Mary Stuart Read Online

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.

WALSINGHAM.

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

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 deadlier 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 with 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

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

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

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. 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 whose report

Blows fear among the people lest our charge

Escape our trust, or as they term it now

Be taken away, – such apprehensive tongues

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

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

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?

DRURY.

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:

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 Châteauneuf

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, challenging

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

Sent bound before the council: who replied

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 the 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,

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

By whose assent her life 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:

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.

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

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 judgment on her enemy done;

Which were for me that recompense indeed

Whereof she writes as one not given to all,

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 death,

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.