Act IV

SCENE I.--A ROOM IN THE PALACE.

MARY, CARDINAL POLE.

MARY. What have you there?

POLE. So please your Majesty, A long petition from the foreign exiles To spare the life of Cranmer. Bishop Thirlby, And my Lord Paget and Lord William Howard, Crave, in the same cause, hearing of your Grace. Hath he not written himself--infatuated-- To sue you for his life?

MARY. His life? Oh, no; Not sued for that--he knows it were in vain. But so much of the anti-papal leaven Works in him yet, he hath pray'd me not to sully Mine own prerogative, and degrade the realm By seeking justice at a stranger's hand Against my natural subject. King and Queen, To whom he owes his loyalty after God, Shall these accuse him to a foreign prince? Death would not grieve him more. I cannot be True to this realm of England and the Pope Together, says the heretic.

POLE. And there errs; As he hath ever err'd thro' vanity. A secular kingdom is but as the body Lacking a soul; and in itself a beast. The Holy Father in a secular kingdom Is as the soul descending out of heaven Into a body generate.

MARY. Write to him, then.

POLE. I will.

MARY. And sharply, Pole.

POLE. Here come the Cranmerites!

Enter THIRLBY, LORD PAGET, LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.

HOWARD. Health to your Grace! Good morrow, my Lord Cardinal; We make our humble prayer unto your Grace That Cranmer may withdraw to foreign parts, Or into private life within the realm. In several bills and declarations, Madam, He hath recanted all his heresies.

PAGET. Ay, ay; if Bonner have not forged the bills. [Aside.

MARY. Did not More die, and Fisher? he must burn.

HOWARD. He hath recanted, Madam.

MARY. The better for him. He burns in Purgatory, not in Hell.

HOWARD. Ay, ay, your Grace; but it was never seen That any one recanting thus at full, As Cranmer hath, came to the fire on earth.

MARY. It will be seen now, then.

THIRLBY. O Madam, Madam! I thus implore you, low upon my knees, To reach the hand of mercy to my friend. I have err'd with him; with him I have recanted. What human reason is there why my friend Should meet with lesser mercy than myself?

MARY. My Lord of Ely, this. After a riot We hang the leaders, let their following go. Cranmer is head and father of these heresies, New learning as they call it; yea, may God Forget me at most need when I forget Her foul divorce--my sainted mother--No!--

HOWARD. Ay, ay, but mighty doctors doubted there. The Pope himself waver'd; and more than one Row'd in that galley--Gardiner to wit, Whom truly I deny not to have been Your faithful friend and trusty councillor. Hath not your Highness ever read his book. His tractate upon True Obedience, Writ by himself and Bonner?

MARY. I will take Such order with all bad, heretical books That none shall hold them in his house and live,