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.

SHREWSBURY.

None save this,

Which willingly 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.

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,

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 lips 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,

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 himself:

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

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 would 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

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 life

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.

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.

GORION.

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 Curle,

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

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?

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.