefore not so good to ride. 
 And all the land's face therefore less worth love, 
 Being smoother for a palfrey's maiden pace 
 And merrier than our moors for outlook ; nay, 
 I lie to say so ; there the wind and sun 
 Make madder mirth by midsumm-er, and fill 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 55 
 
 With broader breath and lustier length of light 
 The heartier hours that clothe for even and dawn 
 Our bosom -belted billowy-blossoming hills 
 Whose hearts break out in laughter like the sea 
 For miles of heaving heather. Ye should mock 
 My banished praise of Scotland ; and in faith 
 I praised it but to prick you on to praise 
 Of your own goodly land ; though field and wood 
 Be parked and parcelled to the sky's edge out, 
 And this green Stafford moorland smooth and strait 
 That we but now rode over, and by ours 
 Look pale for lack of large live mountain bloom 
 Wind-buffeted with morning, it should be 
 Worth praise of men whose lineal honour lives 
 In keeping here of history : but meseems 
 I have heard, Sir Amyas, of your liberal west 
 As of a land more affluent-souled than this 
 And fruitful-hearted as the south-wind ; here 
 I find a fair-faced change of temperate clime 
 From that bald hill-brow in a broad bare plain 
 Where winter laid us both his prisoners late 
 Fast by the feet at Tutbury ; but men say 
 Your birthright in this land is fallen more fair 
 In goodlier ground of heritage : perchance, 
 Grief to be now barred thence by mean of me, 
 Who less than you can help it or myself, 
 Makes you ride sad and sullen. 
 
 Paulet. Madam, no; 
 
 I pray you lay not to my wilful charge 
 The blame or burden of discourtesy 
 
56 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 That but the time should bear which lays on me 
 This weight of -thoughts untimely. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Nay, fair sir, 
 
 If I, that have no cause in life to seem 
 Glad of my sad life more than prisoners may, 
 Take comfort yet of sunshine, he methinks 
 That holds in ward my days and nights might well 
 Take no less pleasure of this broad blithe air 
 Than his poor charge that too much troubles him. 
 What, are we nigh the chase ? 
 
 Paulet. Even hard at hand. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Can I not see between the glittering 
 leaves 
 Gleam the dun hides and flash the startled horns 
 That we must charge and scatter ? Were I queen 
 And had a crown to wager on my hand. 
 Sir, I would set it on the chance to-day 
 To shoot a flight beyond you. 
 
 Paulet. Verily, 
 
 The hazard were too heavy for my skill : 
 I would not hold your wager. 
 
 Mary Stuart. No ! and why ? 
 
 Paulet. For fear to come a bowshot short of you 
 On the left hand, unluckily. 
 
 Mary Stuart. My friend. 
 
 Our keeper's wit-shaft is too keen for ours 
 To match its edge with pointless iron. — Sir, 
 Your tongue shoots further than my hand or eye 
 With sense or aim can follow. — Gilbert Curie, 
 Your heart yet halts behind this cry of hounds, 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 57 
 
 Hunting your own deer's trail at home, who lies 
 Now dose in covert till her bearing-time 
 Be full to bring forth kindly fruit of kind 
 To love that yet lacks issue ; and in sooth 
 I blame you not to bid all sport go by 
 For one white doe's sake travailing, who myself 
 Think long till I may take within mine arm 
 The soft fawn suckling that is yeaned not yet 
 But is to make her mother. We must hold 
 A goodly christening feast with prisoner's- cheer 
 And mirth enow for such a tender thing 
 As will not weep more to be born in bonds 
 Than babes born out of gaoler's ward, nor grudge 
 To find no friend more fortunate than I 
 Nor happier hand to welcome it, nor name 
 More prosperous than poor mine to wear, if God 
 Shall send the new-made mother's breast, for love 
 Of us that love his mother's maidenhood, 
 A maid to be my namechild, and in all , 
 
 Save love to them that love her, by God's grace, 
 Most unlike me ; for whose unborn sweet sake 
 Pray you meantime be merry. — 'Faith, methinks 
 Here be more huntsmen out afield to-day 
 And merrier than my guardian. Sir, look up ; 
 What think you of these riders ? — All my friends. 
 Make on to meet them. 
 
 Pa-ulet. There shall need no haste ; 
 
 They ride not slack or lamely. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Now, fair sir, 
 
 What say you to my chance on wager ? here 
 
58 MAI^Y STUART. act i. 
 
 I think to outshoot your archery. — By my Hfe, 
 That too must fail if hope now fail me ; these 
 That ride so far off yet, being come, shall bring 
 Death or deliverance. Prithee, speak but once ; 
 
 S^Aside to Mary Beaton. 
 Say, these are they we looked far ; say, thou too 
 Hadst hope to meet them ; say, they should be here, 
 And I did well to look for them ; O God ! 
 Say but I was not mad to hope ■; see there ; 
 Speak, or I die, 
 
 Mary Beaton. Nay, not before they come. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Dost thou not hear my heart ? it 
 speaks so loud 
 I can hear nothing of them. Yet I will not 
 Fail in mine enemy's sight. This is mine hour 
 That was to be for triumph ; God, I pray. 
 Stretch not its length out longer ! 
 
 Mary Beaton. It is past. 
 
 Enter Sir Thomas Gorges, Sir William Wade, 
 and Soldiers. 
 
 Mary Stuart. What man is this that stands across 
 
 our way? 
 Gorges. One that hath warrant, madam, from the 
 queen 
 To arrest your French and English secretary 
 And for more surety see yourself removed 
 To present ward at Tixall here hard by. 
 As in this paper stands of her subscribed. 
 Lay hands on them. 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 59 
 
 Mary Stuart. Was this your riddle's word ? 
 
 \To Paulet. 
 You have shot beyond me indeed, and shot to death 
 Your honour with my life. — Draw, sirs, and stand ; 
 Ye have swords yet left to strike with once, and die 
 By these our foes are girt with. Some good friend — 
 I should have one yet left of you — take heart 
 And slay me here. For God's love, draw ; they have 
 
 not 
 So large a vantage of us we must needs 
 Bear back one foot from peril. Give not way ; 
 Ye shall but die more shamefully than here 
 Who can but here die fighting. What, no man ? 
 Must I find never at my need alive 
 A man with heart to help me ? O, my God, 
 Let me die now and foil them ! Paulet, you, . 
 Most knightly Uar and traitor, was not this 
 Part of your charge, to play my hangman too, 
 Who have played so well my doomsman, and betrayecf' 
 So honourably my trust, so bravely set 
 A snare so loyal to make sure for death 
 So poor a foolish woman ? Sir, or you 
 That have this gallant office, great as his. 
 To do the deadliest errand and most vile 
 That even your mistress ever laid on ma«n 
 And sent her basest knave to bear and slay. 
 You are likewise of her chivalry, and should not 
 Shrink to fulfil your title ; being a knight. 
 For her dear sake that made you, lose not heart 
 To strike for her one worthy stroke, that may 
 
6o MARY STUART. Acr i. 
 
 Rid me defenceless of the loathed long life 
 She gapes for like a bloodhound. Nay, I find 
 A face beside you that should bear for me 
 Not life inscribed upon it ; two years since 
 I read therein at Sheffield what good will 
 She bare toward me that sent to treat withal 
 So mean a man and shameless, by his tongue 
 To smite mine honour on the face, and turn 
 My name of queen to servant ; by his hand 
 So let her turn my life's name now to death, 
 Which I would take more thankfully than shame. 
 To plead and thus prevail not. 
 
 Paulet. Madam, na, 
 
 With us you may not in such suit prevail 
 Nor we by words or wrath of yours be moved 
 To tj^rn their edge back on you, nor remit 
 The least part of our office, which deserves 
 Nor scorn of you nor wonder, whose own act 
 Has laid it on us ; wherefore with less rage 
 Please you take thought now to submit yourself, 
 Even for your own more honour, to the effect 
 Whose cause was of your own device, that here 
 Bears fruit unlooked for ; which being ripe in time 
 You cannot choose but taste of, nor may we 
 But do the season's bidding, and the queen's 
 Who weeps at heart to know it. — Disarm these men ; 
 Take you the prisoners to your present ward 
 And hence again to London ; here meanwhile 
 Some week or twain their lady must lie close 
 And with a patient or impatient heart 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 6i 
 
 Expect an end and word of judgment : I 
 Must with Sir William back to Chartley straight 
 And there make inquisition ere day close 
 What secret serpents of what treasons hatched 
 May in this lady's papers lurk, whence we 
 Must pluck the fangs forth of them yet unfleshed, 
 And lay these plots like dead and strangled snakes 
 Naked before the council. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I must go ? 
 
 Gorges. Madam, no help ; I pray your pardon. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ay ? 
 
 Had I your pardon in this hand to give. 
 And here in this my vengeance — Words, and words ! 
 God, for thy pity ! what vile thing is this 
 That thou didst make of woman ? even in death, 
 As in the extremest evil of all our lives, 
 We can but curse or pray, but prate and weep. 
 And all our wrath is wind that works no wreck, 
 And all our fire as water. Noble sirs, 
 We are servants of your servants, and obey 
 The beck of your least groom ; obsequiously. 
 We pray you but report of us so much. 
 Submit us to you. Yet would I take farewell, 
 May it not displease you, for old service' sake. 
 Of one my servant here that was, and now 
 Hath no word for me ; yet I blame him not. 
 Who am past all help of man ; God witness me, 
 I would not chide now, Gilbert, though my tongue 
 Had strength yet left for chiding, and its edge 
 Were yet a sword to smite with, or my wrath 
 
62 MARY STUART. act i. 
 
 A thing that babes might shrink at ; only this 
 Take with you for your poor queen's true last word, 
 That if they let me live so long to see 
 The fair wife's face again from whose soft side, 
 Now labouring with your child, by violent hands 
 You are reft perforce for my sake, while I live 
 I will have charge of her more carefully 
 Than of mine own life's keeping, which indeed 
 I think not long to keep, nor care, God knows. 
 How soon or how men take it. Nay, good friend. 
 Weep not ; my weeping time is wellnigh past. 
 And theirs whose eyes have too much wept for me 
 Should last no longer. Sirs, I give you thanks 
 For thus much grace and patience shown of you, 
 My gentle gaolers, towards a queen unqueened 
 Who shall nor get nor crave again of man 
 What grace may rest in him to give her. Come, 
 Bring me to bonds again, and her with me 
 That hath not stood so nigh me all these years 
 To fall ere life doth from my side, or take 
 Her way to death without me till I die. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST ACT. 
 
ACT II. 
 
 WALS INGHAM 
 
ACT II. 
 
 Scene I. Windsor Castle. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth and Sir Francis Walsingham. 
 
 Elizabeth. What will ye make me? Let the 
 council know 
 I am yet their loving mistress, but they lay 
 Too strange a burden on my love who send 
 As to their servant word what ways to take, 
 What sentence of my subjects given subscribe 
 And in mine own name utter. Bid them wait ; 
 Have I not patience ? and was never quick 
 To teach my tongue the deadly word of death, 
 Lest one day strange tongues blot my fame with 
 
 blood ; 
 The red addition of my sister's name 
 Shall brand not mine. 
 
 Walsingham. God grant your mercy shown 
 
 Mark not your memory like a martyr's red 
 With pure imperial heart's-blood of your own 
 Shed through your own sweet-spirited height of heart 
 That held your hand from justice. 
 
 F 
 
66 MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 Elizabeth. I would rather 
 
 Stand in God's sight so signed with mine own blood 
 Than with a sister's — innocent ; or indeed 
 Though guilty— being a sister's — might I choose, 
 As being a queen I may not surely — no — 
 I may not choose, you tell me. 
 
 Walsingham. Nay, no man 
 
 Hath license of so large election given 
 As once to choose, being servant called of God, 
 If he will serve or no, or save the name 
 And slack the service. 
 
 Elizabeth. Yea, but in his Word 
 
 I find no word that whets for king-killing 
 The sword kings bear for justice ; yet I doubt, 
 Being drawn, it may not choose but strike at root — 
 Being drawn to cut off treason. Walsingham, 
 You are more a statesman than a gospeller ; 
 Take for your tongue's text now no text of God's, 
 But what the devil has put into their lips 
 Who should have slain me ; nay, what by God's grace, 
 Who bared their purpose to us, through pain or fear 
 Hath been wrung thence of secrets writ in fire 
 At bottom of their hearts. Have they confessed ? 
 Walsingham. The twain trapped first in London. 
 Elizabeth. What, the priest? 
 
 Their twice-turned Ballard, ha ? 
 
 Walsingha?n. Madam, not he. 
 
 Elizabeth. God's blood ! ye have spared not him 
 the torment, knaves ? 
 Of all I would not spare him. 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 67 
 
 Walsingham. Verily, no ; 
 
 The rack hath spun his life's thread out so fine 
 There is but left for death to slit in twain 
 The thickness of a spider's. 
 
 Elizabeth. Ay, still dumb ? 
 
 Walsingham. Dumb for all good the pains can get 
 of him ; 
 Had he drunk dry the chalice of his craft 
 Brewed in design abhorred of even his friends 
 With poisonous purpose toward your majesty, 
 He had kept scarce harder silence. 
 
 Elizabeth. Poison? ay — 
 
 That should be still the churchman's household 
 
 sword 
 Or saintly staff to bruise crowned heads from far 
 And break them with his precious balms that smell 
 Rank as the jaws of death, or festal fume 
 When Rome yet reeked with Borgia ; but the rest 
 Had grace enow to grant me for goodwill 
 Some death more gracious than a rat's ? God wot, 
 I am bounden to them, and will charge for this 
 The hangman thank them heartily ; they shall not 
 Lack daylight means to die by. God, meseems, 
 Will have me not die darkling like a dog, 
 Who hath kept my lips from poison and my heart 
 From shot of English knave or Spanish, both 
 Dubbed of the devil or damned his doctors, whom 
 My riddance from all ills that plague man's life 
 Should have made great in record ; and for wage 
 Your Ballard hath not better hap to fee 
 F 2 
 
68 MARY STUART, act ii. 
 
 Than Lopez had or Parry. Well, he lies 
 As dumb in bonds as those dead dogs in earth, 
 You say, but of his fellows newly ta'en 
 There are that keep not silence : what say these ? 
 Pour in mine ears the poison of their plot 
 Whose fangs have stung the silly snakes to death. 
 Walsingham. The first a soldier, Savage, in these 
 wars 
 That sometime serving sought a traitor's luck 
 Under the prince Farnese, then of late 
 At Rheims was tempted of our traitors there, 
 Of one in chief, Gifford the seminarist. 
 My smock-faced spy's good uncle, to take off 
 Or the earl of Leicester or your gracious self ; 
 And since his passage hither, to confirm 
 His hollow-hearted hardihood, hath had 
 Word from this doctor more solicitous yet 
 Sent by my knave his nephew, who of late 
 Was in the seminary of so deadly seed 
 Their reader in philosophy, that their head, 
 Even Cardinal Allen, holds for just and good 
 The purpose laid upon his hand ; this man 
 Makes yet more large confession than of this. 
 Saying from our Gilbert's trusty mouth he had 
 Assurance that in Italy the Pope 
 Hath levies raised against us, to set forth 
 For seeming succour toward the Parmesan, 
 But in their actual aim bent hither, where 
 With French and Spaniards in one front of war 
 They might make in upon us ; but from France 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 69 
 
 No foot shall pass for inroad on our peace 
 
 Till — so they phrase it — by these Catholics here 
 
 Your majesty be taken, or 
 
 Elizabeth. No more — 
 
 But only taken ? springed but bird-like ? Ha ! 
 They are something tender of our poor personal 
 
 chance — 
 Temperately tender : yet I doubt the springe 
 Had haply maimed me no less deep than life 
 Sits next the heart most mortal. Or — so be it 
 I slip the springe — what yet may shackle France, 
 Hang weights upon their purpose who should else 
 Be great of heart against us ? They take time 
 Till I be taken — or till what signal else 
 As favourable ? 
 
 Walsingham. Till she they serve be brought 
 Safe out of Paulet's keeping. 
 
 Elizabeth. Ay? they know him 
 
 So much my servant, and his guard so good, 
 That sound of strange feet marching on our soil 
 Against us in his prisoner's name perchance 
 Might from the walls wherein she sits his guest 
 Raise a funereal echo ? Yet I think 
 He would not dare — what think'st thou might he dare 
 Without my word for warrant ? If I knew 
 This 
 
 Walsingham. It should profit not your grace to 
 know 
 What may not be conceivable for truth 
 Without some stain on honour. 
 
70 MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 Elizabeth. Nay, I say not 
 
 That I would have him take upon his hand 
 More than his trust may warrant : yet have men, 
 Good men, for very truth of their good hearts 
 Put loyal hand to work as perilous — well, 
 God wot I would not have him so transgress — 
 If such be called transgressors. 
 
 Walsingham. Let the queen 
 
 Rest well assured he shall not. So far forth 
 Our swordsman Savage witnesses of these 
 That moved him toward your murder but in trust 
 Thereby to bring invasion over sea : 
 Which one more gently natured of his birth, 
 Tichborne, protests with very show of truth 
 That he would give no ear to, knowing, he saith, 
 The miseries of such conquest : nor, it seems, 
 Heard this man aught of murderous purpose bent 
 Against your highness. 
 
 Elizabeth. Naught ? why then, again, 
 
 To him I am yet more bounden, who may think. 
 Being found but half my traitor, at my hands 
 To find but half a hangman. 
 
 Walsingham. Nay, the man 
 
 Herein seems all but half his own man, being 
 Made merely out of stranger hearts and brains 
 Their engine of conspiracy ; for thus 
 Forsooth he pleads, that Babington his friend 
 First showed him how himself was wrought upon 
 By one man's counsel and persuasion, one 
 Held of great judgment, Ballard, on whose head 
 
SCENE T. MARY STUART. 71 
 
 All these lay all their forfeit. 
 
 Elizabeth. Yet shall each 
 
 Pay for himself red coin of ransom down 
 In costlier drops than gold is. But of these 
 Why take we thought? their natural-subject blood 
 Can wash not out their sanguine-sealed attempt, 
 Nor leave us marked as tyrant : only she 
 That is the head and heart of all your fears 
 Whose hope or fear is England's, quick or dead, 
 Leaves or imperilled or impeached of blood 
 Me that with all but hazard of mine own, 
 God knows, would yet redeem her. I will write 
 With mine own hand to her privily, — what else ? —   
 Saying, if by word as privy from her hand 
 She will confess her treasonous practices, 
 They shall be wrapped in silence up, and she 
 By judgment live unscathed. 
 
 Walsingham. Being that she is, 
 
 So surely will she deem of your great grace, 
 And see it but as a snare set wide, or net 
 Spread in the bird's sight vainly. 
 
 Elizabeth. Why, then, well : 
 
 She, casting off my grace, from all men's grace 
 Cuts off herself, and even aloud avows 
 By silence and suspect of jealous heart 
 Her manifest foul conscience : on which proof 
 I will proclaim her to the parliament 
 So self-convicted. Yet I would not have 
 Her name and life by mortal evidence 
 Touched at the trial of them that now shall die 
 
72 MAJ^y STUART. act ii. 
 
 Or by their charge attainted : lest myself 
 Fall in more peril of her friends than she 
 Stands yet in shot of judgment. 
 
 Walsingham. Be assured, 
 
 Madam, the process of their treasons judged 
 Shall tax not her before her trial-time 
 With public note of clear complicity 
 Even for that danger's sake which moves you. 
 
 Elizabeth. Me 
 
 So much it moves not for my mere life's sake 
 Which I would never buy with fear of death 
 As for the general danger's and the shame's 
 Thence cast on queenship and on womanhood 
 By mean of such a murderess. But, for them, 
 I would the merited manner of their death 
 Might for more note of terror be referred 
 To me and to my council : these at least 
 Shall hang for warning in the world's wide eye 
 More high than common traitors, with more pains 
 Being ravished forth of their more villainous lives 
 Than feed the general throat of justice. Her 
 Shall this too touch, whom none that serves hence* 
 
 forth 
 But shall be sure of hire more terrible 
 Than all past wage of treason. 
 
 Walsingham. Why, so far 
 
 As law gives leave 
 
 Elizabeth. What prat'st thou me of law ? 
 
 God's blood ! is law for man's sake made, or man 
 For law's sake only, to be held in bonds, 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 73 
 
 Led lovingly like hound in huntsman's leash 
 Or child by finger, not for help or stay, 
 But hurt and hindrance ? Is not all this land 
 And all its hope and surety given to time 
 Of sovereignty and freedom, all the fame 
 And all the fruit of manhood hence to be, 
 More than one rag or relic of its law 
 Wherewith all these lie shackled ? as too sure 
 Have states no less than ours been done to death 
 With gentle counsel and soft-handed rule 
 For fear to snap one thread of ordinance 
 Though thence the state were strangled. 
 
 lValsingha??i. Madam, yet 
 
 There need no need be here of law's least breach. 
 That of all else is worst necessity — 
 Being such a mortal medicine to the state 
 As poison drunk to expel a feverish taint 
 Which air or sleep might purge as easily. 
 
 Elizabeth. Ay, but if air be poison-struck with 
 plague 
 Or sleep to death lie palsied, fools were they. 
 Faint hearts and faithless, who for health's fair sake 
 Should fear to cleanse air, pierce and probe the trance. 
 With purging fire or iron. Have your way. 
 God send good end of all this, and procure 
 Some mean whereby mine enemies' craft and his 
 May take no feet but theirs in their own toils, 
 And no blood shed be innocent as mine. 
 
74 MAJ^V STUART. act ii. 
 
 Scene II. Chartley. 
 Mary Beaton and Sir Amyas Paulet. 
 
