That gateway to the mainland over which
Our flag hath floated for two hundred years
Is France again.

*

Mary. I hoped I had served God with all my might! It seems I have not. Shelter'd in Calais.

Ah, much heresy
Saints, I have rebuilt

your broken images;
Suffer not

Your shrines, set up
Be comfortable to me.

That my brief reign in England be defamed
Thro' all her angry chronicles hereafter
By loss of Calais. Grant me Calais. Philip,
We have made war upon the Holy Father

All for your sake: what good could come of that?
Lady Clarence. No, Madam, not against the Holy
Father:

You did but help King Philip's war with France.
Your troops were never down in Italy.

Mary. I am a byword. Heretic and rebel
Point at me and make merry. Philip gone!
And Calais gone! Time that I were gone too!
Lady Clarence. Nay, if the fetid gutter had a voice
And cried I was not clean, what should I care?

Or you, for heretic cries? And I believe,

Spite of your melancholy Sir Nicholas,
Your England is as loyal as myself.

Mary.

(Seeing a paper on the floor.)

There, there! another paper!
Many of these were loyal?
If this be one of such?

Said you not

Shall I try

Lady Clarence.

Let it be, let it be.

God pardon me! I have never yet found one.

(Aside.)

Mary (reads). "Your people hate you as your husband hates you."

Clarence, Clarence, what have I done? what sin
Beyond all grace, all pardon? Mother of God,

Thou knowest never woman meant so well,
And fared so ill in this disastrous world.
My people hate me and desire my death.
Lady Clarence.

No, Madam, no.

Mary. My husband hates me, and desires my death. Lady Clarence. No, Madam; these are libels.

Mary. I hate myself, and I desire my death.

Lady Clarence. Long live your Majesty! Shall Alice sing you

One of her pleasant songs? Alice, my child,

Bring us your lute. (Alice goes.) They say the gloom of Saul

Was lighten'd by young David's harp.

Mary.

Too young!

And never knew a Philip. (Reënter Alice.) Give me

the lute.

He hates me.

(She sings.)

Hapless doom of woman happy in betrothing!
Beauty passes like a breath and love is lost in loath-

ing:

Low, my lute: speak low, my lute, but say the world

is nothing

Low, lute, low!

Love will hover round the flowers when they first awaken:

Love will fly the fallen leaf, and not be overtaken; Low, my lute! oh, low, my lute! we fade and are forsaken

Low, dear lute, low!

Take it away! not low enough for me.

Alice. Your Grace hath a low voice.

Mary.

How dare you say it?

Even for that he hates me. A low voice

Lost in the wilderness where none can hear!
A voice of shipwreck on a shoreless sea!
A low voice from the dust and from the grave.
(Sitting on the ground.)

There, am I low enough now?

Alice. Good Lord! how grim and ghastly looks her Grace,

With both her knees drawn upward to her chin.
There was an old-world tomb beside my father's,
And this was open'd and the dead were found
Sitting, and in this fashion: she looks a corpse.

SCENE V. LONDON.

(A Gallery on one side.

A Room in the Palace.

The moonlight streaming

through a range of windows on the wall opposite. Lady Clarence, Sir William Cecil, Alice.)

(Enter Elizabeth.)

Elizabeth. The Queen is dead.

Cecil.

Then here she stands! my homage. Elizabeth. She knew me, and acknowledged me

her heir,

Pray'd me to pay her debts, and keep the Faith;
Then claspt the cross, and pass'd away in peace.

I left her lying still and beautiful,

More beautiful than in life. Why would you vex yourself,

Poor sister? Sir, I swear I have no heart

To be your Queen. To reign is restless fence,
Tierce, quart, and trickery. Peace is with the dead.
Her life was winter, for her spring was nipt;
And she loved much: pray God she be forgiven!
Cecil. Peace with the dead, who never were at peace!
Yet she loved one so much I needs must say -
That never English monarch dying left

England so little.

Elizabeth.

But with Cecil's aid

And others, if our person be secured

From traitor stabs- we will make England great.

GLORIANA

EDMUND SPENSER

(From "The Faery Queene," Book V., Canto IX)

ELIZABETH was but twenty-five years of age when she came to the throne. From her mother she inherited beauty and grace; from her father, keen perception and an imperious will. The years during which she lived under a cloud of suspicion had taught her reticence and self-control. The religious controversy that Edward VI. and Mary had so much at heart, meant nothing to Elizabeth. She loved her people and aimed to make England strong and prosperous.

Be

lieving that peace was better assured by separation from the church of Rome, she held to the settlement arranged by Henry VIII. and carefully avoided entangling alliances with Romanist and Protestant alike. Philip II. desired to marry her, but she refused this and similar offers, vowing that she would live and die a virgin queen. Englishmen adored her as something more than human.

They, passing by, were guyded by degree
Unto the presence of that gratious Queene;
Who sate on high, that she might all men see,
And might of all men royally be seene,
Upon a throne of gold full bright and sheene,1
Adornèd all with gemmes of endless price,
As either might for wealth have gotten bene,
Or could be fram'd by workman's rare device
And all embost with lyons and with flourdelice.2

All over her a cloth of state was spred,
Not of rich tissew, nor of cloth of gold,
Nor of ought else that may be richest red,3
But like a cloud, as likest may be told,

That her brode spreading wings did wyde unfold; Whose skirts were bordred with bright sunny beams,

Glistering like gold amongst the plights enrold, And here and there shooting forth silver streames, 'Mongst which crept little angels through the glittering gleames.

Seemed those little angels did uphold

The cloth of state, and on their purpled wings

1 shining.

2

fleur-de-lys.

3 described as.

4 folds.