Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 256
In God’s and in the whole world’s suffering sight
Of all the miseries and calamities
To ensue on my refusal: whence, albeit
I know not yet how God shall please to incline
My heart on that behalf, I have thought it meet
In conscience yet that she should be forewarned,
That so she might bethink her of her sins
Done both toward God offensive and to me
And pray for grace to be true penitent
For all these faults: which, had the main fault reached
No further than mine own poor person, God
Stands witness with what truth my heart protests
I freely would have pardoned. She to this
Makes bitter answer as of desperate heart
All we may wreak our worst upon her; whom
Having to death condemned, we may fulfil
Our wicked work, and God in Paradise
With just atonement shall requite her. This
Ye see is all the pardon she will ask,
Being only, and even as ‘twere with prayer, desired
To crave of us forgiveness: and thereon
Being by Lord Buckhurst charged on this point home
That by her mean the Catholics here had learnt
To hold her for their sovereign, on which cause
Nor my religion nor myself might live
Uncharged with danger while her life should last,
She answering gives God thanks aloud to be
Held of so great account upon his side,
And in God’s cause and in the church of God’s
Rejoicingly makes offering of her life;
Which I, God knows how unrejoicingly,
Can scarce, ye tell me, choose but take, or yield
At least for you to take it. Yet, being told
It is not for religion she must die,
But for a plot by compass of her own
Laid to dethrone me and destroy, she casts
Again this answer barbed with mockery back,
She was not so presumptuous born, to aspire
To two such ends yet ever: yea, so far
She dwelt from such desire removed in heart,
She would not have me suffer by her will
The fillip of a finger: though herself
Be persecuted even as David once
And her mishap be that she cannot so
Fly by the window forth as David: whence
It seems she likens us to Saul, and looks
Haply to see us as on Mount Gilboa fallen,
Where yet, for all the shooters on her side,
Our shield shall be not vilely cast away,
As of one unanointed. Yet, my lords,
If England might but by my death attain
A state more flourishing with a better prince,
Gladly would I lay down my life; who have
No care save only for my people’s sake
To keep it: for myself, in all the world
I see no great cause why for all this coil
I should be fond to live or fear to die.
If I should say unto you that I mean
To grant not your petition, by my faith,
More should I so say haply than I mean:
Or should I say I mean to grant it, this
Were, as I think, to tell you of my mind
More than is fit for you to know: and thus
I must for all petitionary prayer
Deliver you an answer answerless.
Yet will I pray God lighten my dark mind
That being illumined it may thence foresee
What for his church and all this commonwealth
May most be profitable: and this once known,
My hand shall halt not long behind his will.
Scene II. Fotheringay
Sir Amyas Paulet and Sir Drew Drury.
PAULET.
I never gave God heartier thanks than these
I give to have you partner of my charge
Now most of all, these letters being to you
No less designed than me, and you in heart
One with mine own upon them. Certainly,
When I put hand to pen this morning past
That Master Davison by mine evidence
Might note what sore disquietudes I had
To increase my griefs before of body and mind,
I looked for no such word to cut off mine
As these to us both of Walsingham’s and his.
Would rather yet I had cause to still complain
Of those unanswered letters two months past
Than thus be certified of such intents
As God best knoweth I never sought to know,
Or search out secret causes: though to hear
Nothing at all did breed, as I confessed,
In me some hard conceits against myself,
I had rather yet rest ignorant than ashamed
Of such ungracious knowledge. This shall be
Fruit as I think of dread wrought on the queen
By those seditious rumours whose report
Blows fear among the people lest our charge
Escape our trust, or as they term it now
Be taken away, – such apprehensive tongues
So phrase it – and her freedom strike men’s hearts
More deep than all these flying fears that say
London is fired of Papists, or the Scots
Have crossed in arms the Border, or the north
Is risen again rebellious, or the Guise
Is disembarked in Sussex, or that now
In Milford Haven rides a Spanish fleet –
All which, albeit but footless floating lies,
May all too easily smite and work too far
Even on the heart most royal in the world
That ever was a woman’s.
DRURY.