 Paulet. You should do well to bid her less be 
 moved 
 Who needs fear less of evil. Since we came 
 Again from Tixall this wild mood of hers 
 Hath vexed her more than all men's enmities 
 Should move a heart more constant. Verily, 
 I thought she had held more rule upon herself 
 Than to call out on beggars at the gate 
 When she rode forth, crying she had nought to give. 
 Being all as much a beggar too as they. 
 With alt things taken from her. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Being so served, 
 
 In sooth she should not show nor shame nor spleen : 
 It was but seventeen days ye held her there 
 Away from all attendance, as in bonds 
 Kept without change of raiment, and to find. 
 Being thence haled hither again, no nobler use. 
 But all her papers plundered — then her keys 
 By force of violent threat wrung from the hand 
 She scarce could stir to help herself abed : 
 These were no matters that should move her. 
 
 Paulet. None, 
 
 If she be clean of conscience, whole of heart, 
 Nor else than pure in purpose, but maligned 
 Of men's suspicions : how should one thus wronged 
 
SCENE n. MARY STUART. 75 
 
 But hold all hard chance good to approve her case 
 Blameless, give praise for all, turn all to thanks 
 That might unload her of so sore a charge, 
 Despoiled not, but disburdened ? Her great wrath 
 Pleads hard against her, and itself spake loud 
 Alone, ere other witness might unseal 
 Wrath's fierce interpretation : which ere long 
 Was of her secretaries expounded. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Sir, 
 
 As you are honourable, and of equal heart 
 Have shown such grace as man being manful may 
 To such a piteous prisoner as desires 
 Nought now but what may hurt not loyalty 
 Though you comply therewith to comfort her, 
 Let her not think your spirit so far incensed 
 By wild words of her mistress cast on you 
 In heat of heart and bitter fire of spleen 
 That you should now close ears against a prayer 
 Which else might fairly find them open. 
 
 Faulet. Speak 
 
 More short and plainly : what I well may grant 
 Shall so seem easiest granted. 
 
 Mary Beaton. There should be 
 
 No cause I think to seal your lips up, though 
 I crave of them but so much breath as may 
 Give mine ear knowledge of the witness borne 
 (If aught of witness were against her borne) 
 By those her secretaries you spake of. 
 
 Paulet. This 
 
 With hard expostulation was drawn forth 
 
76 MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 At last of one and other, that they twain 
 
 Had writ by record from their lady's mouth 
 
 To Babington some letter which implies 
 
 Close conscience of his treason, and goodwill 
 
 To meet his service with complicity : 
 
 But one thing found therein of deadliest note 
 
 The Frenchman swore they set not down, nor she 
 
 Bade write one word of favour nor assent 
 
 Answering this murderous motion toward our queen : 
 
 Only, saith he, she held herself not bound 
 
 For love's sake to reveal it, and thereby 
 
 For love of enemies do to death such friends 
 
 As only for her own love's sake w^ere found 
 
 Fit men for murderous treason : and so much 
 
 Her own hand's transcript of the word she sent 
 
 Should once produced bear witness of her. 
 
 Mary Beaton, Ay ? 
 
 How then came this withholden ? 
 
 Paulet. If she speak 
 
 But truth, why, truth should sure be manifest, 
 And shall, with God's good will, to good men's joy 
 That wish not evil : as at Fotheringay 
 When she shall come to trial must be tried 
 If it be truth or no : for which assay 
 You shall do toward her w^ell and faithfully 
 To bid her presently prepare her soul 
 That it may there make answer. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Presently ? 
 
 Paulet. Upon the arraignment of her friends who 
 stand 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 77 
 
 As 'twere at point of execution now 
 
 Ere sentence pass upon them of their sin. 
 
 Would you no more with me ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. I am bounden to you 
 
 For thus much tidings granted. 
 
 Paulet. So farewell. {Exit. 
 
 Mary Beatoti. So fare I well or ill as one who 
 knows 
 He shall not fare much further toward his end. 
 Here looms on me the landmark of my life 
 That I have looked for now some score of years 
 Even with long-suffering ^eagerness of heart 
 And a most hungry patience. I did know, 
 Yea, God, thou knowest I knew this all that while, 
 From that day forth when even these eyes beheld 
 Fall the most faithful head in all the world. 
 Toward her most loving and of me most loved, 
 By doom of hers that was so loved of him 
 He could not love me nor his life at all 
 Nor his own soul nor aught that all men love. 
 Nor could fear death nor very God, or care 
 If there were aught more merciful in heaven 
 Than love on earth had been to him. Chastelard 
 I have not had the name upon my lips 
 That stands for sign of love the truest in man 
 Since first love made him sacrifice of men. 
 This long sad score of years retributive 
 Since it was cast out of her heart and mind 
 Who made it mean a dead thing ; nor, I think, 
 Will she remember it before she die 
 
78 MARY STUART, act ii. 
 
 More than in France the memories of old friends 
 
 Are like to have yet forgotten ; but for me, 
 
 Haply thou knowest, so death not all be death, 
 
 If all these years I have had not in my mind 
 
 Through all these chances this one thought in all. 
 
 That I shall never leave her till she die. 
 
 Nor surely now shall I much longer serve 
 
 Who fain would lie down at her foot and sleep, 
 
 Fain, fain have done with waking. Yet my soul 
 
 Knows, and yet God knows, I would set not hand 
 
 To such a work as might put on the time 
 
 And make death's foot more forward for her sake : 
 
 Yea, were it to deliver mine own soul 
 
 From bondage and long-suffering of my life, 
 
 I would not set mine hand to work her wrong. 
 
 Tempted I was — but hath God need of me 
 
 To work his judgment, bring his time about. 
 
 Approve his justice if the word be just 
 
 That whoso doeth shall suffer his own deed, 
 
 Bear his own blow, to weep tears back for tears. 
 
 And bleed for bloodshed ? God should spare me this 
 
 That once I held the one good hope on earth. 
 
 To be the mean and engine of her end 
 
 Or some least part at least therein : I prayed, 
 
 God, give me so much grace — who now should pray, 
 
 Tempt me not, God. My heart swelled once to know 
 
 I bore her death about me ; as I think 
 
 Indeed I bear it : but what need hath God 
 
 That I should clench his doom with craft of mine ? 
 
 What needs the wrath of hot Elizabeth 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 79 
 
 Be blown aflame with mere past writing read, 
 Which hath to enkindle it higher already proof 
 Of present practice on her state and life ? 
 Shall fear of death or love of England fail 
 Or memory faint or foresight fall stark blind, 
 That there should need the whet and spur of shame 
 To turn her spirit into some chafing snake's 
 And make its fang more feared for mortal ? Yet 
 I am glad, and I repent me not, to know 
 I have the writing in my bosom sealed 
 That bears such matter with her own hand signed 
 As she that yet repents her not to have writ 
 Repents her not that she refrained to send 
 And fears not but long since it felt the fire — 
 Being fire itself to burn her, yet unquenched, 
 But in my hand here covered harmless up 
 Which had in charge to burn it. What perchance 
 Might then the reading of it have wrought for us. 
 If all this fiery poison of her scoffs 
 Making the foul froth of a serpent's tongue 
 More venomous, and more deadly toward her queen 
 Even Bess of Hardwick's bitterest babbling tales, 
 Had touched at heart the Tudor vein indeed ? 
 Enough it yet were surely, though that vein 
 Were now the gentlest that such hearts may hold 
 And all doubt's trembling balance that way bent, 
 To turn as with one mortal grain cast in 
 The scale of grace against her life that writ 
 And weigh down pity deathward. 
 
8o MAjRV STUART. act ii. 
 
 Enter Mary Stuart. 
 
 Alary Stuart Have we found 
 
 Such kindness of our keeper as may give 
 Some ease from expectation ? or must hope 
 Still fret for ignorance how long here we stay 
 As men abiding judgment ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. Now not long, 
 
 He tells me, need we think to tarry ; since 
 The time and place of trial are set, next month 
 To hold it in the castle of Fotheringay. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Why, he knows well I were full easily 
 moved 
 To set forth hence ; there must I find more scope 
 To commune with the ambassador of France 
 By letter thence to London : but, God help, 
 Think these folk truly, doth she verily think. 
 What never man durst yet nor woman dreamed, 
 May one that is nor man nor woman think. 
 To bring a queen born subject of no laws 
 Here in subjection of an alien law 
 By foreign force of judgment? Were she wise, 
 Might she not have me privily made away ? 
 And being nor wise nor valiant but of tongue, 
 Could she find yet foolhardiness of heart 
 Enough to attaint the rule of royal rights 
 With murderous madness ? I will think not this 
 Till it be proven indeed. 
 
 Mary Beaton. A month come round. 
 
 This man protests, will prove it. 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 8i 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ay ! protests ? 
 
 What protestation of what Protestant 
 Can unmake law that was of God's mouth made, 
 Unwrite the writing of the world, unsay 
 The general saying of ages ? If I go, 
 Compelled of God's hand or constrained of man's, 
 Yet God shall bid me not nor man enforce 
 My tongue to plead before them for my life. 
 I had rather end as kings before me, die 
 Rather by shot or stroke of murderous hands, 
 Than so make answer once in face of man 
 As one brought forth to judgment. Are they mad, 
 And she most mad for envious heart of all, 
 To make so mean account of me ? Methought, 
 When late we came back hither soiled and spent 
 And sick with travel, I had seen their worst of wrong 
 Full-faced, with its most outrage : when I found 
 My servant Curie's young new-delivered wife 
 Without priest's comfort and her babe unblessed 
 A nameless piteous thing born ere its time. 
 And took it from the mother's arms abed 
 And bade her have good comfort, since myself 
 Would take all charge against her husband laid 
 On mine own head to answer ; deeming not 
 Man ever durst bid answer for myself 
 On charge as mortal : and mine almoner gone, 
 Did I not crave of Paulet for a grace 
 His chaplain might baptize me this poor babe, 
 And was denied it, and with mine own hands 
 For shame and charity moved to christen her 
 
 G 
 
82 . MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 There with scant ritual in his heretic sight 
 
 By mine own woful name, whence God, I pray. 
 
 For her take off its presage ? I misdeemed, 
 
 Who deemed all these and yet far more than these 
 
 For one born queen indignities enough, 
 
 On one crowned head enough of buffets : more 
 
 Hath time's hand laid upon me : yet I keep 
 
 Faith in one word I spake to Paulet, saying 
 
 Two things were mine though I stood spoiled of all 
 
 As of my letters and my privy coin 
 
 By pickpurse hands of office : these things yet 
 
 Might none take thievish hold upon to strip 
 
 His prisoner naked of her natural dower, 
 
 The blood yet royal running here unspilled 
 
 And that religion which I think to keep 
 
 Fast as this royal blood until I die. 
 
 So where at last and howsoe'er I fare 
 
 I need not much take thought, nor thou for love 
 
 Take of thy mistress pity ; yet meseems 
 
 They dare not work their open will on me : 
 
 But God's it is that shall be done, and I 
 
 Find end of all in quiet. I would sleep 
 
 On this strange news of thine, that being awake 
 
 I may the freshlier front my sense thereof 
 
 And thought of life or death. Come in with me. 
 
SCENE III. MAJ^V STUART. 83 
 
 Scene III. Tyburn. 
 A Crowd of Citizens. 
 
 \st Citizen. Is not their hour yet on ? Men say the 
 queen 
 Bade spare no jot of torment in their end 
 That law might lay upon them. 
 
 2nd Citizen. Truth it is, 
 
 To spare what scourge soe'er man's justice may 
 Twist for such caitiff traitors were to grieve 
 God's with mere inobservance. Hear you not 
 How yet the loud lewd braggarts of their side 
 Keep heart to threaten that for all this foil 
 They are not foiled indeed, but yet the work 
 Shall prosper with deliverance of their queen 
 And death for her of ours, though they should give 
 Of their own lives for one an hundredfold ? 
 
 2^rd Citizen. These are bold mouths j one that shall 
 die to-day, 
 Being this last week arraigned at Westminster, 
 Had no such heart, they say, to his defence. 
 Who was the main head of their treasons. 
 
 \st Citizen. Ay, 
 
 And yesterday, if truth belie not him. 
 Durst with his doomed hand write some word of 
 
 prayer 
 To the queen's self, her very grace, to crave 
 Grace of her for his gracelessness, that she 
 
 G2 
 
84 MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 Might work on one too tainted to deserve 
 
 A miracle of compassion, whence her fame 
 
 For pity of sins too great for pity of man 
 
 Might shine more glorious than his crime showed foul 
 
 In the eye of such a mercy. 
 
 2nd Citizen. Yet men said 
 
 He spake at his arraignment soberly 
 With clear mild looks and gracious gesture, showing 
 The purport of his treasons in such wise 
 That it seemed pity of him to hear them, how 
 All their beginnings and proceedings had 
 First head and fountain only for their spring 
 From ill persuasions of that poisonous priest 
 Who stood the guiltiest near, by this man's side 
 Approved a valiant villain. Barnwell next, 
 Who came but late from Ireland here to court. 
 Made simply protestation of design 
 To work no personal ill against the queen 
 Nor paint rebellion's face as murder's red 
 With blood imperial : Tichborne then avowed 
 He knew the secret of their aim, and kept, 
 And held forsooth himself no traitor ; yet 
 In the end would even plead guilty, Donne with him. 
 And Salisbury, who not less professed he still 
 Stood out against the killing of the queen, 
 And would not hurt her for a kingdom : so. 
 When thus all these had pleaded, one by one 
 Was each man bid say fairly, for his part. 
 Why sentence should not pass : and Ballard first, 
 Who had been so sorely racked he might not stand. 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 85 
 
 Spake, but as seems to none effect : of whom 
 
 Said Babington again, he set them on, 
 
 He first, and most of all him, who believed 
 
 This priest had power to assoil his soul alive 
 
 Of all else mortal treason : Ballard then. 
 
 As in sad scorn — Yea^ Master Babington^ 
 
 Quoth he, lay all upon me^ but I wish 
 
 For you the shedding of my blood might be 
 
 The saving of your life : howbeit^ for that^ 
 
 Say what you will ; and I will say no more. 
 
 Nor spake the swordsman Savage aught again. 
 
 Who, first arraigned, had first avowed his cause 
 
 Guilty : nor yet spake Tichborne aught : but Donne 
 
 Spake, and the same said Barnwell, each had sinned 
 
 For very conscience only : Salisbury last 
 
 Besought the queen remission of his guilt 
 
 Then spake Sir Christopher Hatton for the rest 
 
 That sat with him commissioners, and showed 
 
 How by dark doctrine of the seminaries 
 
 And instance most of Ballard had been brought 
 
 To extreme destruction here of body and soul 
 
 A sort of brave youths otherwise endowed 
 
 With goodly gifts of birthright : and in fine 
 
 There was the sentence given that here even now 
 
 Shows seven for dead men in our present sight 
 
 And shall bring six to-morrow forth to die. 
 
 Enter Babington, Ballard {carried in a chair), 
 Tichborne, Savage, Barnwell, Tilney, and 
 Abington, guarded: Sheriffs Executioner, Chap- 
 lain, ore. 
 
86 MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 ist Citizen. What, will they speak ? 
 
 2nd Citizen. Ay ; each hath leave in turn 
 
 To show what mood he dies in toward his cause. 
 
 Ballard. Sirs, ye that stand to see us take our 
 doom, 
 I being here given this grace to speak to you 
 Have but my word to witness for my soul, 
 That all I have done and all designed to do 
 Was only for advancement of true faith 
 To furtherance of religion : for myself 
 Aught would I never, but for Christ's dear church 
 Was mine intent all wholly, to redeem 
 Her sore affliction in this age and land, 
 As now may not be yet : which knowing for truth, 
 I am readier even at heart to die than live. 
 And dying I crave of all men pardon whom 
 My doings at all have touched, or who thereat 
 Take scandal ; and forgiveness of the queen 
 If on this cause I have offended her. 
 
 Savage. The like say I, that have no skill in speech. 
 But heart enough with faith at heart to die, 
 •Seeing but for conscience and the common good, 
 And no preferment but this general weal, 
 I did attempt this business. 
 
 Barnwell. I confess 
 
 That I, whose see<i was of that hallowed earth 
 Whereof each pore hath sweated blood for Christ, 
 Had note of these men's drifts, which I deny 
 That ever I consented with or could 
 In conscience hold for lawful. That I came 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 87 
 
 To spy for them occasions in the court 
 
 And there being noted of her majesty 
 
 She seeing mine eyes peer sharply like a man's 
 
 That had such purpose as she wist before 
 
 Prayed God that all were well — if this were urged, 
 
 I might make answer, it was not unknown 
 
 To divers of the council that I there 
 
 Had matters to solicit of mine own^ 
 
 Which thither drew me then : yet I confess 
 
 That Babington, espying me thence returned. 
 
 Asked me what news : to whom again I told. 
 
 Her majesty had been abroad that day. 
 
 With all the circumstance I saw there. Now 
 
 If I have done her majesty offence 
 
 I crave her pardon : and assuredly 
 
 If this my body's sacrifice might yet 
 
 Establish her in true religion, here 
 
 Most willingly should this be offered up. 
 
 Tilney. I came not here to reason of my faith, 
 But to die simply like a Catholic, praying 
 Christ give our queen Elizabeth long life, 
 And warning all youth born take heed by me. 
 
 Abington, I likewise,. and if aught I have erred in 
 aught 
 I crave but pardon as for ignorant sin, 
 Holding at all points firm the Catholic faith; 
 And all things charged against me I confess. 
 Save that I ever sought her highness' death: 
 In whose poor kingdom yet, ere long L fear. 
 Will be great bloodshed. 
 
8S MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 Sheriff. Seest thou, Abington, 
 
 Here all these people present of thy kind 
 Whose blood shall be demanded at thy hands 
 If dying thou hide what might endanger them ? 
 Speak therefore, why or by what mortal mean 
 Should there be shed such blood ? 
 
 Abington. All that I know 
 
 You have on record : take but this for sure. 
 This country lives for its iniquity 
 Loathed of all countries, and God loves it not. 
 Whereon I pray you trouble me no more 
 With questions of this world, but let me pray 
 And in mine own wise make my peace with God. 
 
 Babington. For me, first head of all this enterprise, 
 I needs must make this record of myself, 
 I have not conspired for profit, but in trust 
 Of men's persuasions whence I stood assured 
 This work was lawful which I should have done 
 And meritorious as toward God ; for which 
 No less I crave forgiveness of my queen 
 And that my brother may possess my lands 
 In heritage else forfeit with my head. 
 
 Tichborne. Good countrymen and my dear friends, 
 you look 
 For something to be said of me, that am 
 But an ill orator ; and my text is worse. 
 Vain were it to make full discourse of all 
 This cause that brings me hither, which before 
 Was all made bare, and is well known to most 
 That have their eyes upon me : let me stand 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 89 
 
 For all young men, and most for those born high, 
 
 Their present warning here : a friend I had, 
 
 Ay, and a dear friend, one of whom I made 
 
 No small account, whose friendship for pure love 
 
 To this hath brought me : I may not deny 
 
 He told me all the matter, how set down. 
 
 And ready to be wrought ; which always I 
 
 Held impious, and denied to deal therein : 
 
 But only for my friend's regard was I 
 
 Silent, and verified a saying in me. 
 
 Who so consented to him. Ere this thing chanced, 
 
 How brotherly we twain lived heart in heart 
 
 Together, in what flourishing estate. 
 
 This town well knows : of whom went all report 
 
 Through her loud length of Fleetstreet and the Strand 
 
 And all parts else that sound men's fortunate names. 
 
 But Babington and Tichborne ? that therein 
 
 There was no haughtiest threshold found of force 
 
 To brave our entry ; thus we lived our life. 
 
 And wanted nothing we might wish for : then. 
 
 For me, what less was in my head, God knows. 
 
 Than high state matters ? Give me now but leave 
 
 Scarce to declare the miseries I sustained 
 
 Since I took knowledge of this action, whence 
 
 To his estate I well may liken mine. 
 
 Who could forbear not one forbidden thing 
 
 To enjoy all else afforded of the world : 
 
 The terror of my conscience hung on me ; 
 
 Who, taking heed what perils girt me, went 
 
 To Sir John Peters hence in Essex, there 
 
90 MARY STUART. act ii. 
 
 Appointing that my horses by his mean 
 
 Should meet me here in London, whence I thought 
 
 To flee into the country : but being here 
 
 I heard how all was now bewrayed abroad : 
 
 Whence Adam-like we fled into the woods 
 
 And there were taken. My dear countrymen, 
 
 Albeit my sorrows well may be your joy. 
 
 Yet mix your smiles with tears : pity my case. 
 
 Who, born out of an house whose name descends 
 
 Even from two hundred years ere English earth 
 
 Felt Norman heel upon her, were it yet 
 
 Till this mishap of mine unspotted. Sirs, 
 
 I have a wife, and one sweet child : my wife. 
 
 My dear wife Agnes : and my grief is there ; 
 
 And for six sisters too left on my hand : 
 
 All my poor servants were dispersed, I know. 
 
 Upon their master's capture : all which things 
 
 Most heartily I sorrow for : and though 
 
 Nought might I less have merited at her hands. 
 
 Yet had I looked for pardon of my fault 
 
 From the queen's absolute grace and clemency ; 
 
 That the unexpired remainder of my years 
 
 Might in some sort have haply recompensed 
 
 This former guilt of mine whereof I die : 
 
 But seeing such fault may find not such release 
 
 Even of her utter mercies, heartily 
 
 I crave at least of her and all the world 
 
 Forgiveness^ and to God commend my soul. 
 
 And to men's memory this my penitence 
 
 Till our death's record die from out the land. 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 91 
 
 1st Citizen. God pardon him ! Stand back : what 
 ail these knaves 
 To drive and thrust upon us ? Help me, sir ; 
 I thank you : hence we take them full in view : 
 Hath yet the hangman there his knife in hand? 
 
 END OF THE SECOND ACT. 
 
