Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 260
The secretary of the council here hath charge
To read as their commission.
MARY STUART.
Let me hear
In as brief wise as may beseem the time
The purport of it.
BEALE.
Our commission here
Given by the council under the great seal
Pronounces on your head for present doom
Death, by this written sentence.
MARY STUART.
Ay, my lords?
May I believe this, and not hold myself
Mocked as a child with shadows? In God’s name,
Speak you, my lord of Shrewsbury: let me know
If this be dream or waking.
KENT.
Verily,
No dream it is, nor dreamers we that pray,
Madam, you meetly would prepare yourself
To stand before God’s judgment presently.
MARY STUART.
I had rather so than ever stand again
Before the face of man’s. Why speak not you,
To whom I speak, my lord earl marshal? Nay,
Look not so heavily: by my life, he stands
As one at point to weep. Why, good my lord,
To know that none may swear by Mary’s life
And hope again to find belief of man
Upon so slight a warrant, should not bring
This trouble on your eyes; look up, and say
The word you have for her that never was
Less than your friend, and prisoner.
SHREWSBURY.
None save this,
Which willingly I would not speak, I may;
That presently your time is come to die.
MARY STUART.
Why, then, I am well content to leave a world
Wherein I am no more serviceable at all
To God or man, and have therein so long
Endured so much affliction. All my life
I have ever earnestly desired the love
And friendship of your queen; have warned her oft
Of coming dangers; and have cherished long
The wish that I but once might speak with her
In plain-souled confidence; being well assured,
Had we but once met, there an end had been
Of jealousies between us: but our foes,
With equal wrong toward either, treacherously
Have kept us still in sunder: by whose craft
And crooked policy hath my sister’s crown
Fallen in great peril, and myself have been
Imprisoned, and inveterately maligned,
And here must now be murdered. But I know
That only for my faith’s sake I must die,
And this to know for truth is recompense
As large as all my sufferings. For the crime
Wherewith I am charged, upon this holy book
I lay mine hand for witness of my plea,
I am wholly ignorant of it; and solemnly
Declare that never yet conspiracy
Devised against the queen my sister’s life
Took instigation or assent from me.
KENT.
You swear but on a popish Testament:
Such oaths are all as worthless as the book.
MARY STUART.
I swear upon the book wherein I trust:
Would you give rather credit to mine oath
Sworn on your scriptures that I trust not in?
KENT.
Madam, I fain would have you heartily
Renounce your superstition; toward which end
With us the godly dean of Peterborough,
Good Richard Fletcher, well approved for faith
Of God and of the queen, is hither come
To proffer you his prayerful ministry.
MARY STUART.
If you, my lords, or he will pray for me,
I shall be thankful for your prayers; but may not
With theirs that hold another faith mix mine.
I pray you therefore that mine almoner may
Have leave to attend on me, that from his hands
I, having made confession, may receive
The sacrament.
KENT.
We may not grant you this.
MARY STUART.
I shall not see my chaplain ere I die?
But two months gone this grace was granted me
By word expressly from your queen, to have
Again his ministration: and at last
In the utter hour and bitter strait of death
Is this denied me?
KENT.
Madam, for your soul
More meet it were to cast these mummeries out,
And bear Christ only in your heart, than serve
With ceremonies of ritual hand and tongue
His mere idolatrous likeness.
MARY STUART.
This were strange,
That I should bear him visible in my hand
Or keep with lips and knees his titular rites
And cast in heart no thought upon him. Nay,
Put me, I pray, to no more argument:
But if this least thing be not granted, yet
Grant me to know the season of my death.
SHREWSBURY.
At eight by dawn to-morrow you must die.
MARY STUART.
So shall I hardly see the sun again.
By dawn to-morrow? meanest men condemned
Give not their lives’ breath up so suddenly:
Howbeit, I had rather yield you thanks, who make
Such brief end of the bitterness of death
For me who have borne such bitter length of life,
Than plead with protestation of appeal
For half a piteous hour’s remission: nor
Henceforward shall I be denied of man
Aught, who may never now crave aught again
But whence is no denial. Yet shall this
Not easily be believed of men, nor find
In foreign ears acceptance, that a queen
Should be thrust out of life thus. Good my friend,
Bid my physician Gorion come to me:
I have to speak with him – sirs, with your leave –
Of certain monies due to me in France.
