Queen Mary; and, Harold Part 14

BAGENHALL. Well, the tree in Virgil, sir, That bears not its own apples.

STAFFORD. What! the gallows?

BAGENHALL. Sir, this dead fruit was ripening overmuch, And had to be removed lest living Spain Should sicken at dead England.

STAFFORD. Not so dead, But that a shock may rouse her.

BAGENHALL. I believe Sir Thomas Stafford?

STAFFORD. I am ill disguised.

BAGENHALL. Well, are you not in peril here?

STAFFORD. I think so.

I came to feel the pulse of England, whether It beats hard at this marriage. Did you see it?

BAGENHALL. Stafford, I am a sad man and a serious.

Far liefer had I in my country hall Been reading some old book, with mine old hound Couch'd at my hearth, and mine old flask of wine Beside me, than have seen it: yet I saw it.

STAFFORD. Good, was it splendid?

BAGENHALL. Ay, if Dukes, and Earls, And Counts, and sixty Spanish cavaliers, Some six or seven Bishops, diamonds, pearls, That royal commonplace too, cloth of gold, Could make it so.

STAFFORD. And what was Mary's dress?

BAGENHALL. Good faith, I was too sorry for the woman To mark the dress. She wore red shoes!

STAFFORD. Red shoes!

BAGENHALL. Scarlet, as if her feet were wash'd in blood, As if she had waded in it.

STAFFORD. Were your eyes So bashful that you look'd no higher?

BAGENHALL. A diamond, And Philip's gift, as proof of Philip's love, Who hath not any for any,--tho' a true one, Blazed false upon her heart.

STAFFORD. But this proud Prince--

BAGENHALL. Nay, he is King, you know, the King of Naples.

The father ceded Naples, that the son Being a King, might wed a Queen--O he Flamed in brocade--white satin his trunk-hose, Inwrought with silver,--on his neck a collar, Gold, thick with diamonds; hanging down from this The Golden Fleece--and round his knee, misplaced, Our English Garter, studded with great emeralds, Rubies, I know not what. Have you had enough Of all this gear?

STAFFORD. Ay, since you hate the telling it.

How look'd the Queen?

BAGENHALL. No fairer for her jewels.

And I could see that as the new-made couple Came from the Minster, moving side by side Beneath one canopy, ever and anon She cast on him a va.s.sal smile of love, Which Philip with a glance of some distaste, Or so methought, return'd. I may be wrong, sir.

This marriage will not hold.

STAFFORD. I think with you.

The King of France will help to break it.

BAGENHALL. France!

We have once had half of France, and hurl'd our battles Into the heart of Spain; but England now Is but a ball chuck'd between France and Spain, His in whose hand she drops; Harry of Bolingbroke Had holpen Richard's tottering throne to stand, Could Harry have foreseen that all our n.o.bles Would perish on the civil slaughter-field, And leave the people naked to the crown, And the crown naked to the people; the crown Female, too! Sir, no woman's regimen Can save us. We are fallen, and as I think, Never to rise again.

STAFFORD. You are too black-blooded.

I'd make a move myself to hinder that: I know some l.u.s.ty fellows there in France.

BAGENHALL. You would but make us weaker, Thomas Stafford.

Wyatt was a good soldier, yet he fail'd, And strengthen'd Philip.

STAFFORD. Did not his last breath Clear Courtenay and the Princess from the charge Of being his co-rebels?

BAGENHALL. Ay, but then What such a one as Wyatt says is nothing: We have no men among us. The new Lords Are quieted with their sop of Abbeylands, And ev'n before the Queen's face Gardiner buys them With Philip's gold. All greed, no faith, no courage!

Why, ev'n the haughty prince, Northumberland, The leader of our Reformation, knelt And blubber'd like a lad, and on the scaffold Recanted, and resold himself to Rome.

STAFFORD. I swear you do your country wrong, Sir Ralph.

I know a set of exiles over there, Dare-devils, that would eat fire and spit it out At Philip's beard: they pillage Spain already.

The French King winks at it. An hour will come When they will sweep her from the seas. No men?

Did not Lord Suffolk die like a true man?

Is not Lord William Howard a true man?

Yea, you yourself, altho' you are black-blooded: And I, by G.o.d, believe myself a man.

Ay, even in the church there is a man-- Cranmer.

Fly would he not, when all men bad him fly.

And what a letter he wrote against the Pope!

There's a brave man, if any.

BAGENHALL. Ay; if it hold.

CROWD (_coming on_).

G.o.d save their Graces!

STAFFORD. Bagenhall, I see The Tudor green and white. (_Trumpets_.) They are coming now.

And here's a crowd as thick as herring-shoals.

BAGENHALL. Be limpets to this pillar, or we are torn Down the strong wave of brawlers.

CROWD. G.o.d save their Graces!

[_Procession of Trumpeters, Javelin-men, etc.; then Spanish and Flemish n.o.bles intermingled_.

STAFFORD. Worth seeing, Bagenhall! These black dog-Dons Garb themselves bravely. Who's the long-face there, Looks very Spain of very Spain?

BAGENHALL. The Duke Of Alva, an iron soldier.

STAFFORD. And the Dutchman, Now laughing at some jest?

BAGENHALL. William of Orange, William the Silent.

STAFFORD. Why do they call him so?