ACT III. 
 
 BURGHLEY. 
 
ACT III. 
 
 Scene I. The presence-chainber in Fotheringay Castle. 
 At the upper end, a chair of state as for Queen 
 Elizabeth ; opposite, in the ctntre of the hall, 
 a chair for Mary Stuart. The Commissioners 
 seated on either side along the wall : to the right, 
 the Earls, with Lord Chancellor Bromley and 
 Lord Treasurer Burgh ley ; to the left, the 
 Barons, with the Knights of the Privy Council, 
 among them Walsingham and Paulet ; Popham, 
 Egerton, and Gawdy, as Counsel for the Crown. 
 Enter Mary Stuart, supported by Sir Andrew 
 Melville, and takes her place. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Here are full many men of counsel 
 met ; 
 Not one for me. \The Chancellor rises. 
 
 Bromley. Madam, this court is held 
 
 To make strait inquisition as by law 
 Of what with grief of heart our queen has heard, 
 A plot upon her life, against the faith 
 Here in her kingdom stablished : on which cause 
 Our charge it is to exact your answer here 
 And put to proof your guilt or innocence. 
 
96 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 Mary Stuart {rising). Sirs, whom by strange 
 constraint I stand before, 
 My lords, and not my judges, since no law 
 Can hold to mortal judgment answerable 
 A princess free-born of all courts on earth, 
 I rise not here to make response as one 
 Responsible toward any for my life 
 Or of mine acts accountable to man. 
 Who see none higher save only God in heaven : 
 I am no natural subject of your land 
 That I should here plead as a criminal charged, 
 Nor in such wise appear I now : I came 
 On your queen's faith to seek in England help 
 By trothplight pledged me : where by promise-breach 
 I am even since then her prisoner held in ward : 
 Yet, understanding by report of you 
 Some certain things I know not of to be 
 Against me brought on record, by my will 
 I stand content to hear and answer these. 
 
 Bromley. Madam, there lives none born on earth 
 so high 
 Who for this land's laws' breach within this land 
 Shall not stand answerable before those laws. 
 
 Burghley. Let there be record of the prisoner's 
 plea 
 And answer given such protest here set down, 
 And so proceed we to this present charge. 
 
 Gawdy. My lords, to unfold by length of circum- 
 stance 
 The model of this whole conspiracy 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 97 
 
 Should lay the pattern of all treasons bare 
 That ever brought high state in danger : this 
 No man there lives among us but hath heard, 
 How certain men of our queen's household folk 
 Being wrought on by persuasion of their priests 
 Drew late a bond between them, binding these 
 With others of their faith accomplices 
 Directed first of Anthony Babington 
 By mean of six for execution chosen 
 To slay the queen their mistress, and thereon 
 Make all her trustiest men of trust away ; 
 As my lord treasurer Burghley present here, 
 Lord Hunsdon, and Sir Francis Walsingham, 
 And one that held in charge awhile agone 
 This lady now on trial. Sir Francis Knowles. 
 That she was hereto privy, to her power 
 Approving and abetting their device, 
 It shall not stand us in much need to show 
 Whose proofs are manifoldly manifest 
 On record written of their hands and hers. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Of all this I know nothing : Babing 
 ton 
 I have used for mine intelligencer, sent 
 With letters charged at need, but never yet 
 Spake with him, never writ him word of mine 
 As privy to these close conspiracies 
 Nor word of his had from him. Never came 
 One harmful thought upon me toward your queen, 
 Nor knowledge ever that of other hearts 
 W^as harm designed against her. Proofs, ye say, 
 
^8 MAJ^y STUART. act hi. 
 
 Forsooth ye hold to impeach me : I desire 
 But only to behold and handle them 
 If they in sooth of sense be tangible 
 More than mere air and shadow. 
 
 Burghley. Let the clerk 
 
 Produce those letters writ from Babington. 
 
 Mary Stuart What then? it may be such were 
 writ of him : 
 Be it proved that they came ever in my hands. 
 If Babington affirm so much, I say 
 He, or who else will say it, lies openly. 
 
 Gawdy. Here is the man's confession writ, and 
 here 
 Ballard's the Jesuit, and the soldier's here. 
 Savage, that served with Parma. 
 
 Mary Stuart. What of these ? 
 
 Traitors they were, and traitor-like they lied. 
 
 Gawdy. And here the last her letter of response 
 Confirming and approving in each point 
 Their purpose, writ direct to Babington. 
 
 Mary Stuart. My letter ? none of mine it is : per- 
 chance 
 It may be in my cipher charactered. 
 But never came from or my tongue or hand : 
 I have sought mine own deliverance, and thereto 
 Solicited of my friends their natural help : 
 Yet certain whom I list not name there were, 
 Whose offers made of help to set me free 
 Receiving, yet I answered not a word. 
 Howbeit, desiring to divert the storm 
 
SCENE I. MAEY STUART. 99 
 
 Of persecution from the church, for this 
 
 To your queen's grace I have made most earnest suit : 
 
 But for mine own part I would purchase not 
 
 This kingdom with the meanest one man's death 
 
 In all its commonalty, much less the queen's. 
 
 Many there be have dangerously designed 
 
 Things that I knew not : yea, but very late 
 
 There came a letter to my hand which craved 
 
 My pardon if by enterprise of some 
 
 Were undertaken aught unknown of me : 
 
 A cipher lightly may one counterfeit, 
 
 As he that vaunted him of late in France 
 
 To be my son's base brother : and I fear 
 
 Lest this, for aught mine ignorance of it knows. 
 
 May be that secretary's fair handiwork 
 
 Who sits to judge me, and hath practised late, 
 
 I hear, against my son's life and mine own. 
 
 But I protest I have not so much as thought 
 
 Nor dreamed upon destruction of the queen : 
 
 I had rather spend most gladly mine own life 
 
 Than for my sake the Catholics should be thus 
 
 Afflicted only in very hate of me 
 
 And drawn to death so cruel as these tears 
 
 Gush newly forth to think of. 
 
 Burghley. • Here no man 
 
 Who hath showed himself true subject to the state 
 Was ever for religion done to death : 
 But some for treason, that against the queen 
 Upheld the pope's bull and authority. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 MAJ^V STUART. act hi. 
 
 Mary Siuart. Yet have I heard it otherwise affirmed 
 And read in books set forth in print as much. 
 
 Burghley. They that so write say too the queen 
 hath here 
 Made forfeit of her royal dignity. 
 
 Walsingham. Here I call God to record on my part 
 That personally or as a private man 
 I have done nought misbeseeming honesty, 
 Nor as I bear a public person's place 
 Done aught thereof unworthy. I confess 
 That, being right careful of the queen's estate 
 And safety of this realm, I have curiously 
 Searched out the practices against it : nay, 
 Herein had Ballard offered me his help, 
 I durst not have denied him ; yea, I would 
 Have recompensed the pains he had taken. Say 
 I have practised aught with him, why did he not, 
 To save his life, reveal it ? 
 
 Mary Stuart. Pray you, sir. 
 
 Take no displeasure at me : truth it is 
 Report has found me of your dealings, blown 
 From lip to ear abroad, wherein myself 
 I put no credit : and could but desire 
 Yourself would all as little make account 
 Of slanders flung on me. Spies, sure, are men 
 Of doubtful credit, which dissemble things 
 Far other than they speak. Do not believe 
 That I gave ever or could give consent 
 Once to the queen's destruction : I would never, 
 These tears are bitter witness, never would 
 
SCENE I. 
 
 MARY STUART. loi 
 
 Make shipwreck of my soul by compassing 
 Destruction of my dearest sister. 
 
 Gawdy, This 
 
 Shall soon by witness be disproved : as here 
 Even by this letter from Charles Paget's hand 
 Transcribed, which Curie your secretary hath borne 
 Plain witness you received, touching a league 
 Betwixt Mendoza and Ballard, who conferred 
 Of this land's foreordained invasion, thence 
 To give you freedom. 
 
 Mary Stuart What of this ? ye shoot 
 
 Wide of the purpose : this approves not me 
 Consenting to the queen's destruction. 
 
 Gawdy. That 
 
 Stands proven enough by word of Babington 
 Who dying avowed it, and by letters passed 
 From him to you, whom he therein acclaims 
 As his most dread and sovereign lady and queen, 
 And by the way makes mention passingly 
 Of a plot laid by transference to convey 
 This kingdom to the Spaniard. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I confess 
 
 There came a priest unto me, saying if I 
 Would not herein bear part I with my son 
 Alike should be debarred the inheritance : 
 His name ye shall not have of me : but this 
 Ye know, that openly the Spaniard lays 
 Claim to your kingdom, and to none will give 
 Place ever save to me. 
 
 Burghley. Still stands the charge 
 
102 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 On written witness of your secretaries 
 Great on all points against you. 
 
 Mary Stuart Wherefore then 
 
 Are not these writers with these writings brought 
 To outface me front to front ? For Gilbert Curie, 
 He is in the Frenchman's hands a waxen toy, 
 Whom the other, once mine uncle's secretary, 
 The cardinal's of Lorraine, at his mere will 
 Moulds, turns, and tempers : being himself a knave 
 That may be hired or scared with peril or coin 
 To swear what thing men bid him. Truth again 
 Is this that I deny not, seeing myself 
 Against all right held fast in English ward, 
 I have sought all help where I might hope to find : 
 Which thing that I dispute not, let this be 
 The sign that I disclaim no jot of truth 
 In all objected to me. For the rest, 
 All majesty that moves in all the world 
 And all safe station of all princes born 
 Fall, as things unrespected, to the ground. 
 If on the testimony of secretaries 
 And on their writings merely these depend, 
 Being to their likeness thence debased : for me. 
 Nought I delivered to them but what first 
 Nature to me delivered, that I might 
 Recover yet at length my liberty. 
 I am not to be convicted save alone 
 By mine own word or writing. If these men 
 Have written toward the queen my sister's hurt 
 Aught, I wist nought of all such writ at all : 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 103 
 
 Let them be put to punishment : I am sure, 
 Were these here present, they by testimony 
 Would bring me clear of blame. 
 
 Gawdy. Yet by their mean 
 
 They could not in excuse of you deny 
 That letters of communion to and fro 
 Have passed between you and the Spaniard, whence 
 What should have come on England and the queen 
 These both well know, and with what messages 
 Were English exiles entertained of you 
 By mean of these men, of your secretaries, 
 Confirmed and cherished in conspiracy 
 For this her kingdom's overthrow : in France 
 Paget and Morgan, traitors in design 
 Of one close mind with you, and in your name 
 Cheered hence for constant service. 
 
 Mary Stuart. That I sought 
 
 Comfort and furtherance of all Catholic states 
 By what mean found soever just and good. 
 Your mistress from myself had note long since 
 And open warning : uncompelled I made 
 Avowal of such my righteous purpose, nor 
 In aught may disavow it. Of these late plots 
 No proof is here to attaint mine innocence. 
 Who dare all proof against me : Babington 
 I know not of, nor Ballard, nor their works, 
 But kings my kinsmen, powers that serve the church, 
 These I confess my comforters, in hope 
 Held fast of their alliance. Yet again 
 I challenge in the witness of my words 
 
I04 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 The notes writ of these letters here alleged 
 
 In mine own hand : if these ye bring not forth, 
 
 Judge all good men if I be not condemned 
 
 In all your hearts already, who perchance 
 
 For all this pageant held of lawless law 
 
 Have bound yourselves by pledge to speak me dead ; 
 
 But I would have you look into your souls, 
 
 Remembering how the theatre of the world 
 
 Is wider, in whose eye ye are judged that judge, 
 
 Than this one realm of England. 
 
 Burghley. Toward that realm 
 
 Suffice it here that, madam, you stand charged 
 With deadly purpose : being of proven intent 
 To have your son conveyed to Spain, and give 
 The title you pretend upon our crown 
 Up with his wardship to King Philip. 
 
 Mary Stuart, Nay, 
 
 I have no kingdom left to assign, nor crown 
 Whereof to make conveyance : yet is this 
 But lawful, that of all things which are mine 
 I may dispose at pleasure, and to none 
 Stand on such count accountable. 
 
 Burghley. So be it 
 
 So far as may be : but your ciphers sent 
 By Curie's plain testimony to Babington, 
 To the lord Lodovic, and to Fernihurst, 
 Once provost on your part in Edinburgh 
 By mean of Grange your friend his father-in-law, 
 Speak not but as with tongue imperial, nor 
 Of import less than kingdoms. 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^y STUART. 105 
 
 Mary Stuart. Surely, sir, 
 
 Such have I writ, and many ; nor therein 
 Beyond my birth have trespassed, to commend 
 That lord you speak of, and another, both 
 My friends in faith, to a cardinal's dignity, 
 And that, I trust, without offence : except 
 It be not held as lawful on my part 
 To commune with the chiefest of my creed 
 By written word on matters of mine own 
 As for your queen with churchfolk of her kind. 
 
 Burghley. Well were it, madam, that with some of 
 yours 
 You had held less close communion : since by 
 
 proof 
 Reiterated from those your secretaries 
 It seems you know right well that Morgan, who 
 Sent Parry privily to despatch the queen, 
 And have assigned him annual pension. 
 
 Mary Stuart. This 
 
 I know not, whether or no your charge be truth, 
 But I do know this Morgan hath lost all 
 For my sake, and in honour sure I am 
 That rather to relieve him I stand bound 
 Than to revenge an injury done your queen 
 By one that lives my friend, and hath deserved 
 Well at mine hands : yet, being not bound to this, 
 I did affright the man from such attempts 
 Of crimes against her, who contrariwise 
 Hath out of England openly assigned 
 Pensions to Gray my traitor, and the Scots 
 
io6 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 Mine adversaries, as also to my son, 
 To hire him to forsake me. 
 
 Burghley. Nay, but seeing 
 
 By negligence of them that steered the state 
 The revenues of Scotland sore impaired 
 Somewhat in bounty did her grace bestow 
 Upon your son the king, her kinsman : whom 
 She would not, being to her so near of blood, 
 Forget from charity. No such help it was 
 Nor no such honest service that your friends 
 Designed you, who by letters hither writ 
 To Paget and Mendoza sent as here 
 Large proffers of strange aid from oversea 
 To right you by her ruin. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Here was nought 
 
 Aimed for your queen's destruction : nor is this 
 Against me to be charged, that foreign friends 
 Should labour for my liberty. Thus much 
 At sundry times I have signified aloud 
 By open message to her, that I would still 
 Seek mine own freedom. Who shall bar me this? 
 Who tax me with unreason, that I sent 
 Unjust conditions on my part to be 
 To her propounded, which now many times 
 Have alway found rejection? yea, when even 
 For hostages I proffered in my stead 
 To be dehvered up with mine own son 
 The duke of Guise's, both to stand in pledge 
 That nor your queen nor kingdom should through 
 me 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 107 
 
 Take aught of damage ; so that hence by proof 
 I see myself utterly from all hope 
 Already barred of freedom. But I now 
 Am dealt with most unworthily, whose fame 
 And honourable repute are called in doubt 
 Before such foreign men of law as may 
 By miserable conclusions of their craft 
 Draw every thin and shallow circumstance 
 Out into compass of a consequence : 
 Whereas the anointed heads and consecrate 
 Of princes are not subject to such laws 
 As private men are. Next, whereas ye are given 
 Authority but to look such matters through 
 As tend to the hurt of your queen's person, yet 
 Here is the cause so handled, and so far 
 Here are my letters wrested, that the faith 
 Which I profess, the immunity and state 
 Of foreign princes, and their private right 
 Of mutual speech by word reciprocate 
 From royal hand to royal, all in one 
 Are called in question, and myself by force 
 Brought down beneath my kingly dignity 
 And made to appear before a judgment-seat 
 As one held guilty ; to none end but this, 
 All to none other purpose but that I 
 Might from all natural favour of the queen 
 Be quite excluded, and my right cut off 
 From claim hereditary : whereas I stand 
 Here of mine own goodwill to clear myself 
 Of all objected to me, lest I seem 
 
io8 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 To have aught neglected in the full defence 
 Of mine own innocency and honour. This 
 Would T bring likewise in your minds, how once 
 This queen herself of yours, Elizabeth, 
 Was drawn in question of conspiracy 
 That Wyatt raised against her sister, yet 
 Ye know she was most innocent For me. 
 With very heart's religion I affirm. 
 Though I desire the Catholics here might stand 
 Assured of safety, this I would not yet 
 Buy with the blood and death of any one. 
 And on mine own part rather would I play 
 Esther than Judith ; for the people's sake 
 To God make intercession, than deprive 
 The meanest of the people born of life. 
 Mine enemies have made broad report aloud 
 That I was irreligious : yet the time 
 Has been I would have learnt the faith ye hold, 
 But none would suffer me, for all I sought, 
 To find such teaching at your teachers' hands ; 
 As though they cared not what my soul became. 
 And now at last, when all ye can ye have done 
 Against me, and have barred me from my right, 
 Ye may chance fail yet of your cause and hope. 
 To God and to the princes of my kin 
 I make again appeal, from you again 
 Record my protestation, and reject 
 All judgment of your court : I had rather die 
 Thus undishonoured, even a thousand deaths, 
 Than so bring down the height of majesty ; 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^y STUART. 109 
 
 Yea, and thereby confess myself as bound 
 
 By all the laws of England, even in faith 
 
 Of things religious, who could never learn 
 
 What manner of laws these were : I am destitute 
 
 Of counsellors, and who shall be my peers 
 
 To judge my cause through and give doom thereon 
 
 I am ignorant wholly, being an absolute queen. 
 
 And will do nought which may impair that state 
 
 In me nor other princes, nor my son ; 
 
 Since yet my mind is not dejected, nor 
 
 Will I sink under my calamity. 
 
 My notes are taken from me, and no man 
 
 Dares but step forth to be my advocate. 
 
 I am clear from all crime done against the queen, 
 
 I have stirred not up one man against her : yet, 
 
 Albeit of many dangers overpast 
 
 I have thoroughly forewarned her, still I found 
 
 No credit, but have always been contemned, 
 
 Though nearest to her in blood allied. When late 
 
 Ye made association, and thereon 
 
 An act against their lives on whose behalf, 
 
 Though innocent even as ignorance of it, aught 
 
 Might be contrived to endangering of the queen 
 
 From foreign force abroad, or privy plots 
 
 At home of close rebellion, I foresaw 
 
 That, whatsoever of peril so might rise 
 
 Or more than all this for religion's sake, 
 
 My many mortal enemies in her court 
 
 Should lay upon me all the charge, and I 
 
 Bear the whole blame of all men. Certainly, 
 
no MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 I well might take it hardly, nor without 
 High cause, that such confederacy was made 
 With mine own son, and I not knowing : but this 
 I speak not of, being not so grieved thereat 
 As that mine own dear sister, that the queen, 
 Is misinformed of me, and I, now kept 
 These many years in so strait prison, and grown 
 Lame of my limbs, have lien neglected, nor 
 For all most reasonable conditions made 
 Or proffered to redeem my liberty 
 Found audience or acceptance : and at last 
 Here am I set with none to plead for me. 
 But this I pray, that on this matter of mine 
 Another meeting there be kept, and I 
 Be granted on my part an advocate 
 To hold my cause up ; or that seeing ye know 
 I am a princess, I may. be believed 
 By mine own word, being princely : for should I 
 Stand to your judgment, who most plainly I see 
 Are armed against me strong in prejudice. 
 It were mine extreme folly : more than this. 
 That ever I came to England in such trust 
 As of the plighted friendship of your queen 
 And comfort of her promise. Look, my lords, 
 Here on this ring : her pledge of love was this 
 And surety sent me when I lay in bonds 
 Of mine own rebels once : regard it well : 
 In trust of this I came amongst you : none 
 But sees what faith I have found to keep this trust. 
 Burghley. Whereas I bear a double person, being 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. ui 
 
 Commissioner first, then counsellor in this cause, 
 
 From me as from the queen's commissioner here 
 
 Receive a few words first. Your protest made 
 
 Is now on record, and a transcript of it 
 
 Shall be delivered you. To us is given 
 
 Under the queen's hand our authority, whence 
 
 Is no appeal, this grant being ratified 
 
 With the great seal of England ; nor are we 
 
 With prejudice come hither, but to judge 
 
 By the straight rule of justice. On their part. 
 
 These the queen's learned counsel here in place 
 
 Do level at nothing else but that the truth 
 
 May come to light, how far you have made offence 
 
 Against the person of the queen. To us 
 
 Full power is given to hear and diligently 
 
 Examine all the matter, though yourself 
 
 Were absent : yet for this did we desire 
 
 To have your presence here, lest we might seem 
 
 To have derogated from your honour : nor 
 
 Designed to object against you anything 
 
 But what you knew of, or took part therein. 
 
 Against the queen's life bent. For this were these 
 
 Your letters brought in question, but to unfold 
 
 Your aim against her person, and therewith 
 
 All matters to it belonging ; which perforce 
 
 Are so with other matters interlaced 
 
 As none may sever them. Hence was there need 
 
 Set all these forth, not parcels here and there, 
 
 Whose circumstances do the assurance give 
 
 Upon what points you dealt with Babington. 
 
112 MAJ^V STUART. act hi. 
 
 Mary Stuart. The circumstances haply may find 
 proof, 
 But the fact never. Mine integrity 
 Nor on the memory nor the credit hangs 
 Of these my secretaries, albeit I know 
 They are men of honest hearts : yet if they have 
 Confessed in fear of torture anything 
 Or hope of guerdon and impunity, 
 It may not be admitted, for just cause, 
 Which I will otherwhere allege. Men's minds 
 Are with affections diversly distraught 
 And borne about of passion : nor would these 
 Have ever avowed such things against me, save 
 For their own hope and profit. Letters may 
 Toward other hands be outwardly addressed 
 Than they were writ for : yea, and many times 
 Have many things been privily slipped in mine 
 Which from my tongue came never. Were I not 
 Reft of my papers, and my secretary 
 Kept from me, better might I then confute 
 These things cast up against me. 
 
