Act I - Page 2

hear (I have a daughter in her service who reported it) that she met the Queen at Wanstead with five hundred horse, and the Queen (tho' some say they be much divided) took her hand, call'd her sweet sister, and kiss'd not her alone, but all the ladies of her following.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, that was in her hour of joy; there will be plenty to sunder and unsister them again: this Gardiner for one, who is to be made Lord Chancellor, and will pounce like a wild beast out of his cage to worry Cranmer.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. And furthermore, my daughter said that when there rose a talk of the late rebellion, she spoke even of Northumberland pitifully, and of the good Lady Jane as a poor innocent child who had but obeyed her father; and furthermore, she said that no one in her time should be burnt for heresy.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Well, sir, I look for happy times.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. There is but one thing against them. I know not if you know.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. I suppose you touch upon the rumour that Charles, the master of the world, has offer'd her his son Philip, the Pope and the Devil. I trust it is but a rumour.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. She is going now to the Tower to loose the prisoners there, and among them Courtenay, to be made Earl of Devon, of royal blood, of splendid feature, whom the council and all her people wish her to marry. May it be so, for we are many of us Catholics, but few Papists, and the Hot Gospellers will go mad upon it.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Was she not betroth'd in her babyhood to the Great Emperor himself?

FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, but he's too old.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. And again to her cousin Reginald Pole, now Cardinal; but I hear that he too is full of aches and broken before his day.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. O, the Pope could dispense with his Cardinalate, and his achage, and his breakage, if that were all: will you not follow the procession?

SECOND GENTLEMAN. No; I have seen enough for this day.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. Well, I shall follow; if I can get near enough I shall judge with my own eyes whether her Grace incline to this splendid scion of Plantagenet.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.--A ROOM IN LAMBETH PALACE.

CRANMER. To Strasburg, Antwerp, Frankfort, Zurich, Worms, Geneva, Basle--our Bishops from their sees Or fled, they say, or flying--Poinet, Barlow, Bale, Scory, Coverdale; besides the Deans Of Christchurch, Durham, Exeter, and Wells-- Ailmer and Bullingham, and hundreds more; So they report: I shall be left alone. No: Hooper, Ridley, Latimer will not fly.

Enter PETER MARTYR.

PETER MARTYR. Fly, Cranmer! were there nothing else, your name Stands first of those who sign'd the Letters Patent That gave her royal crown to Lady Jane.

CRANMER. Stand first it may, but it was written last: Those that are now her Privy Council, sign'd Before me: nay, the Judges had pronounced That