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.

 

Enter Mary Stuart, led by two gentlemen and preceded 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,

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 Curle: of men,

Bourgoin and Gorion shall attend on me,

Gervais and Didier. Come then, let us go.

 

Exeunt: manent 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,

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

Enthroned 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.

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,

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 sins.

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,

I never had such chamber-grooms before

As these to wait on me.

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

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 promised 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 Farewell,

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!

ANOTHER VOICE.

Amen.

MARY BEATON.

I heard that very cry go up

Far off long since to God, who answers here.

 

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