 Burghley. But there shall 
 
 Be nothing brought against you save what last 
 Stands charged, even since the nineteenth day of June : 
 Nor would your papers here avail you, seeing 
 Your secretaries, and Babington himself. 
 Being of the rack unquestioned, have affirmed 
 You sent those letters to him ; which though yourself 
 Deny, yet whether more belief should here 
 On affirmation or negation hang 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 113 
 
 Let the commissioners judge. But, to come back, 
 
 This next I tell you as a counsellor, 
 
 Time after time you have put forth many things 
 
 Propounded for your freedom ; that all these 
 
 Have fallen all profitless, 'tis long of you. 
 
 And of the Scots ; in no wise of the queen. 
 
 For first the lords of Scotland, being required, 
 
 Flatly refused, to render up the king 
 
 In hostage : and when treaty last was held 
 
 Upon your freedom, then was Parry sent 
 
 By your dependant Morgan privily 
 
 To make the queen away by murder. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ah ! 
 
 You are my adversary. 
 
 Burghley. Yea, surely I am 
 
 To the queen's adversaries an adversary. 
 But now hereof enough : let us proceed 
 Henceforth to proofs. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I will not hear them. 
 
 Burghley. Yet 
 
 Hear them will we. 
 
 Mary Stuart. And in another place 
 
 I too will hear them, and defend myself 
 
 Gawdy. First let your letters to Charles Paget speak, 
 Wherein you show him there is none other way 
 For Spain to bring the Netherlands again 
 To the old obedience, but by setting up 
 A prince in England that might help his cause : 
 Then to Lord Paget, to bring hastilier 
 His forces up for help to invade this land : 
 
 I 
 
114 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 And Cardinal Allen's letter, hailing you 
 His most dread sovereign lady, and signifying 
 The matter to the prince of Parma's care 
 To be commended. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I am so sore beset 
 
 I know not how by point and circumstance 
 To meet your manifold impeachments : this 
 I see through all this charge for evil truth, 
 That Babington and my two secretaries 
 Have even to excuse themselves accused me : yet, 
 As touching that conspiracy, this I say, 
 Of those six men for execution chosen 
 I never heard : and all the rest is nought 
 To this pretended purpose of your charge. 
 For Cardinal Allen, whatsoe'er he have writ, 
 I hold him for a reverend prelate, so 
 To be esteemed, no more : none save the Pope 
 Will I acknowledge for the church's head 
 And sovereign thence on thought or spirit of mine : 
 But in what rank and place I stand esteemed 
 Of him and foreign princes through the world 
 I know not : neither can I hinder them 
 By letters writ of their own hearts and hands 
 To hail me queen of England. As for those 
 Whose duty and plain allegiance sworn to me 
 Stands flawed in all men's sight, my secretaries. 
 These merit no belief They which have once 
 Forsworn themselves, albeit they swear again 
 With oaths and protestations ne'er so great, 
 Are not to be believed. Nor may these men 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 115 
 
 By what sworn oath soever hold them bound 
 
 In court of conscience, seeing they have sworn to me 
 
 Their secrecy and fidelity before, 
 
 And are no subjects of this country. Nau 
 
 Hath many times writ other than I bade, 
 
 And Curie sets down whate'er Nau bids him write 
 
 But for my part I am ready in all to bear 
 
 The burden of their fault, save what may lay 
 
 A blot upon mine honour. Haply too 
 
 These things did they confess to save themselves ; 
 
 Supposing their avowal could hurt not me. 
 
 Who, being a queen, they thought, good ignorant men. 
 
 More favourably must needs be dealt withal. 
 
 For Ballard, I ne'er heard of any such. 
 
 But of one Hallard once that proffered me 
 
 Such help as I would none of, knowing this man 
 
 Had vowed his service too to Walsingham. 
 
 Gawdy. Next, from your letters to Mendoza, writ 
 By Curie, as freely his confession shows, 
 In privy cipher, take these few brief notes 
 For perfect witness of your full design. 
 You find yourself, the Spaniard hears thereby, 
 Sore troubled what best course to take anew 
 For your affairs this side the sea, whereon 
 Charles Paget hath a charge to impart from you 
 Some certain overtures to Spain and him 
 In your behalf, whom you desire with prayer 
 Show freely what he thinks may be obtained 
 Thus from the king his master. One point more 
 Have you reserved thereon depending, which 
 I 2 
 
ii6 MARY STUART. act til 
 
 On your behalf you charge him send the king 
 
 Some secret word concerning, no man else, 
 
 If this be possible, being privy to it : 
 
 Even this, that seeing your son's great obstinacy 
 
 In heresy, and foreseeing too sure thereon 
 
 Most imminent danger and harm thence like to ensue 
 
 To the Catholic church, he coming to bear rule 
 
 Within this kingdom, you are resolved at heart 
 
 In case your son be not reduced again 
 
 To the Catholic faith before your death, whereof 
 
 Plainly you say small hope is yours so long 
 
 As he shall bide in Scotland, to give up 
 
 To that said king, and grant in absolute right, 
 
 Your claim upon succession to this crown. 
 
 By your last will made ; praying him on this cause 
 
 From that time forth wholly to take yourself 
 
 Into his keeping, and therewith the state 
 
 And charge of all this country : which, you say, 
 
 You cannot for discharge of conscience think 
 
 That you could put into a prince's hands 
 
 More zealous for your faith, and abler found 
 
 To build it strong upon this side again, 
 
 Even as through all parts else of Christendom. 
 
 But this let silence keep in secret, lest 
 
 Being known it be your dowry's loss in France, 
 
 And open breach in Scotland with your son, 
 
 And in this realm of England utterly 
 
 Your ruin and destruction. On your part 
 
 Next is he bidden thank his lord the king 
 
 For liberal grace and sovereign favour shown 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 117 
 
 Lord Paget and his brother, which you pray him 
 Most earnestly to increase, and gratify 
 Poor Morgan with some pension for your sake 
 Who hath not for your sake only endured so much 
 But for the common cause. Likewise, and last. 
 Is one he knows commended to his charge 
 With some more full supply to be sustained 
 Than the entertainment that yourself allot 
 According to the little means you have. 
 
 Burghley. Hereon stands proof apparent of that 
 charge 
 Which you but now put by, that you design 
 To give your right supposed upon this realm 
 Into the Spaniard's hold ; and on that cause 
 Lie now at Rome Allen and Parsons, men 
 Your servants and our traitors. 
 
 Mary Stuart. No such proof 
 
 Lives but by witness of revolted men, 
 My traitors and your helpers-; who to me 
 Have broken their allegiance bound by oath. 
 When being a prisoner clothed about with cares 
 I languished out of hope of liberty, 
 Nor yet saw hope to eifect of those things aught 
 Which many and many looked for at my hands, 
 Declining now through age and sickness, this 
 To some seemed good, even for religion's sake. 
 That the succession here of the English crown 
 Should or be stablished in the Spanish king 
 Or in some English Catholic. And a book 
 Was sent to me to avow the Spaniard's claim ; 
 
ii8 MARY STUART. act hi. 
 
 Which being of me allowed not, some there were 
 In whose displeasure thence I fell ; but now 
 Seeing all my hope in England desperate grown, 
 I am fully minded to reject no aid 
 Abroad, but resolute to receive it. 
 
 Walsingham. Sirs, 
 
 Bethink you, were the kingdom so conveyed, 
 What should become of you and all of yours. 
 Estates and honours and posterities. 
 Being to such hands delivered. 
 
 Burghley. Nay, but these 
 
 In no such wise can be conveyed away 
 By personal will, but by successive right 
 Still must descend in heritage of law. 
 Whereto your own words witness, saying if this 
 Were blown abroad your cause were utterly 
 Lost in all hearts of English friends. Therein 
 Your thoughts hit right : for here in all men's minds 
 That are not mad with envying at the truth 
 Death were no loathlier than a stranger king. 
 If you would any more, speak: if not aught, 
 This cause is ended. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I require again 
 
 Before a full and open parliament 
 Hearing, or speech in person with the queen, 
 Who shall, I hope, have of a queen regard, 
 And with the council. So, in trust hereof, 
 I crave a word with some of you apart. 
 And of this main assembly take farewell. 
 
 END OF THE THIRD ACT. 
 
ACT IV. 
 
 ELIZABETH 
 
ACT IV. 
 
 Scene I. Richmond. 
 
 Walsingham and Davison. 
 
 Walsingham. It is God's wrath, too sure, that holds 
 her hand ; 
 His plague upon this people, to preserve 
 By her sole mean her deadliest enemy, known 
 By proof more potent than approof of law 
 In all points guilty, but on more than all 
 Toward all this country dangerous. To take off 
 From the court held last month at Fotheringay 
 Authority with so full commission given 
 To pass upon her judgment — suddenly 
 Cut short by message of some three lines writ 
 With hurrying hand at midnight, and despatched 
 To maim its work upon the second day, 
 What else may this be in so wise a queen 
 But madness, as a brand to sear the brain 
 Of one by God infatuate ? yea, and now 
 That she receives the French ambassador 
 With one more special envoy from his king, 
 Except their message touch her spleen with fire 
 
122 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 And so undo itself, we cannot tell 
 
 What doubt may work upon her. Had we but 
 
 Some sign more evident of some private seal 
 
 Confirming toward her by more personal proof 
 
 The Scottish queen's inveteracy, for this 
 
 As for our country plucked from imminent death 
 
 We might thank God : but with such gracious words 
 
 Of piteous challenge and imperial plea 
 
 She hath wrought by letter on our mistress' mind, 
 
 We may not think her judgment so could slip, 
 
 Borne down with passion or forgetfulness, 
 
 As to leave bare her bitter root of heart 
 
 And core of evil will there labouring. 
 
 Davison. Yet 
 
 I see no shade of other surety cast 
 From any sign of likelihood. It were 
 Not shameful more than dangerous, though she bade, 
 To have her prisoner privily made away ; 
 Yet stands the queen's heart wellnigh fixed hereon 
 When aught may seem to fix it ; then as fast 
 Wavers, but veers to that bad point again 
 Whence blowing the wind blows down her honour, 
 
 nor 
 Brings surety of life with fame's destruction. 
 
 Walsingham. Ay, 
 
 We are no Catholic keepers, and his charge 
 Need fear no poison in our watch-dog's fang. 
 Though he show honest teeth at her, to threat 
 Thieves' hands with loyal danger. 
 
SCENE I. MAJ^V STUART. 123 
 
 Enter Queen Elizabeth, attended by Burghley, 
 , Leicester, Hunsdon, Hatton, and others of the 
 
 Council. 
 Elizabeth. No, my lords, 
 
 We are not so weak of wit as men that need 
 Be counselled of their enemies. Blame us not 
 That we accuse your friendship on this cause 
 Of too much fearfulness : France we will hear, 
 Nor doubt but France shall hear us all as loud 
 As friend or foe may threaten or protest. 
 Of our own heart advised, and resolute more 
 Than hearts that need men's counsel. Bid them in. 
 
 Enter Chateauneuf and Belli^vre, attended. 
 
 From our fair cousin of France what message, sirs ? 
 Bellihre. I, madam, have in special charge to lay 
 I'he king's mind open to your majesty. 
 Which gives my tongue first leave of speech more free 
 Than from a common envoy. Sure it is, 
 No man more grieves at what his heart abhors, 
 The counsels of your highness' enemies, 
 Than doth the king of France : wherein how far 
 The queen your prisoner have borne part, or may 
 Seem cf their works partaker, he can judge 
 Nought : but much less the king may understand 
 What men may stand accusers, who rise up 
 Judge in so great a matter. Men of law 
 May lay their charges on a subject : but 
 The queen of Scotland, dowager queen of France, 
 And sister made by wedlock to the king, 
 
124 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 To none being subject, can be judged of none 
 Without such violence done on rule as breaks 
 Prerogative of princes. Nor may man 
 That looks upon your present majesty 
 In such clear wise apparent, and retains 
 Remembrance of your name through all the world 
 For virtuous wisdom, bring his mind to think 
 That England's royal-souled Elizabeth, 
 Being set so high in fame, can so forget 
 Wise Plato's word, that common souls are wrought 
 Out of dull iron and slow lead, but kings 
 Of gold untempered with so vile alloy 
 As makes all metal up of meaner men. 
 But say this were not thus, and all men's awe 
 Were from all time toward kingship merely vain, 
 And state no more worth reverence, yet the plea 
 Were nought which here your ministers pretend. 
 That while the queen of Scots lives you may live 
 No day that knows not danger. Were she dead. 
 Rather might then your peril wax indeed 
 To shape and sense of heavier portent, whom 
 The Catholic states now threat not, nor your land. 
 For this queen's love, but rather for their faith's. 
 Whose cause, were she by violent hand removed, 
 Could be but furthered, and its enterprise 
 Put on more strong and prosperous pretext ; yea. 
 You shall but draw the invasion on this land 
 Whose threat you so may think to stay, and bring 
 Imminence down of inroad. Thus far forth 
 The queen of Scots hath for your person been 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 125 
 
 Even as a targe or buckler which has caught 
 
 All intercepted shafts against your state 
 
 Shot, or a stone held fast within your hand, 
 
 Which, if you cast it thence in fear or wrath 
 
 To smite your adversary, is cast away. 
 
 And no mean left therein for menace. If 
 
 You lay but hand upon her life, albeit 
 
 There were that counselled this, her death will make 
 
 Your enemies weapons of their own despair 
 
 And give their whetted wrath excuse and edge 
 
 More plausibly to strike more perilously. 
 
 Your grace is known for strong in foresight : we 
 
 These nineteen years of your wise reign have kept 
 
 Fast watch in France upon you : of those claims 
 
 Which lineally this queen here prisoner may 
 
 Put forth on your succession have you made 
 
 The stoutest rarapire of your rule : and this 
 
 Is grown a byword with us, that their cause 
 
 Who shift the base whereon their policies lean 
 
 Bows down toward ruin : and of loyal heart 
 
 This will I tell you, madam, which hath been 
 
 Given me for truth assured of one whose place 
 
 Affirms him honourable, how openly 
 
 A certain prince's minister that well 
 
 May stand in your suspicion says abroad 
 
 That for his master's greatness it were good 
 
 The queen of Scots were lost already, seeing 
 
 He is well assured the Catholics here should then 
 
 All wholly range them on his master's part. 
 
 Thus long hath reigned your highness happily, 
 
126 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Who have loved fair temperance more than violence : 
 
 now, 
 While honour bids have mercy, wisdom holds 
 Equal at least the scales of interest. Think 
 What name shall yours be found in time far hence, 
 Even as you deal with her that in your hand 
 Lies not more subject than your fame to come 
 In men's repute that shall be. Bid her live, 
 And ever shall my lord stand bound to you 
 And you for ever firm in praise of men. 
 
 Elizabeth. I am sorry, sir, you are hither come from 
 France 
 Upon no better errand. I appeal 
 To God for judge between my cause and hers 
 Whom here you stand for. In this realm of mine 
 The queen of Scots sought shelter, and therein 
 Hath never found but kindness ; for which grace 
 In recompense she hath three times sought my life. 
 No grief that on this head yet ever fell 
 Shook ever from mine eyes so many a tear 
 As this last plot upon it. I have read 
 As deep I doubt me in as many books 
 As any queen or prince in Christendom, 
 Yet never chanced on aught so strange and sad 
 As this my state's calamity. Mine own life 
 Is by mere nature precious to myself. 
 And in mine own realm I can live not safe. 
 I am a poor lone woman, girt about 
 With secret enemies that perpetually 
 Lay wait for me to kill me. From your king 
 
SCENE 
 
 MARY STUART. 127 
 
 Why have not I my traitor to my hands 
 Delivered up, who now this second time 
 Hath sought to slay me, Morgan ? On my part, 
 Had mine own cousin Hunsdon here conspired 
 Against the French king's life, he had found not so 
 Refuge of me, nor even for kindred's sake 
 From the edge of law protection : and this cause 
 Needs present evidence of this man's mouth. 
 
 Bellievre. Madam, there stand against the queen 
 of Scots 
 Already here in England on this charge 
 So many and they so dangerous witnesses 
 No need can be to bring one over more : 
 Nor can the king show such unnatural heart 
 As to send hither a knife for enemies' hands 
 To cut his sister's throat. Most earnestly 
 My lord expects your resolution : which 
 If we receive as given against his plea, 
 I must crave leave to part for Paris hence. 
 Yet give me pardon first if yet once more 
 I pray your highness be assured, and so 
 Take heed in season, you shall find this queen 
 More dangerous dead than living. Spare her life. 
 And not my lord alone but all that reign 
 Shall be your sureties in all Christian lands 
 Against all scathe of all conspiracies 
 Made on her party : while such remedies' ends 
 As physic states with bloodshedding, to cure 
 Da.nger by death, bring fresh Calamities 
 Far oftener forth than the old are healed of them 
 
12 
 
 8 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Which so men thought to medicine. To refrain 
 From that red-handed way of rule, and set 
 Justice no higher than mercy sits beside, 
 Is the first mean of kings' prosperity 
 That would reign long : nor will my lord believe 
 Your highness could put off yourself so much 
 As to reverse and tread upon the law 
 That you thus long have kept and honourably : 
 But should this perilous purpose hold right on, 
 I am bounden by my charge to say, the king 
 Will not regard as liable to your laws 
 A queen's imperial person, nor will hold 
 Her death as but the general wrong of kings 
 And no more his than as his brethren's all. 
 But as his own and special injury done, 
 More than to these injurious. 
 
 Elizabeth. Doth your lord 
 
 Bid you speak thus ? 
 
 Bellievre. Ay, madam : from his mouth 
 
 Had I command what speech to use. 
 
 Elizabeth. You have done 
 
 Better to speak than he to send it. Sir, 
 You shall not presently depart this land 
 As one denied of mere discourtesy. 
 I will return an envoy of mine own 
 To speak for me at Paris -with the king. 
 You shall bear back a letter from my hand. 
 And give your lord assurance, having seen, 
 I cannot be so frighted with men's threats 
 That they shall not much rather move my mind 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 
 
 129 
 
 To quicken than to slack the righteous doom 
 Which none must think by menace to put back, 
 Or daunt it with defiance. Sirs, good day. 
 
 [Exeunt Ajnbassadors. 
 I were as one belated with false lights 
 If I should think to steer my darkling way 
 By twilight furtherance of their wiles and words. 
 Think you, my lords, France yet would have her live ? 
 
 Burghley. If there be other than the apparent end 
 Hid in this mission to your majesty, 
 Mine envoys can by no means fathom it, 
 Who deal for me at Paris : fear of Spain 
 Lays double hand as 'twere upon the king. 
 Lest by removal of the queen of Scots 
 A way be made for peril in the claim 
 More potent then of Philip ; and if there come 
 From his Farnese note of enterprise 
 Or danger this way tending, France will yet 
 Cleave to your friendship though his sister die. 
 
 Elizabeth. So, in your mind, this half-souled brother 
 would 
 Steer any way that might keep safe his sail 
 Against a southern wind, which here, he thinks, 
 Her death might strengthen from the north again 
 To blow against him off our subject straits, 
 Made servile then and Spanish ? Yet perchance 
 There swells behind our seas a heart too high 
 To bow more easily down, and bring this land 
 More humbly to such handling, than their waves 
 Bow down to ships of strangers, or their storms 
 
 K 
 
I30 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 To breath of any lord on earth but God. 
 What thinks our cousin ? 
 
 Hunsdon. That if Spain or France 
 
 Or both be stronger than the heart in us 
 Which beats to battle ere they menace, why, 
 In God's name, let them rise and make their prey 
 Of what was England : but if neither be. 
 The smooth-cheeked French man-harlot, nor 'that 
 
 hand 
 Which holp to light Rome's fires with English limbs. 
 Let us not keep to make their weakness strong 
 A pestilence here alive in England, which 
 Gives force to their faint enmities, and burns 
 Half the heart out of loyal trust and hope 
 With heat that kindles treason. 
 
 Elizabeth. By this light, 
 
 I have heard worse counsel from a wise man's tongue 
 Than this clear note of forthright soldiership. 
 How say you, Dudley, to it ? 
 
 Leicester. Madam, ere this 
 
 You have had my mind upon the matter, writ 
 But late from Holland, that no public stroke 
 Should fall upon this princess, who may be 
 By privy death more happily removed 
 Without impeach of majesty, nor leave 
 A sign against your judgment, to call down 
 Blame of strange kings for wrong to kingship wrought 
 Though right were done to justice. 
 
 Elizabeth. Of your love 
 
 We know it is that comes this counsel : nor, 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 131 
 
 Had we such friends of all our servants, need 
 
 Our mind be now distraught with dangerous doubts 
 
 That find no screen from dangers. Yet meseems 
 
 One doubt stands now removed, if doubt there were 
 
 Of aught from Scotland ever : Walsingham, 
 
 You should have there intelligence whereof 
 
 To make these lords with us partakers. 
 
 Walsinghatn. Nay, 
 
 Madam, no more than from a trustless hand 
 Protest and promise : of those twain that come 
 Hot on these Frenchmen's heels in embassy, 
 He that in counsel on this cause was late 
 One with my lord of Leicester now, to rid 
 By draught of secret death this queen away, 
 Bears charge to say as these gone hence have said 
 In open audience, but by personal note 
 Hath given me this to know, that howsoe'er 
 His king indeed desire her life be spared 
 Much may be wrought upon him, would your grace 
 More richly line his ragged wants with gold 
 And by full utterance of your parliament 
 Approve him heir in England. 
 
 Elizabeth. Ay ! no more ? 
 
