Queen Mary; and, HaroldTennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron
History
Queen Mary; and, Harold
Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron
Drama; Mary I, Queen of England, 1516-1558 -- Drama
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_ 'Verbum 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?
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--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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