TENTERHOOK
We’ll raise no towns.
HONEYSUCKLE
No, no, let’s knock first.
WAFER
Ay, that’s best. I’ll summon a parley. [Knocks.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
[Within.] Whose there? Have you stockfish in hand that you beat so hard? Who are you?
TENTERHOOK
That’s my wife. Let Justiniano speak, for all they know our tongues.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
[Within.] What a murrain ail these colts, to keep such a kicking, Monopoly?
JUSTINIANO
Yes.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
[Within.] Is Master Linstock up too, and the captain?
JUSTINIANO
Both are in the field. Will you open your door?
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
[Within.] Oh, you are proper gamesters t bring flase dice with you from London to cleat yourselves. Is’t possible that three shallow women should gull three such gallants?
TENTERHOOK
What means this?
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
[Within.] Have we defied you upon the walls all night to open our gates to you i’th’morning? Our honest husbands, they — silly men — lie praying in their beds now, that the water under us may not be rough, the tilt that covers us may not be rent, and the straw about our feed may keep our pretty legs warm. I warrant they walk upon Queen-hive — as Leander did for Hero — to watch for our landing, and should we wrong such kind hearts? Would we might ever be troubled with the toothache then?
TENTERHOOK
This thing that makes fools of us thus, is my wife. [Knocks.
MISTRESS WAFER
Ay, ay, knock your bellies full. We hug one another abed and lie laughing till we tickle again to remember how we sent you a bat-fowling.
WAFER
An almont parret. That’s my Mab’s voice. I know by the sound.
JUSTINIANO
‘Sfoot, you ha’ spoil’d half already, and you’ll spoil all, if you dam not up your mouths! Villainy! Nothing but villainy! I’m afraid they have smelt your breaths at the keyhole, and now they set you to catch flounders, whilst in the meantime, the concupiscentious malefactors make ’em ready and then take London napping.
ALL THREE
I’ll not be gull’d so.
TENTERHOOK
Show yourselves to be men, and break open doors.
JUSTINIANO
Break open doors, and show yourselves to be beasts. If you break open doors, your wives may lay flat burglary to your charge.
HONEYSUCKLE
Lay a pudding. Burglary!
JUSTINIANO
Will you then turn coridons because you are among clowns? Shall it be said you have no brains being in Brainford?
ALL THREE
Master Parenthesis, we will enter and set upon ’em.
JUSTINIANO
Well, do so. But enter not so that all the country may cry shame of your doings. Knock, ’em down, burst open Erebus and bring an old house over our heads if you do.
WAFER
No matter, we’ll bear it off with heads and shoulders.[Knocks.
MISTRESS WAFER looks out.
MISTRESS WAFER
You cannot enter indeed, la. Gods my pittikin, our three husbands summon a parley! Let that long old woman either creep under t heed or else stand upright behind the painted cloth. [Exit.
WAFER
Do you hear, you Mabel?
MISTRESS WAFER
Let’s never hide our heads now, for we are discovered.
HONEYSUCKLE
But all this while, my Honeysuckle appears not.
JUSTINIANO
Why, then two of them have pitch’d their tents there and your lies in ambuscade with your enemy there.
HONEYSUCKLE
Stand upon your guard there, while I batter here. [Knock at the other door.
MONOPOLY
Who’s there?
JUSTINIANO
Hold, I’ll speak in a small voice like one of the women. Here’s a friend. Are you up? Rise, rise, stir, stir!
MONOPOLY
[Within.] ‘Ud’s foot! What weasel are you? Are you going to catch quails that you bring your pipes with you? I’ll see what troubled ghost it is that cannot sleep. [Looks out.
TENTERHOOK
Oh, Master Monopoly, God save you!
MONOPOLY
Amen, for the last itme I saw you , the devil was at mine elbow in buff. What, three merry men, and three merry men, and three merry men be we too.
HONEYSUCKLE
How does my wife, Master Monopoly?