 God's blood ! what grace is proffered us at need, 
 And on what mild conditions ! Say I will not 
 Redeem such perils at so dear a price. 
 Shall not our pensioner too join hands with France 
 And pay my gold with iron barter back 
 At edge of sword he dares not look upon, 
 They tell us, for the scathe and scare he took 
 
 K 2 
 
132 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Even in this woman's womb when shot and steel 
 Undid the manhood in his veins unborn 
 And left his tongue's threats handless ? 
 
 Walsingham. Men there be, 
 
 Your majesty must think, who bear but ill, 
 For pride of country and high-heartedness, 
 To see the king they serve your servant so 
 That not his mother's life and once their queen's 
 Being at such point of peril can enforce 
 One warlike word of his for chance of war 
 Conditional against you. Word came late 
 From Edinburgh that there the citizens 
 With hoot and hiss had bayed him through the streets 
 As he went heartless by ; of whom they had heard 
 This published saying, that in his personal mind 
 The blood of kindred or affinity 
 So much not binds us as the friendship pledged 
 To them that are not of our blood : and this 
 Stands clear for certain, that no breath of war 
 Shall breathe from him against us though she die, 
 Except his titular claim be reft from him 
 On our succession : and that all his mind 
 Is but to reign unpartnered with a power 
 Which should weigh down that half his kingdom's 
 
 weight 
 Left to his hand's share nominally in hold : 
 And for his mother, this would he desire, 
 That she were kept from this day to her death 
 Close prisoner in one chamber, never more 
 To speak with man or woman : and hereon 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 133 
 
 That proclamation should be made of her 
 
 As of one subject formally declared 
 
 To the English law whereby, if she offend 
 
 Again with iterance of conspiracy, 
 
 She shall not as a queen again be tried, 
 
 But as your vassal and a private head 
 
 Live liable to the doom and stroke of death. 
 
 Elizabeth. She is bounden to him as he long since 
 to her, 
 Who would have given his kingdom up at least 
 To his dead father's slayer, in whose red hand 
 How safe had lain his life too doubt may guess. 
 Which yet kept dark her purpose then on him, 
 Dark now no more to usward. Think you then 
 That they belie him, whose suspicion saith 
 His ear and heart are yet inclined to Spain, 
 If from that brother-in-law that was of ours 
 And would have been our bridegroom he may win 
 Help of strange gold and foreign soldiership. 
 With Scottish furtherance of those Catholic lords 
 Who are stronger-spirited in their faith than ours, 
 Being harried more of heretics, as they say, 
 Than these within our borders, to root out 
 The creed there stablished now, and do to death 
 Its ministers, with all the lords their friends. 
 Lay hands on all strong places there, and rule 
 As prince upon their party ? since he fain 
 From ours would be divided, and cast in 
 His lot with Rome against us too, from these 
 Might he but earn assurance of their faith, 
 
134 MARY STUART, act iv. 
 
 Revolting from his own. May these things be 
 More than mere muttering breath of trustless lies, 
 And half his heart yet hover toward our side 
 For all such hope or purpose ? 
 
 Walsingham. Of his heart 
 
 We know not, madam, surely ; nor doth he 
 Who follows fast on their first envoy sent, 
 And writes to excuse him of his message here 
 On her behalf apparent, but in sooth 
 Aimed otherwise ; the Master I mean of Gray, 
 Who swears me here by letter, if he be not 
 True to the queen of England, he is content 
 To have his head fall on a scaffold : saying. 
 To put from him this charge of embassy 
 Had been his ruin, but the meaning of it 
 Is modest and not menacing : whereto 
 If you will yield not yet to spare the life 
 So near its forfeit now, he thinks it well 
 You should be pleased by some commission given 
 To stay by the way his comrade and himself, 
 Or bid them back. 
 
 Elizabeth.. What man is this then, sent 
 
 With such a knave to fellow ? 
 
 Walsingham. No such knave, 
 
 But still your prisoner's friend of old time found : 
 Sir Robert Melville. 
 
 Elizabeth. And an honest man 
 
 As faith might wish her servants : but what pledge 
 Will these produce me for security 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 135 
 
 That I may spare this dangerous life and live 
 Unscathed of after practice ? 
 
 Walsingha?n. As I think, 
 
 The king's self and his whole nobility 
 Will be her personal pledges ; and her son, 
 If England yield her to his hand in charge, 
 On no less strait a bond will undertake 
 For her safe keeping. 
 
 Elizabeth. That were even to arm 
 
 With double power mine adversary, and make him 
 The stronger by my hand to do me hurt — 
 Were he mine adversary indeed : which yet 
 I will not hold him. Let them find a mean 
 For me to live unhurt and save her life, 
 It shall well please me. Say this king of Scots 
 Himself would give his own inheritance up 
 Pretended in succession, if but once 
 Her hand were found or any friend's of hers 
 Again put forth upon me for her sake. 
 Why, haply so might hearts be satisfied 
 Of lords and commons then to let her live. 
 But this I doubt he had rather take her life 
 Himself than yield up to us for pledge : and less, 
 These men shall know of me, I will not take 
 In price of her redemption : which were else. 
 And haply may in no wise not be held. 
 To this my loyal land and mine own trust 
 A deadlier stroke and blast of sound more dire 
 Than noise of fleets invasive. 
 
136 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 lValsi?igha?n. Surely so 
 
 Would all hearts hold it, madam, in that land 
 That are not enemies of the land and yours ; 
 For ere the doom had been proclaimed an hour 
 Which gave to death your main foe's head and theirs 
 Yourself have heard what fire of joy brake forth 
 From all your people : how their church-towers all 
 Rang in with jubilant acclaim of bells 
 The day that bore such tidings, and the night 
 That laughed aloud with lightning of their joy 
 And thundered round its triumph : twice twelve hours 
 This tempest of thanksgiving roared and shone 
 Sheer from the Solway's to the Channel's foam 
 With light as from one festal-flaming hearth 
 And sound as of one trumpet : not a tongue 
 But praised God for it, or heart that leapt not up. 
 Save of your traitors and their country's : these 
 Withered at heart and shrank their heads in close. 
 As though the bright sun's were a basilisk's eye. 
 And light, that gave all others comfort, flame 
 And smoke to theirs of hell's own darkness, whence 
 Such eyes were blinded or put out with fire. 
 
 Elizabeth. Yea, I myself, I mind me, might not sleep 
 Those twice twelve hours thou speak 'st of By God's 
 
 light, 
 Be it most in love of me or fear of her 
 I know not, but my people seems in sooth 
 Hot and anhungered on this trail of hers : 
 Nor is it a people bloody-minded, used 
 To lap the life up of an enemy's vein 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 137 
 
 Who bleeds to death unweaponed : our good hounds 
 
 Will course a quarry soldierlike in war, 
 
 But rage not hangmanlike upon the prey, 
 
 To flesh their fangs on limbs that strive not : yet 
 
 Their hearts are hotter on this course than mine, 
 
 Which most was deadliest aimed at. 
 
 Walsingham. Even for that 
 
 How should not theirs be hot as fire from hell 
 To burn your danger up and slay that soul 
 Alive that seeks it ? Thinks your majesty 
 There beats a heart where treason hath not turned 
 All English blood to poison, which would feel 
 No deadUer pang of dread more deathful to it 
 To hear of yours endangered than to feel 
 A sword against its own life bent, or know 
 Death imminent as darkness overhead 
 That takes the noon from one man's darkening eye 
 As must your death from all this people's ? You 
 Are very England : in your light of life 
 This living land of yours walks only safe, 
 And all this breathing people w^ith your breath 
 Breathes unenslaved, and draws at each pulse in 
 Freedom : your eye is light of theirs, your word 
 As God's to comfort England, whose whole soul 
 Is made with yours one, and her witness you 
 That Rome or hell shall take not hold on her 
 Again till God be wroth with us so much 
 As to reclaim for heaven the star that yet 
 Lights all your land that looks on it, and gives 
 Assurance higher than danger dares assail 
 
138 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Save in this lady's name and service, who 
 Must now from you take judgment. 
 
 Elizabeth. Must ! by God, 
 
 I know not must but as a word of mine, 
 My tongue's and not mine ear's familiar. Sirs, 
 Content yourselves to know this much of us, 
 Or having known remember, that we sent 
 The Lord of Buckhurst and our servant Beale 
 To acquaint this queen our prisoner with the doom 
 Confirmed on second trial against her, saying 
 Her word can weigh not down the weightier guilt 
 Approved upon her, and by parliament 
 Since fortified with sentence. Yea, my lords. 
 Ye should forget not how by message then 
 I bade her know of me with what strong force 
 Of strenuous and invincible argument 
 I am urged to hold no more in such delay 
 The process of her execution, being 
 The seed-plot of these late conspiracies. 
 Their author and chief motive : and am told 
 That if I yield not mine the guilt must be 
 In God's and in the whole world's suffering sight 
 Of all the miseries and calamities 
 To ensue on my refusal : whence, albeit 
 I know not yet how God shall please to incline 
 My heart on that behalf, I have thought it meet 
 In conscience yet that she should be forewarned, 
 That so she might bethink her of her sins 
 Done both toward God offensive and to me 
 And pray for grace to be true penitent 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 139 
 
 For all these faults : which, had the main fault reached 
 
 No further than mine own poor person, God 
 
 Stands witness with what truth my heart protests 
 
 I freely would have pardoned. She to this 
 
 Makes bitter answer as of desperate heart 
 
 All we may wreak our worst upon her ; whom 
 
 Having to death condemned, we may fulfil 
 
 Our wicked work, and God in Paradise 
 
 With just atonement shall requite her. This 
 
 Ye see is all the pardon she will ask, 
 
 Being only, and even as 'twere with prayer, desired 
 
 To crave of us forgiveness : and thereon 
 
 Being by Lord Buckhurst charged on this point home 
 
 That by her mean the Catholics here had learnt 
 
 To hold her for their sovereign, on which cause 
 
 Nor my religion nor myself might live 
 
 Uncharged with danger while her life should last, 
 
 She answering gives God thanks aloud to be 
 
 Held of so great account upon his side, 
 
 And in God's cause and in the church of God's 
 
 Rejoicingly makes offering of her life ; 
 
 Which I, God knows how unrejoicingly, 
 
 Can scarce, ye tell me, choose but take, or yield 
 
 At least for you to take it. Yet, being told 
 
 It is not for religion she must die, 
 
 But for a plot by compass of her own 
 
 Laid to dethrone me and destroy, she casts 
 
 Again this answer barbed with mockery back, 
 
 She was not so presumptuous born, to aspire 
 
 To two such ends yet ever : yea, so far 
 
I40 MARY STUART. act iv, 
 
 She dwelt from such desire removed in heart, 
 She would not have me suffer by her will 
 The fillip of a finger : though herself 
 Be persecuted even as David once 
 And her mishap be that she cannot so 
 Fly by the window forth as David : whence 
 It seems she likens us to Saul, and looks 
 Haply to see us as on Mount Gilboa fallen, 
 Where yet, for all the shooters on her side, 
 Our shield shall be not vilely cast away, 
 As of one unanointed. Yet, my lords, 
 If England might but by my death attain 
 A state more flourishing with a better prince, 
 Gladly would I lay down my life ; who have 
 No care save only for my people's sake 
 To keep it : for myself, in all the world 
 I see no great cause why for all this coil 
 I should be fond to live or fear to die. 
 If I should say unto you that I mean 
 To grant not your petition, by my faith. 
 More should I so say haply than I mean : 
 Or should I say I mean to grant it, this 
 Were, as I think, to tell you of my mind 
 More than is fit for you to know : and thus 
 I must for all petitionary prayer 
 Deliver you an answer answerless. 
 Yet will I pray God lighten my dark mind 
 That being illumined it may thence foresee 
 What for his church and all this commonwealth 
 May most be profitable : and this once known. 
 My hand shall halt not long behind his will. 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 141 
 
 Scene 1 1. Fotheringay. 
 Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury. 
 
 Paulet. I never gave God heartier thanks than these 
 I give to have you partner of my charge 
 Now most of all, these letters being to you 
 No less designed than me, and you in heart 
 One with mine own upon them. Certainly, 
 When I put hand to pen this morning past 
 That Master Davison by mine evidence 
 Might note what sore disquietudes I had 
 To increase my griefs before of body and mind, 
 I looked for no such word to cut off mine 
 As these to us both of Walsingham's and his. 
 Would rather yet I had cause to still complain 
 Of those unanswered letters two months past 
 Than thus be certified of such intents 
 As God best knoweth I never sought to know, 
 Or search out secret causes : though to hear 
 Nothing at all did breed, as I confessed, 
 In me some hard conceits against myself, 
 I had rather yet rest ignorant than ashamed 
 Of such ungracious knowledge. This shall be 
 Fruit as I think of dread wrought on the queen 
 By those seditious rumours w^hose report 
 Blows fear among the people lest our charge 
 Escape our trust, or as they term it now 
 Be taken away, — such apprehensive tongues 
 
142 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 So phrase it — and her freedom strike men's hearts 
 More deep than all these flying fears that say 
 London is fired of Papists, or the Scots 
 Have crossed in arms the Border, or the north 
 Is risen again rebellious, or the Guise 
 Is disembarked in Sussex, or that now 
 In Milford Haven rides a Spanish fleet — 
 All which, albeit but footless floating lies, 
 May all too easily smite and work too far 
 Even on the heart most royal in the world 
 That ever was a woman's. 
 
 Drury. Good my friend, 
 
 These noises come without a thunderbolt 
 In such dense air of dusk expectancy 
 As all this land lies under ; nor will some 
 Doubt or think much to say of those reports 
 They are broached and vented of men's credulous 
 
 mouths 
 Whose ears have caught them from such lips as meant 
 Merely to strike more terror in the queen 
 And wring that warrant from her hovering hand 
 Which falters yet and flutters on her lip 
 While the hand hangs and trembles half advanced 
 Upon that sentence which, the treasurer said, 
 Should well ere this have spoken, seeing it was 
 More than a full month old and four days more 
 When he so looked to hear the word of it 
 Which yet lies sealed of silence. 
 
 Paulet. Will you say. 
 
 Or any as wise and loyal, say or think 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 143 
 
 It was but for a show, to scare men's wits, 
 
 They have raised this hue and cry upon her flight 
 
 Supposed from hence, to waken Exeter 
 
 With noise from Honiton and Sampfield spread 
 
 Of proclamation to detain all ships 
 
 And lay all highways for her day and night. 
 
 And send like precepts out four manner of ways 
 
 From town to town, to make in readiness 
 
 Their armour and artillery, with all speed. 
 
 On pain of death, for London by report 
 
 Was set on fire ? though, God be therefore praised, 
 
 We know this is not, yet the noise hereof 
 
 Were surely not to be neglected, seeing 
 
 There is, meseems, indeed no readier way 
 
 To levy forces for the achieving that 
 
 Which so these lewd reporters feign to fear. 
 
 Drury. Why, in such mighty matters and such mists 
 Wise men may think what hardly fools would say. 
 And eyes get glimpse of more than sight hath leave 
 To give commission for the babbling tongue 
 Aloud to cry they have seen. This noise that was 
 Upon one Arden's flight, a traitor, whence 
 Fear flew last week all round us, gave but note 
 How lightly may men's minds take fire, and words 
 Take wing that have no feet to fare upon 
 More solid than a shadow. 
 
 Paulet. Nay, he was 
 
 Escaped indeed : and every day thus brings 
 Forth its new mischief: as this last month did 
 Those treasons of the French ambassador 
 
144 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Designed against our mistress, which God's grace 
 Laid by the knave's mean bare to whom they sought 
 For one to slay her, and of the Pope's hand earn 
 Ten thousand blood-encrusted crowns a year 
 To his most hellish hire. You will not say 
 This too was merely fraud or vision wrought 
 By fear or cloudy falsehood? 
 
 Driiry. I will say 
 
 No more or surelier than I know : and this 
 I know not thoroughly to the core of truth 
 Or heart of falsehood in it. A man may lie 
 Merely, or trim some bald lean truth with lies, 
 Or patch bare falsehood with some tatter of truth, 
 And each of these pass current : but of these 
 Which likeliest may this man's tale be who gave 
 Word of his own temptation by these French 
 To hire them such a murderer, and avowed 
 He held it godly cunning to comply 
 And bring this envoy's secretary to sight 
 Of one clapped up for debts in Newgate, who 
 Being thence released might readily, as he said, 
 Even by such means as once this lady's lord 
 Was made away with, make the queen away 
 With powder fired beneath her bed — why, this, 
 Good sooth, I guess not ; but I doubt the man 
 To be more liar than fool, and yet, God wot, 
 More fool than traitor ; most of all intent 
 To conjure coin forth of the Frenchman's purse 
 With tricks of mere effrontery : thus at least 
 We know did Walsingham esteem of him : 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 145 
 
 And if by Davison held of more account, 
 
 Or merely found more serviceable, and made 
 
 A mean to tether up those quick French tongues 
 
 From threat or pleading for this prisoner's life, 
 
 I cannot tell, and care not. Though the queen 
 
 Hath stayed this envoy's secretary from flight 
 
 Forth of the kingdom, and ^committed him 
 
 To ward within the Tower while Chateauneuf 
 
 Himself should come before a council held 
 
 At my lord treasurer's, where being thus accused 
 
 At first he cared not to confront the man, 
 
 But stood upon his office, and the charge 
 
 Of his king's honour and prerogative — 
 
 Then bade bring forth the knave, who being brought 
 
 forth 
 Outfaced him with insistence front to front 
 And took the record of this whole tale's truth 
 Upon his soul's damnation, chdlenging ^ 
 
 The Frenchman's answer in denial hereof. 
 That of his own mouth had this witness been 
 Traitorously tempted, and by personal plea 
 Directly drawn to treason : which awhile 
 Struck dumb the ambassador as amazed with wrath, 
 Till presently, the accuser being removed. 
 He made avowal this fellow some while since 
 Had given his secretary to wit there lay 
 One bound in Newgate who being thence released 
 Would take the queen's death on his hand : whereto 
 Answering, he bade the knave avoid his house 
 On pain, if once their ways should cross, to be 
 
 L 
 
146 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Sent bound before the council : who repHed 
 
 He had done foul wrong to take no further note, 
 
 But being made privy to this damned device 
 
 Keep close its perilous knowledge ; whence the queen 
 
 Might well complain against him ; and hereon 
 
 They fell to wrangling on this cause, that he 
 
 Professed himself to no man answerable 
 
 For declaration or for secret held 
 
 Save his own master : so that now is gone 
 
 Sir William Wade to Paris, not with charge 
 
 To let the king there know this queen shall live, 
 
 But to require tlie ambassador's recall 
 
 And swift delivery of our traitors there 
 
 To present justice : yet may no man say. 
 
 For all these half- faced scares and policies. 
 
 Here was more sooth than seeming. 
 
 Paulet. Why, these crafts 
 
 Were shameful then as fear's most shameful self, 
 If thus your wit read them aright ; and we 
 Should for our souls and lives alike do ill 
 To jeopard them on such men's surety given 
 As make no more account of simple faith 
 Than true men make of liars : and these are they, 
 Our friends and masters, that rebuke us both 
 By speech late uttered of her majesty 
 For lack of zeal in service and of care 
 She looked for at our hands, in that we have not 
 In all this time, unprompted, of ourselves 
 Found out some way to cut this queen's life off, 
 Seeing how great peril, while her enemy lives, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 147 
 
 She is hourly subject unto : saying, she notes, 
 
 Besides a kind of lack of love to her, 
 
 Herein we have not that particular care 
 
 Forsooth of our own safeties, or indeed 
 
 Of the faith rather and the general good. 
 
 That politic reason bids ; especially, 
 
 Having so strong a warrant and such ground 
 
 For satisfaction of our consciences 
 
 To Godward, and discharge of credit kept 
 
 And reputation toward the world, as is 
 
 That oath whereby we stand associated 
 
 To prosecute inexorably to death 
 
 Both with our joint and our particular force 
 
 All by whose hand and all on whose behalf 
 
 Our sovereign's life is struck at : as by proof 
 
 Stands charged upon our prisoner. So they write, 
 
 As though the queen's own will had warranted 
 
 The words that by her will's authority 
 
 Were blotted from the bond, whereby that head 
 
 Was doomed on whose behoof her life should be 
 
 By treason threatened : for she would not have 
 
 Aught pass which grieved her subjects' consciences, 
 
 She said, or might abide not openly 
 
 The whole world's view : nor would she any one 
 
 Were punished for another's fault : and so 
 
 Cut off the plea whereon she now desires 
 
 That we should dip our secret hands in blood 
 
 With no direction given of her own mouth 
 
 So to pursue that dangerous head to death 
 
 L 2 
 
148 MAJ^V STUART. act iv. 
 
 By whose assent her Hfe were sought : for this 
 
 Stands fixed for only warrant of such deed, 
 
 And this we have not, but her word instead 
 
 She takes it most unkindly toward herself 
 
 That men professing toward her loyally 
 
 That love that we do should in any sort, 
 
 For lack of our own duty's full discharge, 
 
 Cast upon her the burden, knowing as we 
 
 Her slowness to shed blood, much more of one 
 
 So near herself in blood as is this queen. 
 
 And one with her in sex and quality. 
 
 And these respects, they find, or so profess, 
 
 Do greatly trouble her : who hath sundry times 
 
 Protested, they assure us, earnestly. 
 
 That if regard of her good subjects' risk 
 
 Did not more move her than the personal fear 
 
 Of proper peril to her, she never would 
 
 Be drawn to assent unto this bloodshedding r 
 
 And so to our good judgments they refer 
 
 These speeches they thought meet to acquaint us with 
 
 As passed but lately from her majesty. 
 
