Save Bothwell’s life I see no present let,
Who lives her shame and danger, but being slain
Takes off from her the peril of men’s tongues
And her more perilous love that while he lives
It seems will never slacken till her life
Be made a prey for his, but in his death
Dies, or lives stingless after; wherefore most
It now imports us to lay hand on him
And on that capture to proclaim divorce
Between them ere he die, as presently
His death should seal it and his blood subscribe.
So might she live and bring against our cause
No blame of men or danger.
MORTON.
In my mind
Better it were to crown her son for king
And send her for safe keeping hence in guard
To live in England prisoner while we stand
As safe from her as blameless of her blood
Who reigning but in name on us should reign
Indeed on all our enemies’ hopes, and turn
From us the hopeless hearts of half our friends
For the bare name’s sake of her seeming reign
And mask of false-faced empire.
MAITLAND.
As I think,
The main mind of the council will not bend
To any reason on our parts proposed
For her removal hence or titular reign,
Nor with the breath of our advice be blown
Beside their purpose; if the queen consent
That her son’s head be hallowed with her crown
And hers be bare before him, she shall live,
And that close record of her secret hand,
The proofs and scriptures in her casket locked
That seal her part in Darnley’s bloodshedding,
Shall yet lie dumb in darkness; else, I dread,
She shall be tried by witness in them writ
And each word there be clamorous on men’s tongues
As the doom uttered of her present death.
And not more instant should her judgment be
Than her swift execution; for they think,
I know, to find no safety while she lives;
So that in no case shall she pass alive
Out of this realm while power is in their lips
To speed or stay her.
MORTON.
They shall never think
To set before all eyes the whole tale forth
In popular proof and naked evidence
To plead against her; Balfour, that betrayed
Her counsels to us, should then have done more scathe
Than ever he did service; they must know
It were not possible to let this proof
Stand in the sun’s sight, and such names be read
For partners of her deed and not her doom
As Huntley’s and Argyle’s. Have they not heard
What should suffice to show if there be cause
To seal some part yet of this secret up,
How dearly Bothwell held those privy scrolls
Preserved as witness to confound at need
The main part of his judges, and abash
Their sentence with their clear complicity
In the crime sentenced? yea, so dear a price
He set on these, that flying for life he sends
Dalgleish his trustiest servant from Dunbar
To bring again from Balfour’s hands to his
The enamelled casket in whose silver hold
Lay the queen’s letters and the bond subscribed
Which at Craigmillar writ a live man dead.
This was a smooth and seasonable hour
For one of so soft spirit and tender heart
To send and seek for love of good days gone
A love-gift that his lady brought from France
To hold sweet scents or jewels; and the man
That to his envoy so delivered it
And sent our council warning to waylay
And where to intercept it, this was one
Meet for such trust and amorous offices,
Balfour, that yielding us the castle up
Yields likewise for a sword into our hands
To take by stroke of justice the queen’s life
His witness with what words she tempted him
From her own lips, how lovingly and long,
To kill her husband; yet he durst not; then
How at her bidding he might well take heart,
She said, to do it; yet he stood fearful off;
Whereat she brake into a glimmering wrath
That called him coward and bade him live assured
If his tongue ever let this counsel forth
By her sure mean and suddenly to die.
MAITLAND.
This were a sword to drink her life indeed
But that my hope is better of the lords
Than that their heart is fixed upon her death;
And for the commons and their fiery tongue,
The loud-lipped pilot of their windy will,
This famine of their anger shall feed full
And slake its present need but with the spoil
Made of the piteous remnants of her faith
By the stout hand here of their friend Glencairn,
Who from this chapel of her palace rends
All holy ornament, grinds down with steel
The images whereon Christ dies in gold,
Unsanctifies her sovereign sanctuary,
Unmoulds her God and mints and marks him new,
And makes his molten chalices run down
Into strange shape and service; this should ease,
Meseems, the hunger of the hate they bear
That creed for which they held her first in hate;
And for the secular justice to be done
For his death’s sake whom all these loathed alive,
It should content them that the trial has past
On those we held in hand, and by this test
The man whose marriage masque on that loud night
Was pretext for the queen to lie apart
From the near danger of her husband’s bed,
Sebastian, stands approved as innocent
And no part of her purpose; while the twain
Who bore the charge that was to load with death
The secret house, and to their master’s hands
Consigned the mean of murder, have endured
The perfect proof of torture, and confessed
In the extreme pang of evidence enforced
The utmost of their knowledge.
