Chapter V: Act IV

SCENE 1. _Near the cottage in Greenot woods. Henry, with lute,
singing._

Ope, throw ope thy bower door,
And come thou forth, my sweet!
'Tis morn, the watch of love is o'er,
And mating hearts should meet.
The stars have fled and left their grace
In every blossom's lifted face,
And gentle shadows fleck the light
With tender memories of the night.
Sweet, there's a door to every shrine;
Wilt thou, as morning, open thine?
Hark! now the lark has met the clouds,
And rains his sheer melodious flood;
The green earth casts her mystic shrouds
To meet the flaming god!
Alas, for me there is no dawn
If Glaia come not with the sun.

[_Enter Glaia_. _The king kneels as she approaches_]

_Gla._ 'Tis you!

_Hen._ [_Leaping up_] Pardoned! Queen of this bowerland,
Your glad eyes tell me that I have not sinned.

_Gla._ How cam'st thou here? Now who plays Hubert false?
Nay, I'm too glad thou 'rt come to question so.
'Tis easy to forgive the treachery
That opes our gates to angels.

_Hen._ O, I'm loved?

_Gla._ Yes, Henry. All the morn I've thought of you,
And I rose early, for I love to say
Good-by to my dear stars; they seem so wan
And loath to go away, as though they know
The fickle world is thinking of the sun,
And all their gentle service of the night
Is quite forgot.

_Hen._ And what didst think of me?

_Gla._ That could you come and see this beauteous wood,
Fair with Spring's love and morning's kiss of grace,
You'd be content to live awhile with me,
Leave war's red step to follow living May
Passing to pour her veins' immortal flood
To each decaying root; and rest by springs
Where waters run to sounds less rude than song,
And hiding sibyls stir sweet prophecies.

_Hen._ The only springs I seek are in your eyes
That nourish all the desert of myself.
Drop here, O, Glaia, thy transforming dews,
And start fair summer in this waste of me!

_Gla._ Poor Henry! What dost know of me to love?

_Hen._ See yon light cloud half-kirtled with faint rose?
What do I know of it but that 'tis fair?
And yet I dream 'twas born of flower dews
And goes to some sweet country of the sky.
So cloud-like dost thou move before my love,
From beauty coming that I may not see,
To beauty going that I can but dream.
O, love me, Glaia! Give to me this hand,
This miracle of warm, unmelting snow,
This lily bit of thee that in my clasp
Lies like a dove in all too rude a cote--
Wee heaven-cloud to drop on monarch brows
And smooth the ridgy traces of a crown!
Rich me with this, and I'll not fear to dare
The darkest shadow of defeat that broods
O'er sceptres and unfriended kings.

_Gla._ Why talk
Of crowns and kings? This is our home, dear Henry.
For if you love me you will stay with me.

_Hen._ Ah, blest to be here, and from morning's top
Review the sunny graces of the world,
Plucking the smilingest to dearer love,
Until the heart becomes the root and spring
Of hopes as natural and as simply sweet
As these bright children of the wedded sun
And dewy earth!

_Gla._ I knew you'd stay, my brother!
You'll live with me!

_Hen._ But there's a world not this,
O'er-roofed and fretted by ambition's arch,
Whose sun is power and whose rains are blood,
Whose iris bow is the small golden hoop
That rims the forehead of a king,--a world
Where trampling armies and sedition's march
Cut off the flowers of descanting love
Ere they may sing their perfect word to man,
And the rank weeds of envies, jealousies,
Push up each night from day's hot-beaten paths----

_Gla._ O, do not tell me, do not think of it!

_Hen._ I must. There is my world, and there my life
Must grow to gracious end, if so it can.
If thou wouldst come, my living periapt,
With virtue's gentle legend overwrit,
I should not fail, nor would this flower cheek,
Pure lily cloister of a praying rose,
E'er know the stain of one despoiling tear
Shed for me graceless. Will you come, my Glaia?

_Gla._ Into that world? No, thou shall stay with me.
Here you shall be a king, not serve one. Ah,
The whispering winds do never counsel false,
And senatorial trees droop not their state
To tribe and treachery. Nature's self shall be
Your minister, the seasons your envoys
And high ambassadors, bearing from His court
The mortal olive of immortal love.

_Hen._ To man my life belongs. Hope not, dear Glaia,
To bind me here; and if you love me true,
You will not ask me where I go or stay,
But that your feet may stay or go with mine.
Let not a nay unsweet those tender lips
That all their life have ripened for this kiss.
[_Kisses her_]
O ruby purities! I would not give
Their chaste extravagance for fruits Iran
Stored with the honey of a thousand suns
Through the slow measure of as many years!

