Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series
Page 136
‘Fore God, I think she entreats me like a child.
NOAILLES.
You’ve but a dull life in this maiden court, I fear, my Lord?
COURTENAY.
A life of nods and yawns.
NOAILLES.
So you would honour my poor house to-night,
We might enliven you. Divers honest fellows,
The Duke of Suffolk lately freed from prison,
Sir Peter Carew and Sir Thomas Wyatt,
Sir Thomas Stafford, and some more — we play.
COURTENAY.
At what?
NOAILLES.
The Game of Chess.
COURTENAY.
The Game of Chess!
I can play well, and I shall beat you there.
NOAILLES.
Ay, but we play with Henry, King of France,
And certain of his court.
His Highness makes his moves across the Channel,
We answer him with ours, and there are messengers
That go between us.
COURTENAY.
Why, such a game, sir, were whole years a playing.
NOAILLES.
Nay; not so long I trust. That all depends
Upon the skill and swiftness of the players.
COURTENAY.
The King is skilful at it?
NOAILLES. Very, my Lord.
COURTENAY.
And the stakes high?
NOAILLES.
But not beyond your means.
COURTENAY.
Well, I’m the first of players, I shall win.
NOAILLES.
With our advice and in our company,
And so you well attend to the king’s moves,
I think you may.
COURTENAY.
When do you meet?
NOAILLES.
To-night.
COURTENAY (aside).
I will be there; the fellow’s at his tricks —
Deep — I shall fathom him. (Aloud) Good morning,
Noailles.
[Exit Courtenay.
NOAILLES.
Good-day, my Lord. Strange game of chess! a King
That with her own pawns plays against a Queen,
Whose play is all to find herself a King.
Ay; but this fine blue-blooded Courtenay seems
Too princely for a pawn. Call him a Knight,
That, with an ass’s, not a horse’s head,
Skips every way, from levity or from fear.
Well, we shall use him somehow, so that Gardiner
And Simon Renard spy not out our game
Too early. Roger, thinkest thou that anyone
Suspected thee to be my man?
ROGER.
Not one, sir.
NOAILLES.
No! the disguise was perfect. Let’s away.
[Exeunt.
Scene IV
London. A Room in the Palace.
ELIZABETH. Enter COURTENAY.
COURTENAY.
So yet am I,
Unless my friends and mirrors lie to me,
A goodlier-looking fellow than this Philip.
Pah!
The Queen is ill advised: shall I turn traitor?
They’ve almost talked me into it: yet the word
Affrights me somewhat: to be such a one
As Harry Bolingbroke hath a lure in it.
Good now, my Lady Queen, tho’ by your age,
And by your looks you are not worth the having,
Yet by your crown you are.
[Seeing ELIZABETH.
The Princess there?
If I tried her and la — she’s amorous.
Have we not heard of her in Edward’s time,
Her freaks and frolics with the late Lord Admiral?
I do believe she’d yield. I should be still
A party in the state; and then, who knows —
ELIZABETH.
What are you musing on, my Lord of Devon?
COURTENAY.
Has not the Queen —
ELIZABETH.
Done what, Sir?
COURTENAY.
— made you follow
The Lady Suffolk and the Lady Lennox? —
You,
The heir presumptive.
ELIZABETH.
Why do you ask? you know it.
COURTENAY.
You needs must bear it hardly.
ELIZABETH.
No, indeed!
I am utterly submissive to the Queen.
COURTENAY.
Well, I was musing upon that; the Queen
Is both my foe and yours: we should be friends.
ELIZABETH.
My Lord, the hatred of another to us
Is no true bond of friendship.
COURTENAY.
Might it not
Be the rough preface of some closer bond?
ELIZABETH.
My Lord, you late were loosed from out the Tower,
Where, like a butterfly in a chrysalis,
You spent your life; that broken, out you flutter
Thro’ the new world, go zigzag, now would settle
Upon this flower, now that; but all things here
At court are known; you have solicited
The Queen, and been rejected.
COURTENAY.
Flower, she!
Half faded! but you, cousin, are fresh and sweet
As the first flower no bee has ever tried.
ELIZABETH.
Are you the bee to try me? why, but now
I called you butterfly.
COURTENAY.
You did me wrong,
I love not to be called a butterfly:
Why do you call me butterfly?
ELIZABETH.
Why do you go so gay then?
COURTENAY.
Velvet and gold.
This dress was made me as the Earl of Devon
To take my seat in; looks it not right royal?
ELIZABETH.
So royal that the Queen forbad you wearing it.
COURTENAY.
I wear it then to spite her.
ELIZABETH.
My Lord, my Lord;
I see you in the Tower again. Her Majesty
Hears you affect the Prince — prelates kneel to you. —
COURTENAY.
