PAGET. Yet there be some disloyal Catholics, And many heretics loyal; heretic throats Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane, But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord. To take the lives of others that are loyal, And by the churchman's pitiless doom of fire, Were but a thankless policy in the crown, Ay, and against itself; for there are many. MARY. If we could burn out heresy, my Lord Paget, We reck not tho' we lost this crown of England-- Ay! tho' it were ten Englands! GARDINER. Right, your Grace. Paget, you are all for this poor life of ours, And care but little for the life to be. PAGET. I have some time, for curiousness, my Lord Watch'd children playing at _their_ life to be, And cruel at it, killing helpless flies; Such is our time--all times for aught I know. GARDINER. We kill the heretics that sting the soul-- They, with right reason, flies that prick the flesh. PAGET. They had not reach'd right reason; little children! They kill'd but for their pleasure and the power They felt in killing. GARDINER. A spice of Satan, ha! Why, good! what then? granted!--we are fallen creatures; Look to your Bible, Paget! we are fallen. PAGET. I am but of the laity, my Lord Bishop, And may not read your Bible, yet I found One day, a wholesome scripture, 'Little children, Love one another.' GARDINER. Did you find a scripture, 'I come not to bring peace but a sword'? The sword Is in her Grace's hand to smite with. Paget, You stand up here to fight for heresy, You are more than guess'd at as a heretic, And on the steep-up track of the true faith Your lapses are far seen. PAGET. The faultless Gardiner! MARY. You brawl beyond the question; speak, Lord Legate! POLE. Indeed, I cannot follow with your Grace: Rather would say--the shepherd doth not kill The sheep that wander from his flock, but sends His careful dog to bring them to the fold. Look to the Netherlands, wherein have been Such holocausts of heresy! to what end? For yet the faith is not established there. GARDINER. The end's not come. POLE. No--nor this way will come, Seeing there lie two ways to every end, A better and a worse--the worse is here To persecute, because to persecute Makes a faith hated, and is furthermore No perfect witness of a perfect faith In him who persecutes: when men are tost On tides of strange opinion, and not sure Of their own selves, they are wroth with their own selves, And thence with others; then, who lights the faggot? Not the full faith, no, but the lurking doubt. Old Rome, that first made martyrs in the Church, Trembled for her own gods, for these were trembling-- But when did our Rome tremble? PAGET. Did she not In Henry's time and Edward's?