What, shall I twice desire your leave, my lords,
To live these poor last hours of mine alive
At peace among my friends? I have much to do,
And little time wherein to do it is left.
SHREWSBURY.
To Kent apart.
I pray she may not mean worse than I would
Against herself ere morning.
KENT.
Let not then
This French knave’s drugs come near her, nor himself:
We will take order for it.
SHREWSBURY.
Nay, this were but
To exasperate more her thwarted heart, and make
Despair more desperate than itself. Pray God
She be not minded to compel us put
Force at the last upon her of men’s hands
To hale her violently to death, and make
Judgment look foul and fierce as murder’s face
With stain of strife and passion.
Exeunt all but Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton.
MARY STUART.
So, my friend,
The last of all our Maries are you left
To-morrow. Strange has been my life, and now
Strange looks my death upon me: yet, albeit
Nor the hour nor manner of it be mine to choose,
Ours is it yet, and all men’s in the world,
To make death welcome in what wise we will.
Bid you my chaplain, though he see me not,
Watch through the night and pray for me: perchance,
When ere the sundawn they shall bring me forth,
I may behold him, and upon my knees
Served earlier in than wont was: whereunto
I bid my true poor servants here, to take
Farewell and drink at parting to them all
The cup of my last kindness, in good hope
They shall stand alway constant in their faith
And dwell in peace together: thereupon
What little store is left me will I share
Among them, and between my girls divide
My wardrobe and my jewels severally,
Reserving but the black robe and the red
That shall attire me for my death: and last
With mine own hand shall be my will writ out
And all memorials more set down therein
That I would leave for legacies of love
To my next kinsmen and my household folk.
And to the king my brother yet of France
Must I write briefly, but a word to say
I am innocent of the charge whereon I die
Now for my right’s sake claimed upon this crown,
And our true faith’s sake, but am barred from sight
Even of mine almoner here, though hard at hand;
And I would bid him take upon his charge
The keeping of my servants, as I think
He shall not for compassionate shame refuse,
Albeit his life be softer than his heart;
And in religion for a queen’s soul pray
That once was styled Most Christian, and is now
In the true faith about to die, deprived
Of all her past possessions. But this most
And first behoves it, that the king of Spain
By Gorion’s word of mouth receive my heart,
Who soon shall stand before him. Bid the leech
Come hither, and alone, to speak with me.
Exit Mary Beaton.
She is dumb as death: yet never in her life
Hath she been quick of tongue. For all the rest,
Poor souls, how well they love me, all as well
I think I know: and one of them or twain
At least may surely see me to my death
Ere twice the hours have changed again. Perchance
Love that can weep not would the gladlier die
For those it cannot weep on. Time wears thin:
They should not now play laggard: nay, he comes,
The last that ever speaks alone with me
Before my soul shall speak alone with God.
Enter Gorion.
I have sent once more for you to no such end
As sick men for physicians: no strong drug
May put the death next morning twelve hours back
Whose twilight overshadows me, that am
Nor sick nor medicinable. Let me know
If I may lay the last of all my trust
On you that ever shall be laid on man
To prove him kind and loyal.
GORION.
So may God
Deal with me, madam, as I prove to you
Faithful, though none but I were in the world
That you might trust beside.
MARY STUART.
With equal heart
Do I believe and thank you. I would send
To Paris for the ambassador from Spain
This letter with two diamonds, which your craft
For me must cover from men’s thievish eyes
Where they may be not looked for.
GORION.
Easily
Within some molten drug may these be hid,
And faithfully by me conveyed to him.
MARY STUART.
The lesser of them shall he keep in sign
Of my good friendship toward himself: but this
In token to King Philip shall he give
That for the truth I die, and dying commend
To him my friends and servants, Gilbert Curle,
His sister, and Jane Kennedy, who shall
To-night watch by me; and my ladies all
That have endured my prison: let him not
Forget from his good favour one of these
That I remember to him: Charles Arundel,
And either banished Paget; one whose heart
Was better toward my service than his hand,
Morgan: and of mine exiles for their faith,
The prelates first of Glasgow and of Ross;
And Liggons and Throgmorton, that have lost
For me their leave to live on English earth;
And Westmoreland, that lives now more forlorn
Than died that earl who rose for me with him.