I am the noblest blood in Europe, Madam,
A Courtenay of Devon, and her cousin.
ELIZABETH.
She hears you make your boast that after all
She means to wed you. Folly, my good Lord.
COURTENAY.
How folly? a great party in the state
Wills me to wed her.
ELIZABETH.
Failing her, my Lord,
Doth not as great a party in the state
Will you to wed me?
COURTENAY.
Even so, fair lady.
ELIZABETH.
You know to flatter ladies.
COURTENAY. Nay, I meant
True matters of the heart.
ELIZABETH.
My heart, my Lord,
Is no great party in the state as yet.
COURTENAY.
Great, said you? nay, you shall be great. I love you,
Lay my life in your hands. Can you be close?
ELIZABETH.
Can you, my Lord?
COURTENAY.
Close as a miser’s casket.
Listen:
The King of France, Noailles the Ambassador,
The Duke of Suffolk and Sir Peter Carew,
Sir Thomas Wyatt, I myself, some others,
Have sworn this Spanish marriage shall not be.
If Mary will not hear us — well — conjecture —
Were I in Devon with my wedded bride,
The people there so worship me — Your ear;
You shall be Queen.
ELIZABETH.
You speak too low, my Lord;
I cannot hear you.
COURTENAY.
I’ll repeat it.
ELIZABETH.
No!
Stand further off, or you may lose your head.
COURTENAY.
I have a head to lose for your sweet sake.
ELIZABETH.
Have you, my Lord? Best keep it for your own.
Nay, pout not, cousin.
Not many friends are mine, except indeed
Among the many. I believe you mine;
And so you may continue mine, farewell,
And that at once.
Enter MARY, behind.
MARY.
Whispering — leagued together
To bar me from my Philip.
COURTENAY.
Pray — consider —
ELIZABETH (seeing the QUEEN).
Well, that’s a noble horse of yours, my Lord.
I trust that he will carry you well to-day,
And heal your headache.
COURTENAY.
You are wild; what headache?
Heartache, perchance; not headache.
ELIZABETH (aside to COURTENAY).
Are you blind?
[COURTENAY sees the QUEEN and exit. Exit MARY.
Enter LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.
HOWARD.
Was that my Lord of Devon? do not you
Be seen in corners with my Lord of Devon.
He hath fallen out of favour with the Queen.
She fears the Lords may side with you and him
Against her marriage; therefore is he dangerous.
And if this Prince of fluff and feather come
To woo you, niece, he is dangerous everyway.
ELIZABETH.
Not very dangerous that way, my good uncle.
HOWARD.
But your own state is full of danger here.
The disaffected, heretics, reformers,
Look to you as the one to crown their ends.
Mix not yourself with any plot I pray you;
Nay, if by chance you hear of any such,
Speak not thereof — no, not to your best friend,
Lest you should be confounded with it. Still —
Perinde ac cadaver — as the priest says,
You know your Latin — quiet as a dead body.
What was my Lord of Devon telling you?
ELIZABETH.
Whether he told me anything or not,
I follow your good counsel, gracious uncle.
Quiet as a dead body.
HOWARD.
You do right well.
I do not care to know; but this I charge you,
Tell Courtenay nothing. The Lord Chancellor
(I count it as a kind of virtue in him,
He hath not many), as a mastiff dog
May love a puppy cur for no more reason
Than that the twain have been tied up together,
Thus Gardiner — for the two were fellow-prisoners
So many years in yon accursed Tower —
Hath taken to this Courtenay. Look to it, niece,
He hath no fence when Gardiner questions him;
All oozes out; yet him — because they know him
The last White Rose, the last Plantagenet
(Nay, there is Cardinal Pole, too), the people
Claim as their natural leader — ay, some say,
That you shall marry him, make him King belike.
ELIZABETH.
Do they say so, good uncle?
HOWARD.
Ay, good niece!
You should be plain and open with me, niece.
You should not play upon me.
ELIZABETH.
No, good uncle.
Enter GARDINER.
GARDINER.
The Queen would see your Grace upon the moment.
ELIZABETH.
Why, my lord Bishop?
GARDINER.
I think she means to counsel your withdrawing
To Ashridge, or some other country house.
ELIZABETH.
Why, my lord Bishop?
GARDINER.
I do but bring the message, know no more.
Your Grace will hear her reasons from herself.
ELIZABETH.
‘Tis mine own wish fulfill’d before the word
Was spoken, for in truth I had meant to crave
Permission of her Highness to retire
To Ashridge, and pursue my studies there.
GARDINER.
Madam, to have the wish before the word
Is man’s good Fairy — and the Queen is yours.
I left her with rich jewels in her hand,
Whereof ‘tis like enough she means to make
A farewell present to your Grace.
ELIZABETH.
