QUEEN.
Some traitor hired or madman: but I sent
To seek the comfort of your hand and help
For weightier cause than of such tongues.
MURRAY.
What cause?
QUEEN.
That shall he show who bears most part therein;
Yet are you parcel of it, and I myself
For love of both and honour toward you. Speak.
To Bothwell.
BOTHWELL.
My lord, I doubt not but your heart conceived
Never that thing whereto being done you feared
To set your hand in sign; I therefore pray you
To look upon the charge for which I stand
In the land’s eye accountable, as one
That was consenting with the rest our friends
To what for my poor profit was not done
Nor only plotted for no end but mine;
And for the part your honour has herein
To underwrite the bond that writes me safe
And set your name for seal upon my side.
QUEEN.
So much would I beseech you too; the bond
By you subscribed here in my lord’s defence
Shall be the signet of your faith and love
Set on my heart and his that honour you.
MURRAY.
I would my duty might in all things serve
No less your honour than maintain mine own;
But I will set no hand to any bond
Shall bind me to defence or fellowship
Of deeds whereof I know myself no part.
I gave consent to no more than divorce
Between two hands mismated, king’s and queen’s,
Whereby the kingdom’s heart was rent in twain,
And reconcilement found not where to stand;
But of no red and secret bond of blood
Heard I the bruit before the deed took fire.
BOTHWELL.
Will you so swear? what, none?
MURRAY.
I have said; and you
That reft your kinsman Balfour by device
Out of my hand and thwarted judgment, see
Your heart be set not now to climb too high
A stair whereon the foot that slips grows red
And stumbling once in blood falls whence nor wing
Nor hand can lift it from the pit again.
QUEEN.
Vex not yourself lest he should fall or stand
With whom you stand or fall not.
BOTHWELL.
My desire
Was toward no help of riddling counsellors,
But of such friends as speak with hand for tongue
And acts for parables; your wit, my lord,
Is nothing of the queen’s need nor of mine.
MURRAY.
It may be, no; but to make trial of that,
Ere I take ship for France, the ways being barred
By force and strife through Flanders to the south
And those fair towns that with her highness’ leave
Shall call me guest awhile in Italy,
I am bound for London, where I fear and hope
My tongue may serve her more than here your hands
If it make fair her cause in English eyes.
BOTHWELL.
What hath her cause to do with their bleared sight,
Or with her name their judgment? who need care
What colour we that breathe with our own lips
Wear in the mist made of their breath far off?
MURRAY.
The ambassador that bore her last word back
Hath but made way for one at point to come
Whose message, carrying weight as in wise ears
It needs must carry, will take form and force
From present witness of his eye that reads
What mind is borne here and what work is done,
What judgment or what counsel most bears weight;
Which it imports us for this land’s great sake
That the English queen misknow not nor misread
For fault or fraud of darkling evidence.
BOTHWELL.
And you it is must give those blind eyes sight,
Shape to the shadows of that ignorance, form
To their loose judgment of us? What have we,
What hath our Scotland here or queen of Scots
To do with English tongues? can we not strike
Nor stand nor walk alone, but for our need
Must use their hands and feet, their wits and eyes,
To help us live or live not? By my life,
Which is not held in pawn yet of their leave,
I had rather be an English horse or ass
Than on these terms a Scot, to square my will
By their inscribed conditions.
MURRAY.
At your will
Lies your own way of life; not yet this land’s,
Nor theirs that living should be lords of it.
Madam, to God’s care I commend your grace
Who take with careful heart my leave of you,
Lest you too much should lack the care of men.
QUEEN.
Be not too careful for my sake; your leave
Was given ere you could take it. Sir, farewell.
MURRAY.
Farewell, as you shall will it.
Exit.
BOTHWELL.
God be with you!