_Gla._ Do brothers talk like that?

_Hen._ I think not, sweet.

_Gla._ But you will be my brother?

_Hen._ We shall see.

_Gla._ And you will stay with me? No? Ah, I fear
All that you love in me is born of these
Wild innocences that I live among,
And far from here, all such sweet value lost,
I'll be as others are in your mad world,
Or wither mortally, even as the sprig
A moment gone so pertly trimmed this bough.
Let us stay here, my Henry. We shall be
Dear playmates ever, never growing old,--
Or if we do 'twill be at such a pace
Time will grow weary chiding, leaving us
To come at will.

_Hen._ No, Glaia. Even now
I must be gone. I came for this--to say
I'd come again, and bid you watch for me.
A tear? O, love! One moment, then away!

[_Exeunt. Curtain_]

SCENE 2. _A street in London. Citizens, friars, priests, pass in
devout manner, some bearing crucifixes._

_First Cit._ A day, a day, O, such a day!

_Second Cit._ 'Twill make a new page in our chronicles, the like ne'er read before.

_Third Cit._ Nay, when Saxon Edward came back from conquered Wales----

_Fourth Cit._ Ay, 'twas such a day of holy joy!

_Second Cit._ But not so general.

_First Cit._ And guards with arms kept order in the streets.

_Third Cit._ But now there's no authority abroad save that comes from our hearts. Surely the air is charged with drug of peace, and all men breathe it.

_First Cit._ Where meets the council? In the Tower chamber?

_Third Cit._ Nay, at Westminster palace.

_Second Cit._ That's three miles.
We must push on if we would see them enter.
[_They move off_]

_First Friar._ How meanly does it speak for this proud world
That when the devil lays his weapons by
And peace and love for one day reign o'er all,
That it should wonder at itself, and cry
"A miracle!"

_Second Friar._ In holy Edward's time,
The nuns of Beda joined the council in
Concerted praise, for 'twas their prayerful fast
Kept Heaven with the king and gave us Wales;
And 'twas decreed that ever on such days
The nuns from this most blest and ancient abbey
Should with the great assembly kneel in praise.

_First Friar._ And so they do this day. The legate, Gualo,
Sent invitation from the king.

_Second Friar._ The king?
This shows most well in him.

_First Friar._ If we haste on,
We'll see the sisters passing toward the palace.

_Second friar._ Let's forward then. God save so good
a king!

[_Exeunt. Curtain_]

SCENE 3. _The great hall in Westminster. Barons and prelates
assembled. Rich surcoats open, revealing arms. Enter Henry and the
earl of Kent._

_Hen._ My lords, is this the faith you keep with kings?
Then Heaven save me from it! Was 't not your will
This day all arms should hang upon the wall?
Yet you come here as though the trump had called
To sudden battle.

_Canterbury._ Hear, your majesty,
The cause for which we laid upon our souls
This seeming perjury, and you'll forgive
As Heaven, calling it no stain.

_Hen._ Sir, let
The movers of this saintly shift speak first.
You, Winchester? You, Albemarle? Canst preach
The lie away?

_Alb._ My honored liege, these swords,
Surer than bended knees, bespeak your safety.
Knowing that treachery oft defames the ranks
Of those who shine as the highpriests of God,
I and my brother barons came thus armed,
Thinking it better so to break our oaths
Than that false hands should break your kingly staff.

_Hen._ For my protection then you do offend?

_Alb._ For that alone, my liege, we wear this armor.

_Hen._ And you, lord bishop, guardian of our person
By prayer and Heavenly counsel,--who even in war
Should wear no sword but that of righteousness,--
Confess you with these warlike blades thy Lord
Unable to defend his own?

_Win._ My liege,
'Tis in His name, to work His equal justice,
We bear these weapons, sacred by our cause.

[_Enter Gualo_]

_Gua._ Your majesty, the nuns of Beda's abbey
Would enter now.

_Cant._ The nuns? What do they here?

_Hen._ You know, your grace, since blessed Edward's time
'T has been their privilege on days of prayer
To join their voices with the court and state.

_Cant._ A privilege, but never yet in practice.

_Hen._ The more is England's shame that has not seen
For so long past a day of general prayer
And utter peace. Not in our time, nor John's,
Nor Richard's 'fore him, nay, nor greater Henry's,
Might Beda's sisters claim this privilege.
Lord Cardinal, bid them in. [_Exit Gualo_]

_Alb._ Nay, nay, my liege,
This is no place for women.

