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ACT I - SCENE I - ALDGATE RICHLY DECORATED
CROWD.
MARSHALMEN.
MARSHALMAN.
Stand back, keep a clear lane! When will her Majesty pass,
sayst thou? why now, even now; wherefore draw back your heads and your
horns before I break them, and make what noise you will with your
tongues, so it be not treason. Long live Queen Mary, the lawful and
legitimate daughter of Harry the Eighth! Shout, knaves!
CITIZENS.
Long live Queen Mary!
FIRST CITIZEN.
That's a hard word, legitimate; what does it mean?
SECOND CITIZEN.
It means a bastard.
THIRD CITIZEN.
Nay, it means true-born.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Why, didn't the Parliament make her a bastard?
SECOND CITIZEN.
No; it was the Lady Elizabeth.
THIRD CITIZEN.
That was after, man; that was after.
FIRST CITIZEN. Then which is the bastard?
SECOND CITIZEN.
Troth, they be both bastards by Act of Parliament and Council.
THIRD CITIZEN.
Ay, the Parliament can make every true-born man of us a
bastard. Old Nokes, can't it make thee a bastard? thou shouldst know,
for thou art as white as three Christmasses.
OLD NOKES
(dreamily).
Who's a-passing? King Edward or King Richard?
THIRD CITIZEN.
No, old Nokes.
OLD NOKES.
It's Harry!
THIRD CITIZEN.
It's Queen Mary.
OLD NOKES.
The blessed Mary's a-passing!
[Falls on his knees.]
NOKES.
Let father alone, my masters! he's past your questioning.
THIRD CITIZEN.
Answer thou for him, then thou'rt no such cockerel
thyself, for thou was born i' the tail end of old Harry the Seventh.
NOKES.
Eh! that was afore bastard-making began. I was born true man at
five in the forenoon i' the tail of old Harry, and so they can't make
me a bastard.
THIRD CITIZEN.
But if Parliament can make the Queen a bastard, why, it
follows all the more that they can make thee one, who art fray'd i'
the knees, and out at elbow, and bald o' the back, and bursten at the
toes, and down at heels.
NOKES.
I was born of a true man and a ring'd wife, and I can't argue
upon it; but I and my old woman 'ud burn upon it, that would we.
MARSHALMAN.
What are you cackling of bastardy under the Queen's own
nose? I'll have you flogg'd and burnt too, by the Rood I will.
FIRST CITIZEN.
He swears by the Rood. Whew!
SECOND CITIZEN.
Hark! the trumpets.
[The Procession passes, MARY and ELIZABETH riding
side by side, and disappears under the gate.]
CITIZENS.
Long live Queen Mary! down with all traitors! God save her
Grace; and death to Northumberland!
[Exeunt.]
Manent TWO GENTLEMEN.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
By God's light a noble creature, right royal!
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
She looks comelier than ordinary to-day; but to my
mind the Lady Elizabeth is the more noble and royal.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
I mean the Lady Elizabeth. Did you 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.] _
Read next: ACT I: SCENE II - A ROOM IN LAMBETH PALACE
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