These I beseech him favour for my sake
Still: and forget not, if he come again
To rule as king in England, one of them
That were mine enemies here: the treasurer first,
And Leicester, Walsingham, and Huntingdon,
At Tutbury once my foe, fifteen years gone,
And Wade that spied upon me three years since,
And Paulet here my gaoler: set them down
For him to wreak wrath’s utmost justice on,
In my revenge remembered. Though I be
Dead, let him not forsake his hope to reign
Upon this people: with my last breath left
I make this last prayer to him, that not the less
He will maintain the invasion yet designed
Of us before on England: let him think,
It is God’s quarrel, and on earth a cause
Well worthy of his greatness: which being won,
Let him forget no man of these nor me.
And now will I lie down, that four hours’ sleep
May give me strength before I sleep again
And need take never thought for waking more.
Scene II. The Presence Chamber
Shrewsbury, Kent, Paulet, Drury, Melville, and Attendants.
KENT.
The stroke is past of eight.
SHREWSBURY.
Not far, my lord.
KENT.
What stays the provost and the sheriff yet
That went ere this to bring the prisoner forth?
What, are her doors locked inwards? then perchance
Our last night’s auguries of some close design
By death contrived of her self-slaughterous hand
To baffle death by justice hit but right
The heart of her bad purpose.
SHREWSBURY.
Fear it not:
See where she comes, a queenlier thing to see
Than whom such thoughts take hold on.
Enter Mary Stuart, led by two gentlemen and preceded by the Sheriff; Mary Beaton, Barbara Mowbray, and other ladies behind, who remain in the doorway.
MELVILLE kneeling to Mary.
Woe am I,
Madam, that I must bear to Scotland back
Such tidings watered with such tears as these.
MARY STUART.
Weep not, good Melville: rather should your heart
Rejoice that here an end is come at last
Of Mary Stuart’s long sorrows; for be sure
That all this world is only vanity.
And this record I pray you make of me,
That a true woman to my faith I die,
And true to Scotland and to France: but God
Forgive them that have long desired mine end
And with false tongues have thirsted for my blood
As the hart thirsteth for the water-brooks.
O God, who art truth, and the author of all truth,
Thou knowest the extreme recesses of my heart,
And how that I was willing all my days
That England should with Scotland be fast friends.
Commend me to my son: tell him that I
Have nothing done to prejudice his rights
As king: and now, good Melville, fare thee well.
My lor
d of Kent, whence comes it that your charge
Hath bidden back my women there at door
Who fain to the end would bear me company?
KENT.
Madam, this were not seemly nor discreet,
That these should so have leave to vex men’s ears
With cries and loose lamentings: haply too
They might in superstition seek to dip
Their handkerchiefs for relics in your blood.
MARY STUART.
That will I pledge my word they shall not. Nay,
The queen would surely not deny me this,
The poor last thing that I shall ask on earth.
Even a far meaner person dying I think
She would not have so handled. Sir, you know
I am her cousin, of her grandsire’s blood,
A queen of France by marriage, and by birth
Anointed queen of Scotland. My poor girls
Desire no more than but to see me die.
SHREWSBURY.
Madam, you have leave to elect of this your train
Two ladies with four men to go with you.
MARY STUART.
I choose from forth my Scottish following here
Jane Kennedy, with Elspeth Curle: of men,
Bourgoin and Gorion shall attend on me,
Gervais and Didier. Come then, let us go.
Exeunt: manent Mary Beaton and Barbara Mowbray.
BARBARA.
I wist I was not worthy, though my child
It is that her own hands made Christian: but
I deemed she should have bid you go with her.
Alas, and would not all we die with her?
MARY BEATON.
Why, from the gallery here at hand your eyes
May go with her along the hall beneath
Even to the scaffold: and I fain would hear
What fain I would not look on. Pray you, then,
If you may bear to see it as those below,
Do me that sad good service of your eyes
For mine to look upon it, and declare
All that till all be done I will not see;
I pray you of your pity.
BARBARA.
Though mine heart
Break, it shall not for fear forsake the sight
That may be faithful yet in following her,
Nor yet for grief refuse your prayer, being fain
To give your love such bitter comfort, who
So long have never left her.