ALICE. According to the song.
His friends would praise him,
I believed ’em,
His foes would
blame him, and I scorn’d ’em,
His friends—as
Angels I received ’em,
His foes—the
Devil had suborn’d ’em.
RENARD. Peace, pretty maiden.
I hear them stirring in the Council Chamber.
Lord Paget’s ‘Ay’ is sure—who
else? and yet,
They are all too much at odds to close at once
In one full-throated No! Her Highness comes.
ALICE. How deathly pale!—a chair,
your Highness
[Bringing
one to the QUEEN.
RENARD. Madam,
The Council?
MARY. Ay! My Philip is all mine.
[Sinks into chair,
half fainting.
SCENE I.—ALINGTON CASTLE.
SIR THOMAS WYATT. I do not hear from Carew or
the Duke
Of Suffolk, and till then I should not move.
The Duke hath gone to Leicester; Carew stirs
In Devon: that fine porcelain Courtenay,
Save that he fears he might be crack’d in using,
(I have known a semi-madman in my time
So fancy-ridd’n) should be in Devon too.
WILLIAM. None so new, Sir Thomas, and none so
old, Sir Thomas. No new news that Philip comes
to wed Mary, no old news that all men hate it.
Old Sir Thomas would have hated it. The bells
are ringing at Maidstone. Doesn’t your
worship hear?
WYATT. Ay, for the Saints are come to reign again.
Most like it is a Saint’s-day. There’s
no call
As yet for me; so in this pause, before
The mine be fired, it were a pious work
To string my father’s sonnets, left about
Like loosely-scatter’d jewels, in fair order,
And head them with a lamer rhyme of mine,
To grace his memory.
WILLIAM. Ay, why not, Sir Thomas? He was
a fine courtier, he; Queen Anne loved him. All
the women loved him. I loved him, I was in Spain
with him. I couldn’t eat in Spain, I couldn’t
sleep in Spain. I hate Spain, Sir Thomas.
WYATT. But thou could’st drink in Spain
if I remember.
WILLIAM. Sir Thomas, we may grant the wine.
Old Sir Thomas always granted the wine.
WYATT. Hand me the casket with my father’s
sonnets.
WILLIAM. Ay—sonnets—a fine
courtier of the old Court, old Sir
Thomas. [Exit.
WYATT. Courtier of many courts, he loved the
more
His own gray towers, plain life and letter’d
peace,
To read and rhyme in solitary fields,
The lark above, the nightingale below,
And answer them in song. The sire begets
Not half his likeness in the son. I fail
Where he was fullest: yet—to write
it down.
[He
writes.
WILLIAM. There is news, there is
news, and no call for sonnet-sorting now, nor for
sonnet-making either, but ten thousand men on Penenden
Heath all calling after your worship, and your worship’s
name heard into Maidstone market, and your worship
the first man in Kent and Christendom, for the Queen’s
down, and the world’s up, and your worship a-top
of it.