MONOPOLY
Who? My overthwart neighbour, passing well. This is kindly done. Sir Goslin is not far from you. We’ll join our armies presently. Here be rare fields to walk in. Captain, rise, Captain Linstock, bestir your stumps, for the Philestines are upon us. [Exit.
TENTERHOOK
This Monopoly is an arrant knave, a cogging knave, for all he’s a courtier. If Monopoly be suffer’d to ride up and down with other men’s wives, he’ll undo both city and country.
Enter MISTRESS TENTERHOOK, MISTRESS HONEYSUCKLE, and MISTRESS WAFER.
JUSTINIANO
Moll, mask thyself. They shall not know thee.
ALL THREE WOMEN
How now, sweethearts? What make you here?
WAFER
Not that which you make here.
TENTERHOOK
Marry, you make bulls of your husbands.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Buzzards, do we not? Out, you yellow infirmities! Do all slowers show in your eyes like columbines?
WAFER
Wife, what says the collier? Is not thy soul blacker than his coals? How does the child? How does my flesh and blood wife?
MISTRESS WAFER
Your flesh and blood is very well recovered now, mouse.
WAFER
I know ’tis. The collier has a sack-full of news to empty.
TENTERHOOK
Clare, where by your two rings with diamonds?
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
At hand, sir, with a wet finger.
TENTERHOOK
I dreamt you had lost ’em. What a profane varlet is this shoulder clapper, to lie thus upon my wife and her rings.
Enter MONOPOLY, WHIRLPOOL, and LINSTOCK.
MONOPOLY, WHIRLPOOL, & LINSTOCK
Save you, gentlemen.
TENTERHOOK, HONEYSUCKLE, & WAFER
And you and our wives from you.
MONOPOLY
Your wives have sav’d themselves for one.
TENTERHOOK
Master Monopoly, though I meet you in high Germany, I hope you can understand broken English. Have you discharg’d your debt?
MONOPOLY
Yes, sir, with a double charge. Your harpy that set his ten commandments upon my back had to diamonds to save him harmless.
TENTERHOOK
Of you, sir.
MONOPOLY
Me, sir. Do you think there be no diamond courtiers?
Enter AMBUSH.
TENTERHOOK
Sergeant Ambush, issue forth. Monopoly, I’ll cut off your convoy mast. Sergeant Ambush, I charge you as you hope to receive comfort from the smell of mace, speak not like a sergeant, but deal honestly, of whom had you the diamonds?
AMBUSH
Of your wife, sir, if I’m an honest man.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Of me, you pewter-buttoned rascal!
MONOPOLY
Sirrah, you that live by nothing but the carrion of poultry.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Schoolmaster, hark hither. [Whispers to JUSTINIANO.
MONOPOLY
Where are my gems and precious stones that were my bail?
AMBUSH
Forthcoming, sir, though your money is not. Your creditor has ’em.
JUSTINIANO
[To MISTRESS TENTERHOOK.] Excellent! Peace. [Aloud.] Why
, Master Tenterhook, if the diamonds be of the reported value, I’ll pay your money. Receive ’em, keep ’em till Master Monopoly be fatter i’th’purse; for Master Monopoly, I know you will not be long empty, Master Monopoly.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Let him have ’em, good Tenterhook. Where are they?
TENTERHOOK
At home. I lock’d ’em up.
Enter MISTRESS BIRDLIME.
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
No, indeed, forsooth. I lock’d ’em up, and those are they your wife has, and those are they your husband — like a bad liver as he is — woud lhave given to a niece of mine that lies in my house to take physic — to have committed fleshly treason with her.
TENTERHOOK
Ay, at your house — you old —
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
You, perdy, and that honest bachelor, never all me old for the matter.
[Points to HONEYSUCKLE.
MISTRESS HONEYSUCKLE
Motherly woman, he’s my husband and no bachelor’s buttons are at his doublet.