_Hen._ Are they not
Forever foremost in both prayer and peace?
By Heaven's King, they've more right here than we!

[_Enter nuns, led by the abbess, who kneels before the king_]

_Hen._ Rise, holy abbess.

_Abb._ Sovereign of England,
May Heaven's Sovereign protect thy youth!
And as thy hand is on thy sceptre laid
Feel there the Hand invisible from whence
Thy power comes, and know thy way as His.

[_Henry bows his head. The abbess and nuns pass to a station apart
and kneel_]

_Hen._ Say on, lord bishop. Let us hear how priests
May break an oath and Heaven smile upon it.

_Win._ These papers, dearest liege, are warrant for us.
There is one here so steeped in guilt, the pope
Commands his sentence by our Spiritual Court;
And knowing crime so deep makes fierce defence,
We came thus armed.

_Hen._ Who of my subjects is so basely given
The pope must urge the sword of justice 'gainst him?

_Win._ He is so high in your esteem, my liege----

_Hen._ Now were he next ourself, our very love,
Excepting one, the noble earl of Kent,
Whom only calumny dare censure, we
Should yield him to thee.

_Win._ So? Then we did well
To wear these arms, for 'tis no less than Kent
Whom we accuse.

_Hen._ Kent? Ha! We'll hear your tale
That we may laugh at it.

_Win._ You'll sooner weep,
I fear. The princess Adelais, of France,
Is free of the infliction that impaired
Her noble mind, and through the pope makes suit
For the recovery of a son--her child
And the great Henry's. Gualo brings this letter,
Beneath the pope's own seal, to England's primate,
His grace of Canterbury. It is signed
By Geoffrey de Burgh, the father of your Kent,
And written five years back to Adelais,
In care of 's Holiness, with the request
That it be given her should she recover.
The purport is--her child has lived to be
A grace to manhood, but that he himself
Approaches death, and from his worthy son,
Hubert de Burgh, she may in proper time
Learn all a mother's heart would know.

_Hen._ Well plotted!

_Win._ And here's another paper that great Pembroke,
Dying, laid in my hands. It bears the seal
Of Henry Second, and tells how his son
And Adelais' is given to the charge
Of Geoffrey de Burgh, lord keeper of the Tower
And Dover Castle.

_Hen._ Keep your paper, sir!
Dost think that I'll believe these parchment tales
Of one whose stainless past the world may read?

_Win._ That precious past, sire, is the bed whereon
This deed's embossed. All he has done that's noble
Now serves to make this foul. Look at him now!
He has no word, but stands as one made stiff
By sin's confrontment.

_Hen._ Rather like the god
Was caught 'twixt the burning and the frozen worlds,
For so my too-warm love and your deep hate
Engulf him.

_Win._ Hear the end, my liege.

_Hen._ Go on,
If there's an end.

_Win._ This says that Henry's son,
Arrived at thirty years, shall take his place
'Mong English nobles as the Duke of Bedford,
And hold in fief five castles, herein named
Rockingham, Harle, Beham and Fotheringay,
With strongest Bedford as his ducal seat;
But if the child should die, his great estate
Shall to the church, and in the church's name
I call De Burgh to show the heir, or prove
That he is dead and by no hidden means.

_Kent._ The devil, sir, must pay you bounteous hire,
You sweat so in his service. Naught I know
Of ghostly Bedford, or ever heard of him,
Or that my father held a ward in charge.

_Hen._ We know you innocent.

_Win._ Then let him prove
His claim to these five castles. Two he holds,
And three were given in dowry with his sister
When she became the wife of Albemarle.
These must he yield, or show that Bedford lives,
Else will the church by force possess its own.

_Alb._ Mad Winchester! You plot too heavy here.
You know there are no stronger forts in England
Than these three castles that the countess brought me.
And you'd command their strength in wars against
The power of the barons! Yield these forts?
Not while I've breath to fight for what's my own!
Geoffrey de Burgh received them from great Henry
For secret, valiant service, such as knights
Have rarely given kings. Talk you of force?
My sword shall answer you. I will not yield,
And here declare a war! What say you, barons?

_Pem._ Your cause is ours, and here we draw our swords!

_Alb._ You hear, lord bishop. Moreover we must take
The person of the king, nor longer risk
His majesty with traitors. Come, my liege.

_Cant._ What! Take the king?

_Alb._ Ay, take the king!

_Win._ While grace
In Heaven lives, we'll keep him from your clutch!

_Alb._ While we are barons and can lift a sword,
We will defy you and protect the king!