 And to God's guard commend us : which God knows 
 
 We should much more need than deserve of him 
 
 Should we give ear to this, and as they bid 
 
 Make heretics of these papers ; which three times 
 
 You see how Davison hath enforced on us : 
 
 But they shall taste no fire for me, nor pass 
 
 Back to his hands till copies writ of them 
 
 Lie safe in mine for sons of mine to keep 
 
 In witness how their father dealt herein. 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 149 
 
 Drury. You have done the wiselier : and what 
 word soe'er 
 Shall bid them know your mind, I am well assured 
 It well may speak for me too. 
 
 Paulet. Thus it shall : 
 
 That having here his letters in my hands, 
 I would not fail, according to his charge, 
 To send back answer with all possible speed 
 Which shall deliver unto him my great grief 
 And bitterness of mind, in that I am 
 So much unhappy as I hold myself 
 To have lived to look on this unhappy day, 
 When I by plain direction am required 
 From my most gracious sovereign's mouth to do 
 An act which God forbiddeth, and the law. 
 Hers are my goods and livings, and my life, 
 Held at her disposition, and myself 
 Am ready so to lose them this next day 
 If it shall please her so, acknowledging 
 I hold them of her mere goodwill, and do not 
 Desire them to enjoy them but so long 
 As her great grace gives leave : but God forbid 
 That I should make for any grace of hers 
 So foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or 
 Leave ever to my poor posterity 
 So great a blot, as privily to shed blood 
 With neither law nor warrant. So, in trust 
 That she, of her accustomed clemency, 
 Will take my dutiful answer in good part, 
 By his good mediation, as returned 
 
ISO MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 From one who never will be less in love, 
 Honour, obedience, duty to his queen, 
 Than any Christian subject living, thus 
 To God's grace I commit him. 
 
 Drury. Though I doubt 
 
 She haply shall be much more wroth hereat 
 Than lately she was gracious, when she bade 
 God treblefold reward you for your charge 
 So well discharged, saluting you by name 
 Most faithful and most careful, you shall do 
 Most like a wise man loyally to write 
 But such good words as these, whereto myself 
 Subscribe in heart : though being not named herein 
 (Albeit to both seem these late letters meant) 
 Nor this directed to me, I forbear 
 To make particular answer. And indeed, 
 Were danger less apparent in her life 
 To the heart's life of all this living land, 
 I would this woman might not die at all 
 By secret stroke nor open sentence. 
 
 Paulet I 
 
 Will praise God's mercy most for this of all, 
 When I shall see the murderous cause removed 
 Of its most mortal peril : nor desire 
 A guerdon ampler from the queen we serve, 
 Besides her commendations of my faith 
 For spotless actions and for safe regards. 
 Than to see jadgment on her enemy done ; 
 Which were for me that recompense indeed 
 Whereof she writes as one not given to all. 
 
SCENE II. MAJ^V STUART. 151 
 
 But for such merit reserved to crown its claim 
 
 Above all common service : nor save this 
 
 Could any treasure's promise in the world 
 
 So ease those travails and rejoice this heart 
 
 That hers too much takes thought of, as to read 
 
 Her charge to carry for her sake in it 
 
 This most just thought, that she can balance not 
 
 The value that her grace doth prize me at 
 
 In any weight of judgment : yet it were 
 
 A word to me more comfortable at heart 
 
 Than these, though these most gracious, that should 
 
 speak 
 Death to her death's contriver. 
 
 Drury. Nay, myself 
 
 Were fain to see this coil wound up, and her 
 Removed that makes it : yet such things will pluck 
 Hard at men's hearts that think on them, and move 
 Compassion that such long strange years should find 
 So strange an end : nor shall men ever say 
 But she was born right royal ; full of sins, 
 It may be, and by circumstance or choice 
 Dyed, and defaced with bloody stains and black, 
 Unmerciful, unfaithful, but of heart 
 So fiery high, so swift of spirit and clear. 
 In extreme danger and pain so lifted up, 
 So of all violent things inviolable. 
 So large of courage, so superb of soul. 
 So sheathed with iron mind invincible 
 And arms unbreached of fireproof constancy — 
 By shame not shaken, fear or force or deaths 
 
152 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Change, or all confluence of calamities — 
 
 And so at her worst need beloved, and still, 
 
 Naked of help and honour when she seemed, 
 
 As other women would be, and of hope ' 
 
 Stripped, still so of herself adorable \ 
 
 By minds not always all ignobly mad 
 
 Nor all made poisonous with false grain of faith, 
 
 She shall be a world's wonder to all time, / 
 
 A deadly glory watched of marvelling men / 
 
 Not without praise, not without noble tears, ' 
 
 And if without what she would never have 
 
 Who had it never, pity — yet from none 
 
 Quite without reverence and some kind of love 
 
 For that which was so royal. Yea, and now 
 
 That at her prayer we here attend on her. 
 
 If, as I think, she have in mind to send 
 
 Aught written to the queen, what we may do 
 
 To further her desire shall on my part 
 
 Gladly be done, so be it the grace she craves 
 
 Be nought akin to danger. 
 
 Paulet. It shall be 
 
 The first of all then craved by her of man, 
 Or by man's service done her, that was found 
 So harmless ever. 
 
 Enter Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Sirs, in time past by 
 I was desirous many times, ye know, 
 To have written to your queen : but since I have had 
 Advertisement of my conviction, seeing 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 153 
 
 I may not look for life, my soul is set 
 
 On preparation for another world : 
 
 Yet none the less, not for desire of life, 
 
 But for my conscience's discharge and rest, 
 
 And for my last farewell, I have at heart 
 
 By you to send her a memorial writ 
 
 Of somewhat that concerns myself, when I 
 
 Shall presently be gone out of this world. 
 
 And to remove from her, if such be there. 
 
 Suspicion of all danger in receipt 
 
 Of this poor paper that should come from me. 
 
 Myself will take the assay of it, and so 
 
 With mine own hands to yours deliver it. 
 
 Paulet. Will you not also, madam, be content 
 To seal and close it in my presence up ? 
 
 Mary Stuart Sir, willingly : but I beseech your 
 word 
 Pledged for its safe delivery to the queen. 
 
 Paulet. I plight my faith it shall be sent to her. 
 Mary Stuart. This further promise I desire, you wiH 
 Procure me from above certificate 
 It hath been there delivered. 
 
 Drury. This is more 
 
 Than we may stand so pledged for : in our power 
 It is to send, but far beyond our power. 
 As being above our place, to promise you 
 Certificate or warrant. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Yet I trust 
 
 Consideration may be had of me 
 After my death, as one derived in blood 
 
154 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 From your queen's grandsire, with all mortal rites 
 According with that faith I have professed 
 All my life-days as I was born therein. 
 This is the sum of all mine askings : whence 
 Well might I take it in ill part of you 
 To wish me seal my letter in your sight, 
 Bewraying your hard opinion of me. 
 
 Paulet, This 
 
 Your own words well might put into my mind, 
 That so beside my expectation made 
 Proffer to take my first assay for me 
 Of the outer part of it : for you must think 
 I was not ignorant that by sleight of craft 
 There might be as great danger so conveyed 
 Within the letter as without, and thus 
 I could not for ill thoughts of you be blamed, 
 Concurring with you in this jealousy : 
 For had yourself not moved it of yourself 
 Sir Drew nor I had ever thought on it. 
 
 Mary Stuart. The occasion why I moved it was but; 
 this. 
 That having made my custom in time past 
 To send sometimes some tokens to your queen. 
 At one such time that I sent certain clothes 
 One standing by advised her cause my gifts 
 To be tried thoroughly ere she touched them ; which 
 1 have since observed, and taken order thus 
 With Nau, when last he tarried at the court, 
 To do the Hke to a fur-fringed counterpane 
 Which at that time I sent : and as for this, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART, 155 
 
 Look what great danger lies between these leaves 
 That I dare take and handle in my hands, 
 And press against my face each part of them 
 Held open thus, and either deadly side. 
 Wherein your fear smells death sown privily. 
 
 Paulet. Madam, when so you charged your secretary 
 Her majesty was far from doubt, I think, 
 Or dream of such foul dealing : and I would 
 Suspicion since had found no just cause given. 
 And then things had not been as now they are. 
 
 Mary Stuart. But things are as they are, and here 
 I stand 
 Convicted, and not knowing how many hours 
 I have to live yet. 
 
 Paulet. Madam, you shall live 
 
 As many hours as God shall please : but this 
 May be said truly, that you here have been 
 Convicted in most honourable sort 
 And favourable. 
 
 Mary Stuart. What favour have I found ? 
 
 Faulet. Your cause hath been examined scrupu- 
 lously 
 By many our eldest nobles of this realm. 
 Whereas by law you should but have been tried 
 By twelve men as a common person. 
 
 Mary Stuart, Nay, 
 
 Your noblemen must by their peers be tried. 
 
 Paulet. All strangers of what quality soe'er 
 In matter of crime are only to be tried 
 In other princes' territories by law 
 
156 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 That in that realm bears rule. 
 
 Mary Stuart. You have your laws : 
 
 But other princes all will think of it 
 As they see cause ; and mine own son is now 
 No more a child, but come to man's estate, 
 And he will think of these things bitterly. 
 
 Drury. Ingratitude, whate'er he think of them, 
 Is odious in all persons, but of all 
 In mightiest personages most specially 
 Most hateful : and it will not be denied 
 But that the queen's grace greatly hath deserved 
 Both of yourself and of your son. 
 
 Mary Stuart. What boon 
 
 Shall I acknowledge ? Being in bonds, I am set 
 Free from the world, and therefore am I not 
 Afraid to speak ; I have had the favour here 
 To have been kept prisoner now these many years 
 Against my will and justice. 
 
 Faulet. Madam, this 
 
 Was a great favour, and without this grace 
 You had not lived to see these days. 
 
 Mary Stuart. How so ? 
 
 Faulet. Seeing your own subjects did pursue you, 
 and had 
 The best in your own country. 
 
 Mary Stuart. That is true, 
 
 Because your Mildmay's ill persuasions first 
 Made me discharge my forces, and then caused 
 Mine enemies to burn my friends' main holds. 
 Castles and houses. 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 157 
 
 Paulet Howsoe'er, it was 
 
 By great men of that country that the queen 
 Had earnest suit made to her to have yourself 
 Delivered to them, which her giace denied, 
 And to their great misliking. 
 
 Drury. Seventeen years 
 
 She hath kept your life to save it : and whereas 
 She calls your highness sister, she hath dealt 
 In truth and deed most graciously with you 
 And sisterlike, in seeking to preserve 
 Your life at once and honour. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ay ! wherein ? 
 
 Drury. In that commission of your causes held 
 At York, which was at instance of your friends 
 Dissolved to save your honour. 
 
 Mary Stuart. No : the cause 
 
 Why that commission was dissolved indeed 
 Was that my friends could not be heard to inform 
 Against my loud accusers. 
 
 Paulet. But your friend 
 
 The bishop's self of Ross, your very friend. 
 Hath written that this meeting was dismissed 
 All only in your favour : and his book 
 Is extant : and this favour is but one 
 Of many graces which her majesty 
 Hath for mere love extended to you. 
 
 Mary Stuart. This 
 
 Is one great favour, even to have kept me here 
 So many years against my will. 
 
 Paulet. It was 
 
158 MARY STUART, act iv. 
 
 For your own safety, seeing your countrymen 
 Sought your destruction, and to that swift end 
 Required to have you yielded up to them, 
 As was before said. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Nay, then, I will speak. 
 
 I am not afraid. It was determined here 
 That I should not depart : and when I was 
 Demanded by my subjects, this I know. 
 That my lord treasurer with his own close hand 
 Writ in a packet which by trustier hands 
 Was intercepted, and to me conveyed. 
 To the earl of Murray, that the devil was tied 
 Fast in a chain, and they could keep her not, 
 But here she should be safely kept. 
 
 Drury. That earl 
 
 Was even as honourable a gentleman 
 As I knew ever in that country bred. 
 
 Mary Stuart. One of the worst men of the world 
 he was : 
 A foul adulterer, one of general lust, 
 A spoiler and a murderer. 
 
 Drury. Six weeks long. 
 
 As I remember, here I saw him ; where 
 He bore him very gravely, and maintained 
 The reputation even on all men's tongues 
 In all things of a noble gentleman : 
 Nor have I heard him evil spoken of 
 Till this time ever. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Yea, my rebels here 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 159 
 
 Are honest men, and by the queen have been 
 Maintained. 
 
 Pmilet. You greatly do forget yourself 
 To charge her highness with so foul a fault, 
 Which you can never find ability 
 To prove on her. 
 
 Mary Stuart. What did she with the French, 
 I pray you, at Newhaven ? 
 
 Paulet. It appears 
 
 You have conceived so hardly of the queen 
 My mistress, that you still inveterately 
 Interpret all her actions to the worst. 
 Not knowing the truth of all the cause : but yet 
 I dare assure you that her majesty 
 Had most just cause and righteous, in respect 
 As well of Calais as for other ends. 
 To do the thing she did, and more to have done. 
 Had it so pleased her to put forth her power : 
 And this is in you great unthankfulness 
 -After so many favours and so great. 
 Whereof you will acknowledge in no wise 
 The least of any : though her majesty 
 Hath of her own grace merely saved your life, 
 To the utter discontentment of the best 
 Your subjects once in open parliament 
 Who craved against you justice on the charge 
 Of civil law-breach and rebellion. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I 
 
 Know no such matter, but full well I know 
 
i6o MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Sir Francis Walsingham hath openly, 
 Since his abiding last in Scotland, said 
 That I should rue his entertainment there. 
 
 Paulet Madam, you have not rued it, but have 
 been 
 More honourably entertained than ever yet 
 Was any other crown's competitor 
 In any realm save only this : whereof 
 Some have been kept close prisoners, other some 
 Maimed and unnaturally disfigured, some 
 Murdered. 
 
 Mary Stuart. But I was no competitor : 
 All I required was in successive right 
 To be reputed but as next the crown. 
 
 Paulet. Nay, madam, you went further, when you 
 gave 
 The English arms and style, as though our queen 
 Had been but an usurper on your right. 
 
 Mary Stuart. My husband and my kinsmen did 
 therein 
 What they thought good : I had nought to do with it. 
 
 Paulet. Why would you not then loyally renounce 
 Your claim herein pretended, but with such 
 Condition, that you might be authorized 
 Next heir apparent to the crown ? 
 
 Mary Stuart. I have made 
 
 At sundry times thereon good proffers, which 
 Could never be accepted. 
 
 Paulet. Heretofore 
 
 It hath been proved unto you presently 
 That in the very instant even of all 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. i6i 
 
 Your treaties and most friendlike offers were 
 Some dangerous crafts discovered. 
 
 Mary Stuart. You must think 
 
 I have some friends on earth, and if they have done 
 Anything privily, what is that to me ? 
 
 Paulet. Madam, it was somewhat to you, and I 
 would 
 For your own sake you had forborne it, that 
 After advertisement and conscience given 
 Of Morgan's devilish practice, to have killed 
 A sacred queen, you yet would entertain 
 The murderer as your servant. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I might do it 
 
 With as good right as ever did your queen 
 So entertain my rebels. 
 
 Drury. Be advised : 
 
 This speech is very hard, and all the case 
 Here differs greatly. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Yea, let this then be ; 
 
 Ye cannot yet of my conviction say 
 But I by partial judgment was condemned, 
 And the commissioners knew my son could have 
 No right, were I convicted, and your queen 
 Could have no children of her womb ; whereby 
 They might set up what man for king they would. 
 
 Paulet. This is in you too great forgetfulness 
 Of honour and yourself, to charge these lords 
 With two so foul and horrible faults, as first 
 To take your life by partial doom from you, 
 And then bestow the kingdom where they liked. 
 
 M 
 
i62 MARY STUART, act iv. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Well, all is one to me : and for my part 
 I thank God I shall die without regret 
 Of anything that I have done alive. 
 
 Paulet. I would entreat you yet be sorry at least 
 For the great wrong, and well deserving grief, 
 You have done the queen my mistress. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Nay, thereon 
 
 Let others answer for themselves : I have 
 Nothing to do with it. Have you borne in mind 
 Those matters of my monies that we last 
 Conferred upon together ? 
 
 Paulet. Madam, these 
 
 Are not forgotten. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Well it is if aught 
 Be yet at all remembered for my good. 
 Have here my letter sealed and superscribed, 
 And so farewell — or even as here men may. 
 
 [Exeunt Paulet and Drury. 
 Had I that old strength in my weary limbs 
 That in my heart yet fails not, fain would I 
 Fare forth if not fare better. Tired I am, 
 But not so lame in spirit I might not take 
 Some comfort of the winter- wasted sun 
 This bitter Christmas to me, though my feet 
 Were now no firmer nor more helpful found 
 Than when I went but in my chair abroad 
 Last weary June at Chartley. I can stand 
 And go now without help of either side. 
 And bend my hand again, thou seest, to write : 
 I did not well perchance in sight of these 
 To have made so much of this lame hand, which yet 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 163 
 
 God knows was grievous to me, and to-day 
 
 To make my letter up and superscribe 
 
 And seal it with no outward show of pain 
 
 Before their face and inquisition ; yet 
 
 I care not much in player's wise piteously 
 
 To blind such eyes with feigning : though this Drew 
 
 Be gentler and more gracious than his mate 
 
 And liker to be wrought on ; but at last 
 
 What need have I of men ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. What then you may 
 
 I know not, seeing for all that was and is 
 We are yet not at the last \ but when you had, 
 You have hardly failed to find more help of them 
 And heartier service than more prosperous queens 
 Exact of expectation : when your need 
 Was greater than your name or natural state, 
 And wage was none to look for but of death. 
 As though the expectancy thereof and hope 
 Were more than man's prosperities, men have given 
 Heart's thanks to have this gift of God and you 
 For dear life's guerdon, even the trust assured 
 To drink for you the bitterness of death. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ay, one said once it must be — some 
 one said 
 I must be perilous ever, and my love 
 More deadly than my will was evil or good 
 Toward any of all these that through me should die — 
 I know not who, nor when one said it : but 
 I know too sure he lied not. 
 
 Mary Beaton. No ; I think 
 
 M 2 
 
J 64 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 This was a seer indeed. I have heard of men 
 That under imminence of death grew strong 
 With mortal foresight, yet in life-days past 
 Could see no foot before them, nor provide 
 For their own fate or fortune anything 
 Against one angry chance of accident 
 Or passionate fault of their own loves or hates 
 That might to death betray them : such an one 
 Thus haply might have prophesied, and had 
 No strength to save himself 
 
 Mary Stuart. I know not : yet 
 
 Time was when I remembered. 
 Mary Beaton. It should be 
 
 No enemy's saying whom you remember not ; 
 You are wont not to forget your enemies ; yet 
 
 The word rang sadder than a friend's should fall 
 
 Save in some strange pass of the spirit or flesh 
 
 For love's sake haply hurt to death. 
 
 Mary Stuart. It seems 
 
 Thy mind is bent to know the name of me 
 
 That of myself I know not. 
 
 Maty Beaton. Nay, my mind 
 
 Has other thoughts to beat upon : for me 
 
 It may suffice to know the saying for true 
 
 And never care who said it. 
 
 Mary Stuart. True ? too sure, 
 
 God to mine heart's grief hath approved it. See, 
 
 Nor Scot nor Englishman that takes on him 
 
 The service of my sorrow but partakes 
 
 The sorrow of my service : man by man, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 165 
 
 As that one said, they perish of me : yea, 
 
 Were I a sword sent upon earth, or plague 
 
 Bred of aerial poison, I could be 
 
 No deadher where unwillingly I strike, 
 
 Who where I would can hurt not : Percy died 
 
 By his own hand in prison, Howard by law. 
 
 These young men with strange torments done to death, 
 
 Who should have rid me and the world of her 
 
 That is our scourge, and to the church of God 
 
 A pestilence that wastes it : all the north 
 
 Wears yet the scars engraven of civil steel 
 
 Since its last rising : nay, she saith but right, 
 
 Mine enemy, saying by these her servile tongues 
 
 I have brought upon her land mine own land's curse, 
 
 And a sword follows at my heel, and fire 
 
 Is kindled of mine eyeshot : and before, 
 
 Whom did I love that died not of it ? whom 
 
 That I would save might I deliver, when 
 
 I had once but looked on him with love, or pledged 
 
 Friendship ? I should have died I think long since, 
 
 That many might have died not, and this word 
 
 Had not been written of me nor fulfilled, 
 
 But perished in the saying, a- prophecy 
 
 That took the prophet by the- throat and slew — 
 
 As sure I think it slew him. Such a song 
 
 Might my poor servant slain before my face 
 
 Have sung before the stroke of violent death 
 
 Had fallen upon him there for my sake. 
 
 Mary Beaton, Ah ! 
 
 You think so ? this remembrance was it not 
 
i66 MARY STUART, act iv. 
 
 That hung and hovered in your mind but now, 
 Moved your heart backward all unwittingly 
 To some blind memory of the man long dead ? 
 
 Mary Stuart. In sooth, I think my prophet should 
 have been 
 David. 
 
 Mary Beaton. You thought of him ? 
 
 Mary Stuart. An old sad thought : 
 
 The moan of it was made long since, and he 
 Not unremembered. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Nay, of him indeed 
 
 Record was made — a royal record : whence 
 No marvel is it that you forgot not him. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I would forget no friends nor 
 enemies : these 
 More needs me now remember. Think'st thou not 
 This woman hates me deadlier — or this queen 
 That is not woman — than myself could hate 
 Except I were as she in all things ? then 
 I should love no such woman as am I 
 Much more than she may love me : yet I am sure, 
 Or so near surety as all belief may be. 
 She dare not slay me for her soul's sake : nay. 
 Though that were made as light of as a leaf 
 Storm-shaken, in such stormy winds of state 
 As blow between us Hke a blast of death. 
 For her throne's sake she durst not, which must be 
 Broken to build my scaffold. Yet, God wot. 
 Perchance a straw's weight now cast in by chance 
 Might weigh my life down in the scale her hand 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 167 
 
 Holds hardly straight for trembling : if she be 
 
 Woman at all, so tempered naturally 
 
 And with such spirit and sense as thou and I, 
 
 Should I for wrath so far forget myself 
 
 As these men sometime charge me that I do, 
 
 My ';ongue might strike my head off. By this head 
 
 That yet I wear to swear by, if life be 
 
 Thankworthy, God might well be thanked for this 
 
 Of me or whoso loves me in the world, 
 
 That I s^ake never half my heart out yet, 
 
 For any sore temptation of them all. 
 
