CRANMER. And I: lead on; ye loose me from
my bonds.
[Exeunt.
COLE in the Pulpit, LORD WILLIAMS OF THAME
presiding. LORD WILLIAM HOWARD, LORD PAGET,
and others. CRANMER enters between
SOTO and VILLA GARCIA, and the whole Choir
strike up ‘Nunc Dimittis.’ CRANMER
is set upon a Scaffold before the people.
COLE. Behold him—
[A
pause: people in the foreground.
PEOPLE. Oh, unhappy sight!
FIRST PROTESTANT. See how the tears run down
his fatherly face.
SECOND PROTESTANT. James, didst thou ever see
a carrion crow Stand watching a sick beast before
he dies?
FIRST PROTESTANT. Him perch’d up there?
I wish some thunderbolt Would make this Cole a cinder,
pulpit and all.
COLE. Behold him, brethren: he hath cause
to weep!—
So have we all: weep with him if ye will,
Yet—
It is expedient for one man to die,
Yea, for the people, lest the people die.
Yet wherefore should he die that hath return’d
To the one Catholic Universal Church,
Repentant of his errors?
PROTESTANT murmurs. Ay, tell us that.
COLE. Those of the wrong side will despise the
man,
Deeming him one that thro’ the fear of death
Gave up his cause, except he seal his faith
In sight of all with flaming martyrdom.
CRANMER. Ay.
COLE. Ye hear him, and albeit there may
seem
According to the canons pardon due
To him that so repents, yet are there causes
Wherefore our Queen and Council at this time
Adjudge him to the death. He hath been a traitor,
A shaker and confounder of the realm;
And when the King’s divorce was sued at Rome,
He here, this heretic metropolitan,
As if he had been the Holy Father, sat
And judged it. Did I call him heretic?
A huge heresiarch! never was it known
That any man so writing, preaching so,
So poisoning the Church, so long continuing,
Hath found his pardon; therefore he must die,
For warning and example.
Other
reasons
There be for this man’s ending, which our Queen
And Council at this present deem it not
Expedient to be known.
PROTESTANT murmurs. I warrant you.
COLE. Take therefore, all, example by this man,
For if our Holy Queen not pardon him,
Much less shall others in like cause escape,
That all of you, the highest as the lowest,
May learn there is no power against the Lord.
There stands a man, once of so high degree,
Chief prelate of our Church, archbishop, first
In Council, second person in the realm,
Friend for so long time of a mighty King;
And now ye see downfallen and debased
From councillor to caitiff—fallen so low,
