Browning's England Part 11

_Pym._ The King's too sanguine; doubtless Wentworth's here; But still some little form might be kept up.

_Hampden._ Now speak, Vane! Rudyard, you had much to say!

_Hollis._ The rumor's false, then....

_Pym._ Ay, the Court gives out His own concerns have brought him back: I know 'Tis the King calls him. Wentworth supersedes The tribe of Cottingtons and Hamiltons Whose part is played; there's talk enough, by this,-- Merciful talk, the King thinks: time is now To turn the record's last and b.l.o.o.d.y leaf Which, chronicling a nation's great despair, Tells they were long rebellious, and their lord Indulgent, till, all kind expedients tried, He drew the sword on them and reigned in peace.

Laud's laying his religion on the Scots Was the last gentle entry: the new page Shall run, the King thinks, "Wentworth thrust it down At the sword's point."

_A Puritan._ I'll do your bidding, Pym, England's and G.o.d's--one blow!

_Pym._ A goodly thing-- We all say, friends, it is a goodly thing To right that England. Heaven grows dark above: Let's s.n.a.t.c.h one moment ere the thunder fall, To say how well the English spirit comes out Beneath it! All have done their best, indeed, From lion Eliot, that grand Englishman, To the least here: and who, the least one here, When she is saved (for her redemption dawns Dimly, most dimly, but it dawns--it dawns) Who'd give at any price his hope away Of being named along with the Great Men?

We would not--no, we would not give that up!

_Hampden._ And one name shall be dearer than all names.

When children, yet unborn, are taught that name After their fathers',--taught what matchless man....

_Pym._ ... Saved England? What if Wentworth's should be still That name?

_Rudyard and others._ We have just said it, Pym! His death Saves her! We said it--there's no way beside!

I'll do G.o.d's bidding, Pym! They struck down Joab And purged the land.

_Vane._ No villanous striking-down!

_Rudyard._ No, a calm vengeance: let the whole land rise And shout for it. No Feltons!

_Pym._ Rudyard, no!

England rejects all Feltons; most of all Since Wentworth ... Hampden, say the trust again Of England in her servants--but I'll think You know me, all of you. Then, I believe, Spite of the past, Wentworth rejoins you, friends!

_Vane and others._ Wentworth? Apostate! Judas! Double-dyed A traitor! Is it Pym, indeed....

_Pym._ ... Who says Vane never knew that Wentworth, loved that man, Was used to stroll with him, arm locked in arm, Along the streets to see the people pa.s.s, And read in every island-countenance Fresh argument for G.o.d against the King,-- Never sat down, say, in the very house Where Eliot's brow grew broad with n.o.ble thoughts, (You've joined us, Hampden--Hollis, you as well,) And then left talking over Gracchus' death....

_Vane._ To frame, we know it well, the choicest clause In the Pet.i.tion of Right: he framed such clause One month before he took at the King's hand His Northern Presidency, which that Bill Denounced.

_Pym._ Too true! Never more, never more Walked we together! Most alone I went.

I have had friends--all here are fast my friends-- But I shall never quite forget that friend.

And yet it could not but be real in him!

You, Vane,--you, Rudyard, have no right to trust To Wentworth: but can no one hope with me?

Hampden, will Wentworth dare shed English blood Like water?

_Hampden._ Ireland is Aceldama.

_Pym._ Will he turn Scotland to a hunting-ground To please the King, now that he knows the King?

The People or the King? and that King, Charles!

_Hampden._ Pym, all here know you: you'll not set your heart On any baseless dream. But say one deed Of Wentworth's since he left us....

[_Shouting without._

_Vane._ There! he comes, And they shout for him! Wentworth's at Whitehall, The King embracing him, now, as we speak, And he, to be his match in courtesies, Taking the whole war's risk upon himself, Now, while you tell us here how changed he is!

Hear you?

_Pym._ And yet if 'tis a dream, no more, That Wentworth chose their side, and brought the King To love it as though Laud had loved it first, And the Queen after;--that he led their cause Calm to success, and kept it spotless through, So that our very eyes could look upon The travail of our souls, and close content That violence, which something mars even right Which sanctions it, had taken off no grace From its serene regard. Only a dream!

