Part 21 (1/2)

I am sent to fetch you.

GARDINER. Doth Pole yield, sir, ha!

Did you hear 'em? were you by?

USHER. I cannot tell you, His bearing is so courtly-delicate; And yet methinks he falters: their two Graces Do so dear-cousin and royal-cousin him, So press on him the duty which as Legate He owes himself, and with such royal smiles--

GARDINER. Smiles that burn men. Bonner, it will be carried.

He falters, ha? 'fore G.o.d, we change and change; Men now are bow'd and old, the doctors tell you, At three-score years; then if we change at all We needs must do it quickly; it is an age Of brief life, and brief purpose, and brief patience, As I have shown to-day. I am sorry for it If Pole be like to turn. Our old friend Cranmer, Your more especial love, hath turn'd so often, He knows not where he stands, which, if this pa.s.s, We two shall have to teach him; let 'em look to it, Cranmer and Hooper, Ridley and Latimer, Rogers and Ferrar, for their time is come, Their hour is hard at hand, their 'dies Irae'

Their 'dies Illa,' which will test their sect.

I feel it but a duty--you will find in it Pleasure as well as duty, worthy Bonner,-- To test their sect. Sir, I attend the Queen To crave most humble pardon--of her most Royal, Infallible, Papal Legate-cousin.

[_Exeunt_.

SCENE V.--WOODSTOCK.

ELIZABETH, LADY IN WAITING.

ELIZABETH. So they have sent poor Courtenay over sea.

LADY. And banish'd us to Woodstock, and the fields.

The colours of our Queen are green and white, These fields are only green, they make me gape.

ELIZABETH. There's whitethorn, girl.

LADY. Ay, for an hour in May.

But court is always May, buds out in masques, Breaks into feather'd merriments, and flowers In silken pageants. Why do they keep us here?

Why still suspect your Grace?

ELIZABETH. Hard upon both.

[_Writes on the window with a diamond_.

Much suspected, of me Nothing proven can be.

Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.

LADY. What hath your Highness written?

ELIZABETH. A true rhyme.

LADY. Cut with a diamond; so to last like truth.

ELIZABETH. Ay, if truth last.

LADY. But truth, they say, will out, So it must last. It is not like a word, That comes and goes in uttering.

ELIZABETH. Truth, a word!

The very Truth and very Word are one.

But truth of story, which I glanced at, girl, Is like a word that comes from olden days, And pa.s.ses thro' the peoples: every tongue Alters it pa.s.sing, till it spells and speaks Quite other than at first.

LADY. I do not follow.

ELIZABETH. How many names in the long sweep of time That so foreshortens greatness, may but hang On the chance mention of some fool that once Brake bread with us, perhaps: and my poor chronicle Is but of gla.s.s. Sir Henry Bedingfield May split it for a spite.