My Lord,
I have the jewel of a loyal heart.
GARDINER.
I doubt it not, Madam, most loyal.
[Bows low and exit.
HOWARD. See,
This comes of parleying with my Lord of Devon.
Well, well, you must obey; and I myself
Believe it will be better for your welfare.
Your time will come.
ELIZABETH.
I think my time will come.
Uncle,
I am of sovereign nature, that I know,
Not to be quell’d; and I have felt within me
Stirrings of some great doom when God’s just hour
Peals — but this fierce old Gardiner — his big baldness,
That irritable forelock which he rubs,
His buzzard beak and deep-incavern’d eyes
Half fright me.
HOWARD.
You’ve a bold heart; keep it so.
He cannot touch you save that you turn traitor;
And so take heed I pray you — you are one
Who love that men should smile upon you, niece.
They’d smile you into treason — some of them.
ELIZABETH.
I spy the rock beneath the smiling sea.
But if this Philip, the proud Catholic prince,
And this bald priest, and she that hates me, seek
In that lone house, to practise on my life,
By poison, fire, shot, stab —
HOWARD.
They will not, niece.
Mine is the fleet and all the power at sea —
Or will be in a moment. If they dared
To harm you, I would blow this Philip and all
Your trouble to the dogstar and the devil.
ELIZABETH.
To the Pleiads, uncle; they have lost a sister.
HOWARD.
But why say that? what have you done to lose her?
Come, come, I will go with you to the Queen.
[Exeunt.
Scene V
A Room in the Palace.
MARY with PHILIP’S miniature. ALICE.
MARY (kissing the miniature).
Most goodly, King-like and an Emperor’s son, —
A king to be, — is he not noble, girl?
ALICE.
Goodly enough, your Grace, and yet, methinks,
I have seen goodlier.
MARY.
Ay; some waxen doll
Thy baby eyes have rested on, belike;
All red and white, the fashion of our land.
But my good mother came (God rest her soul)
Of Spain, and I am Spanish in myself,
And in my likings.
ALICE.
By your Grace’s leave
Your royal mother came of Spain, but took
To the English red and white. Your royal father
(For so they say) was all pure lily and rose
In his youth, and like a lady.
MARY.
O, just God!
Sweet mother, you had time and cause enough
To sicken of his lilies and his roses.
Cast off, betray’d,
defamed, divorced, forlorn!
And then the King — that traitor past forgiveness,
The false archbishop fawning on him, married
The mother of Elizabeth — a heretic
Ev’n as she is; but God hath sent me here
To take such order with all heretics
That it shall be, before I die, as tho’
My father and my brother had not lived.
What wast thou saying of this Lady Jane,
Now in the Tower?
ALICE.
Why, Madam, she was passing
Some chapel down in Essex, and with her
Lady Anne Wharton, and the Lady Anne
Bow’d to the Pyx; but Lady Jane stood up
Stiff as the very backbone of heresy.
And wherefore bow ye not, says Lady Anne,
To him within there who made Heaven and Earth?
I cannot, and I dare not, tell your Grace
What Lady Jane replied.
MARY.
But I will have it.
ALICE.
She said — pray pardon me, and pity her —
She hath harken’d evil counsel — ah! she said,
The baker made him.
MARY.
Monstrous! blasphemous!
She ought to burn. Hence, thou (Exit Alice). No — being traitor
Her head will fall: shall it? she is but a child.
We do not kill the child for doing that
His father whipt him into doing — a head
So full of grace and beauty! would that mine
Were half as gracious! O, my lord to be,
My love, for thy sake only.
I am eleven years older than he is.
But will he care for that?
No, by the holy Virgin, being noble,
But love me only: then the bastard sprout,
My sister, is far fairer than myself.
Will he be drawn to her?
No, being of the true faith with myself.
Paget is for him — for to wed with Spain
Would treble England — Gardiner is against him;
The Council, people, Parliament against him;
But I will have him! My hard father hated me;
My brother rather hated me than loved;
My sister cowers and hates me. Holy Virgin,
Plead with thy blessed Son; grant me my prayer:
Give me my Philip; and we two will lead
The living waters of the Faith again
Back thro’ their widow’d channel here, and watch
The parch’d banks rolling incense, as of old,
To heaven, and kindled with the palms of Christ!
Enter USHER.
Who waits, sir?
USHER.
Madam, the Lord Chancellor.
MARY.
Bid him come in. (Enter GARDINER.)
Good morning, my good Lord.
[Exit Usher.
GARDINER.
That every morning of your Majesty
May be most good, is every morning’s prayer
Of your most loyal subject, Stephen Gardiner.
MARY.
Come you to tell me this, my Lord?
GARDINER.
And more.
Your people have begun to learn your worth.