Queen Mary and Harold | Page 4

After him, boys! and pelt him from the city.
[_They seize stones and follow the Spaniards. Exeunt on the other
side_ MARCHIONESS OF EXETER and ATTENDANTS.
NOAILLES (to ROGER). Stand from me. If Elizabeth lose her head--

That makes for France. And if her people, anger'd thereupon, Arise
against her and dethrone the Queen-- That makes for France. And if I
breed confusion anyway-- That makes for France. Good-day, my Lord
of Devon; A bold heart yours to beard that raging mob!
COURTENAY. My mother said, Go up; and up I went. I knew they
would not do me any wrong, For I am mighty popular with them,
Noailles.
NOAILLES. You look'd a king.
COURTENAY. Why not? I am king's blood.
NOAILLES. And in the whirl of change may come to be one.
COURTENAY. Ah!
NOAILLES. But does your gracious Queen entreat you kinglike?
COURTENAY. 'Fore God, I think she entreats me like a child.
NOAILLES. You've but a dull life in this maiden court, I fear, my
Lord?
COURTENAY. A life of nods and yawns.
NOAILLES. So you would honour my poor house to-night, We might
enliven you. Divers honest fellows, The Duke of Suffolk lately freed
from prison, Sir Peter Carew and Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Thomas
Stafford, and some more--we play.
COURTENAY. At what?
NOAILLES. The Game of Chess.
COURTENAY. The Game of Chess! I can play well, and I shall beat
you there.
NOAILLES. Ay, but we play with Henry, King of France, And certain
of his court. His Highness makes his moves across the Channel, We
answer him with ours, and there are messengers That go between us.
COURTENAY. Why, such a game, sir, were whole years a playing.
NOAILLES. Nay; not so long I trust. That all depends Upon the skill
and swiftness of the players.
COURTENAY. The King is skilful at it?
NOAILLES. Very, my Lord.
COURTENAY. And the stakes high?
NOAILLES. But not beyond your means.
COURTENAY. Well, I'm the first of players, I shall win.
NOAILLES. With our advice and in our company, And so you well
attend to the king's moves, I think you may.

COURTENAY. When do you meet?
NOAILLES. To-night.
COURTENAY (_aside_). I will be there; the fellow's at his tricks--
Deep--I shall fathom him. (_Aloud_) Good morning, Noailles. [Exit
COURTENAY.
NOAILLES. Good-day, my Lord. Strange game of chess! a King That
with her own pawns plays against a Queen, Whose play is all to find
herself a King. Ay; but this fine blue-blooded Courtenay seems Too
princely for a pawn. Call him a Knight, That, with an ass's, not a
horse's head, Skips every way, from levity or from fear. Well, we shall
use him somehow, so that Gardiner And Simon Renard spy not out our
game Too early. Roger, thinkest thou that anyone Suspected thee to be
my man?
ROGER. Not one, sir.
NOAILLES. No! the disguise was perfect. Let's away. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.--LONDON. A ROOM IN THE PALACE. ELIZABETH.
Enter COURTENAY.
COURTENAY. So yet am I, Unless my friends and mirrors lie to me,
A goodlier-looking fellow than this Philip. Pah! The Queen is ill
advised: shall I turn traitor? They've almost talked me into it: yet the
word Affrights me somewhat: to be such a one As Harry Bolingbroke
hath a lure in it. Good now, my Lady Queen, tho' by your age, And by
your looks you are not worth the having, Yet by your crown you are.
[Seeing ELIZABETH. The Princess there? If I tried her and la--she's
amorous. Have we not heard of her in Edward's time, Her freaks and
frolics with the late Lord Admiral? I do believe she'd yield. I should be
still A party in the state; and then, who knows--
ELIZABETH. What are you musing on, my Lord of Devon?
COURTENAY. Has not the Queen--
ELIZABETH. Done what, Sir?
COURTENAY. --made you follow The Lady Suffolk and the Lady
Lennox?-- You, The heir presumptive.
ELIZABETH. Why do you ask? you know it.
COURTENAY. You needs must bear it hardly.
ELIZABETH. No, indeed! I am utterly submissive to the Queen.
COURTENAY. Well, I was musing upon that; the Queen Is both my

foe and yours: we should be friends.
ELIZABETH. My Lord, the hatred of another to us Is no true bond of
friendship.
COURTENAY. Might it not Be the rough preface of some closer
bond?
ELIZABETH. My Lord, you late were loosed from out the Tower,
Where, like a butterfly in a chrysalis, You spent your life; that broken,
out you flutter Thro' the new world, go zigzag, now would settle Upon
this flower, now that; but all things here At court are known; you have
solicited The Queen, and been rejected.
COURTENAY. Flower, she! Half faded! but you, cousin, are fresh and
sweet As the first flower no