What! will she have my head?
OFFICER.
A round fine likelier.
Your pardon. [Calling to ATTENDANT.
By the river to the Tower.
[Exeunt.
Scene V
Woodstock.
ELIZABETH, LADY IN WAITING.
ELIZABETH.
So they have sent poor Courtenay over sea.
LADY.
And banish’d us to Woodstock, and the fields.
The colours of our Queen are green and white,
These fields are only green, they make me gape.
ELIZABETH.
There’s whitethorn, girl.
LADY.
Ay, for an hour in May.
But court is always May, buds out in masques,
Breaks into feather’d merriments, and flowers
In silken pageants. Why do they keep us here?
Why still suspect your Grace?
ELIZABETH.
Hard upon both.
[Writes on the window with a diamond.
Much suspected, of me
Nothing proven can be.
Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.
LADY.
What hath your Highness written?
ELIZABETH.
A true rhyme.
LADY.
Cut with a diamond; so to last like truth.
ELIZABETH.
Ay, if truth last.
LADY.
But truth, they say, will out,
So it must last. It is not like a word,
That comes and goes in uttering.
ELIZABETH.
Truth, a word!
The very Truth and very Word are one.
But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl,
Is like a word that comes from olden days,
And passes thro’ the peoples: every tongue
Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks
Quite other than at first.
LADY.
I do not follow.
ELIZABETH.
How many names in the long sweep of time
That so foreshortens greatness, may but hang
On the chance mention of some fool that once
Brake bread with us, perhaps: and my poor chronicle
Is but of glass. Sir Henry Bedingfield
May split it for a spite.
LADY.
God grant it last,
And witness to your Grace’s innocence,
Till doomsday melt it.
ELIZABETH.
Or a second fire,
Like that which lately crackled underfoot
And in this very chamber, fuse the glass,
And char us back again into the dust
We spring from. Never peacock against rain
Scream’d as you did for water.
LADY.
And I got it.
I woke Sir Henry — and he’s true to you
I read his honest horror in his eyes.
ELIZABETH.
Or true to you?
LADY.
Sir Henry Bedingfield!
I will have no man true to me, your Grace,
But one that pares his nails; to me? the clown!
ELIZABETH.
Out, girl! you wrong a noble gentleman.
LADY.
For, like his cloak, his manners want the nap
And gloss of court; but of this fire he says.
Nay swears, it was no wicked wilfulness,
Only a natural chance.
ELIZABETH.
A chance — perchance
One of those wicked wilfuls that men make,
Nor shame to call it nature. Nay, I know
They hunt my blood. Save for my daily range
Among the pleasant fields of Holy Writ
I might despair. But there hath some one come;
The house is all in movement. Hence, and see.
[Exit Lady.
MILKMAID (singing without).
Shame upon you, Robin,
Shame upon you now!
Kiss me would you? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Daisies grow again,
Kingcups blow again,
And you came and kiss’d me milking the cow.
Robin came behind me,
Kiss’d me well I vow;
Cuff him could I? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Swallows fly again,
Cuckoos cry again,
And you came and kiss’d me milking the cow.
Come, Robin, Robin,
Come and kiss me now;
Help it can I? with my hands
Milking the cow?
Ringdoves coo again,
All things woo again.
Come behind and kiss me milking the cow!
ELIZABETH.
Right honest and red-cheek’d; Robin was violent,
And she was crafty — a sweet violence,
And a sweet craft. I would I were a milkmaid,
To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and die,
Then have my simple headstone by the church,
And all things lived and ended honestly.
I could not if I would. I am Harry’s daughter:
Gardiner would have my head. They are not sweet,
The violence and the craft that do divide
The world of nature; what is weak must lie;
The lion needs but roar to guard his young;
The lapwing lies, says ‘here’ when they are there.
Threaten the child; ‘I’ll scourge you if you did it:’
What weapon hath the child, save his soft tongue,
To say ‘I did not?’ and my rod’s the block.
I never lay my head upon the pillow
But that I think, ‘Wilt thou lie there to-morrow?’
How oft the falling axe, that never fell,
Hath shock’d me back into the daylight truth
That it may fall to-day! Those damp, black, dead
Nights in the Tower; dead — with the fear of death
Too dead ev’n for a death-watch! Toll of a bell,
Stroke of a clock, the scurrying of a rat
Affrighted me, and then delighted me,
For there was life — And there was life in death —
The little murder’d princes, in a pale light,
Rose hand in hand, and whisper’d, ‘come away!
The civil wars are gone for evermore:
Thou last of all the Tudors, come away!