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
‘Las, I speak innocently and that lean gentleman set in his staff there. But, as I’m a sinner, both I and the young woman had an eye to the main chance, and though they brought more about ’em than Captain Candish’s voyage came to, they should not, nor could not — unless I had been a naughty woman — have entered the straits.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK, MISTRESS HONEYSUCKLE, & MISTRESS WAFER
Have we smelt you out, foxes?
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Do you come after us with hue and cry when you are the thieves yourselves?
MISTRESS HONEYSUCKLE
Murder, I see, cannot be hid, but if this old Sybil of your speak oracles, for my part, I’ll be like an almanac that threatens nothing but foul weather.
TENTERHOOK
That bawd has been damn’d five hundred times and is her word to be taken?
JUSTINIANO
To be dam’d once is enough, for anyone of her coat.
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
Why, sir, what is my coat that you sit thus upon my skirts?
JUSTINIANO
Thy coat is an ancient coat, one of the seven deadly sins. Put thy coat first to making. But, do you hear, you mother of iniquity, you that can lose and find your ears when you list, go. Sail with the rest of your bawdy-traffickers to the place of sixpenny sinfulness, the suburbs.
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
I scorn the sinfulness of any suburbs in Christendom. ’Tis well known I have uprisers and downlyers with the city, night by night, like a profane fellow as thou art.
JUSTINIANO
Right, I know thou hast. I’ll tell you gentlefolks, there’s more resort to this fortune teller than of forlorn wives married to old husbands, and of green sickness wenches that can get no husbands to the house of a wise woman. She has tricks to keep a vaulting house under the law’s nose.
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
Thou dost the law’s nose wrong to belie be so.
JUSTINIANO
For either a cunning woman has a chamber in her house or a physician, or a picture-maker, or an attorney, because all these are good cloaks for the rain. And then if the female party that’s cliented above-stairs be young, she’s a squire’s daughter of low degree that lies there for physic, or comes up to be placed with a countess; if of middle age, she’s a widow, and has suits at the term or so.
MISTRESS HONEYSUCKLE
Oh, fie upon her! Burn the witch! Out of our company!
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Let’s hem her out of Brainford fi she get not the faster to London.
MISTRESS WAFER
Oh, no, for God’s sake, rather hem her out of London and let her keep in Brianford still.
MISTRESS BIRDLIME
No, you cannot hem me out of London. Had I known this your rings should ha’ been pox’d ere I would ha’ touch’d ’em. I will take a pair of oars. [Exit.
JUSTINIANO
Let that ruin of intemperance be rak’d up in dust and ashes. And now tell me, if you had rais’d the town, had not the tiles tumbled upon your heads? For you see your wives are chaste, these good men civil. All is but a May-game. She has her diamonds, you shall have your money, the child is recovered, the false collier discovered, they came to Brainford to be merry, you were caught in Birdlime; and therefore se the hare’s head against the goose giblets, put all instruments in tune, and every husband play music upon the lips of his wife whilst I begin first.
OMNES
Come, wenches, be’t so.
MISTRESS TENTERHOOK
Mistress Justiniano, is’t you were asham’d all this while of showing your face? Is she your wife, schoolmaster?
JUSTINIANO
Look you, your schoolmaster has been in France, and lost his hair. No more Parenthesis now, but Justiniano. I will now play the merchant with you. Look not strange at her, nor at me, the story of us both shall be as good as an old wive’s tale, to cut off our way to London.
Enter Chamberlain.
How now?
CHAMBERLAIN
Alas, sir, the knight yonder, Sir Goslin, has almost his throat cut by poulterers and townsmen and rascals, and all the noise that went with him, poor fellows, have their fiddle-cases pull’d over heir ears.
OMNES
Is Sir Goslin hurt?
CHAMBERLAIN
Not much hurt, sir, but he bleeds like a pig for his crown’s crack’d.
MISTRESS HONEYSUCKLE
Then has he been twice cut i’th’head since we landed — once with a pottle-pot, and now with old iron.
