Mary Stuart

SCENE XIV

Enter DAVISON.

ELIZABETH   The sentence, sir, which I but late intrusted   Unto your keeping; where is it?DAVISON (in the utmost astonishment)                    The sentence!ELIZABETH (more urgent)   Which yesterday I gave into your charge.DAVISON   Into my charge, my liege!ELIZABETH                 The people urged   And baited me to sign it. I perforce   Was driven to yield obedience to their will.   I did so; did so on extreme constraint,   And in your hands deposited the paper.   To gain time was my purpose; you remember   What then I told you. Now, the paper, sir!SHREWSBURY   Restore it, sir, affairs have changed since then,   The inquiry must be set on foot anew.DAVISON   Anew! Eternal mercy!ELIZABETH               Why this pause,   This hesitation? Where, sir, is the paper?DAVISON   I am undone! Undone! My fate is sealed!ELIZABETH (interrupting him violently)   Let me not fancy, sir —DAVISON                Oh, I am lost!   I have it not.ELIZABETH           How? What?SHREWSBURY                  Oh, God in heaven!DAVISON   It is in Burleigh's hands – since yesterday.ELIZABETH   Wretch! Is it thus you have obeyed my orders?   Did I not lay my strict injunction on you   To keep it carefully?DAVISON               No such injunction   Was laid on me, my liege.ELIZABETH                 Give me the lie?   Opprobrious wretch! When did I order you   To give the paper into Burleigh's hands?DAVISON   Never expressly in so many words.ELIZABETH   And, paltering villain I dare you then presume   To construe, as you list, my words – and lay   Your bloody meaning on them? Wo betide you,   If evil come of this officious deed!   Your life shall answer the event to me.   Earl Shrewsbury, you see how my good name   Has been abused!SHREWSBURY            I see! Oh, God in heaven!ELIZABETH   What say you?SHREWSBURY           If the knight has dared to act   In this, upon his own authority,   Without the knowledge of your majesty,   He must be cited to the Court of Peers   To answer there for subjecting thy name   To the abhorrence of all after time.

SCENE XV

Enter BURLEIGH.

BURLEIGH (bowing his knee before the QUEEN)   Long life and glory to my royal mistress,   And may all enemies of her dominions   End like this Stuart.

[SHREWSBURY hides his face. DAVIDSON wrings his hands in despair.

ELIZABETH               Speak, my lord; did you   From me receive the warrant?BURLEIGH                  No, my queen;   From Davison.ELIZABETH           And did he in my name   Deliver it?BURLEIGH          No, that I cannot say.ELIZABETH   And dared you then to execute the writ   Thus hastily, nor wait to know my pleasure?   Just was the sentence – we are free from blame   Before the world; yet it behooved thee not   To intercept our natural clemency.   For this, my lord, I banish you my presence;   And as this forward will was yours alone   Bear you alone the curse of the misdeed!

[To DAVISON.

   For you, sir; who have traitorously o'erstepped   The bounds of your commission, and betrayed   A sacred pledge intrusted to your care,   A more severe tribunal is prepared:   Let him be straight conducted to the Tower,   And capital arraignments filed against him.   My honest Talbot, you alone have proved,   'Mongst all my counsellors, an upright man:   You shall henceforward be my guide – my friend.SHREWSBURY   Oh! banish not the truest of your friends;   Nor cast those into prison, who for you   Have acted; who for you are silent now.   But suffer me, great queen, to give the seal,   Which, these twelve years, I've borne unworthily,   Back to your royal hands, and take my leave.ELIZABETH (surprised)   No, Shrewsbury; you surely would not now   Desert me? No; not now.SHREWSBURY                Pardon, I am   Too old, and this right hand is growing too stiff   To set the seal upon your later deeds.ELIZABETH   Will he forsake me, who has saved my life?SHREWSBURY   'Tis little I have done: I could not save   Your nobler part. Live – govern happily!   Your rival's dead! Henceforth you've nothing more   To fear – henceforth to nothing pay regard.

[Exit.

ELIZABETH (to the EARL of KENT, who enters)   Send for the Earl of Leicester.KENT                    He desires   To be excused – he is embarked for France.The Curtain drops

1

The picture of Ate, the goddess of mischief, we are acquaintedwith from Homer, II. v. 91, 130. I. 501. She is a daughter ofJupiter, and eager to prejudice every one, even the immortal gods.She counteracted Jupiter himself, on which account he seized her byher beautiful hair, and hurled her from heaven to the earth, whereshe now, striding over the heads of men, excites them to evil inorder to involve them in calamity. – HERDER.Shakspeare has, in Julius Caesar, made a fine use of this image: – "And Caesar's spirit ranging for revengewith Ate by his side, come hot from hell,Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."I need not point out to the reader the beautiful propriety ofintroducing the evil spirit on this occasion. – TRANSLATOR.

2

The document is now in the British Museum.