 To her or hers ; nor ever put but once 
 
 My heart uoon my paper, writing plain 
 
 The things \. thought, heard, knew for truth of her, 
 
 Believed or eigned — nay, feigned not to believe 
 
 Of her fierce Mies fed with wry-mouthed praise. 
 
 And that vain ravin of her sexless lust 
 
 Which could rot feed nor hide its hunger, curb 
 
 With patience lor allay with love the thirst 
 
 That mocked it.elf as all mouths mocked it. Ha, 
 
 What might the eading of these truths have wrought 
 
 Within her maidoi mind, what seed have sown, 
 
 Trow'st thou, in hr sweet spirit, of revenge 
 
 Toward me that slowed her queenship in the glass 
 
 A subject's hand o-hers had put in mine 
 
 The likeness of it Icathed and laughable 
 
 As they that worshipped it with words and signs 
 
 Beheld her and bem«cked her ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. Certainly, 
 
 I think that soul drew never breath alive 
 
i68 MAJ^V STUART, act iv. 
 
 To whom this letter might seem pardonable 
 Which timely you forbore to send her. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Nay, 
 
 I doubt not I did well to keep it back — 
 And did not iH to write it : for God knows 
 It was no small ease to my heart. 
 
 Mary Beaton. But say 
 
 I had not burnt it as you bade me burn, 
 But kept it privily safe against a need 
 That I might haply sometime have of it ? 
 
 Mary Stuart. What, to destroy me ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. Hardly, sui6, to save. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Why shouldst thou thirk to bring 
 me to my death ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. Indeed, no, man am I tl^at love you ; 
 nor 
 Need I go therefore in such fear of you/ 
 As of my mortal danger. 
 
 Mary Stuart. On my life, 
 
 (Long life or short, with gentle or vio^nt end, 
 I know not, and would choose not, tlough I might 
 So take God's office on me) one thafheard 
 Would swear thy speech had in it, a/id subtly mixed, 
 A savour as of menace, or a sound ' 
 As of an imminent ill or perilous s/nse 
 Which was not in thy meaning. 
 
 Mary Beaton. /No : in mine 
 
 There lurked no treason ever; nir have you 
 Cause to think worse of me thac loyally, 
 If proof may be believed on witiess. 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 169 
 
 Mary Stuart Sure, 
 
 I think I have not nor I should not have : 
 Thy Hfe has been the shadow cast of mine, 
 A present faith to serve my present need, 
 A foot behind my footsteps ; as long since 
 In those French dances that we trod, and laughed 
 The blithe way through together. Thou couldst sing 
 Then, and a great while gone it is by this 
 Since I heard song or music : I could now 
 Find in my heart to bid thee, as the Jews 
 Were once bid sing in their captivity 
 One of their songs of Sion, sing me now. 
 If one thou knowest, for love of that far time. 
 One of our songs of Paris. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Give me leave 
 
 A little to cast up some wandering words 
 And gather back such memories as may beat 
 About my mind of such a song, and yet 
 I think I might renew some note long dumb 
 That once your ear allowed of — I did pray, [Aside. 
 Tempt me not, God : and by her mouth again 
 He tempts me — nay, but prompts me, being most just, 
 To know by trial if all remembrance be 
 Dead as remorse or pity that in birth 
 Died, and were childless in her : if she quite 
 Forget that very swan- song of thy love, 
 My love that wast, my love that wouldst not be. 
 Let God forget her now at last as I 
 Remember : if she think but one soft thought, 
 Cast one poor word upon thee, God thereby 
 
lyo MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Shall surely bid me let her live : if none, 
 I shoot that letter home and sting her dead. 
 God strengthen me to sing but these words through 
 Though I fall dumb at end for ever. Now — 
 
 \_She sings. 
 
 Apres tant de jours, apres tant de pleurs, 
 Soyez secourable a mon ame en peine. 
 Voyez comme Avril fait I'amour aux fleurs ; 
 Dame d'amour, dame aux belles couleurs, 
 Dieu vous a fait belle, Amour vous fait reine. 
 
 Rions, je t'en prie ; aimons, je le veux. 
 Le temps fuit et rit et ne revient guere 
 Pour baiser le bout de tes blonds cheveux, 
 Pour baiser tes cils, ta bouche et tes yeux ; 
 L'amour n'a qu'un jour aupres de sa mere. 
 
 Mary Stuart Nay, I should once have known that 
 song, thou say'st, 
 And him that sang it and should now be dead : 
 Was it — but his rang sweeter — was it not 
 Remy Belleau ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. (My letter — here at heart !) [Aside. 
 I think it might be — were it better writ 
 And courtlier phrased, with Latin spice cast in, 
 And a more tunable descant. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ay ; how sweet 
 
 Sang all the world about those Stars that sang 
 With Ronsard for the strong mid star of all, 
 His bay-bound head all glorious with grey hairs, 
 Who sang my birth and bridal ! When I think 
 Of chose French years, I only seem to see 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 171 
 
 A light of swords and singing, only hear 
 Laughter of love and lovely stress of lutes, 
 And in between the passion of them borne 
 Sound of swords crossing ever, as of feet 
 Dancing, and life and death still equally 
 Blithe and bright-eyed from battle. Haply now 
 My sometime sister, mad Queen Madge, is grown 
 As grave as I should be, and wears at waist 
 No hearts of last year's lovers any more 
 Enchased for jewels round her girdlestead. 
 But rather beads for penitence ; yet I doubt 
 Time should not more abash her heart than mine, 
 Who live not heartless yet. These days like those 
 Have power but for a season given to do 
 No more upon our spirits than they may, 
 And what they may we know not till it be 
 Done, and we need no more take thought of it, 
 As I no more of death or life to-day. 
 
 Mary Beaton. That shall you surely need not. 
 
 Mary Stuart. So I think. 
 
 Our keepers being departed : and by these. 
 Even by the uncourtlier as the gentler man, 
 I read as in a glass their queen's plain heart, 
 And that by her at last I shall not die. 
 
172 MARY STUART, act iv. 
 
 Scene III. Greenwich Palace. 
 Queen Elizabeth and Davison. 
 
 Elizabeth. Thou hast seen Lord Howard ? 1 bade 
 him send thee. 
 
 Davison. Madam, 
 
 But now he came upon me hard at hand 
 And by your gracious message bade me in. 
 
 Elizabeth. The day is fair as April : hast thou been 
 Abroad this morning? 'Tis no winter's sun 
 That makes these trees forget their nakedness 
 And all the glittering ground, as 'twere in hope. 
 Breathe laughingly. 
 
 Davison. Indeed, the gracious air 
 
 Had drawn me forth into the park, and thence 
 Comes my best speed to attend upon your grace. 
 
 Elizabeth. My grace is not so gracious as the sun 
 That graces thus the late distempered air : 
 And you should oftener use to walk abroad, 
 Sir, than your custom is : I would not have 
 Good servants heedless of their natural health 
 To do me sickly service. It were strange 
 That one twice bound as woman and as queen 
 To care for good men's lives and loyalties 
 Should prove herself toward either dangerous. 
 
 Davison. That 
 
 Can be no part of any servant's fear 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 173 
 
 Who lives for service of your majesty. 
 
 Elizabeth. I would not have it be — God else forbid — 
 Who have so loyal servants as I hold 
 All now that bide about me : for I will not 
 Think, though such villainy once were in men's minds, 
 That twice among mine English gentlemen 
 Shall hearts be found so foul as theirs who thought, 
 When I was horsed for hunting, to waylay 
 And shoot me through the back at unawares 
 With poisoned bullets : nor, thou knowest, would I, 
 When this was opened to me, take such care. 
 Ride so fenced round about with iron guard, 
 Or walk so warily as men counselled me 
 For loyal fear of what thereafter might 
 More prosperously be plotted : nay, God knows, 
 I would not hold on such poor terms my life, 
 With such a charge upon it, as to breathe 
 In dread of death or treason till the day 
 That they should stop my trembling breath, and ease 
 The piteous heart that panted like a slave's 
 Of all vile fear for ever. So to live 
 Were so much hatefuller than thus to die, 
 I do not think that man or woman draws 
 Base breath of Hfe the loathsomest on earth 
 Who by such purchase of perpetual fear 
 And deathless doubt of all in trust of none 
 Would shudderingly prolong it. 
 
 Davison. Even too well 
 
 Your servants know that greatness of your heart 
 Which gives you yet unguarded to men's eyes, 
 
174 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 And were unworthier found to serve or live 
 Than is the unworthiest of them, did not this 
 Make all their own hearts hotter with desire 
 To be the bulwark or the price of yours 
 Paid to redeem it from the arrest of death. 
 
 Elizabeth. So haply should they be whose hearts 
 beat true 
 With loyal blood : but whoso says they are 
 Is but a loving liar. 
 
 Davison. I trust your grace 
 
 Hath in your own heart no such doubt of them 
 As speaks in mockery through your lips. 
 
 Elizabeth. By God, 
 
 I say much less than righteous truth might speak 
 Of their loud loves that ring with emptiness, 
 And hollow-throated loyalties whose heart 
 Is wind and clamorous promise. Ye desire, 
 With all your souls ye swear that ye desire 
 The queen of Scots were happily removed, 
 And not a knave that loves me will put hand 
 To the enterprise ye look for only of me 
 Who only would forbear it. 
 
 Davison. If your grace 
 
 Be minded yet it shall be done at all. 
 The way that were most honourable and just 
 Were safest, sure, and best. 
 
 Elizabeth. I dreamt last night 
 
 Our murderess there in hold had tasted death 
 By execution of the sentence done 
 That was pronounced upon her ; and the news 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 175 
 
 So stung my heart with wrath to hear of it 
 
 That had I had a sword — look to 't, and 'ware ! — 
 
 I had thrust it through thy body. 
 
 Davison. God defend ! 
 
 'Twas well I came not in your highness' way 
 While the hot mood was on you. But indeed 
 I would know soothly if your mind be changed 
 From its late root of purpose. 
 
 Elizabeth. No, by God : 
 
 But I were fain it could be somewise done 
 And leave the blame not on me. And so much, 
 If there were love and honesty in one 
 Whom I held faithful and exact of care, 
 Should easily be performed ; but here I find 
 This dainty fellow^ so precise a knave 
 As will take all things dangerous on his tongue 
 And nothing on his hand : hot- mouthed and large 
 In zeal to stuff mine ears with promises, 
 But perjurous in performance : did he net 
 Set hand among you to the bond whereby 
 He is bound at utmost hazard of his life 
 To do me such a service ? Yet I could 
 Have wTOUght as well without him, had I wist 
 Of this faint falsehood in his heart : there is 
 That Wingfield whom thou wot'st of, v/ould have done 
 With glad goodwill what I required of him^ 
 And made no Puritan mouths on 't. 
 
 Davison. Madam, yet 
 
 Far better were it all should but be done 
 By line of law and judgment. 
 
176 MARY STUART. act iv. 
 
 Elizabeth, There be men 
 
 Wiser than thou that see this otherwise. 
 
 Davison. All is not wisdom that of wise men comes, 
 Nor are all eyes that search the ways of state 
 Clear as a just man's conscience. 
 
 Elizabeth. Proverbs! ha? 
 
 Who made thee master of these sentences, 
 Prime tongue of ethics and philosophy? 
 
 Davison. An honest heart to serve your majesty ; 
 Nought else nor subtler in its reach of wit 
 Than very simpleness of meaning. 
 
 Elizabeth. Nay, 
 
 I do beUeve thee ; heartily I do. 
 Did my lord admiral not desire thee bring 
 The warrant for her execution? 
 
 Davison. Ay, 
 
 Madam ; here is it. 
 
 Elizabeth. I would it might not be. 
 
 Or being so just were yet not necessary. 
 Art thou not heartily sorry — wouldst thou not, 
 I say, be sad — to see me sign it? 
 
 Davison. Madam, 
 
 I grieve at any soul's mishap that lives. 
 And specially for shipwreck of a life 
 To you so near allied : but seeing this doom 
 Wrung forth from justice by necessity, 
 I had rather guilt should bleed than innocence. 
 
 Elizabeth. When I shall sign, take thou this instantly 
 To the lord chancellor ; see it straight be sealed 
 As quietly as he may, not saying a word, 
 
SCENE III. MAJ^V STUART. 177 
 
 That no man come to know it untimely : then 
 Send it to the earls of Kent and Shrewsbury 
 Who are here set down to see this justice done : 
 I would no more be troubled with this coil 
 Till all be through. But, for the place of doort, 
 The hall there of the castle, in my mind, 
 Were fitter than the court or open green. 
 And as thou goest betake thee on thy way 
 To Walsingham, where he lies sick at home, 
 And let him know what hath of us been done : 
 Whereof the grief, I fear me, shall go near 
 To kill his heart outright. 
 
 Davison. Your majesty 
 
 Hath yet not signed the warrant. 
 
 Elizabeth. Ha ! God's blood ! 
 
 Art thou from tutor of philosophy late 
 Grown counsellor too and more than counsellor, thou 
 To appoint me where and what this hand of mine 
 Shall at thy beck obsequiously subscribe 
 And follow on thy finger ? By God's death, 
 What if it please me now not sign at all ? 
 This letter of my kinswoman's last writ 
 Hath more compulsion in it, and more power 
 To enforce my pity, than a thousand tongues 
 Dictating death against her in mine ear 
 Of mine own vassal subjects. Here but now 
 She writes me she thanks God with all her heart 
 That it hath pleased him by the mean of me 
 To make an end of her life's pilgrimage. 
 Which hath been weary to her : and doth not ask 
 
 N 
 
178 MAjRV STUART. act iv. 
 
 To see its length drawn longer, having had 
 Too much experience of its bitterness : 
 But only doth entreat me, since she may 
 Look for no favour at their zealous hands 
 Who are first in councils of my ministry, 
 That only I myself will grant her prayers ; 
 Whereof the first is, since she cannot hope 
 For English burial with such Catholic rites 
 As here were used in time of the ancient kings, 
 Mine ancestors and hers, and since the tombs 
 Lie violated in Scotland of her sires. 
 That so soon ever as her enemies 
 Shall with her innocent blood be satiated. 
 Her body by her servants may be borne 
 To some ground consecrated, there to be 
 Interred : and rather, she desires, in France, 
 Where sleep her honoured mother's ashes ; so 
 At length may her poor body find the rest 
 Which living it has never known : thereto. 
 She prays me, from the fears she hath of those 
 To whose harsh hand I have abandoned her, 
 She may not secretly be done to death, 
 But in her servants' sight and others', who 
 May witness her obedience kept and faith 
 To the true church, and guard her memory safe 
 From slanders haply to be blown abroad 
 Concerning her by mouths of enemies : last. 
 She asks that her attendants, who so well 
 And faithfully through all her miseries past 
 Have served her, may go freely where they please, 
 
SCENE III. MARY STUART. 179 
 
 And lose not those small legacies of hers 
 Which poverty can yet bequeath to them. 
 This she conjures me by the blood of Christ, 
 Our kinship, and my grandsire's memory. 
 Who was her father's grandsire and a king, 
 And by the name of queen she bears with her 
 Even to the death, that I will not refuse. 
 And that a word in mine own hand may thus 
 Assure her, who will then as she hath lived 
 Die mine affectionate sister and prisoner. See, 
 Howe'er she have sinned, what heart were mine, if this 
 Drew no tears from me : not the meanest soul 
 That lives most miserable but with such words 
 Must needs draw down men's pity. 
 
 Davison. Sure it is. 
 
 This queen hath skill of writing : and her hand 
 Hath manifold eloquence with various voice 
 To express discourse of sirens or of snakes, 
 A mermaid's or a monster's, uttering best 
 All music or all malice. Here is come 
 A letter writ long since of hers to you 
 From Sheffield Castle, which for shame or fear 
 She durst not or she would not thence despatch. 
 Sent secretly to me from Fotheringay, 
 Not from her hand, but with her own hand writ. 
 So foul of import and malignity 
 I durst not for your majesty's respect 
 With its fierce infamies afire from hell 
 Offend your gracious eyesight : but because 
 Your justice by your mercy's ignorant hand 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o MARY STUART, act iv. 
 
 Hath her fair eyes put out, and walks now blind 
 
 Even by the pit's edge deathward, pardon me 
 
 If what you never should have seen be shown 
 
 By hands that rather would take fire in hand 
 
 Than lay in yours this writing. \Gives her a letter. 
 
 Elizabeth. By this light, 
 
 Whate'er be here, thou hadst done presumptuously, 
 And Walsingham thy principal, to keep 
 Aught from mine eyes that being to me designed 
 Might even with most offence enlighten them. 
 Here is her hand indeed ; and she takes up [Reading. 
 In gracious wise enough the charge imposed 
 By promise on her and desire of ours, 
 How loth soe'er she be, regretfully 
 To bring such things in question of discourse, 
 Yet with no passion but sincerity, 
 As God shall witness her, declares to us 
 What our good lady of Shrewsbury said to her 
 Touching ourself in terms ensuing ; whereto 
 Answering she chid this dame for such belief, 
 And reprehended for licentious tongue, 
 To speak so lewdly of us : which herself 
 Believes not, knowing the woman's natural heart 
 And evil will as then to usward. Here 
 She writes no more than I would well believe 
 Of her as of the countess. Ha ! 
 
 Davison. Your grace 
 
 Shall but defile and vex your eyes and heart 
 To read these villainies through. 
 
 Elizabeth. God's death, man ! peace : 
 
SCENE III. 
 
 MAJ^V STUART. i8i 
 
 Thou wert not best incense me toward thine own, 
 Whose eyes have been before me in them. What ! 
 Was she not mad to write this ? One that had 
 Your pro77iise — laywith you times numberless —   
 All license and all privateness that inay 
 Be used of wife and husband ! yea, of her 
 And more dead men than shame remembers. God 
 Shall stand her witness — with the devil of hell 
 For sponsor to her vows, whose spirit in her 
 Begot himself this issue. Ha, the duke ! 
 — Nay, God shall give me patience — and his knave, 
 And Hatton — God have mercy ! nay, but hate. 
 Hate and constraint and rage have wrecked her wits, 
 And continence of life cut off from lust, 
 — This common stale of Scotland, that has tried 
 The sins of three rank nations, and consumed 
 Their veins whose life she took not — Italy, 
 France that put half this poison in her blood, 
 And her own kingdom that being sick therewith 
 Vomited out on ours the venomous thing 
 Whose head we set not foot on — but may God 
 Make my fame fouler through the world than hers 
 And ranker in men's record, if I spare 
 The she-wolf that I saved, the woman-beast. 
 Wolf-woman — how the Latin rings we know. 
 And what lewd lair first reared her, and whose hand 
 Writ broad across the Louvre and Holyrood 
 Lupanar — but no brothel ever bred 
 Or breathed so rank a soul's infection, spawned 
 Or spat such foulness in God's face and man's 
 
i82 MAJ^V STUART, act iv. 
 
 Or festered in such falsehood as her breath 
 Strikes honour sick with, and the spirit of shame 
 Dead as her fang shall strike herself, and send 
 The serpent that corruption calls her soul 
 To vie strange venoms v/ith the worm of hell 
 And make the face of darkness and the grave 
 Blush hotter with the fires wherein that soul 
 Sinks deeper than damnation. 
 
 Davison. Let your grace 
 
 Think only that but now the thing is known 
 And self-discovered which too long your love 
 Too dangerously hath cherished ; and forget 
 All but that end which yet remains for her, 
 That right by pity be not overcome. 
 
 Elizabeth. God pity so my soul as I do right, 
 And show me no more grace alive or dead 
 Than I do justice here. Give me again 
 That warrant I put by, being foolish : yea, 
 Thy word spake sooth — my soul's eyes were put out — 
 I could not see for pity. Thou didst well — 
 I am bounden to thee heartily — to cure 
 My sight of this distemper, and my soul. 
 Here in God's sight I set mine hand, who thought 
 Never to take this thing upon it, nor 
 Do God so bitter service. Take this hence : 
 And let me see no word nor hear of her 
 Till the sun see not such a soul alive. 
 
 END OF THE FOURTH ACT. 
 
ACT V. 
 
 MARY STUART. 
 
ACT V. 
 
 Scene I. Mary's Chamber in Fotheringav 
 Castle. 
 
 Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton. 
 
 Mary Stuart {sings). 
 
 O Lord my God, 
 
 I have trusted in thee ; 
 O Jesu my dearest one, 
 
 Now set me free. 
 In prison's oppression. 
 In sorrow's obsession, 
 
 I weary for thee. 
 With sighing and crying 
 Bowed down as dying, 
 I adore thee, I implore thee, set me free ! 
 
 Free are the dead : yet fain I would have had 
 
 Once, before all captivity find end, 
 
 Some breath of freedom living. These that come, 
 
 I think, with no such message, must not find. 
 
 For all this lameness of my limbs, a heart 
 
 As maimed in me with sickness. Three years gone. 
 
 When last I parted from the earl marshal's charge, 
 
 I did not think to see his face again 
 
i86 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 Turned on me as his prisoner. Now his wife 
 
 Will take no jealousy more to hear of it, 
 
 I trust, albeit we meet not as unfriends, 
 
 If it be mortal news he brings me. Go, 
 
 If I seem ready, as meseems I should. 
 
