Queen Mary; and, Harold Part 13

The guards are all driven in, skulk into corners Like rabbits to their holes. A gracious guard Truly; shame on them! they have shut the gates!

_Enter_ SIR ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

SOUTHWELL. The porter, please your Grace, hath shut the gates On friend and foe. Your gentlemen-at-arms, If this be not your Grace's order, cry To have the gates set wide again, and they With their good battleaxes will do you right Against all traitors.

MARY. They are the flower of England; set the gates wide.

[_Exit_ SOUTHWELL.

_Enter_ COURTENAY.

COURTENAY. All lost, all lost, all yielded! A barge, a barge!

The Queen must to the Tower.

MARY. Whence come you, sir?

COURTENAY. From Charing Cross; the rebels broke us there, And I sped hither with what haste I might To save my royal cousin.

MARY. Where is Pembroke?

COURTENAY. I left him somewhere in the thick of it.

MARY. Left him and fled; and thou that would'st be King, And hast nor heart nor honour. I myself Will down into the battle and there bide The upshot of my quarrel, or die with those That are no cowards and no Courtenays.

COURTENAY. I do not love your Grace should call me coward.

_Enter another_ MESSENGER.

MESSENGER. Over, your Grace, all crush'd; the brave Lord William Thrust him from Ludgate, and the traitor flying To Temple Bar, there by Sir Maurice Berkeley Was taken prisoner.

MARY. To the Tower with _him_!

MESSENGER. 'Tis said he told Sir Maurice there was one Cognisant of this, and party thereunto, My Lord of Devon.

MARY. To the Tower with _him_!

COURTENAY. O la, the Tower, the Tower, always the Tower, I shall grow into it--I shall be the Tower.

MARY. Your Lordship may not have so long to wait. Remove him!

COURTENAY. La, to whistle out my life, And carve my coat upon the walls again!

[_Exit_ COURTENAY _guarded_.

MESSENGER. Also this Wyatt did confess the Princess Cognisant thereof, and party thereunto.

MARY. What? whom--whom did you say?

MESSENGER. Elizabeth, Your Royal sister.

MARY. To the Tower with _her_!

My foes are at my feet and I am Queen.

[GARDINER _and her_ LADIES _kneel to her_.

GARDINER (_rising_).

There let them lie, your foot-stool! (_Aside_.) Can I strike Elizabeth?--not now and save the life Of Devon: if I save him, he and his Are bound to me--may strike hereafter. (_Aloud_.) Madam, What Wyatt said, or what they said he said, Cries of the moment and the street--

MARY. He said it.

GARDINER. Your courts of justice will determine that.

RENARD (_advancing_).

I trust by this your Highness will allow Some spice of wisdom in my telling you, When last we talk'd, that Philip would not come Till Guildford Dudley and the Duke of Suffolk, And Lady Jane had left us.

MARY. They shall die.

RENARD. And your so loving sister?

MARY. She shall die.

My foes are at my feet, and Philip King.

[_Exeunt_.

ACT III.

SCENE I.--THE CONDUIT IN GRACECHURCH,

_Painted with the Nine Worthies, among them King Henry VIII. holding a book, on it inscribed_ 'Verb.u.m Dei'.

_Enter_ SIR RALPH BAGENHALL _and_ SIR THOMAS STAFFORD.

BAGENHALL. A hundred here and hundreds hang'd in Kent.

The tigress had unsheath'd her nails at last, And Renard and the Chancellor sharpen'd them.

In every London street a gibbet stood.

They are down to-day. Here by this house was one; The traitor husband dangled at the door, And when the traitor wife came out for bread To still the petty treason therewithin, Her cap would brush his heels.

STAFFORD. It is Sir Ralph, And muttering to himself as heretofore.

Sir, see you aught up yonder?

BAGENHALL. I miss something.

The tree that only bears dead fruit is gone.

STAFFORD. What tree, sir?