Queen Mary; and, Harold Part 51

HAROLD. What! are thy people sullen from defeat?

Our Wess.e.x dragon flies beyond the Humber, No voice to greet it.

EDWIN. Let not our great king Believe us sullen--only shamed to the quick Before the king--as having been so bruised By Harold, king of Norway; but our help Is Harold, king of England. Pardon us, thou!

Our silence is our reverence for the king!

HAROLD. Earl of the Mercians! if the truth be gall, Cram me not thou with honey, when our good hive Needs every sting to save it.

VOICES. Aldwyth! Aldwyth!

HAROLD. Why cry thy people on thy sister's name?

MORCAR. She hath won upon our people thro' her beauty, And pleasantness among them.

VOICES. Aldwyth, Aldwyth!

HAROLD. They shout as they would have her for a queen.

MORCAR. She hath followed with our host, and suffer'd all.

HAROLD. What would ye, men?

VOICE. Our old Northumbrian crown, And kings of our own choosing.

HAROLD. Your old crown Were little help without our Saxon carles Against Hardrada.

VOICE. Little! we are Danes, Who conquer'd what we walk on, our own field.

HAROLD. They have been plotting here! [_Aside_.

VOICE. He calls us little!

HAROLD. The kingdoms of this world began with little, A hill, a fort, a city--that reach'd a hand Down to the field beneath it, 'Be thou mine, Then to the next, 'Thou also!' If the field Cried out 'I am mine own;' another hill Or fort, or city, took it, and the first Fell, and the next became an Empire.

VOICE. Yet Thou art but a West Saxon: _we_ are Danes!

HAROLD. My mother is a Dane, and I am English; There is a pleasant fable in old books, Ye take a stick, and break it; bind a score All in one f.a.ggot, snap it over knee, Ye cannot.

VOICE. Hear King Harold! he says true!

HAROLD. Would ye be Nors.e.m.e.n?

VOICES. No!

HAROLD. Or Norman?

VOICES. No!

HAROLD. Snap not the f.a.ggot-band then.

VOICE. That is true!

VOICE. Ay, but thou art not kingly, only grandson To Wulfnoth, a poor cow-herd.

HAROLD. This old Wulfnoth Would take me on his knees and tell me tales Of Alfred and of Athelstan the Great Who drove you Danes; and yet he held that Dane, Jute, Angle, Saxon, were or should be all One England, for this cow-herd, like my father, Who shook the Norman scoundrels off the throne, Had in him kingly thoughts--a king of men, Not made but born, like the great king of all, A light among the oxen.

VOICE. That is true!

VOICE. Ay, and I love him now, for mine own father Was great, and cobbled.

VOICE. Thou art Tostig's brother, Who wastes the land.

HAROLD. This brother comes to save Your land from waste; I saved it once before, For when your people banish'd Tostig hence, And Edward would have sent a host against you, Then I, who loved my brother, bad the king Who doted on him, sanction your decree Of Tostig's banishment, and choice of Morcar, To help the realm from scattering.

VOICE. King! thy brother, If one may dare to speak the truth, was wrong'd.

Wild was he, born so: but the plots against him Had madden'd tamer men.

MORCAR. Thou art one of those Who brake into Lord Tostig's treasure-house And slew two hundred of his following, And now, when Tostig hath come back with power, Are frighted back to Tostig.

OLD THANE. Ugh! Plots and feuds!

This is my ninetieth birthday. Can ye not Be brethren? G.o.dwin still at feud with Alfgar, And Alfgar hates King Harold. Plots and feuds!

This is my ninetieth birthday!

HAROLD. Old man, Harold Hates nothing; not _his_ fault, if our two houses Be less than brothers.

VOICES. Aldwyth, Harold, Aldwyth!

HAROLD. Again! Morcar! Edwin! What do they mean?

EDWIN. So the good king would deign to lend an ear Not overscornful, we might chance--perchance-- To guess their meaning.

MORCAR. Thine own meaning, Harold, To make all England one, to close all feuds, Mixing our bloods, that thence a king may rise Half-G.o.dwin and half-Alfgar, one to rule All England beyond question, beyond quarrel.

HAROLD. Who sow'd this fancy here among the people?

MORCAR. Who knows what sows itself among the people?

A goodly flower at times.

HAROLD. The Queen of Wales?

Why, Morcar, it is all but duty in her To hate me; I have heard she hates me.

MORCAR. No!

For I can swear to that, but cannot swear That these will follow thee against the Nors.e.m.e.n, If thou deny them this.

HAROLD. Morcar and Edwin, When will you cease to plot against my house?

EDWIN. The king can scarcely dream that we, who know His prowess in the mountains of the West, Should care to plot against him in the North.

MORCAR. Who dares arraign us, king, of such a plot?