ELIZABETH.

What, the priest?

Their twice-turned Ballard, ha?

WALSINGHAM.

Madam, not he.

ELIZABETH.

God's blood! ye have spared not him the torment, knaves?

Of all I would not spare him.

WALSINGHAM.

Verily, no;

The rack hath spun his life's thread out so fine

There is but left for death to slit in twain

The thickness of a spider's.

ELIZABETH.

Ay, still dumb?

WALSINGHAM.

Dumb for all good the pains can get of him;

Had he drunk dry the chalice of his craft

Brewed in design abhorred of even his friends

With poisonous purpose toward your majesty,

He had kept scarce harder silence.

ELIZABETH.

Poison? ay –

That should be still the churchman's household sword

Or saintly staff to bruise crowned heads from far

And break them with his precious balms that smell

Rank as the jaws of death, or festal fume

When Rome yet reeked with Borgia; but the rest

Had grace enow to grant me for goodwill

Some death more gracious than a rat's? God wot,

I am bounden to them, and will charge for this

The hangman thank them heartily; they shall not

Lack daylight means to die by. God, meseems,

Will have me not die darkling like a dog,

Who hath kept my lips from poison and my heart

From shot of English knave or Spanish, both

Dubbed of the devil or damned his doctors, whom

My riddance from all ills that plague man's life

Should have made great in record; and for wage

Your Ballard hath not better hap to fee

Than Lopez had or Parry. Well, he lies

As dumb in bonds as those dead dogs in earth,

You say, but of his fellows newly ta'en

There are that keep not silence: what say these?

Pour in mine ears the poison of their plot

Whose fangs have stung the silly snakes to death.

WALSINGHAM.

The first a soldier, Savage, in these wars

That sometime serving sought a traitor's luck

Under the prince Farnese, then of late

At Rheims was tempted of our traitors there,

Of one in chief, Gifford the seminarist,

My smock-faced spy's good uncle, to take off

Or the earl of Leicester or your gracious self;

And since his passage hither, to confirm

His hollow-hearted hardihood, hath had

Word from this doctor more solicitous yet

Sent by my knave his nephew, who of late

Was in the seminary of so deadly seed

Their reader in philosophy, that their head,

Even Cardinal Allen, holds for just and good

The purpose laid upon his hand; this man

Makes yet more large confession than of this,

Saying from our Gilbert's trusty mouth he had

Assurance that in Italy the Pope

Hath levies raised against us, to set forth

For seeming succour toward the Parmesan,

But in their actual aim bent hither, where

With French and Spaniards in one front of war

They might make in upon us; but from France

No foot shall pass for inroad on our peace

Till – so they phrase it – by these Catholics here

Your majesty be taken, or –

ELIZABETH.

No more –

But only taken? springed but bird-like? Ha!

They are something tender of our poor personal chance –

Temperately tender: yet I doubt the springe

Had haply maimed me no less deep than life

Sits next the heart most mortal. Or – so be it

I slip the springe – what yet may shackle France,

Hang weights upon their purpose who should else

Be great of heart against us? They take time

Till I be taken – or till what signal else

As favourable?

WALSINGHAM.

Till she they serve be brought

Safe out of Paulet's keeping.

ELIZABETH.

Ay? they know him

So much my servant, and his guard so good,

That sound of strange feet marching on our soil

Against us in his prisoner's name perchance

Might from the walls wherein she sits his guest

Raise a funereal echo? Yet I think

He would not dare – what think'st thou might he dare

Without my word for warrant? If I knew

This –

WALSINGHAM.

It should profit not your grace to know

What may not be conceivable for truth

Without some stain on honour.

ELIZABETH.

Nay, I say not

That I would have him take upon his hand

More than his trust may warrant: yet have men,

Good men, for very truth of their good hearts

Put loyal hand to work as perilous – well,

God wot I would not have him so transgress –

If such be called transgressors.

WALSINGHAM.

Let the queen

Rest well assured he shall not. So far forth

Our swordsman Savage witnesses of these

That moved him toward your murder but in trust

Thereby to bring invasion over sea:

Which one more gently natured of his birth,

Tichborne, protests with very show of truth

That he would give no ear to, knowing, he saith,

The miseries of such conquest: nor, it seems,

Heard this man aught of murderous purpose bent

Against your highness.

ELIZABETH.

Naught? why then, again,

To him I am yet more bounden, who may think,

Being found but half my traitor, at my hands

To find but half a hangman.

