Act III

SCENE I.--THE CONDUIT IN GRACECHURCH,

Painted with the Nine Worthies, among them King Henry VIII. holding a book, on it inscribed 'Verbum Dei'.

Enter SIR RALPH BAGENHALL and SIR THOMAS STAFFORD.

BAGENHALL. A hundred here and hundreds hang'd in Kent. The tigress had unsheath'd her nails at last, And Renard and the Chancellor sharpen'd them. In every London street a gibbet stood. They are down to-day. Here by this house was one; The traitor husband dangled at the door, And when the traitor wife came out for bread To still the petty treason therewithin, Her cap would brush his heels.

STAFFORD. It is Sir Ralph, And muttering to himself as heretofore. Sir, see you aught up yonder?

BAGENHALL. I miss something. The tree that only bears dead fruit is gone.

STAFFORD. What tree, sir?

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