 And well arrayed to bear myself indeed 
 
 None otherwise than queenlike in their sight. 
 
 Bid them come in. {Exit Mary Beaton. 
 
 I cannot tell at last 
 If it be fear or hope that should expect 
 Death : I have had enough of hope, and fear 
 Was none of my familiars while I lived 
 Such life as had more pleasant things to lose 
 Than death or life may now divide me from. 
 'Tis not so much to look upon the sun 
 With eyes that may not lead us where we will, 
 And halt behind the footless flight of hope 
 With feet that may not follow : nor were aught 
 So much, of all things life may think to have, 
 That one not cowardly born should find it worth 
 The purchase of so base a price as this. 
 To stand self-shamed as coward. I do not think 
 This is mine end that comes upon me : but 
 I had liefer far it were than, were it not. 
 That ever I should fear it. 
 
 Enter Kent, Shrewsbury, Beale, and Sheriff, 
 
 Sirs, good day : 
 With such good heart as prisoners have, I bid 
 You and your message welcome. 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART, 187 
 
 Kent. Madam, this 
 
 The secretary of the council here hath charge 
 To read as their commission. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Let me hear 
 
 In as brief wise as may beseem the time 
 The purport of it. 
 
 Beale. Our commission here 
 
 Given by the council under the great seal 
 Pronounces on your head for present doom 
 Death, by this written sentence. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Ay, my lords ? 
 
 May I believe this, and not hold myself 
 Mocked as a child with shadows? In God's name, 
 Speak you, my lord of Shrewsbury : let me know 
 If this be dream or waking. 
 
 Kent. Verily, 
 
 No dream it is, nor dreamers we that pray, 
 Madam, you meetly would prepare yourself 
 To stand before God's judgment presently. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I had rather so than ever stand again 
 Before the face of man's. Why speak not you. 
 To whom I speak, my lord earl marshal ? Nay, 
 Look not so heavily : by my life, he stands 
 As one at point to weep. Why, good my lord. 
 To know that none may swear by Mary's life 
 And hope again to find belief of man 
 Upon so slight a warrant, should not bring 
 This trouble on your eyes ; look up, and say 
 The word you have for her that never was 
 Less than your friend, and prisoner. , 
 
1 88 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 Shrewsbury. None save this, 
 
 Which wilHngly I would not speak, I may ; 
 That presently your time is come to die. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Why, then, I am well content to 
 leave a world 
 Wherein I am no more serviceable at all 
 To God or man, and have therein so long 
 Endured so much affliction. All my life 
 I have ever earnestly desired the love 
 And friendship of your queen ; have warned her oft 
 Of coming dangers ; and have cherished long 
 The wish that I but once might speak with her 
 In plain-souled confidence ; being well assured, 
 Had we but once met, there an end had been 
 Of jealousies between us : but our foes, 
 With equal wrong toward either, treacherously 
 Have kept us still in sunder : by whose craft 
 And crooked policy hath my sister's crown 
 Fallen in great peril, and myself have been 
 Imprisoned, and inveterately maligned, 
 And here must now be murdered. But I know 
 That only for my faith's sake I must die, 
 And this to know for truth is recompense 
 As large as all my sufferings. For the crime 
 Wherewith I am charged, upon this holy book 
 I lay mine hand for witness of my plea, 
 I am wholly ignorant of it ; and solemnly 
 Declare that never yet conspiracy 
 Devised against the queen my sister's life 
 Took instigation or assent from me. 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 189 
 
 Kent. You swear but on a popish Testament : 
 Such oaths are all as worthless as the book. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I swear upon the book wherein I 
 trust : 
 Would you give rather credit to mine oath 
 Sworn on your scriptures that I trust not in ? 
 
 Kent. Madam, I fain would have you heartily 
 Renounce your superstition ; toward which end 
 With us the godly dean of Peterborough, 
 Good Richard Fletcher, well approved for faith 
 Of God and of the queen, is hither come 
 To proffer you his prayerful ministry. 
 
 Mary Stuart. If you, my lords, or he will pray for 
 me, 
 I shall be thankful for your prayers ; but may not 
 With theirs that hold another faith mix mine. 
 I pray you therefore that mine almoner may 
 Have leave to attend on me, that from his hands 
 I, having made confession, may receive 
 The sacrament. 
 
 Kent. We may not grant you this. 
 
 Mary Stuart. I shall not see my chaplain ere I 
 die? 
 But two months gone this grace was granted me 
 By word expressly from your queen, to have 
 Again his ministration : and at last 
 In the utter hour and bitter strait of death 
 Is this denied me ? 
 
 Kent. Madam, for your soul 
 
 More meet it were to cast these mummeries out. 
 
I90 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 And bear Christ only in your heart, than serve 
 With ceremonies of ritual hand and tongue 
 His mere idolatrous likeness. 
 
 Mary Stuart. This were strange, 
 
 That I should bear him visible in my hand 
 Or keep with Hps and knees his titular rites 
 And cast in heart no thought upon him. Nay, 
 Put me, I pray, to no more argument : 
 But if this least thing be not granted, yet 
 Grant me to know the season of my death. 
 
 Shrewsbury. At eight by dawn to-morrow you must 
 
 die. 
 Mary Stuart. So shall I hardly see the sun again. 
 By dawn to-morrow ? meanest men condemned 
 Give not their lives' breath up so suddenly : 
 Howbeit, I had rather yield you thanks, who make 
 Such brief end of the bitterness of death 
 
 For me who have borne such bitter length of life. 
 
 Than plead with protestation of appeal 
 
 For half a piteous hour's remission : nor 
 
 Henceforward shall I be denied of man 
 
 Aught, who may never now crave aught again 
 
 But whence is no denial. Yet shall this 
 
 Not easily be believed of men, nor find 
 
 In foreign ears acceptance, that a queen 
 
 Should be thrust out of life thus. Good my friend, 
 
 Bid my physician Gorion come to me : 
 
 I have to speak with him — sirs, with your leave — 
 
 Of certain monies due to me in France. 
 
 What, shall I twice desire your leave, my lords. 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 191 
 
 To live these poor last hours of mine alive 
 
 At peace among my friends ? I have much to do, 
 
 And little time wherein to do it is left. 
 
 Shrewsbury {to Kent apart). I pray she may not 
 mean worse than I would 
 Against herself ere morning. 
 
 Kent. Let not then 
 
 This French knave's drugs come near her, nor him- 
 self: 
 We will take order for it. 
 
 Shrewsbury. Nay, this were but 
 
 To exasperate more her thwarted heart, and make 
 Despair more desperate than itself Pray God 
 She be not minded to compel us put 
 Force at the last upon her of men's hands 
 To hale her violently to death, and make 
 Judgment look foul and fierce as murder's face 
 With stain of strife and passion. 
 \Exeunt all but Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton. 
 
 Mary Stuart. So, my friend. 
 
 The last of all our Maries are you left 
 To-morrow. Strange has been my life, and now 
 Strange looks my death upon me : yet, albeit 
 Nor the hour nor manner of it be mine to choose. 
 Ours is it yet, and all men's in the world. 
 To make death welcome in what wise we will. 
 Bid you my chaplain, though he see me not. 
 Watch through the night and pray for me : perchance. 
 When ere the sundawn they shall bring me forth, 
 I may behold him, and upon my knees 
 
192 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 Receive his blessing. Let our supper be 
 
 Served earlier in than wont was : whereunto 
 
 I bid my true poor servants here, to take 
 
 Farewell and drink at parting to them all 
 
 The cup of my last kindness, in good hope 
 
 They shall stand alway constant in their faith 
 
 And dwell in peace together : thereupon 
 
 What little store is left me will I share 
 
 Among them, and between my girls divide 
 
 My wardrobe and my jewels severally, 
 
 Reserving but the black robe and the red 
 
 That shall attire me for my death : and last 
 
 With mine own hand shall be my will writ out 
 
 And all memorials more set down therein 
 
 That I w^ould leave for legacies of love 
 
 To my next kinsmen and my household folk. 
 
 And to the king my brother yet of France 
 
 Must I write briefly, but a word to say 
 
 I am innocent of the charge whereon I die 
 
 Now for my right's sake claimed upon this crown, 
 
 And our true faith's sake, but am barred from sight 
 
 Even of mine almoner here, though hard at hand ; 
 
 And I would bid him take upon his charge 
 
 The keeping of my servants, as I think 
 
 He shall not for compassionate shame refuse, 
 
 Albeit his life be softer than his heart ; 
 
 And in religion for a queen's soul pray 
 
 That once was styled Most Christian, and is now 
 
 In the true faith about to die, deprived 
 
 Of all her past possessions. But this most 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 193 
 
 And first behoves it, that the king of Spain 
 By Gorion's word of mouth receive my heart, 
 Who soon shall stand before him. Bid the leech 
 Come hither, and alone, to speak with me. 
 
 \Exit Mary Beaton. 
 She is dumb as death : yet never in her Hfe 
 Hath she been quick of tongue. For all the rest. 
 Poor souls, how well they love me, all as well 
 I think I know : and one of them or twain 
 At least may surely see me to my death 
 Ere twice the hours have changed again. Perchance 
 Love that can weep not would the gladlier die 
 For those it cannot weep on. Time wears thin : 
 They should not now play laggard : nay, he comes, 
 The last that ever speaks alone with me 
 Before my soul shall speak alone with God. 
 
 Enter Gorion. 
 
 I have sent once more for you to no such end 
 
 As sick men for physicians : no strong drug 
 
 May put the death next morning twelve hours back 
 
 Whose twilight overshadows me, that am 
 
 Nor sick nor medicinable. Let me know 
 
 If I may lay the last of all my trust 
 
 On you that ever shall be laid on man 
 
 To prove him kind and loyal. 
 
 Gorion. So may God 
 
 Deal with me, madam, as I prove to you 
 Faithful, though none but I were in the world 
 That you might trust beside. 
 
 o 
 
194 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 Mary Stuart With equal heart 
 
 Do I believe and thank you. I would send 
 To Paris for the ambassador from Spain 
 This letter with two diamonds, which your craft 
 For me must cover from men's thievish eyes 
 Where they may be not looked for. 
 
 Gorton. Easily 
 
 Within some molten drug may these be hid, 
 And faithfully by me conveyed to him. 
 
 Mary Stuart. The lesser of them shall he keep in 
 sign 
 Of my good friendship toward himself : but this 
 In token to King Philip shall he give 
 That for the truth I die, and dying commend 
 To him my friends and servants, Gilbert Curie, 
 His sister, and Jane Kennedy, who shall 
 To-night watch by me ; and my ladies all 
 That have endured my prison : let him not 
 Forget from his good favour one of these 
 That I remember to him : Charles Arundel, 
 And either banished Paget ; one whose heart 
 Was better toward my service than his hand, 
 Morgan : and of mine exiles for their faith. 
 The prelates first of Glasgow and of Ross ; 
 And Liggons and Throgmorton, that have lost 
 For me their leave to live on English earth ; 
 And Westmoreland, that lives now more forlorn 
 Than died that earl who rose for me with him. 
 These I beseech him favour for my sake 
 Still : and forget not, if he come again 
 
SCENE I. MARY STUART. 195 
 
 To rule as king in England, one of them 
 
 That were mine enemies here : the treasurer first, 
 
 And Leicester, Walsingham, and Huntingdon, 
 
 At Tutbury once my foe, fifteen years gone. 
 
 And Wade that spied upon me three years since, 
 
 And Paulet here my gaoler : set them down 
 
 For him to wreak wrath's utmost justice on. 
 
 In my revenge remembered. Though I be 
 
 Dead, let him not forsake his hope to reign 
 
 Upon this people : with my last breath left 
 
 I make this last prayer to him, that not the less 
 
 He will maintain the invasion yet designed 
 
 Of us before on England : let him think. 
 
 It is God's quarrel, and on earth a cause 
 
 Well worthy of his greatness : which being won, 
 
 Let him forget no man of these nor me. 
 
 And now will I lie down, that four hours' sleep 
 
 May give me strength before I sleep again 
 
 And need take never thought for waking more. 
 
 Scene II. The Presence Chamber. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Kent, Paulet, Drury, Melville, 
 and Attendants. 
 
 Kent. The stroke is past of eight. 
 Shrewsbury. Not far, my lord. 
 
 Kent. What stays the provost and the sheriff yet 
 That went ere this to bring the prisoner forth ? 
 o 2 
 
196 MARY STUART, Adf V. 
 
 What, are her doors locked inwards ? then perchance 
 Our last night's auguries of some close design 
 By death contrived of her self-slaughterous hand 
 To baffle death by justice hit but right 
 The heart of her bad purpose. 
 
 Shrewsbury. Fear it not : 
 
 See where she comes, a queenlier thing to see 
 Than whom such thoughts take hold on. 
 
 Enter Mary Stuart, led by two gentlemen and pre- 
 ceded by the Sheriff-, Mary Beaton, Barbara 
 Mowbray, and other ladies behind^ who remain in 
 the doorway, 
 
 Melville {kneeling to Mary). Woe am I, 
 
 Madam, that I must bear to Scotland back 
 Such tidings watered with such tears as these. 
 
 Mary Stuart. Weep not, good Melville: rather 
 should your heart 
 Rejoice that here an end is come at last 
 Of Mary Stuart's long sorrows ; for be sure 
 That all this world is only vanity. 
 And this record I pray you make of me. 
 That a true woman to my faith I die. 
 And true to Scotland and to France : but God 
 Forgive them that have long desired mine end 
 And with false tongues have thirsted for my blood 
 As the hart thirsteth for the water-brooks. 
 O God, who art truth, and the author of all truth, 
 Thou knowest the extreme recesses of my heart, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART, 197 
 
 And how that I was willing all my days 
 
 That England should with Scotland be fast friends. 
 
 Commend me to my son : tell him that I 
 
 Have nothing done to prejudice his rights 
 
 As king : and now, good Melville, fare thee well. 
 
 My lord of Kent, whence comes it that your charge 
 
 Hath bidden back my women there at door 
 
 Who fain to the end would bear me company? 
 
 Kent. Madam, this were not seemly nor discreet, 
 That these should so have leave to vex men's ears 
 With cries and loose lamentings : haply too 
 They might in superstition seek to dip 
 Their handkerchiefs for relics in your blood. 
 
 Mary Stuart, That will I pledge my word they 
 shall not. Nay, 
 The queen would surely not deny me this. 
 The poor last thing that I shall ask on earth. 
 Even a far meaner person dying I think 
 She would not have so handled. Sir, you know 
 I am her cousin, of her grandsire's blood, 
 A queen of France by marriage, and by birth 
 Anointed queen of Scotland. My poor girls 
 Desire no more than but to see me die. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Madam, you have leave to elect of 
 this your train 
 Two ladies with four men to go with you. 
 
 Mary Stuart, I choose from forth my Scottish 
 following here 
 Jane Kennedy, with Elspeth Curie : of men, 
 Bourgoin and Gorion shall attend on me. 
 
198 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 Gervais and Didier. Come then, let us go. 
 
 \Exeunt : jnanent Mary Beaton and Barbara 
 Mowbray. 
 
 Barbara. I wist I was not worthy, though my child 
 It is that her own hands made Christian : but 
 I deemed she should have bid you go with her. 
 Alas, and would not all we die with her ? 
 
 Mary Beaton. Why, from the gallery here at hand 
 your eyes 
 May go with her along the hall beneath 
 Even to the scaffold : and I fain would hear 
 What fain I would not look on. Pray you, then, 
 If you may bear to see it as those below, 
 Do me that sad good service of your eyes 
 For mine to look upon it, and declare 
 All that till all be done I will not see ; 
 I pray you of your pity. 
 
 Barbara. Though mine heart 
 
 Break, it shall not for fear forsake the sight 
 That may be faithful yet in following her, 
 Nor yet for grief refuse your prayer, being fain 
 To give your love such bitter comfort, who 
 So long have never left her. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Till she die — 
 
 I have ever known I shall not till she die. 
 See you yet aught ? if I hear spoken words. 
 My heart can better bear these pulses, else 
 Unbearable, that rend it. 
 
 Barbara. Yea, I see 
 
 Stand in mid hall the scaffold, black as death, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 199 
 
 And black the block upon it : all around, 
 Against the throng a guard of halberdiers ; 
 And the axe against the scaffold-rail reclined, 
 And two men masked on either hand beyond : 
 And hard behind the block a cushion set. 
 Black, as the chair behind it. 
 
 Mary Beaton. When I saw- 
 
 Fallen on a scaffold once a young man's head, 
 Such things as these I saw not. Nay, but on : 
 I knew not that I spake : and toward your ears 
 Indeed I spake not. 
 
 Barbara. All those faces change ; 
 
 She comes more royally than ever yet 
 Fell foot of man triumphant on this earth. 
 Imperial more than empire made her, born 
 EntTironed as queen sat never. Not a line 
 Stirs of her sovereign feature : like a bride 
 Brought home she mounts the scaffold ; and her eyes 
 Sweep regal round the cirque beneath, and rest, 
 Subsiding with a smile. She sits, and they, 
 The doomsmen earls, beside her ; at her left 
 The sheriff, and the clerk at hand on high. 
 To read the warrant. 
 
 Mary Beaton. None stands there but knows 
 
 What things therein are writ against her : God 
 Knows what therein is writ not. God forgive 
 All. 
 
 Barbara. Not a face there breathes of all the throng 
 But is more moved than hers to hear this read. 
 Whose look alone is changed not. 
 
200 MARY STUART, act v. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Once I knew 
 
 A face that changed not in as dire an hour 
 More than the queen's face changes. Hath he not 
 Ended ? 
 
 Barbara. You cannot hear them speak below : 
 Come near and hearken ; bid not me repeat 
 All. 
 
 Mary Beaton. I beseech you — for I may not come. 
 
 Barbara. Now speaks Lord Shrewsbury but a word 
 or twain, 
 And brieflier yet she answers, and stands up 
 As though to kneel, and pray. 
 
 Mary Beaton. I too have prayed — 
 
 God hear at last her prayers not less than mine, 
 Which failed not, sure, of hearing. 
 
 Barbara. Now draws nigh 
 
 That heretic priest, and bows himself, and thrice 
 Strives, as a man that sleeps in pain, to speak. 
 Stammering : she waves him by, as one whose prayers 
 She knows may nought avail her : now she kneels, 
 And the earls rebuke her, and she answers not, 
 Kneeling. O Christ, whose likeness there engraved 
 She strikes against her bosom, hear her ! Now 
 That priest lifts up his voice against her prayer, 
 Praying : and a voice all round goes up with his : 
 But hers is lift up higher than climbs their cry, 
 In the great psalms of penitence : and now 
 She prays aloud in English ; for the Pope 
 Our father, and his church ; and for her son, 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 201 
 
 And for the queen her murderess ; and that God 
 
 May turn from England yet his wrath away ; 
 
 And so forgives her enemies ; and implores 
 
 High intercession of the saints with Christ, 
 
 Whom crucified she kisses on his cross, 
 
 And crossing now her breast — Ah, heard you not ? 
 
 Even as thine arms were spread upon the cross. 
 
 So make thy grace, O Jesus, wide for me. 
 
 Receive me to thy mercy so, and so 
 
 Forgive my sifis. 
 Mary Beaton. So be it, if so God please. 
 
 Is she not risen up yet ? 
 Barbara. Yea, but mine eyes 
 
 Darken : because those deadly twain close masked 
 
 Draw nigh as men that crave forgiveness, which 
 Gently she grants : for now, she said, I hope 
 
 You shall end all my troubles. Now meseems 
 They would put hand upon her as to help. 
 And disarray her raiment : but she smiles — 
 Heard you not that ? can you nor hear nor speak, 
 Poor heart, for pain ? Truly, she said, my lords, 
 1 never had such cha?fiber-grooms before 
 As these to wait on 7ne. 
 
 Mary Beaton. An end, an end. 
 
 Barbara. Now come those twain upon the scaffold- 
 up 
 Whom she preferred before us : and she lays 
 Her crucifix down, which now the headsman takes 
 Into his cursed hand, but being rebuked 
 
 p 
 
.«o2 MARY STUART. act v. 
 
 Puts back for shame that sacred spoil of hers. 
 And now they lift her veil up from her head 
 Softly, and softly draw the black robe off, 
 And all in red as of a funeral flame 
 She stands up statelier yet before them, tall 
 And clothed as if with sunset : and she takes 
 From Elspeth's hand the crimson sleeves, and draws 
 Their covering on her arms : and now those twain 
 Burst out aloud in weeping : and she speaks — 
 Weep not ; I pro7nised for you. Now she kneels; 
 And Jane binds round a kerchief on her eyes : 
 And smiling last her heavenliest smile on earth. 
 She waves a blind hand toward them, with Farewelly 
 Farewell^ to meet again : and they come down 
 And leave her praying aloud. In thee, O Lord, 
 I put my trust: and now, that psalm being through, 
 She lays between the block and her soft neck 
 Her long white peerless hands up tenderly, 
 Which now the headsman draws again away, 
 But softly too : now stir her lips again — 
 Into thine hands, O Lord, into thine hands. 
 Lord, I commend my spirit : and now — but now, 
 Look you, not I, the last upon her. 
 
 Mary Beaton. Ha ! 
 
 He strikes awry : she stirs not. Nay, but now 
 He strikes aright, and ends it. ' 
 
 Barbara. Hark, a cry. 
 
 Voice below. So perish all found enemies of the 
 queen ! 
 
SCENE II. MARY STUART. 203 
 
 Another Voice, Amen. 
 
 Mary Beaton. I heard that very cry go up 
 
 Far off long since to God, who answers here. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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24 
 
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 ^/right's History of Caricature and of the 
 
 Grotesque in Art, Literature, Sculpture, and Painting. By Thomas 
 Wright, F.S.A. Profusely Illustrated by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. 
 
 J. OGDKN AND CO., PRINTERS, 172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.G. 
 
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