JUSTINIANO
Gentlemen, hasten to his rescue some, whiles others call for oars.
OMNES
Away then to London!
JUSTINIANO
Farewell, Brainford.
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent,
Nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
SONG.
Oars, oars, oars, oars,
To London, hey, to London, hey.
Hoist up sails and let’s away,
For the safest bay,
For us to land is London shores.
Oars, oars, oars, oars,
Quickly shall we get to land,
If you, if you, if you,
Lend us but half a hand,
Oh, lent us half a hand. [Exeunt.
The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1607)
In collaboration with John Webster
Sir Thomas Wyatt is considered to be a play written, or woven together, by a handful of playwrights, including Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Wentworth Smith, Henry Chettle and John Webster. The work was produced in 1601/2 and credited to Webster and Dekker, though the drama is believed to have been pieced together from scraps of two older works called Lady Jane, which Chettle, Heywood, and Smith are believed to have written. The play centres on a period of particular political instability following the deaths, in quick succession, of Henry VIII and his son Edward VI. A situation developed where Henry’s will differed from Edward’s wishes about who should succeed the boy king and inherit the kingdom.
In Henry’s first Act of Succession in 1533 he removed his eldest daughter Mary from the line of succession; in the second Act Elizabeth was removed, and in his final 1543 Act he decided to settle his crown on Edward and the prince’s future children. Henry’s will in 1546 re-instated Mary and Elizabeth as heirs should Edward fail to produce children. When Edward became king he contradicted Henry’s will by once again choosing to exclude his sisters from the line of succession, conferring it upon his cousins, the protestant Grey sisters. After Edward’s death, there was a conflict between Edward’s Act, which placed Lady Jane upon the throne and Henry’s will which stipulated that Mary should be queen. In the play Thomas Wyatt is shown to be fiercely loyal to Henry and he begins to encourage the nobles to support Mary’s claim before he becomes incensed by her intention to marry Prince Philip of Spain and so decides to reb
el against her. Webster and Dekker craft an intriguing work, chronicling a time of religious upheaval and fighting, reflecting the potential conflict of legal and divine rights in 16th century England.
The poet Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
CONTENTS
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF SIR THOMAS WYAT.
Wyatt was a trusted adviser to Henry VIII
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
GUILDFORD DUDLEY.
AMBROSE DUDLEY.
THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK.
THE EARL OF ARUNDEL.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON.
GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, CHANCELLOR OF THE
KINGDOM.
THE EARL OF PEMBROKE.
SIR THOMAS WYAT.
COUNT EGMOND, THE SPANISH AMBASSADOR.
SIR HARRY ISLEY.
SIR GEORGE HARPER.
SIR ROBERT RODSTON.
LORD TREASURER.
MASTER ROOSE.
SIR HENRY BEDINGFIELD.
CAPTAIN BRETT.
DOCTOR.
EDWARD HOLMES.
PREACHER, &C.
QUEEN MARY.
LADY JANE GREY.
LADIES.
THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF SIR THOMAS WYAT.
NOTE: THE COPY, from which the present edition of this play has been prepared, is in the King’s library at the British Museum. The play was never reprinted until it was included by Mr. Dyce in edition of Webster’s works, 1830. There is no distribution into Acts or Scenes.
Enter Northumberland and Suffolk.
Suffolk. HOW fares the king, my lord? speaks he cheerly?
North. Even as a dying man, whose life
Like to quick lightning, which is
No sooner seen but is extinct.
Suff. Is the king’s will confirm’d?
North. Ay, that’s the point that we level at.
But O, the confirmation of that will:
’Tis all!— ’tis all!
Suff. That will confirm my daughter queen.
North. Right; and my son is married to your daughter.
My lord, in an even plain way. I will.
Derive the crown unto your daughter’s head.
What though the king hath left behind
Two sisters, lawful and immediate heirs,
To succeed him in his throne: lies it not
In our powers to contradict it?
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 156