With us is peace!’ The last? It was a dream;
I must not dream, not wink, but watch. She has gone,
Maid Marian to her Robin — by and by
Both happy! a fox may filch a hen by night,
And make a morning outcry in the yard;
But there’s no Renard here to ‘catch her tripping.’
Catch me who can; yet, sometime I have wish’d
That I were caught, and kill’d away at once
Out of the flutter. The gray rogue, Gardiner,
Went on his knees, and pray’d me to confess
In Wyatt’s business, and to cast myself
Upon the good Queen’s mercy; ay, when, my Lord?
God save the Queen! My jailor —
Enter SIR HENRY BEDINGFIELD.
BEDINGFIELD.
One, whose bolts,
That jail you from free life, bar you from death.
There haunt some Papist ruffians hereabout
Would murder you.
ELIZABETH.
I thank you heartily, sir,
But I am royal, tho’ your prisoner,
And God hath blest or cursed me with a nose —
Your boots are from the horses.
BEDINGFIELD.
Ay, my Lady.
When next there comes a missive from the Queen
It shall be all my study for one hour
To rose and lavender my horsiness,
Before I dare to glance upon your Grace.
ELIZABETH.
A missive from the Queen: last time she wrote,
I had like to have lost my life: it takes my breath:
O God, sir, do you look upon your boots,
Are you so small a man? Help me: what think you,
Is it life or death.
BEDINGFIELD.
I thought not on my boots;
The devil take all boots were ever made
Since man went barefoot. See, I lay it here,
For I will come no nearer to your Grace;
[Laying down the letter.
And, whether it bring you bitter news or sweet,
And God hath given your Grace a nose, or not,
I’ll help you, if I may.
ELIZABETH.
Your pardon, then;
It is the heat and narrowness of the cage
That makes the captive testy; with free wing
The world were all one Araby. Leave me now,
Will you, companion to myself, sir?
BEDINGFIELD.
Will I?
With most exceeding willingness, I will;
You know I never come till I be call’d.
[Exit.
ELIZABETH.
It lies there folded: is there venom in it?
A snake — and if I touch it, it may sting.
Come, come, the worst!
Best wisdom is to know the worst at once. [Reads:
‘It is the King’s wish, that you should wed Prince Philibert of Savoy.
You are to come to Court on the instant; and think of this in your coming.
‘MARY THE QUEEN.’
Think I have many thoughts;
I think there may be birdlime here for me;
I think they fain would have me from the realm;
I think the Queen may never bear a child;
I think that I may be some time the Queen,
Then, Queen indeed: no foreign prince or priest
Should fill my throne, myself upon the steps.
I think I will not marry anyone,
Specially not this landless Philibert
Of Savoy; but, if Philip menace me,
I think that I will play with Philibert,
As once the Holy Father did with mine,
Before my father married my good mother, —
For fear of Spain.
Enter LADY.
LADY.
O Lord! your Grace, your Grace,
I feel so happy: it seems that we shall fly
These bald, blank fields, and dance into the sun
That shines on princes.
ELIZABETH.
Yet, a moment since,
I wish’d myself the milkmaid singing here,
To kiss and cuff among the birds and flowers —
A right rough life and healthful.
LADY.
But the wench
Hath her own troubles; she is weeping now;
For the wrong Robin took her at her word.
Then the cow kick’d, and all her milk was spilt.
Your Highness such a milkmaid?
ELIZABETH.
I had kept
My Robins and my cows in sweeter order
Had I been such.
LADY (slyly).
And had your Grace a Robin?
ELIZABETH.
Come, come, you are chill here; you want the sun
That shines at court; make ready for the journey.
Pray God, we ‘scape the sunstroke. Ready at once.
[Exeunt.
Scene VI
London. A Room in the Palace.
LORD PETRE and LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.
PETRE.
You cannot see the Queen. Renard denied her,
Ev’n now to me.
HOWARD.
Their Flemish go-between
And all-in-all. I came to thank her Majesty
For freeing my friend Bagenhall from the Tower;
A grace to me! Mercy, that herb-of-grace,
Flowers now but seldom.
PETRE.
Only now perhaps.
Because the Queen hath been three days in tears
For Philip’s going — like the wild hedge-rose
Of a soft winter, possible, not probable,
However you have prov’n it.
HOWARD.
I must see her.
Enter RENARD.
RENARD.
My Lords, you cannot see her Majesty.
HOWARD.
