Mary Stuart | Page 7

me, ere?An executioner is found for me,?Assassins will be hired to do their work.?'Tis that which makes me tremble, Mortimer:?I never lift the goblet to my lips?Without an inward shuddering, lest the draught?May have been mingled by my sister's love.
MORTIMER.?No:--neither open or disguised murder?Shall e'er prevail against you:--fear no more;?All is prepared;--twelve nobles of the land?Are my confederates, and have pledged to-day,?Upon the sacrament, their faith to free you,?With dauntless arm, from this captivity.?Count Aubespine, the French ambassador,?Knows of our plot, and offers his assistance:?'Tis in his palace that we hold our meetings.
NARY.?You make me tremble, sir, but not for joy!?An evil boding penetrates my heart.?Know you, then, what you risk? Are you not scared?By Babington and Tichburn's bloody heads,?Set up as warnings upon London's bridge??Nor by the ruin of those many victims?Who have, in such attempts, found certain death,?And only made my chains the heavier??Fly hence, deluded, most unhappy youth!?Fly, if there yet be time for you, before?That crafty spy, Lord Burleigh, track your schemes,?And mix his traitors in your secret plots.?Fly hence:--as yet, success hath never smiled?On Mary Stuart's champions.
MORTIMER.
I am not scared?By Babington and Tichburn's bloody heads?Set up as warnings upon London's bridge;?Nor by the ruin of those many victims?Who have, in such attempts, found certain death:?They also found therein immortal honor,?And death, in rescuing you, is dearest bliss.
MARY.?It is in vain: nor force nor guile can save me:--?My enemies are watchful, and the power?Is in their hands. It is not Paulet only?And his dependent host; all England guards?My prison gates: Elizabeth's free will?Alone can open them.
MORTIMER.
Expect not that.
MARY.?One man alone on earth can open them.
MORTIMER.?Oh, let me know his name!
MARY.
Lord Leicester.
MORTIMER.
He!
[Starts back in wonder.
The Earl of Leicester! Your most bloody foe,?The favorite of Elizabeth! through him----
MARY.?If I am to be saved at all, 'twill be?Through him, and him alone. Go to him, sir;?Freely confide in him: and, as a proof?You come from me, present this paper to him.
[She takes a paper from her bosom; MORTIMER draws back, and hesitates to take it.
It doth contain my portrait:--take it, sir;?I've borne it long about me; but your uncle's?Close watchfulness has cut me off from all?Communication with him;--you were sent?By my good angel.
[He takes it.
MORTIMER.
Oh, my queen! Explain?This mystery.
MARY.
Lord Leicester will resolve it.?Confide in him, and he'll confide in you.?Who comes?
KENNEDY (entering hastily).
'Tis Paulet; and he brings with him?A nobleman from court.
MORTIMER.
It is Lord Burleigh.?Collect yourself, my queen, and strive to hear?The news he brings with equanimity.
[He retires through a side door, and KENNEDY follows him.
SCENE VII.
Enter LORD BURLEIGH, and PAULET.
PAULET (to MARY).?You wished to-day assurance of your fate;?My Lord of Burleigh brings it to you now;?Hear it with resignation, as beseems you.
MARY.?I hope with dignity, as it becomes?My innocence, and my exalted station.
BURLEIGH.?I come deputed from the court of justice.
MARY.?Lord Burleigh lends that court his willing tongue,?Which was already guided by his spirit.
PAULET.?You speak as if no stranger to the sentence.
MARY.?Lord Burleigh brings it; therefore do I know it.
PAULET.?[It would become you better, Lady Stuart,?To listen less to hatred.
MARY.
I but name?My enemy: I said not that I hate him.]?But to the matter, sir.
BURLEIGH.
You have acknowledged?The jurisdiction of the two-and-forty.
MARY.?My lord, excuse me, if I am obliged?So soon to interrupt you. I acknowledged,?Say you, the competence of the commission??I never have acknowledged it, my lord;?How could I so? I could not give away?My own prerogative, the intrusted rights?Of my own people, the inheritance?Of my own son, and every monarch's honor?[The very laws of England say I could not.]?It is enacted by the English laws?That every one who stands arraigned of crime?Shall plead before a jury of his equals:?Who is my equal in this high commission??Kings only are my peers.
BURLEIGH.
But yet you heard?The points of accusation, answered them?Before the court----
MARY.
'Tis true, I was deceived?By Hatton's crafty counsel:--he advised me,?For my own honor, and in confidence?In my good cause, and my most strong defence,?To listen to the points of accusation,?And prove their falsehoods. This, my lord, I did?From personal respect for the lords' names,?Not their usurped charge, which I disclaim.
BURLEIGH.?Acknowledge you the court, or not, that is?Only a point of mere formality,?Which cannot here arrest the course of justice.?You breathe the air of England; you enjoy?The law's protection, and its benefits;?You therefore are its subject.
MARY.
Sir, I breathe?The air within an English prison walls:?Is that to live in England; to enjoy?Protection from its laws? I scarcely know?And never have I pledged my faith to keep them.?I am no member of this realm; I am?An independent, and a foreign queen.
BURLEIGH.?And do you think that the mere name of queen?Can serve you as a charter to foment?In other countries, with impunity,?This bloody discord? Where would be the state's?Security, if the stern sword of justice?Could not as freely smite the guilty brow?Of the imperial stranger as the beggar's?
MARY.?I do not wish to be exempt from