_Hampden._ We meet here to accomplish certain good By obvious means, and keep tradition up Of free a.s.semblages, else obsolete, In this poor chamber: nor without effect Has friend met friend to counsel and confirm, As, listening to the beats of England's heart, We spoke its wants to Scotland's prompt reply By these her delegates. Remains alone That word grow deed, as with G.o.d's help it shall-- But with the devil's hindrance, who doubts too?

Looked we or no that tyranny should turn Her engines of oppression to their use?

Whereof, suppose the worst be Wentworth here-- Shall we break off the tactics which succeed In drawing out our formidablest foe, Let bickering and disunion take their place?

Or count his presence as our conquest's proof, And keep the old arms at their steady play?

Proceed to England's work! Fiennes, read the list!

_Fiennes._ Ship-money is refused or fiercely paid In every county, save the northern parts Where Wentworth's influence....

[_Shouting._

_Vane._ I, in England's name, Declare her work, this way, at end! Till now, Up to this moment, peaceful strife was best.

We English had free leave to think; till now, We had a shadow of a Parliament In Scotland. But all's changed: they change the first, They try brute-force for law, they, first of all....

_Voices._ Good! Talk enough! The old true hearts with Vane!

_Vane._ Till we crush Wentworth for her, there's no act Serves England!

_Voices._ Vane for England!

_Pym._ Pym should be Something to England. I seek Wentworth, friends.

In the second scene of the first act, the man upon whom the popular party has been heaping opprobrium appears to speak for himself. Again the historical background must be known in order that the whole drift of the scene may be understood. Wentworth is talking with Lady Carlisle, a woman celebrated for her beauty and her wit, and fond of having friendships with great men. Various opinions of this beautiful woman have been expressed by those who knew her. "Her beauty," writes one, "brought her adorers of all ranks, courtiers, and poets, and statesmen; but she remained untouched by their worship." Sir Toby Mathews who prefixed to a collection of letters published in 1660 "A character of the most excellent Lady, Lucy, Countess of Carlisle," writes that she will "freely discourse of love, and hear both the fancies and powers of it; but if you will needs bring it within knowledge, and boldly direct it to herself, she is likely to divert the discourse, or, at least, seem not to understand it. By which you may know her humour, and her justice; for since she cannot love in earnest she would have nothing from love."

According to him she filled her mind "with gallant fancies, and high and elevated thoughts," and "her wit being most eminent among the rest of her great abilities," even the conversation of those most famed for it was affected. Quite another view of her is given in a letter of Voiture's written to Mr. Gordon on leaving England in 1623.

"In one human being you let me see more treasures than there are there [the Tower], and even more lions and leopards. It will not be difficult for you to guess after this that I speak of the Countess of Carlisle.

For there is n.o.body else of whom all this good and evil can be said. No matter how dangerous it is to let the memory dwell upon her, I have not, so far, been able to keep mine from it, and, quite honestly, I would not give the picture of her that lingers in my mind, for all the loveliest things I have seen in my life. I must confess that she is an enchanting personality, and there would not be a woman under heaven so worthy of affection, if she only knew what it was, and if she had as sensitive a nature as she has a reasonable mind. But with the temperament we know she possesses, there is nothing to be said except that she is the most lovable of all things not good, and the most delightful poison that nature ever concocted." Browning himself says he first sketched her character from Mathews, but finding that rather artificial, he used Voiture and Waller, who referred to her as the "bright Carlisle of the Court of Heaven." It should be remembered that she had become a widow and was considerably older at the time of her friendship with Wentworth than when Voiture wrote of her, and was probably better balanced, and truly worthy of Wentworth's own appreciation of her when he wrote, "A n.o.bler nor a more intelligent friendship did I never meet with in my life." A pa.s.sage in a letter to Laud indicates that Wentworth was well aware of the practical advantage in having such a friend as Lady Carlisle at Court. "I judge her ladyship very considerable. She is often in place, and extremely well skilled how to speak with advantage and spirit for those friends she professeth unto, which will not be many.

There is this further in her disposition, she will not seem to be the person she is not, an ingenuity I have always observed and honoured her for."

