Part 14 (1/2)

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.