Why then the King! for I would have him bring it
Home to the leisure wisdom of his Queen,
Before he go, that since these statutes past,
Gardiner out-Gardiners Gardiner in his heat,
Bonner cannot out-Bonner his own self —
Beast! — but they play with fire as children do,
And burn the house. I know that these are breeding
A fierce resolve and fixt heart-hate in men
Against the King, the Queen, the Holy Father,
The faith itself. Can I not see him?
RENARD.
Not now.
And in all this, my Lord, her Majesty
Is flint of flint, you may strike fire from her,
Not hope to melt her. I will give your message.
[Exeunt Petre and Howard.
Enter PHILIP (musing)
PHILIP.
She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy,
I talk’d with her in vain — says she will live
And die true maid — a goodly creature too.
Would she had been the Queen! yet she must have him;
She troubles England: that she breathes in England
Is life and lungs to every rebel birth
That passes out of embryo.
Simon Renard! —
This Howard, whom they fear, what was he saying?
RENARD.
What your imperial father said, my liege,
To deal with heresy gentlier. Gardiner burns,
And Bonner burns; and it would seem this people
Care more for our brief life in their wet land,
Than yours in happier Spain. I told my Lord
He should not vex her Highness; she would say
These are the means God works with, that His church
May flourish.
PHILIP.
Ay, sir, but in statesmanship
To strike too soon is oft to miss the blow.
Thou knowest I bad my chaplain, Castro, preach
Against these burnings.
RENARD.
And the Emperor
Approved you, and when last he wrote, declared
His comfort in your Grace that you were bland
And affable to men of all estates,
In hope to charm them from their hate of Spain.
PHILIP.
In hope to crush all heresy under Spain.
But, Renard, I am sicker staying here
Than any sea could make me passing hence,
Tho’ I be ever deadly sick at sea.
So sick am I with biding for this child.
Is it the fashion in this clime for women
To go twelve months in bearing of a child?
The nurses yawn’d, the cradle gaped, they led
Processions, chanted litanies, clash’d their bells,
Shot off their lying cannon, and her priests
Have preach’d, the fools, of this fair prince to come;
Till, by St. James, I find myself the fool.
Why do you lift your eyebrow at me thus?
RENARD.
I never saw your Highness moved till now.
PHILIP.
So weary am I of this wet land of theirs,
And every soul of man that breathes therein.
RENARD.
My liege, we must not drop the mask before
The masquerade is over —
PHILIP.
I have but shown a loathing face to you,
Who knew it from the first.
Enter MARY.
MARY (aside).
With Renard. Still
Parleying with Renard, all the day with Renard,
And scarce a greeting all the day for me —
And goes to-morrow.
[Exit MARY.
PHILIP (to RENARD, who advances to him).
Well, sir, is there more?
RENARD (who has perceived the QUEEN).
May Simon Renard speak a single word?
PHILIP.
Ay.
RENARD.
And be forgiven for it?
PHILIP.
Simon Renard
Knows me too well to speak a single word
That could not be forgiven.
RENARD.
Well, my liege,
Your Grace hath a most chaste and loving wife.
PHILIP.
Why not? The Queen of Philip should be chaste.
RENARD.
Ay, but, my Lord, you know what Virgil sings,
Woman is various and most mutable.
PHILIP.
She play the harlot! never.
RENARD.
No, sire, no,
Not dream’d of by the rabidest gospeller.
There was a paper thrown into the palace,
‘The King hath wearied of his barren bride.’
She came upon it, read it, and then rent it,
With all the rage of one who hates a truth
He cannot but allow. Sire, I would have you —
What should I say, I cannot pick my words —
Be somewhat less — majestic to your Queen.
PHILIP.
Am I to change my manners, Simon Renard,
Because these islanders are brutal beasts?
Or would you have me turn a sonneteer,
And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers?
RENARD.
Brief-sighted tho’ they be, I have seen them, sire,
When you perchance were trifling royally
With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill
With such fierce fire — had it been fire indeed
It would have burnt both speakers.
PHILIP.
Ay, and then?
RENARD.
Sire, might it not be policy in some matter
Of small importance now and then to cede
A point to her demand?
PHILIP.
Well, I am going.
RENARD.
For should her love when you are gone, my liege,
Witness these papers, there will not be wanting
Those that will urge her injury — should her love —
And I have known such women more than one —
Veer to the counterpoint, and jealousy
Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse
Almost into one metal love and hate, —
And she impress her wrongs upon her Council,
And these again upon her Parliament —
We are not loved here, and would be then perhaps
Not so well holpen in our wars with France,
As else we might be — here she comes.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series Page 142