Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 252
Was only for advancement of true faith
To furtherance of religion: for myself
Aught would I never, but for Christ’s dear church
Was mine intent all wholly, to redeem
Her sore affliction in this age and land,
As now may not be yet: which knowing for truth,
I am readier even at heart to die than live.
And dying I crave of all men pardon whom
My doings at all have touched, or who thereat
Take scandal; and forgiveness of the queen
If on this cause I have offended her.
SAVAGE.
The like say I, that have no skill in speech,
But heart enough with faith at heart to die,
Seeing but for conscience and the common good,
And no preferment but this general weal,
I did attempt this business.
BARNWELL.
I confess
That I, whose seed was of that hallowed earth
Whereof each pore hath sweated blood for Christ,
Had note of these men’s drifts, which I deny
That ever I consented with or could
In conscience hold for lawful. That I came
To spy for them occasions in the court
And there being noted of her majesty
She seeing mine eyes peer sharply like a man’s
That had such purpose as she wist before
Prayed God that all were well – if this were urged,
I might make answer, it was not unknown
To divers of the council that I there
Had matters to solicit of mine own
Which thither drew me then: yet I confess
That Babington, espying me thence returned,
Asked me what news: to whom again I told,
Her majesty had been abroad that day,
With all the circumstance I saw there. Now
If I have done her majesty offence
I crave her pardon: and assuredly
If this my body’s sacrifice might yet
Establish her in true religion, here
Most willingly should this be offered up.
TILNEY.
I came not here to reason of my faith,
But to die simply like a Catholic, praying
Christ give our queen Elizabeth long life,
And warning all youth born take heed by me.
ABINGTON.
I likewise, and if aught I have erred in aught
I crave but pardon as for ignorant sin,
Holding at all points firm the Catholic faith;
And all things charged against me I confess,
Save that I ever sought her highness’ death:
In whose poor kingdom yet ere long I fear
Will be great bloodshed.
SHERIFF.
Seest thou, Abington,
Here all these people present of thy kind
Whose blood shall be demanded at thy hands
If dying thou hide what might endanger them?
Speak therefore, why or by what mortal mean
Should there be shed such blood?
ABINGTON.
All that I know
You have on record: take but this for sure,
This country lives for its iniquity
Loathed of all countries, and God loves it not.
Whereon I pray you trouble me no more
With questions of this world, but let me pray
And in mine own wise make my peace with God.
BABINGTON.
For me, first head of all this enterprise,
I needs must make this record of myself,
I have not conspired for profit, but in trust
Of men’s persuasions whence I stood assured
This work was lawful which I should have done
And meritorious as toward God; for which
No less I crave forgiveness of my queen
And that my brother may possess my lands
In heritage else forfeit with my head.
TICHBORNE.
Good countrymen and my dear friends, you look
For something to be said of me, that am
But an ill orator; and my text is worse.
Vain were it to make full discourse of all
This cause that brings me hither, which before
Was all made bare, and is well known to most
That have their eyes upon me: let me stand
For all young men, and most for those born high,
Their present warning here: a friend I had,
Ay, and a dear friend, one of whom I made
No small account, whose friendship for pure love
To this hath brought me: I may not deny
He told me all the matter, how set down,
And ready to be wrought; which always I
Held impious, and denied to deal therein:
But only for my friend’s regard was I
Silent, and verified a saying in me,
Who so consented to him. Ere this thing chanced,
How brotherly we twain lived heart in heart
Together, in what flourishing estate,
This town well knows: of whom went all report
Through her loud length of Fleetstreet and the Strand
And all parts else that sound men’s fortunate names,
But Babington and Tichborne? that therein
There was no haughtiest threshold found of force
To brave our entry; thus we lived our life,
And wanted nothing we might wish for: then,
For me, what less was in my head, God knows,
Than high state matters? Give me now but leave
Scarce to declare the miseries I sustained
Since I took knowledge of this action, whence
To his estate I well may liken mine,
Who could forbear not one forbidden thing
To enjoy all else afforded of the world:
The terror of my conscience hung on me;
Who, taking heed what perils girt me, went
To Sir John Peters hence in Essex, there
Appointing that my horses by his mean
Should meet me here in London, whence I thought
To flee into the country: but being here
I heard how all was now bewrayed abroad:
Whence Adam-like we fled into the woods
And there were taken. My dear countrymen,
Albeit my sorrows well may be your joy,
Yet mix your smiles with tears: pity my case,
Who, born out of an house whose name descends
Even from two hundred years ere English earth
Felt Norman heel upon her, were it yet
Till this mishap of mine unspotted. Sirs,
I have a wife, and one sweet child: my wife,
My dear wife Agnes: and my grief is there;
And for six sisters too left on my hand:
All my poor servants were dispersed, I know,
Upon their master’s capture: all which things
Most heartily I sorrow for: and though
Nought might I less have merited at her hands,
Yet had I looked for pardon of my fault
From the queen’s absolute grace and clemency;
That the unexpired remainder of my years
Might in some sort have haply recompensed
This former guilt of mine whereof I die:
But seeing such fault may find not such release
Even of her utter mercies, heartily
I crave at least of her and all the world
Forgiveness, and to God commend my soul,
And to men’s memory this my penitence
Till our death’s record die from out the land.
