MARY STUART.

Now, fair sir,

What say you to my chance on wager? here

I think to outshoot your archery. – By my life,

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;

 

Aside to Mary Beaton.

 

Say, these are they we looked for; 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.

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 liar and traitor, was not this

Part of your charge, to play my hangman too,

Who have played so well my doomsman, and betrayed

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 man

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

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, no,

With us you may not in such suit prevail

Nor we by words or wrath of yours be moved

To turn 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

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

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.

 

 

Act II

Walsingham
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.

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.