WALSINGHAM.

Nay, the man

Herein seems all but half his own man, being

Made merely out of stranger hearts and brains

Their engine of conspiracy; for thus

Forsooth he pleads, that Babington his friend

First showed him how himself was wrought upon

By one man's counsel and persuasion, one

Held of great judgment, Ballard, on whose head

All these lay all their forfeit.

ELIZABETH.

Yet shall each

Pay for himself red coin of ransom down

In costlier drops than gold is. But of these

Why take we thought? their natural-subject blood

Can wash not out their sanguine-sealed attempt,

Nor leave us marked as tyrant: only she

That is the head and heart of all your fears

Whose hope or fear is England's, quick or dead,

Leaves or imperilled or impeached of blood

Me that with all but hazard of mine own,

God knows, would yet redeem her. I will write

With mine own hand to her privily, – what else? –

Saying, if by word as privy from her hand

She will confess her treasonous practices,

They shall be wrapped in silence up, and she

By judgment live unscathed.

WALSINGHAM.

Being that she is,

So surely will she deem of your great grace,

And see it but as a snare set wide, or net

Spread in the bird's sight vainly.

ELIZABETH.

Why, then, well:

She, casting off my grace, from all men's grace

Cuts off herself, and even aloud avows

By silence and suspect of jealous heart

Her manifest foul conscience: on which proof

I will proclaim her to the parliament

So self-convicted. Yet I would not have

Her name and life by mortal evidence

Touched at the trial of them that now shall die

Or by their charge attainted: lest myself

Fall in more peril of her friends than she

Stands yet in shot of judgment.

WALSINGHAM.

Be assured,

Madam, the process of their treasons judged

Shall tax not her before her trial-time

With public note of clear complicity

Even for that danger's sake which moves you.

ELIZABETH.

Me

So much it moves not for my mere life's sake

Which I would never buy with fear of death

As for the general danger's and the shame's

Thence cast on queenship and on womanhood

By mean of such a murderess. But, for them,

I would the merited manner of their death

Might for more note of terror be referred

To me and to my council: these at least

Shall hang for warning in the world's wide eye

More high than common traitors, with more pains

Being ravished forth of their more villainous lives

Than feed the general throat of justice. Her

Shall this too touch, whom none that serves henceforth

But shall be sure of hire more terrible

Than all past wage of treason.

WALSINGHAM.

Why, so far

As law gives leave –

ELIZABETH.

What prat'st thou me of law?

God's blood! is law for man's sake made, or man

For law's sake only, to be held in bonds,

Led lovingly like hound in huntsman's leash

Or child by finger, not for help or stay,

But hurt and hindrance? Is not all this land

And all its hope and surety given to time

Of sovereignty and freedom, all the fame

And all the fruit of manhood hence to be,

More than one rag or relic of its law

Wherewith all these lie shackled? as too sure

Have states no less than ours been done to death

With gentle counsel and soft-handed rule

For fear to snap one thread of ordinance

Though thence the state were strangled.

WALSINGHAM.

Madam, yet

There need no need be here of law's least breach,

That of all else is worst necessity –

Being such a mortal medicine to the state

As poison drunk to expel a feverish taint

Which air or sleep might purge as easily.

ELIZABETH.

Ay, but if air be poison-struck with plague

Or sleep to death lie palsied, fools were they,

Faint hearts and faithless, who for health's fair sake

Should fear to cleanse air, pierce and probe the trance,

With purging fire or iron. Have your way.

God send good end of all this, and procure

Some mean whereby mine enemies' craft and his

May take no feet but theirs in their own toils,

And no blood shed be innocent as mine.

 

Scene II. Chartley

Mary Beaton and Sir Amyas Paulet.

 

PAULET.

You should do well to bid her less be moved

Who needs fear less of evil. Since we came

Again from Tixall this wild mood of hers

Hath vexed her more than all men's enmities

Should move a heart more constant. Verily,

I thought she had held more rule upon herself

Than to call out on beggars at the gate

When she rode forth, crying she had nought to give,

Being all as much a beggar too as they,

With all things taken from her.

MARY BEATON.

Being so served,

In sooth she should not show nor shame nor spleen:

It was but seventeen days ye held her there

Away from all attendance, as in bonds

Kept without change of raiment, and to find,

Being thence haled hither again, no nobler use,

But all her papers plundered – then her keys

By force of violent threat wrung from the hand

She scarce could stir to help herself abed:

These were no matters that should move her.