MORTON.
These may serve
To allay men’s instant angers; but much more
His face should profit us whom France detains
With suit and proffer from the queen-mother
With all their force and flower of war or craft
To help him to the crown of his own land
Or throne at least of regency therein,
If he will take but France for constant friend
And turn our hearts with his from England: this
Would Catherine give him for his friendship’s sake
Who gives her none for all this, but his hope
Cleaves yet to England, though for fraud or fear
Again it fail him; so being foiled and wroth,
He hath, she tells him, a right English heart,
And in that faith withholds him craftily
From his desired departure and return,
Which should be more of all this land desired
Than of himself; this Elphinstone that comes
For him from Paris, in his master’s name
To plead as in her brother’s for the queen,
Bears but the name of Murray in his mouth,
Whose present eye and tongue, whose spirit and mind,
&nb
sp; Our need of him requires. When their intent
Shall by the lords in council be made known
To him that stands here for Elizabeth,
How in her name will he receive the word
That but from Murray’s lip she thinks to hear,
And then determine with what large response
For peace or war she may resolve herself?
MAITLAND.
If she shall find our council one in will
To shed by doom of judgment the queen’s blood,
Even by Throgmorton’s mouth I am certified
That she will call on France to strike with her
For this their sister’s sake, and join in one
Their common war to tread our treason down;
Or if she find not aid of France, from Spain
Will she seek help to hold our French allies
With curb and snaffle fast of Spanish steel,
For fear their powers against her lend us might
That would not lend against us; she meantime,
While Philip’s hand hath France as by the hair,
Shall loosen on us England, to redeem
That forfeit life which till the day of fight
Her trust is but in Murray to preserve,
Seeing he spake never word in English ear
Against this queen his sister.
MORTON.
Being returned,
He shall bear witness if his heart be bent
Rather to this queen’s love or that queen’s fear
Than to the sole weal of his natural land
That hath more need he should take thought for her
Than one of these or the other. If the lords
Be purposed, as I guess, to bid the queen
Ere this month end make choice of death or life,
To live uncrowned and call her young son king
Or die by doom attainted, none but he
By her submission or her death must rise
Regent of Scotland; and each hour that flits
With louder tongue requires him, and rebukes
His tardiness of spirit or foot to flee
By swift and private passage forth of France
To where our hearts wait that have need of him.
Scene II. Lochleven Castle
The Queen and Mary Beaton
QUEEN.
I would I knew before this day be dead
If I must live or die. Why art thou pale?
It seems thou art not sad though I sit here
And thou divide my prison; for I see
Thine eye more kindled and thy lip more calm
And hear thy voice more steadfast than it was
When we were free of body; then the soul
Seemed to sit heavy in thee, and thy face
Was as a water’s wearied with the wind,
Dim eye and fitful lip, whereon thy speech
Would break and die untimely. Do these walls
And that wan wrinkling water at their foot
For my sake please thee? Thou shouldst love me well,
Or hate, I know not whether, if to share
The cup wherein I drink delight the lip
That pledges in it mine.
MARY BEATON.
If I be pale,
For fear it is not nor for discontent
Here to sit bounded; I could well be pleased
To shoot my thoughts no further than this wall
That is my body’s limit, and to lead
My whole life’s length as quiet as we sit
Till death fulfilled all quiet, did I know
There were no wars without nor days for you
Of change and many a turbulent chance to be
Whence I must not live absent.
QUEEN.
Hast thou part,
Think’st thou, as in time past, predestinate
In all my days and chances?
MARY BEATON.
Yea, I know it.
QUEEN.
If thou have grace to prophesy, perchance
Canst thou tell too how I shall fare forth hence,
If quick or dead? I had rather so much know
Than if thou love or hate me.
MARY BEATON.
Truly then
My mind forecasts with no great questioning
You shall pass forth alive.
QUEEN.
What, to my death?
MARY BEATON.