Good my friend,
These noises come without a thunderbolt
In such dense air of dusk expectancy
As all this land lies under; nor will some
Doubt or think much to say of those reports
They are broached and vented of men’s credulous mouths
Whose ears have caught them from such lips as meant
Merely to strike more terror in the queen
And wring that warrant from her hovering hand
Which falters yet and flutters on her lip
While the hand hangs and trembles half advanced
Upon that sentence which, the treasurer said,
Should well ere this have spoken, seeing it was
More than a full month old and four days more
When he so looked to hear the word of it
Which yet lies sealed of silence.
PAULET.
Will you say,
Or any as wise and loyal, say or think
It was but for a show, to scare men’s wits,
They have raised this hue and cry upon her flight
Supposed from hence, to waken Exeter
With noise from Honiton and Sampfield spread
Of proclamation to detain all ships
And lay all highways for her day and night,
And send like precepts out four manner of ways
From town to town, to make in readiness
Their armour and artillery, with all speed,
On pain of death, for London by report
Was set on fire? though, God be therefore praised,
We know this is not, yet the noise hereof
Were surely not to be neglected, seeing
There is, meseems, indeed no readier way
To levy forces for the achieving that
Which so these lewd reporters feign to fear.
DRURY.
Why, in such mighty matters and such mists
Wise men may think what hardly fools would say,
And eyes get glimpse of more than sight hath leave
To give commission for the babbling tongue
Aloud to cry they have seen. This noise that was
Upon one Arden’s flight, a traitor, whence
Fear flew last week all round us, gave but note
How lightly may men’s minds take fire, and words
Take wing that have no feet to fare upon
More solid than a shadow.
PAULET.
Nay, he was
Escaped indeed: and every day thus brings
Forth its new mischief: as this last month did
Those treasons of the French ambassador
Designed against our mistress, which God’s grace
Laid by the knave’s mean bare to whom they sought
For one to slay her, and of the Pope’s hand earn
Ten thousand blood-encrusted crowns a year
To his most hellish hire. You will not say
This too was merely fraud or vision wrought
By fear or cloudy falsehood?
DRURY.
I will say
No more or surelier than I know: and this
I know not thoroughly to the core of truth
Or heart of falsehood in it. A man may lie
Merely, or trim some bald lean truth with lies,
Or patch bare falsehood with some tatter of truth,
And each of these pass current: but of these
Which likeliest may this man’s tale be who gave
Word of his own temptation by these French
To hire them such a murderer, and avowed
He held it godly cunning to comply
And bring this envoy’s secretary to sight
Of one clapped up for debts in Newgate, who
Being thence released might readily, as he said,
Even by such means as once this lady’s lord
Was made away with, make the queen away
With powder fired beneath her bed – why, this,
Good sooth, I guess not; but I doubt the man
To be more liar than fool, and yet, God wot,
More fool than traitor; most of all intent
To conjure coin forth of the Frenchman’s purse
With tricks of mere effrontery: thus at least
We know did Walsingham esteem of him:
And if by Davison held of more account,
Or merely found more serviceable, and made
A mean to tether up those quick French tongues
From threat or pleading for this prisoner’s life,
I cannot tell, and care not. Though the queen
Hath stayed this envoy’s secretary from flight
Forth of the kingdom, and committed him
To ward within the Tower while Châteauneuf
Himself should come before a council held
At my lord treasurer’s, where being thus accused
At first he cared not to confront the man,
But stood upon his office, and the charge
Of his king’s honour and prerogative –
Then bade bring forth the knave, who being brought forth
Outfaced him with insistence front to front
And took the record of this whole tale’s truth
Upon his soul’s damnation, challenging
The Frenchman’s answer in denial hereof,
That of his own mouth had this witness been
Traitorously tempted, and by personal plea
Directly drawn to treason: which awhile
Struck dumb the ambassador as amazed with wrath,
Till presently, the accuser being removed,
He made avowal this fellow some while since
Had given his secretary to wit there lay
One bound in Newgate who being thence released
Would take the queen’s death on his hand: whereto
Answering, he bade the knave avoid his house
On pain, if once their ways should cross, to be
Sent bound before the council: who replied
He had done foul wrong to take no further note,
But being made privy to this damned device
Keep close its perilous knowledge; whence the queen
Might well complain against him; and hereon
They fell to wrangling on this cause, that he
Professed himself to no man answerable
For declaration or for secret held
Save his own master: so that now is gone
Sir William Wade to Paris, not with charge
To let the king there know this queen shall live,
But to require the ambassador’s recall
And swift delivery of our traitors there
To present justice: yet may no man say,
For all these half-faced scares and policies,
Here was more sooth than seeming.