_Hen._ I am a monarch, and will go or stay
As I do please. Lord barons, not with you.

_Pem._ Ah, must we force you, sir?

_Win._ Not from our hands!

_Alb._ An you do stir, my lord of Winchester,
We'll wash these floors with blood!

_Cant._ The king is ours!

_Alb._ Swords write our title! Strike, my friends!

_Hen._ God, no!

_Win._ Stay, Albemarle! We do not well to waste
The life of England. If we yield the king,
Will you give up the castles?

_Pem._ [_To Albemarle_] Say you will.
The king once ours we'll keep the castles, too.

_Alb._ [_To Winchester_] Then rest it there. Give us the king, and take
The castles. [_Aside_] If you can. Ay, there'll be wars
Will make each stone of England mine. The rocks
And cliffs I'll mark with name of Albemarle!

_Win._ [_To Henry_] Think not I risk your dear and royal life.
I'll call out troops till trees do seem to walk
And cry for God and Henry! [_To barons_] To your care
We yield the king.

_Pem._ Then, Henry, come with us.

_Hen._ Plain Henry, now thy crown is gilt

_Pem._ We'll put
No pressure on your liberty save that
We must t' enforce our charter rights.

_Win._ De Burgh
Must to the Tower, there to await our judgment.
Lords Goly and De Vere, conduct him thither.

_Goly._ Come, sir. You will not move?

_Kent._ O, Margaret,
Your love divined too well! Now for the sword
You bade me bring, and he who first should lay
A hand upon me----

_De Vere._ Come!

_Pem._ [_To the king_] And you with us.

_Kent._ Hark, lamb, the wolves are at thee!

_Goly._ Must we move you?

_Abb._ [_Coming down_] Off with your hands, in warrior
Michael's name!
Touch not De Burgh! And you--lord barons--you
Who blow the gentle fires of this new peace
With wind of your hot tempers--free the king,
And wait as fathers on his tender years!

_Alb._ I said, my lords, we should have prating here.

_Abb._ The midnight vision and long hours of prayer
Give us strange powers, and we see thoughts burn
In your intent would strike their fire against
The stars of war and light disaster o'er
A shuddering world. But you----

_Alb._ Back to your beads!

_Abb._ We'll count our heads in your fast dropping blood!
Wouldst try our swords and see if they be keen?
And if you scorn mine in a woman's hand,
Here is the hand shall bear it to your woe.

[_Takes sword from under her cloak and gives it to Kent. All the
nuns rise, drop their cloaks and show themselves to be armed men.
The abbess throws off her hood and stands revealed as Margaret_]

_Hen._ My guards!

_Kent._ My soldiers!

_Mar._ Kent will not to Tower
While Margaret of Scotland is his wife.

_Cant._ Princess, the day is yours, and I, for one,
Thank Heaven 'tis so.

_Win._ And I.

_Mar._ Contentious lords,
Forget one hour that ye are baron-peers,
And churchmen clambering to the pinnacle
Topped with a cardinal's cap. Think ye are men
Of England, whose dear duty is to her,
And swear ye brothers as ye are her sons.
Down on your knees! Ask pardon of your king!

_Win._ [_Kneeling_] O, sovereign liege, in all I said and did
My conscience led me and my God did counsel.
If 'tis a sin to seek the punishment
Of one whom we believe has wronged your blood,
Then have we sinned indeed.

_Hen._ Wilt swear to drop
This charge 'gainst noble Kent, whose honest soul
Will cloak such guilt when north winds blow their frost
From bosom of the sun?

_Win._ I swear, my lord,
That your own lips shall be the first to make
Renewal of this charge.

_Hen._ Rise, Winchester.
You are forgiven, but not yet may take
Your old place in our heart.
[_Albemarle and Pembroke kneel_]

_Alb._ Were thoughts of men
Writ on the heart's red walls, this sword, my liege,
Should open mine that you might read me clear
Of all intent save truest care for thee.

_Pem._ And I, my king, sought but the good of England
In all too harshly crying for the rights
Of your long loyal barons.

_Hen._ Rise, my lords.
We hold you not attainted, but awhile
Must look with careful coldness on your love,
Till by your lives we test this swift repentance.

_Alb._ O sovereign merciful, we ask no more
Than thus to prove us true.

_Hen._ Now let this day
Be given as we intended, to His praise
Whose eye doth search the closet of the dark
As freely as the dayplains of the sun,
And reads the minds of men where kings must trust.

[_Curtain_]

LORDS AND LOVERS