Your wisdom shall not be so hot of foot
But it may be outspeeded. If it lay
Plots with the stranger, our prevention here
Must pluck the fangs out of its craft; and first
With his own hand shall Huntley draw the bond
Whereto will we set ours in pledge ere long
To make them fast by contract, I being free
To plight mine own, as by consent unbound
From hers that was my wife pretended; you,
Being by this troublous time bent and inclined
To seek some stay in wedlock and put off
The weak estate of widowhood, yet loth
For worthy reasons of grave strength to choose
Again a stranger subject, have made choice
Of me desertless for my fair deserts,
And purpose even on heel of my divorce
For their good cause to wed me; this subscribed
Shall in my keeping be laid up, and straight
Hence must we back to that loud town of yours
And take our danger by the throat; proclaim
At once my trial; if it be possible,
Before word come from England; let the post
That brings you counsel of Elizabeth’s
Find the cause judged and the cry fallen again
And no link hanging of the gyves of law
Round our free feet and steadfast.
QUEEN.
Ah, not mine,
That are fast bound and yet can stand not fast
Except my love’s strength hold them up, and strike
These iron toils in sunder. If the bond
Could bind and loose indeed, knit and unknit
Hands that must part from hands that are to meet,
With force of more than writing, all my heart
Should bleed glad drops to sign and seal it. Sir,
Here was again our enemy in mine ears
Forewarning me of marriage; the same tongue
That was before a serpent at your heel
Shot out anew to sting it; but you know
The craft of this state horseleech, that by fraud
Takes pleasure to bear all the world in hand
That no one can be sure of him, and we
May least of all be by such lips allured
To trust and find them dangerous.
BOTHWELL.
Nay, by God,
I mind me how he left his neighbour friends
/> In his faith’s name to hang for hostages
Whose necks paid forfeit of his broken bond
And made his oath a halter for the Lairds
Of Lochinvar and Garlies. By my life
That this keen tongue would strike at, in my mind
It were the best work worth a good man’s hand
To quit them on Lord Herries.
QUEEN.
No, let be;
You will unpeople me this land of friends;
Mine he must live, or lose his name, and yours
For my name’s sake he shall be.
BOTHWELL.
So might I
Find at his hands such friendship as they twain
Whose throats for him were writhen; and such a friend
Is he that stands behind our deed, and says
He never heard of manslaying, fie, not he,
Our darkling brother with close lips and clean,
The blood was no part of his bond, he says,
That his eyes winked on while his hand was dry;
He will not bear us witness nor take part
With me that have done more than blink at blood.
He will to London, but to speak for you,
That will he, being a kindly man of kind,
Whole-blooded in his love and faith to you,
God wot, no bastard in his brotherhood.
I would give God a year out of my life
That I have kinglike hope to live with you
For one sweet breath of time to strike at him
And let my sword’s lip drink his body dry
And with one deep kiss drain his flesh of blood.
Who smells not by the savour of his faith
On what close nest of foul and fledgling hopes
His trust sits brooding to build up himself
By overthrowing of that crowned head which keeps
His misbegotten forehead bare of gold -
And with my hand shall keep it?
QUEEN.
Ay, though all
That breathe on earth mine enemies at his beck
Rose by the light of his ambiguous eyes
With his sheathed hand to strike, and leave ungirt
This forfeit head with empire: but I know
A stronger hand bared for my help and stay,
This that I touch, this that I love; the star
That points my feet on pilgrimage, the staff
That stays my steps back to that troublous town
Whereof they are weary, yet would halt not now,
But tread more fleet than fire their fiery way
To that fair end where they were fain to be.
We will set forth to-morrow.
BOTHWELL.
Ere we go,
I will take order that men’s tongues be clipt
Who show too broad their conscience of remorse;
There was a knave of Balfour’s in our trust
That hath by this, being found unsure of mouth,
Resigned it to the counsel-keeping worm.
If more there be that live not stingless yet,
The same dumb mouth that has nor lips nor tongue
Must open for them privily; the grave
Hath gorge enough for all such secret food,
And will not babble of the hands that feed.
For them that being in blood of our own kind
Will stand elsewhere against me than in court,
I will make present proffer of myself
To answer them in arms.
QUEEN.
You shall not fight.
BOTHWELL.
Not if no need be.
QUEEN.
There shall be no need.
Not in this cause, you shall not need to fight.
We will set on the trial presently,
And after we may sleep with no blood more.
Scene IV. The Upper Chamber in Holyrood
The Queen and Mary Beaton
QUEEN.
Is it not hard on ten?
MARY BEATON.
At point to strike.
QUEEN.
This forenoon will outlast the night for length.
How looks the morning?
MARY BEATON.
