Charles the First Read Online

Subdue thy actions

Even to the disposition of thy purpose,

And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel;

And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,

Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,

And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,

As when she keeps the company of rebels,

Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we

Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle

In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream

Out of our worshipped state.

KING.

Beloved friend,

God is my witness that this weight of power,

Which He sets me my earthly task to wield

Under His law, is my delight and pride

Only because thou lovest that and me.

For a king bears the office of a God

To all the under world; and to his God

Alone he must deliver up his trust,

Unshorn of its permitted attributes.

[It seems] now as the baser elements

Had mutinied against the golden sun

That kindles them to harmony, and quells

Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million

Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours

Of the distempered body that conspire

Against the spirit of life throned in the heart, –

And thus become the prey of one another,

And last of death –

STRAFFORD.

That which would be ambition in a subject

Is duty in a sovereign; for on him,

As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,

Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form,

And all that makes the age of reasoning man

More memorable than a beast's, depend on this –

That Right should fence itself inviolably

With Power; in which respect the state of England

From usurpation by the insolent commons

Cries for reform.

Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin

The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies

Opposing factions, – be thyself of none;

And borrow gold of many, for those who lend

Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus

Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay,

Till time, and its coming generations

Of nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,

. . . . . . . .

Or war or pestilence or Nature's self, –

By some distemperature or terrible sign,

Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves.

Nor let your Majesty

Doubt here the peril of the unseen event.

How did your brother Kings, coheritors

In your high interest in the subject earth,

Rise past such troubles to that height of power

Where now they sit, and awfully serene

Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms

Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France,

And late the German head of many bodies,

And every petty lord of Italy,

Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer

Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her power

Tamer than they? or shall this island be –

[Girdled] by its inviolable waters –

To the world present and the world to come

Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy?

Not if thou dost as I would have thee do.

KING.

Your words shall be my deeds:

You speak the image of my thought. My friend

(If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so),

Beyond the large commission which [belongs]

Under the great seal of the realm, take this:

And, for some obvious reasons, let there be

No seal on it, except my kingly word

And honour as I am a gentleman.

Be – as thou art within my heart and mind –

Another self, here and in Ireland:

Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence,

And stick not even at questionable means.

Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall

Between thee and this world thine enemy –

That hates thee, for thou lovest me.

STRAFFORD.

I own

No friend but thee, no enemies but thine:

Thy lightest thought is my eternal law.

How weak, how short, is life to pay –

KING.

Peace, peace.

Thou ow'st me nothing yet.

To Laud.

My lord, what say

Those papers?

LAUD.

Your Majesty has ever interposed,

In lenity towards your native soil,

Between the heavy vengeance of the Church

And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming

This brood of northern vipers in your bosom.

The rabble, instructed no doubt

By Loudon, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll

(For the waves never menace heaven until

Scourged by the wind's invisible tyranny),

Have in the very temple of the Lord

Done outrage to His chosen ministers.

They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church,

Refuse to obey her canons, and deny

The apostolic power with which the Spirit

Has filled its elect vessels, even from him

Who held the keys with power to loose and bind,

To him who now pleads in this royal presence. –

Let ample powers and new instructions be

Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.

To death, imprisonment, and confiscation,

Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred

Of the offender, add the brand of infamy,

Add mutilation: and if this suffice not,

Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst

They may lick up that scum of schismatics.

I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring

What we possess, still prate of Christian peace,

As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers

Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong,

Should be let loose against the innocent sleep

Of templed cities and the smiling fields,

For some poor argument of policy

Which touches our own profit or our pride

(Where it indeed were Christian charity

To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand);

And, when our great Redeemer, when our God,

When He who gave, accepted, and retained

Himself in propitiation of our sins,

Is scorned in His immediate ministry,

With hazard of the inestimable loss

Of all the truth and discipline which is

Salvation to the extremest generation

Of men innumerable, they talk of peace!

Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now:

For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword,

Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command

To His disciples at the Passover

That each should sell his robe and buy a sword, –

Once strip that minister of naked wrath,

And it shall never sleep in peace again

Till Scotland bend or break.

KING.

My Lord Archbishop,

Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this.

Thy earthly even as thy heavenly King

Gives thee large power in his unquiet realm.

But we want money, and my mind misgives me

That for so great an enterprise, as yet,

We are unfurnished,

STRAFFORD.

Yet it may not long

Rest on our wills.

COTTINGTON.

The expenses

Of gathering shipmoney, and of distraining

For every petty rate (for we encounter

A desperate opposition inch by inch

In every warehouse and on every farm),

Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts;

So that, though felt as a most grievous scourge

Upon the land, they stand us in small stead

As touches the receipt.

STRAFFORD.

'Tis a conclusion

Most arithmetical: and thence you infer

Perhaps the assembling of a parliament.

Now, if a man should call his dearest enemies

To sit in licensed judgement on his life,

His Majesty might wisely take that course.

Aside to Cottington.

It is enough to expect from these lean imposts

That they perform the office of a scourge,

Without more profit.

Aloud.

Fines and confiscations,

And a forced loan from the refractory city,

Will fill our coffers: and the golden love

Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends

For the worshipped father of our common country,

With contributions from the catholics,

Will make Rebellion pale in our excess.

Be these the expedients until time and wisdom

Shall frame a settled state of government.

LAUD.

And weak expedients they! Have we not drained

All, till the which seemed

A mine exhaustless?

STRAFFORD.

And the love which is,

If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold.

LAUD.

Both now grow barren: and I speak it not

As loving parliaments, which, as they have been

In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings

The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.

Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear.

STRAFFORD.

Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest:

With that, take all I held, but as in trust

For thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but

This unprovided body for thy service,

And a mind dedicated to no care

Except thy safety: – but assemble not

A parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me,

Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before –

KING.

No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas!

We should be too much out of love with Heaven,

Did this vile world show many such as thee,

Thou perfect, just, and honourable man!

Never shall it be said that Charles of England

Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns;

Nor will he so much misbecome his throne

As to impoverish those who most adorn

And best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford,

Inclines me rather –

QUEEN.

To a parliament?

Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside

Over a knot of censurers,

To the unswearing of thy best resolves,

And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon?

Plight not the worst before the worst must come.

Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes,

Dressed in their own usurped authority,

Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta's fame?

It is enough! Thou lovest me no more!

Weeps.

KING.

Oh, Henrietta!

They talk apart.

COTTINGTON to Laud.

Money we have none:

And all the expedients of my Lord of Strafford

Will scarcely meet the arrears.

LAUD.

Without delay

An army must be sent into the north;

Followed by a Commission of the Church,

With amplest power to quench in fire and blood,

And tears and terror, and the pity of hell,

The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give

Victory; and victory over Scotland give

The lion England tamed into our hands.

That will lend power, and power bring gold.