Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series
Page 139
The king, my father, did commit his trust;
Who not alone esteem’d it honourable,
But for the wealth and glory of our realm,
And all our loving subjects, most expedient.
As to myself,
I am not so set on wedlock as to choose
But where I list, nor yet so amorous
That I must needs be husbanded; I thank God,
I have lived a virgin, and I noway doubt
But that with God’s grace, I can live so still.
Yet if it might please God that I should leave
Some fruit of mine own body after me,
To be your king, ye would rejoice thereat,
And it would be your comfort, as I trust;
And truly, if I either thought or knew
This marriage should bring loss or danger to you,
My subjects, or impair in any way
This royal state of England, I would never
Consent thereto, nor marry while I live;
Moreover, if this marriage should not seem,
Before our own High Court of Parliament,
To be of rich advantage to our realm,
We will refrain, and not alone from this,
Likewise from any other, out of which
Looms the least chance of peril to our realm.
Wherefore be bold, and with your lawful Prince
Stand fast against our enemies and yours,
And fear them not. I fear them not. My Lord,
I leave Lord William Howard in your city,
To guard and keep you whole and safe from all
The spoil and sackage aim’d at by these rebels,
Who mouth and foam against the Prince of Spain.
VOICES.
Long live Queen Mary!
Down with Wyatt!
The Queen!
WHITE.
Three voices from our guilds and companies!
You are shy and proud like Englishmen, my masters,
And will not trust your voices. Understand:
Your lawful Prince hath come to cast herself
On loyal hearts and bosoms, hoped to fall
Into the wide-spread arms of fealty,
And finds you statues. Speak at once — and all!
For whom?
Our sovereign Lady by King Harry’s will;
The Queen of England — or the Kentish Squire?
I know you loyal. Speak! in the name of God!
The Queen of England or the rabble of Kent?
The reeking dungfork master of the mace!
Your havings wasted by the scythe and spade —
Your rights and charters hobnail’d into slush —
Your houses fired — your gutters bubbling blood —
ACCLAMATION.
No! No! The Queen! the Queen!
WHITE.
Your Highness hears
This burst and bass of loyal harmony,
And how we each and all of us abhor
The venomous, bestial, devilish revolt
Of Thomas Wyatt. Hear us now make oath
To raise your Highness thirty thousand men,
And arm and strike as with one hand, and brush
This Wyatt from our shoulders, like a flea
That might have leapt upon us unawares.
Swear with me, noble fellow-citizens, all,
With all your trades, and guilds, and companies.
CITIZENS.
We swear!
MARY.
We thank your Lordship and your loyal city.
[Exit MARY attended.
WHITE.
I trust this day, thro’ God, I have saved the crown.
FIRST ALDERMAN.
Ay, so my Lord of Pembroke in command
Of all her force be safe; but there are doubts.
SECOND ALDERMAN.
I hear that Gardiner, coming with the Queen,
And meeting Pembroke, bent to his saddle-bow,
As if to win the man by flattering him.
Is he so safe to fight upon her side?
FIRST ALDERMAN.
If not, there’s no man safe.
WHITE.
Yes, Thomas White.
I am safe enough; no man need flatter me.
SECOND ALDERMAN.
Nay, no man need; but did you mark our Queen?
The colour freely play’d into her face,
And the half sight which makes her look so stern,
Seem’d thro’ that dim dilated world of hers,
To read our faces; I have never seen her
So queenly or so goodly.
WHITE.
Courage, sir,
That makes or man or woman look their goodliest.
Die like the torn fox dumb, but never whine
Like that poor heart, Northumberland, at the block.
BAGENHALL.
The man had children, and he whined for those.
Methinks most men are but poor-hearted, else
Should we so doat on courage, were it commoner?
The Queen stands up, and speaks for her own self;
And all men cry, She is queenly, she is goodly.
Yet she’s no goodlier; tho’ my Lord Mayor here,
By his own rule, he hath been so bold to-day,
Should look more goodly than the rest of us.
WHITE.
Goodly? I feel most goodly heart and hand,
And strong to throw ten Wyatts and all Kent.
Ha! ha! sir; but you jest; I love it: a jest
In time of danger shows the pulses even.
Be merry! yet, Sir Ralph, you look but sad.
I dare avouch you’d stand up for yourself,
Tho’ all the world should bay like winter wolves.
BAGENHALL.
Who knows? the man is proven by the hour.
WHITE.
The man should make the hour, not this the man;
And Thomas White will prove this Thomas Wyatt,
And he will prove an Iden to this Cade,
And he will play the Walworth to this Wat;
Come, sirs, we prate; hence all — gather your men —
Myself must bustle. Wyatt comes to Southwark;
I’ll have the drawbridge hewn into the Thames,
And see the citizens arm’d. Good day; good day.
[Exit White.
BAGENHALL.
One of much outdoor bluster.
HOWARD.
