Queen Mary; and, Harold Part 18

PHILIP. True; the provinces Are hard to rule and must be hardly ruled; Most fruitful, yet, indeed, an empty rind, All hollow'd out with stinging heresies; And for their heresies, Alva, they will fight; You must break them or they break you.

ALVA (_proudly_). The first.

PHILIP. Good!

Well, Madam, this new happiness of mine?

[_Exeunt_.

_Enter_ THREE PAGES.

FIRST PAGE. News, mates! a miracle, a miracle! news!

The bells must ring; Te Deums must be sung; The Queen hath felt the motion of her babe!

SECOND PAGE. Ay; but see here!

FIRST PAGE. See what?

SECOND PAGE. This paper, d.i.c.kon.

I found it fluttering at the palace gates:-- 'The Queen of England is delivered of a dead dog!'

THIRD PAGE. These are the things that madden her. Fie upon it!

FIRST PAGE. Ay; but I hear she hath a dropsy, lad, Or a high-dropsy, as the doctors call it.

THIRD PAGE. Fie on her dropsy, so she have a dropsy!

I know that she was ever sweet to me.

FIRST PAGE. For thou and thine are Roman to the core.

THIRD PAGE. So thou and thine must be. Take heed!

FIRST PAGE. Not I, And whether this flash of news be false or true, So the wine run, and there be revelry, Content am I. Let all the steeples clash, Till the sun dance, as upon Easter Day.

[_Exeunt_.

SCENE III.--GREAT HALL IN WHITEHALL.

_At the far end a dais. On this three chairs, two under one canopy for_ MARY _and_ PHILIP, _another on the right of these for_ POLE.

_Under the dais on_ POLE'S _side, ranged along the wall, sit all the Spiritual Peers, and along the wall opposite, all the Temporal. The Commons on cross benches in front, a line of approach to the dais between them. In the foreground_, SIR RALPH BAGENHALL _and other Members of the Commons_.

FIRST MEMBER. St. Andrew's day; sit close, sit close, we are friends.

Is reconciled the word? the Pope again?

It must be thus; and yet, c.o.c.ksbody! how strange That Gardiner, once so one with all of us Against this foreign marriage, should have yielded So utterly!--strange! but stranger still that he, So fierce against the Headship of the Pope, Should play the second actor in this pageant That brings him in; such a cameleon he!

SECOND MEMBER. This Gardiner turn'd his coat in Henry's time; The serpent that hath slough'd will slough again.

THIRD MEMBER. Tut, then we all are serpents.

SECOND MEMBER. Speak for yourself.

THIRD MEMBER. Ay, and for Gardiner! being English citizen, How should he bear a bridegroom out of Spain?

The Queen would have him! being English churchman How should he bear the headship of the Pope?

The Queen would have it! Statesmen that are wise Shape a necessity, as a sculptor clay, To their own model.

SECOND MEMBER. Statesmen that are wise Take truth herself for model. What say you?

[_To_ SIR RALPH BAGENHALL.

BAGENHALL. We talk and talk.

FIRST MEMBER. Ay, and what use to talk?

Philip's no sudden alien--the Queen's husband, He's here, and king, or will be--yet c.o.c.ksbody!

So hated here! I watch'd a hive of late; My seven-years' friend was with me, my young boy; Out crept a wasp, with half the swarm behind.

'Philip!' says he. I had to cuff the rogue For infant treason.

THIRD MEMBER. But they say that bees, If any creeping life invade their hive Too gross to be thrust out, will build him round, And bind him in from harming of their combs.

And Philip by these articles is bound From stirring hand or foot to wrong the realm.

SECOND MEMBER. By bonds of beeswax, like your creeping thing; But your wise bees had stung him first to death.

THIRD MEMBER. Hush, hush!

You wrong the Chancellor: the clauses added To that same treaty which the emperor sent us Were mainly Gardiner's: that no foreigner Hold office in the household, fleet, forts, army; That if the Queen should die without a child, The bond between the kingdoms be dissolved; That Philip should not mix us any way With his French wars--

SECOND MEMBER. Ay, ay, but what security, Good sir, for this, if Philip----

THIRD MEMBER. Peace--the Queen, Philip, and Pole.

[_All rise, and stand_.

_Enter_ MARY, PHILIP, _and_ POLE.

[GARDINER _conducts them to the three chairs of state_.

PHILIP _sits on the_ QUEEN'S _left_, POLE _on her right_.

GARDINER. Our short-lived sun, before his winter plunge, Laughs at the last red leaf, and Andrew's Day.

MARY. Should not this day be held in after years More solemn than of old?

PHILIP. Madam, my wish Echoes your Majesty's.

POLE. It shall be so.

GARDINER. Mine echoes both your Graces'; (_aside_) but the Pope-- Can we not have the Catholic church as well Without as with the Italian? if we cannot, Why then the Pope.

My lords of the upper house, And ye, my masters, of the lower house, Do ye stand fast by that which ye resolved?

VOICES. We do.