FERIA, Some few of Gothic blood have golden hair,
But none like yours.
ELIZABETH. I am happy you approve it.
FERIA. But as to Philip and your Grace—consider,
If such a one as you should match with Spain,
What hinders but that Spain and England join’d,
Should make the mightiest empire earth has known.
Spain would be England on her seas, and England
Mistress of the Indies.
ELIZABETH. It may chance, that England
Will be the Mistress of the Indies yet,
Without the help of Spain.
FERIA. Impossible;
Except you put Spain down.
Wide of the mark ev’n for a madman’s dream.
ELIZABETH. Perhaps; but we have seamen.
Count de Feria,
I take it that the King hath spoken to you;
But is Don Carlos such a goodly match?
FERIA. Don Carlos, Madam, is but twelve years
old.
ELIZABETH. Ay, tell the King that I will muse
upon it;
He is my good friend, and I would keep him so;
But—he would have me Catholic of Rome,
And that I scarce can be; and, sir, till now
My sister’s marriage, and my father’s
marriages,
Make me full fain to live and die a maid.
But I am much beholden to your King.
Have you aught else to tell me?
FERIA. Nothing, Madam,
Save that methought I gather’d from the Queen
That she would see your Grace before she—died.
ELIZABETH. God’s death! and wherefore spake
you not before?
We dally with our lazy moments here,
And hers are number’d. Horses there, without!
I am much beholden to the King, your master.
Why did you keep me prating? Horses, there!
[Exit
ELIZABETH, etc.
FERIA. So from a clear sky falls the thunderbolt!
Don Carlos? Madam, if you marry Philip,
Then I and he will snaffle your ‘God’s
death,’
And break your paces in, and make you tame;
God’s death, forsooth—you do not
know King Philip.
[Exit.
A light burning within. VOICES of the
night passing.
FIRST. Is not yon light in the Queen’s chamber?
SECOND.
Ay,
They say she’s dying.
FIRST. So is Cardinal Pole.
May the great angels join their wings, and make
Down for their heads to heaven!
SECOND. Amen. Come on.
[Exeunt.
TWO OTHERS.
FIRST. There’s the Queen’s light.
I hear she cannot live.
SECOND. God curse her and her Legate! Gardiner
burns
Already; but to pay them full in kind,
The hottest hold in all the devil’s den
Were but a sort of winter; sir, in Guernsey,
I watch’d a woman burn; and in her agony
The mother came upon her—a child was born—
And, sir, they hurl’d it back into the fire,
That, being but baptized in fire, the babe
Might be in fire for ever. Ah, good neighbour,
There should be something fierier than fire
To yield them their deserts.