For all that,
Most honest, brave, and skilful; and his wealth
A fountain of perennial alms — his fault
So thoroughly to believe in his own self.
BAGENHALL.
Yet thoroughly to believe in one’s own self,
So one’s own self be thorough, were to do
Great things, my Lord.
HOWARD.
It may be.
BAGENHALL.
I have heard
One of your Council fleer and jeer at him.
HOWARD.
The nursery-cocker’d child will jeer at aught
That may seem strange beyond his nursery.
The statesman that shall jeer and fleer at men,
Makes enemies for himself and for his king;
And if he jeer not seeing the true man
Behind his folly, he is thrice the fool;
And if he see the man and still will jeer,
He is child and fool, and traitor to the State.
Who is he? let me shun him.
BAGENHALL.
Nay, my Lord,
He is damn’d enough already.
HOWARD.
I must set
The guard at Ludgate. Fare you well, Sir Ralph.
BAGENHALL.
‘Who knows?’ I am for England. But who knows,
That knows the Queen, the Spaniard, and the Pope,
Whether I be for Wyatt, or the Queen?
[Exeunt.
Scene III
<
br /> London Bridge
Enter SIR THOMAS WYATT and BRETT.
WYATT.
Brett, when the Duke of Norfolk moved against us
Thou cried’st ‘A Wyatt!’ and flying to our side
Left his all bare, for which I love thee, Brett.
Have for thine asking aught that I can give,
For thro’ thine help we are come to London Bridge;
But how to cross it balks me. I fear we cannot.
BRETT.
Nay, hardly, save by boat, swimming, or wings.
WYATT.
Last night I climb’d into the gate-house, Brett,
And scared the gray old porter and his wife.
And then I crept along the gloom and saw
They had hewn the drawbridge down into the river.
It roll’d as black as death; and that same tide
Which, coming with our coming, seem’d to smile
And sparkle like our fortune as thou saidest,
Ran sunless down, and moan’d against the piers.
But o’er the chasm I saw Lord William Howard
By torchlight, and his guard; four guns gaped at me,
Black, silent mouths: had Howard spied me there
And made them speak, as well he might have done,
Their voice had left me none to tell you this.
What shall we do?
BRETT.
On somehow. To go back
Were to lose all.
WYATT.
On over London Bridge
We cannot: stay we cannot; there is ordnance
On the White Tower and on the Devil’s Tower,
And pointed full at Southwark; we must round
By Kingston Bridge.
BRETT.
Ten miles about.
WYATT.
Ev’n so.
But I have notice from our partisans
Within the city that they will stand by us
If Ludgate can be reach’d by dawn to-morrow.
Enter one of WYATT’S MEN.
MAN.
Sir Thomas, I’ve found this paper; pray your worship read it; I know not my letters; the old priests taught me nothing.
WYATT (reads).
‘Whosoever will apprehend the traitor Thomas Wyatt shall have a hundred pounds for reward.’
MAN.
Is that it? That’s a big lot of money.
WYATT.
Ay, ay, my friend; not read it? ‘Tis not written
Half plain enough. Give me a piece of paper!
[Writes ‘THOMAS WYATT’ large.
There, any man can read that. [Sticks it in his cap.
BRETT.
But that’s foolhardy.
WYATT.
No! boldness, which will give my followers boldness.
Enter MAN with a prisoner.
MAN.
We found him, your worship, a plundering o’ Bishop Winchester’s
house; he says he’s a poor gentleman.
WYATT.
Gentleman! a thief! Go hang him. Shall we make
Those that we come to serve our sharpest foes?
BRETT.
Sir Thomas —
WYATT.
Hang him, I say.
BRETT.
Wyatt, but now you promised me a boon.
WYATT.
Ay, and I warrant this fine fellow’s life.
BRETT.
Ev’n so; he was my neighbour once in Kent.
He’s poor enough, has drunk and gambled out
All that he had, and gentleman he was.
We have been glad together; let him live.
WYATT.
He has gambled for his life, and lost, he hangs.
No, no, my word’s my word. Take thy poor gentleman!
Gamble thyself at once out of my sight,
Or I will dig thee with my dagger. Away!
Women and children!
Enter a Crowd of WOMEN and CHILDREN.
FIRST WOMAN.
O Sir Thomas, Sir Thomas, pray you go away, Sir Thomas, or you’ll make the White Tower a black ‘un for us this blessed day. He’ll be the death on us; and you’ll set the Divil’s Tower a-spitting, and he’ll smash all our bits o’ things worse than Philip o’ Spain.
SECOND WOMAN.
Don’t ye now go to think that we be for Philip o’ Spain.
THIRD WOMAN.
No, we know that ye be come to kill the Queen, and we’ll pray for you all on our bended knees. But o’ God’s mercy don’t ye kill the Queen here, Sir Thomas; look ye, here’s little Dickon, and little Robin, and little Jenny — though she’s but a side-cousin — and all on our knees, we pray you to kill the Queen further off, Sir Thomas.