FIRST CITIZEN.
God pardon him! Stand back: what ail these knaves
To drive and thrust upon us? Help me, sir;
I thank you: hence we take them ful
l in view:
Hath yet the hangman there his knife in hand?
ACT III
Burghley
Scene I. The presence-chamber in Fotheringay Castle. At the upper end, a chair of state as for Queen Elizabeth; opposite, in the centre of the hall, a chair for Mary Stuart. The Commissioners seated on either side along the wall: to the right, the Earls, with Lord Chancellor Bromley and Lord Treasurer Burghley; to the left, the Barons, with the Knights of the Privy Council, among them Walsingham and Paulet; Popham, Egerton, and Gawdy, as Counsel for the Crown. Enter Mary Stuart, supported by Sir Andrew Melville, and takes her place.
MARY STUART.
Here are full many men of counsel met;
Not one for me.
The Chancellor rises.
BROMLEY.
Madam, this court is held
To make strait inquisition as by law
Of what with grief of heart our queen has heard,
A plot upon her life, against the faith
Here in her kingdom stablished: on which cause
Our charge it is to exact your answer here
And put to proof your guilt or innocence.
MARY STUART rising.
Sirs, whom by strange constraint I stand before,
My lords, and not my judges, since no law
Can hold to mortal judgment answerable
A princess free-born of all courts on earth,
I rise not here to make response as one
Responsible toward any for my life
Or of mine acts accountable to man,
Who see none higher save only God in heaven:
I am no natural subject of your land
That I should here plead as a criminal charged,
Nor in such wise appear I now: I came
On your queen’s faith to seek in England help
By trothplight pledged me: where by promise-breach
I am even since then her prisoner held in ward:
Yet, understanding by report of you
Some certain things I know not of to be
Against me brought on record, by my will
I stand content to hear and answer these.
BROMLEY.
Madam, there lives none born on earth so high
Who for this land’s laws’ breach within this land
Shall not stand answerable before those laws.
BURGHLEY.
Let there be record of the prisoner’s plea
And answer given such protest here set down,
And so proceed we to this present charge.
GAWDY.
My lords, to unfold by length of circumstance
The model of this whole conspiracy
Should lay the pattern of all treasons bare
That ever brought high state in danger: this
No man there lives among us but hath heard,
How certain men of our queen’s household folk
Being wrought on by persuasion of their priests
Drew late a bond between them, binding these
With others of their faith accomplices
Directed first of Anthony Babington
By mean of six for execution chosen
To slay the queen their mistress, and thereon
Make all her trustiest men of trust away;
As my lord treasurer Burghley present here,
Lord Hunsdon, and Sir Francis Walsingham,
And one that held in charge awhile agone
This lady now on trial, Sir Francis Knowles.
That she was hereto privy, to her power
Approving and abetting their device,
It shall not stand us in much need to show
Whose proofs are manifoldly manifest
On record written of their hands and hers.
MARY STUART.
Of all this I know nothing: Babington
I have used for mine intelligencer, sent
With letters charged at need, but never yet
Spake with him, never writ him word of mine
As privy to these close conspiracies
Nor word of his had from him. Never came
One harmful thought upon me toward your queen,
Nor knowledge ever that of other hearts
Was harm designed against her. Proofs, ye say,
Forsooth ye hold to impeach me: I desire
But only to behold and handle them
If they in sooth of sense be tangible
More than mere air and shadow.