Like the time of year;
The heaven is red and full of wind; the clouds
Are rent and routed of the striving sun
Like a lost army.
QUEEN.
Is there no noise abroad?
MARY BEATON.
The throngs grow thick in rumour; faces scowl,
Eyes burn, brows bend, and all the cry o’ the crowd
Waits to break forth but till a fire-flaught fall
To make the dumb brands speak and shoot out flame
When he shall pass for whom it waits to burn.
Yet have I seen as great a throng from hence
As frets there now.
QUEEN.
I would he had thought to-day
To ride with doubled guard. What brawl is there?
MARY BEATON.
The messenger from Berwick, as I think,
That would have entrance to you, and is thrust back
By the lord Bothwell’s kin that keep the gates.
QUEEN.
What, here so soon? I will not see him till night.
I am asleep; if there be brawls i’ the court,
Call out the troopers, bid my French guard forth
To quell all rioters.
MARY BEATON.
They are of your own part
That make the brawl, my lord’s men and your guard
That press about the gateway.
QUEEN.
The cry sinks;
Is he not come, that so their noise is fallen?
MARY BEATON.
And Maitland with him; he signs them silent, takes
From the English messenger a letter sealed,
And leaves all still.
QUEEN.
I prayed him see me first
Before he rode to trial. All will be well,
If he have stayed their storm, and keep his heart
High as his fortune.
Enter Bothwell
Is that brawl at end?
BOTHWELL.
Here is a letter by a hot-foot post
Brought from Sir William Drury, that his queen
Through him commends her counsel in to you
And bids you, or my thought belies it, show
All favour and furtherance to your enemy’s plea,
Lennox, whose cause she finds most fair, and would not
For your own sake see slighted or put by,
Lest your fame bleed; look if she say not so;
Else I know nothing of her maiden mind,
Who sometime lived her prisoner.
QUEEN.
Let that rest;
But tell me what the spring was of this noise
That shook our hearing; would he speak perforce,
This English post, though bidden back, with me?
BOTHWELL.
But that our fellows thrust him from the gate;
My captain of the castle, a stalwart guard,
The Laird of Skirling, that I put in charge,
Called to the guide aloud, he should be hanged
For bringing English villains through to us here,
And hands were there to reive the rope to him;
Then drew your guard together and our troops,
Whose musters line the straitened streets with steel
That holds embanked their muttering multitudes
Till I ride through; and those within the gates
Hurtled together with blind cries and thrusts,
But at my sight fell silent as a sea
Settling, that growls yet with the sunken wind,
And holds its peace with unslaked wrath; then I
Took from the pressed and labouring messenger
His letter for your hand,
who were not risen
And should ere night receive him; so I said,
And thus it shall suffice you do, so be it
We bear the bell to-day in parliament,
Where I should be by this at bar, to stand
And make mine answer.
QUEEN.
I am not sick of fear,
Yet my heart loathes its burden of this hour
And beats and drops like a bird wounded. Nay,
I do not hold you; go; ’tis but my hand
Fastens on yours; my heart would have you gone,
And here again to assure me of good speed.
Whom have we of the judges on our side,
Tell me once more, whom doubtful-coloured, whom
Our enemies certain? let me know it again,
That I may read the bede-roll of their names
Here over in my heart while you are gone
To make it sure and strong, come evil or good,
That neither find me heartless.
BOTHWELL.
Of our part
The lord of Arbroath for the Hamiltons
Is as his father’s person, Chatelherault,
And Cassilis a mainstay safe as steel;
Caithness and Herries are such friends of yours
As love me less for your sake, yet I think
Must strike to-day beside us; one man most
I would we might have razed out of the roll,
Which is the assessor, Lindsay; who shall be
As poison to us; and evil is our chance
That Morton being of kin to your dead man
Should not sit here to help, as but for this
I would perforce have bound him to our side;
But let this be; we shall bear bravely through
For all their factions and fierce policies
As knives ensheathed against us, or being foiled
Find surer issue than they wot of. So,
With such good hope as grows of a good heart,
Give me God-speed.
QUEEN.
God speed you as I pray
You may speed ever; all my prayer is spent,
I can no more of wishing; what I would,
That must you will, having my heart in you,
That beats but with your blood, thrills with your sense,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 222