It is something of a shock to learn that even before the Wentworth episode was well over, she became a friend of his bitterest foe, Pym.

Gardiner sums up her character in as fair a way as any one,--and not at all inconsistent with Browning's portrayal of her.

"Lady Carlisle had now been for many years a widow. She had long been the reigning beauty at Court, and she loved to mingle political intrigue with social intercourse. For politics as a serious occupation she had no apt.i.tude; but, in middle age, she felt a woman's pride in attaching to herself the strong heads by which the world was ruled, as she had attached to herself in youth, the witty courtier or the agile dancer. It was worth a statesman's while to cultivate her acquaintance. She could make him a power in society as well as in Council, could worm out a secret which it behoved him to know, and could convey to others his suggestions with a.s.sured fidelity. The calumny which treated Strafford, as it afterwards treated Pym, as her accepted lover, may be safely disregarded. But there can be no doubt that purely personal motives attached her both to Strafford and Pym. For Strafford's theory of Monarchical government she cared as little as she cared for Pym's theory of Parliamentary government. It may be, too, that some mingled feeling may have arisen in Strafford's breast. It was something to have an ally at Court ready at all times to plead his cause with gay enthusiasm, to warn him of hidden dangers, and to offer him the thread of that labyrinth which, under the name of 'the Queen's side,' was such a mystery to him. It was something, too, no doubt, that this advocate was not a grey haired statesman, but a woman, in spite of growing years, of winning grace and sparkling vivacity of eye and tongue."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles I]

Strafford, himself, Browning brings before us, ill, and worn out with responsibility as he was upon his return to England at this time.

Carlisle tactfully lets him know how he will have to face criticisms from other councillors about the King, and how even the confidence of the fickle King cannot be relied upon. In his conference with the King in this scene, Strafford, at last, wins the confidence of the King as history relates. Wentworth, horrified at the way in which a war with Scotland has been precipitated, carries his point, that Parliaments should be called in Ireland and England. This will give time for preparation, and at the same time an opportunity of convincing the people that the war is justified by Scotland's treason, so causing them willingly to grant subsidies for the expense of the war. To turn from the play to history, Commissioners from the Scottish Parliament, the Earls of Loudon and Dumferling had arrived in London to ask that the acts of the Scottish Parliament might receive confirmation from the King. This question was referred to a committee of eight Privy Councillors. Propositions were made to put the Scotch Commissioners in prison; however, the King finally decided to dismiss them without treating with them. Scottish indignation of course ran high at this proceeding, and here Wentworth stepped in and won the King to his policy of ruling Scotland directly from England. "He insisted," writes Gardiner, "that a Parliament, and a Parliament alone, was the remedy fitted for the occasion. Laud and Hamilton gave him their support. He carried his point with the Committee. What was of more importance he carried it with the King." And as one writer expressed it the Lords were of the opinion that "his Majesty should make trial of that once more, that so he might leave his people without excuse, and have where withal to justify himself to G.o.d and the world that in his own inclination he desired the old way; but that if his people should not cheerfully, according to their duties, meet him in that, especially in this exigent when his kingdom and person are in apparent danger, the world might see he is forced, contrary to his own inclination, to use extraordinary means rather than, by the peevishness of some few factious spirits, to suffer his state and government to be lost."

In the play as in history, Charles now confers upon Wentworth an Earldom. Shortly after this the King "was prepared," says Gardiner, "to confer upon his faithful Minister that token of his confidence which he had twice refused before. On January 12, Wentworth received the Earldom of Strafford, and a week later he exchanged the t.i.tle of Lord-Deputy of Ireland for the higher dignity of Lord-Lieutenant."

In his conference with Pym, Strafford who, in talking to Carlisle, had shown a slight wavering toward the popular party, because of finding himself so surrounded by difficulties, stands firm; this episode is a striking working up of the tradition of the friendship between these two men.

The influence of the Queen upon Charles is the last strand in this tangled skein of human destiny brought out by Browning in the scene. The Parliament that Wentworth wants she is afraid of lest it should ask for a renewal of the persecution of the Catholics. The vacillating Charles, in an instant, is ready to repudiate his interview with Wentworth, and act only to please the Queen.