BURGHLEY.
Let the clerk
Produce those letters writ from Babington.
MARY STUART.
What then? it may be such were writ of him:
Be it proved that they came ever in my hands.
If Babington affirm so much, I say
He, or who else will say it, lies openly.
GAWDY.
Here is the man’s confession writ, and here
Ballard’s the Jesuit, and the soldier’s here,
Savage, that served with Parma.
MARY STUART.
What of these?
Traitors they were, and traitor-like they lied.
GAWDY.
And here the last her letter of response
Confirming and approving in each point
Their purpose, writ direct to Babington.
MARY STUART.
My letter? none of mine it is: perchance
It may be in my cipher charactered,
But never came from or my tongue or hand:
I have sought mine own deliverance, and thereto
Solicited of my friends their natural help:
Yet certain whom I list not name there were,
Whose offers made of help to set me free
Receiving, yet I answered not a word.
Howbeit, desiring to divert the storm
Of persecution from the church, for this
To your queen’s grace I have made most earnest suit:
But for mine own part I would purchase not
This kingdom with the meanest one man’s death
In all its commonalty, much less the queen’s.
Many there be have dangerously designed
Things that I knew not: yea, but very late
There came a letter to my hand which craved
My pardon if by enterprise of some
Were undertaken aught unknown of me:
A cipher lightly may one counterfeit,
As he that vaunted him of late in France
To be my son’s base brother: and I fear
Lest this, for aught mine ignorance of it knows,
May be that secretary’s fair handiwork
Who sits to judge me, and hath practised late,
I hear, against my son’s life and mine own.
But I protest I have not so much as thought
Nor dreamed upon destruction of the queen:
I had rather spend most gladly mine own life
Than for my sake the Catholics should be thus
Afflicted only in very hate of me
And drawn to death so cruel as these tears
Gush newly forth to think of.
BURGHLEY.
Here no man
Who hath showed himself true subject to the state
Was ever for religion done to death:
But some for treason, that against the queen
Upheld the pope’s bull and authority.
MARY STUART.
Yet have I heard it otherwise affirmed
And read in books set forth in print as much.
BURGHLEY.
They that so write say too the queen hath here
Made forfeit of her royal dignity.
WALSINGHAM.
Here I call God to record on my part
That personally or as a private man
I have done nought misbeseeming honesty,
Nor as I bear a public person’s place
Done aught thereof unworthy. I confess
>
That, being right careful of the queen’s estate
And safety of this realm, I have curiously
Searched out the practices against it: nay,
Herein had Ballard offered me his help,
I durst not have denied him; yea, I would
Have recompensed the pains he had taken. Say
I have practised aught with him, why did he not,
To save his life, reveal it?
MARY STUART.
Pray you, sir,
Take no displeasure at me: truth it is
Report has found me of your dealings, blown
From lip to ear abroad, wherein myself
I put no credit: and could but desire
Yourself would all as little make account
Of slanders flung on me. Spies, sure, are men
Of doubtful credit, which dissemble things
Far other than they speak. Do not believe
That I gave ever or could give consent
Once to the queen’s destruction: I would never,
These tears are bitter witness, never would
Make shipwreck of my soul by compassing
Destruction of my dearest sister.
GAWDY.
This
Shall soon by witness be disproved: as here
Even by this letter from Charles Paget’s hand
Transcribed, which Curle your secretary hath borne
Plain witness you received, touching a league
Betwixt Mendoza and Ballard, who conferred
Of this land’s foreordained invasion, thence
To give you freedom.
MARY STUART.
What of this? ye shoot
Wide of the purpose: this approves not me
Consenting to the queen’s destruction.
GAWDY.
That
Stands proven enough by word of Babington
Who dying avowed it, and by letters passed
From him to you, whom he therein acclaims
As his most dread and sovereign lady and queen,
And by the way makes mention passingly
Of a plot laid by transference to convey
This kingdom to the Spaniard.
MARY STUART.
I confess
There came a priest unto me, saying if I
Would not herein bear part I with my son
Alike should be debarred the inheritance:
His name ye shall not have of me: but this
Ye know, that openly the Spaniard lays