PAULET.
Why, these crafts
Were shameful then as fear’s most shameful self,
If thus your wit read them aright; and we
Should for our souls and lives alike do ill
To jeopard them on such men’s surety given
As make no more account of simple faith
Than true men make of liars: and these are they,
Our friends and masters, that rebuke us both
By speech late uttered of her majesty
For lack of zeal in service and of care
She looked for at our hands, in that we have not
In all this time, unprompted, of ourselves
Found out some way to cut this queen’s life off,
Seeing how great peril, while her enemy lives,
She is hourly subject unto: saying, she notes,
Besides a kind of lack of love to her,
Herein we have not that particular care
Forsooth of our own safeties, or indeed
Of the faith rather and the general good,
That politic reason bids; especially,
Having so strong a warrant and such ground
For satisfaction of our consciences
To Godward, and discharge of credit kept
And reputation toward the world, as is
That oath whereby we stand associated
To prosecute inexorably to death
Both with our joint and our particular force
All by whose hand and all on whose behalf
Our sovereign’s life is struck at: as by proof
Stands charged upon our prisoner. So they write,
As though the queen’s own will had warranted
The words that by her will’s authority
Were blotted from the bond, whereby that head
Was doomed on whose behoof her life should be
By treason threatened: for she would not have
Aught pass which grieved her subjects’ consciences,
She said, or might abide not openly
The whole world’s view: nor would she any one
Were punished for another’s fault: and so
Cut off the plea whereon she now desires
That we should dip our secret hands in blood
With no direction given of her own mouth
So to pursue that dangerous head to death
By whose assent her life were sought: for this
Stands fixed for only warrant of such deed,
And this we have not, but her word instead
She takes it most unkindly toward herself
That men professing toward her loyally
That love that we do should in any sort,
For lack of our own duty’s full discharge,
Cast upon her the burden, knowing as we
Her slowness to shed blood, much more of one
So near herself in blood as is this queen,
And one with her in sex and quality.
And these respects, they find, or so profess,
Do greatly trouble her: who hath sundry times
Protested, they assure us, earnestly,
That
if regard of her good subjects’ risk
Did not more move her than the personal fear
Of proper peril to her, she never would
Be drawn to assent unto this bloodshedding:
And so to our good judgments they refer
These speeches they thought meet to acquaint us with
As passed but lately from her majesty,
And to God’s guard commend us: which God knows
We should much more need than deserve of him
Should we give ear to this, and as they bid
Make heretics of these papers; which three times
You see how Davison hath enforced on us:
But they shall taste no fire for me, nor pass
Back to his hands till copies writ of them
Lie safe in mine for sons of mine to keep
In witness how their father dealt herein.
DRURY.
You have done the wiselier: and what word soe’er
Shall bid them know your mind, I am well assured
It well may speak for me too.
PAULET.
Thus it shall:
That having here his letters in my hands,
I would not fail, according to his charge,
To send back answer with all possible speed
Which shall deliver unto him my great grief
And bitterness of mind, in that I am
So much unhappy as I hold myself
To have lived to look on this unhappy day,
When I by plain direction am required
From my most gracious sovereign’s mouth to do
An act which God forbiddeth, and the law.
Hers are my goods and livings, and my life,
Held at her disposition, and myself
Am ready so to lose them this next day
If it shall please her so, acknowledging
I hold them of her mere goodwill, and do not
Desire them to enjoy them but so long
As her great grace gives leave: but God forbid
That I should make for any grace of hers
So foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or
Leave ever to my poor posterity
So great a blot, as privily to shed blood
With neither law nor warrant. So, in trust
That she, of her accustomed clemency,
Will take my dutiful answer in good part,
By his good mediation, as returned
From one who never will be less in love,
Honour, obedience, duty to his queen,
Than any Christian subject living, thus
To God’s grace I commit him.
DRURY.
Though I doubt
She haply shall be much more wroth hereat
Than lately she was gracious, when she bade
God treblefold reward you for your charge