To life and death that comes of life at last;
I know not when it shall.
QUEEN.
I would be sure
If our good guardian know no more than thou;
I think she should; yet if she knew I think
I should not long desire to know as much,
But the utmost thing that were of her foreknown
Should in mine eye stand open.
MARY BEATON.
She is kind.
QUEEN.
I would she were a man that had such heart;
So might it do me service.
MARY BEATON.
So it may.
QUEEN.
How? in her son? Ay, haply, could I bring
Mine own heart down to feed their hearts with hope,
They might grow great enough to do me good.
I tell thee yet, I thought indeed to die
When I came hither. ’Tis but five weeks gone -
Five, and two days; I keep the count of days
Here; I can mind the smell of the moist air
As we took land, and when we got to horse
I thought I never haply might ride more,
Nor hear a hoof’s beat on the glad green ground,
Nor feel the free steed stretch him to the way
Nor his flank bound to bear me: then meseemed
Men could not make me live in prison long;
It were unlike my being, out of my doom;
Free should I live, or die. Then came these walls
And this blind water shuddering at the sun
That rose ere we had ten miles ridden; and here
The black boat rocked that took my feet off shore,
And set them in this prison; and as I came
The honey-heavy heather touched my sense
Wellnigh to weeping; I did think to die
And smell nought sweeter than the naked grave.
Yet sit we not among the worms and roots,
But can see this much - from the round tower here
The square walls of the main tower opposite
And the bare court between; a gracious sight.
Yet did they not so well to let me live,
If they love life too; I will find those friends
That found these walls and fears to fence me with
A narrower lodging than this seven feet’s space
That yet I move in, where nor lip nor limb
Shall breathe or move for ever.
MARY BEATON.
Do you think
You shall not long live bound?
QUEEN.
Impossible.
I would have violent death, or life at large;
And either speedy. Were it in their mind
To slay me here and swiftly, as I thought,
Thou wouldst not here sit by their leave with me;
They get not so much grace who are now to die
And could not need it; yet I have heard it said
The headsman grants what sort of grace he may -
A grievous grace - to one about to bleed
That asks some boon before his neck lie down;
Thy face was haply such a boon to me,
Being cradle-fellows and fast-hearted friends,
To see before I died, and this the gift
Given of my headsmen’s grace; what think’st thou?
MARY BEATON.
Nay,
That I know nought of headsmen.
QUEEN.
Thou hast s
een -
It is a sharp strange thing to see men die.
I have prayed these men for life, thou knowest, have sent
Prayers in my son’s and my dead father’s name,
Their kings that were and shall be, and men say
One was well loved of the people, and their love
Is good to have, a goodly stay - and yet
I do not greatly think I fear to die.
I would not put off life yet; if I live,
For one thing most shall these men pay me dear,
That I was ever touched with fear of death.
Thou hast heard how seeing a child on the island once
Strayed over from the shore, I cried to him
Through the pierced wall between five feet of stone
To bid my friends pray God but for my soul,
My body was worth little; and they thought
I was cast down with bitter dread of heart;
Please God, for that will I get good revenge.
I dream no more each night now on my lord,
And yet God knows how utterly I know
I would be hewn in pieces - yea, I think -
Or turned with fire to ashes for his sake:
Surely I would.
Enter Lady Lochleven
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
Good morrow to your grace.
QUEEN.
Good madam, if the day be good or no
Our grace can tell not; while our grace had yet
The grace to walk an hour in the sun’s eye
With your fair daughters and our bedfellows
About your battlements that hold us fast,
Or breathe outside the gateway where our foot
Might feel the terrace under, we might say
The morn was good or ill; being here shut up,
We make no guesses of the sun, but think
To find no more good morrows.
LADY LOCHLEVEN.
Let your grace
Chide not in thought with me; for this restraint,
That since your late scarce intercepted flight
Has been imposed upon me, from my heart
I think you think that I desired it not.
QUEEN.
Ay, we were fools, we Maries twain, and thought
To be into the summer back again
And see the broom blow in the golden world,
The gentle broom on hill. For all men’s talk
And all things come and gone yet, yet I find
I am not tired of that I see not here,
The sun, and the large air, and the sweet earth,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 236