BRAND.  ’Zounds! she cares not:  she makes death a jest.

MAT.  The guiltless fear not death.  Farewell, good friend;
I pray thee, be no trouble in my end.
                        [He stands staring and quaking.

    Enter OXFORD, QUEEN, ABBESS, Attendants.

OX.  And say you, Lady Abbess, that there came
One from the king unto her? what was he?

ABB.  Yonder he stands:  I know not what he is.
                        [Still he stands staring.

QUEEN.  Jesus have mercy!  Oxford, come not nigh him.

OX.  Not nigh him, madam? yes:  keep you away.

ABB.  Come in, good queen; I do not mean to stay.
                                    [Exit ABBESS.

QUEEN.  Nor I to stir before I see the end.[359]

OX.  Why star’st thou thus? speak, fellow:  answer me. 
Who art thou?

BRAND.  A bloody villain and a murderer! 
A hundred have I slain with mine own hands. 
’Twas I that starv’d the Lady Bruce to death
And her young son at Windsor Castle late: 
’Tis I have slain Matilda, blessed maid,
And now will hurry to damnation’s mouth,
Forc’d by the gnawing worm of conscience. [Runs in.

OX.  Hold him, for God’s sake! stay the desperate wretch.

MAT.  O, some good pitying man compassionate
That wretched man, so woful desperate: 
Save him, for God’s sake! he hath set me free
From much world’s woe, much wrong, much misery.

QUEEN.  I hear thy tongue, true perfect charity! 
Chaste maid, fair maid, look up and speak to me.

MAT.  Who’s here?  My gracious sovereign Isabel! 
I will take strength and kneel.

QUEEN.  Matilda, sit;
I’ll kneel to thee.  Forgive me, gentle girl,
My most ungentle wrongs.

MAT.  Fair, beauteous queen,
I give God thanks I do not think on wrongs.

OX.  How now, Fitzwater’s child!  How dost thou, girl?

MAT.  Well, my good Lord of Oxford; pretty well: 
A little travail[360] more, and I shall rest,
For I am almost at my journey’s end. 
O that my head were rais’d a little up,
My drowsy head, whose dim decaying lights
Assure me it is almost time to sleep.
                          [Raise her head. 
I thank your highness; I have now some ease. 
Be witness, I beseech your majesty,
That I forgive the king with all my heart;
With all the little of my living heart,
That gives me leave to say I can forgive;
And I beseech high heaven he long may live
A happy king, a king belov’d and fear’d. 
Oxford, for God’s sake, to my father write
The latest commendations of his child;
And say Matilda kept his honour’s charge,
Dying a spotless maiden undefil’d. 
Bid him be glad, for I am gone to joy,
I, that did turn his weal to bitter woe. 
The king and he will quickly now grow friends,