Act III - Page 2

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 vassal 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 nobles 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.

STAFFORD. You are too black-blooded. I'd make a move myself to hinder that: I know some lusty fellows there in France.

BAGENHALL. You would but make us weaker, Thomas Stafford. Wyatt was a good soldier, yet he fail'd, And strengthen'd Philip.

STAFFORD. Did not his last breath Clear Courtenay and the Princess from the charge Of being his co-rebels?

BAGENHALL. Ay, but then What such a one as Wyatt says is nothing: We have no men among us. The new Lords Are quieted with their sop of Abbeylands, And ev'n before the Queen's face Gardiner buys them With Philip's gold. All greed, no faith, no courage! Why, ev'n the haughty prince, Northumberland, The leader of our Reformation, knelt And blubber'd like a lad, and on the scaffold Recanted, and resold himself to Rome.

STAFFORD. I swear you do your country wrong, Sir Ralph. I know a set of exiles over there, Dare-devils, that would eat fire and spit it out At Philip's beard: they pillage Spain already. The French King winks at it. An hour will come When they will sweep her from the seas. No men? Did not Lord Suffolk die like a true man? Is not Lord William Howard a true man? Yea, you yourself, altho' you are black-blooded: And I, by God, believe myself a man. Ay, even in the church there is a man-- Cranmer. Fly would he not, when all men bad him fly. And what a letter he wrote against the Pope! There's a brave man, if any.

BAGENHALL. Ay; if it hold.

CROWD (coming on). God save their Graces!

STAFFORD. Bagenhall, I see The Tudor green and white. (Trumpets.) They are coming now. And here's a crowd as thick as herring-shoals.

BAGENHALL. Be limpets to this pillar, or we are torn Down the strong wave of brawlers.

CROWD. God save their Graces!

[Procession of Trumpeters, Javelin-men, etc.; then Spanish and Flemish Nobles intermingled.

STAFFORD. Worth seeing, Bagenhall! These black dog-Dons Garb themselves bravely. Who's