WYATT.
My friends, I have not come to kill the Queen
Or here or there: I come to save you all,
And I’ll go further off.
CROWD.
Thanks, Sir Thomas, we be beholden to you, and we’ll pray for you on our bended knees till our lives’ end.
WYATT.
Be happy, I am your friend. To Kingston, forward!
[Exeunt.
Scene IV
Room in the Gatehouse of Westminster Palace
MARY, ALICE, GARDINER, RENARD, LADIES.
GARDINER.
Their cry is, Philip never shall be king.
MARY.
Lord Pembroke in command of all our force
Will front their cry and shatter them into dust.
ALICE.
Was not Lord Pembroke with Northumberland?
O madam, if this Pembroke should be false?
MARY.
No, girl; most brave and loyal, brave and loyal.
His breaking with Northumberland broke Northumberland.
At the park gate he hovers with our guards.
These Kentish ploughmen cannot break the guards.
Enter MESSENGER.
MESSENGER.
Wyatt, your Grace, hath broken thro’ the guards
And gone to Ludgate.
GARDINER.
Madam, I much fear
That all is lost; but we can save your Grace.
The river still is free. I do beseech you,
There yet is time, take boat and pass to Windsor.
MARY.
I pass to Windsor and I lose my crown.
GARDINER.
Pass, then, I pray your Highness, to the Tower.
MARY.
I shall but be their prisoner in the Tower.
Cries without.
The traitor! treason! Pembroke!
LADIES.
Treason! treason!
MARY.
Peace.
False to Northumberland, is he false to me?
Bear witness, Renard, that I live and die
The true and faithful bride of Philip — A sound
Of feet and voices thickening hither — blows —
Hark, there is battle at the palace gates,
And I will out upon the gallery.
LADIES.
No, no, your Grace; see there the arrows flying.
MARY.
I am Harry’s daughter, Tudor, and not Fear.
[Goes out on the gallery.
The guards are all driven in, skulk into corners
Like r
Act III
Scene I
The Conduit in Gracechurch, painted with the Nine Worthies, among them King Henry VIII. holding a book, on it inscribed ‘Verbum Dei’.
Enter SIR RALPH BAGENHALL and SIR THOMAS STAFFORD.
BAGENHALL.
A hundred here and hundreds hang’d in Kent.
The tigress had unsheath’d her nails at last,
And Renard and the Chancellor sharpen’d them.
In every London street a gibbet stood.
They are down to-day. Here by this house was one;
The traitor husband dangled at the door,
And when the traitor wife came out for bre
ad
To still the petty treason therewithin,
Her cap would brush his heels.
STAFFORD.
It is Sir Ralph,
And muttering to himself as heretofore.
Sir, see you aught up yonder?
BAGENHALL.
I miss something.
The tree that only bears dead fruit is gone.
STAFFORD.
What tree, sir?
BAGENHALL.
Well, the tree in Virgil, sir,
That bears not its own apples.
STAFFORD.
What! the gallows?
BAGENHALL.
Sir, this dead fruit was ripening overmuch,
And had to be removed lest living Spain
Should sicken at dead England.
STAFFORD.
Not so dead,
But that a shock may rouse her.
BAGENHALL.
I believe
Sir Thomas Stafford?
STAFFORD.
I am ill disguised.
BAGENHALL.
Well, are you not in peril here?
STAFFORD.
I think so.
I came to feel the pulse of England, whether
It beats hard at this marriage. Did you see it?
BAGENHALL.
Stafford, I am a sad man and a serious.
Far liefer had I in my country hall
Been reading some old book, with mine old hound
Couch’d at my hearth, and mine old flask of wine
Beside me, than have seen it: yet I saw it.
STAFFORD.
Good, was it splendid?
BAGENHALL.
Ay, if Dukes, and Earls,
And Counts, and sixty Spanish cavaliers,
Some six or seven Bishops, diamonds, pearls,
That royal commonplace too, cloth of gold, Could make it so.
STAFFORD.
And what was Mary’s dress?
BAGENHALL.
Good faith, I was too sorry for the woman
To mark the dress. She wore red shoes!
STAFFORD.
Red shoes!
BAGENHALL.
Scarlet, as if her feet were wash’d in blood,
As if she had waded in it.
STAFFORD.
Were your eyes
So bashful that you look’d no higher?
BAGENHALL.
A diamond,
And Philip’s gift, as proof of Philip’s love,
Who hath not any for any, — tho’ a true one,
Blazed false upon her heart.
STAFFORD.
But this proud Prince —
BAGENHALL.
Nay, he is King, you know, the King of Naples.
The father ceded Naples, that the son
Being a King, might wed a Queen — O he
Flamed in brocade — white satin his trunk-hose,
Inwrought with silver, — on his neck a collar,
Gold, thick with diamonds; hanging down from this
The Golden Fleece — and round his knee, misplaced,
Our English Garter, studded with great emeralds,