Within the tilt-yard, not to take delight

Carnal, unpriestly, in the worldly pageant:

Though, Heaven forgive me! when the trumpets biew,
And the lists fell, and knights as brave, and full

Of valour as their steeds of fire, wheel'd forth,
And moved in troops or single, orderly

As youths and maidens in a village dance,

Or shot, like swooping hawks, in straight career;
The old Caraffa rose within my breast-

Struggled my soul with haughty recollections

Of when I rode through the outpour'd streets of Rome, Enamouring all the youth of Italy

With envy of my noble horsemanship.

But I rebuked myself, and thought how heaven
Had taught me loftier mastery, to rein

And curb with salutary governance

Th' unmanaged souls of men. But to our purpose;
Even at the instant, when all spears were levell'd,

And rapid as the arblast bolt the knights

Spurr'd one by one to the ring, when breathless leant

The ladies from their galleries-from the queen's
A handkerchief was seen to fall; but while

Floating it dallied on the air, a knight,

Sir Henry Norreys, as I learnt, stoop'd down,

Caught, wreath'd it in his plume, regain'd his spear,

And smote right home the quivering ring : th' acclaim

Burst forth like roaring waters, but the king

Sprang up, and call'd to horse, while tumult wild

Broke up the marr'd and frighted ceremony.

Gardiner. Something of this I augur'd: as the king Swept furious by, he beckon'd me; yet seem'd Too busied with his wrathful thoughts to heed Whom thus he summou'd; and I heard him mutter "The saucy groom!" and terms, which to repeat Were not o'er fitting priestly lips, but coupled With the queen's name most strangely. Seeing this.

I thought it in mine office to administer
Grave ghostly admonition, mingled well
With certain homily and pulpit phrases

Of man's ingratitude, and gracious kings

Whose bounties are abused; the general looseness
Of the age. The more I spake, the more he madden'd
As though my words were oil on fire.

But must be better; I have further tidings.

I pass'd the Tower, and saw Sir William Kingston,
Summon'd, 'twas said, with special haste, come forth
Among his archers.

Anne Boleyn landing at the Tower. Sir William Kingston, Guards.
Queen. Here-here, then all is o'er !-Oh! awful walls,
Oh! sullen towers, relentless gates, that open

Like those of Hell, but to receive the doom'd,

The desperate.-Oh! ye black and massy barriers,
But broken by yon barr'd and narrow loopholes,
How do ye coop from this, God's sunshine world
Of freedom and delight, your world of woe,
Your midnight world, where all that live, live on
In hourly agony of death! Vast dungeon,
Populous as vast, of your devoted tenants !
Long ere our bark had touch'd the fatal strand,
I felt your ominous shadows darken o'er me,
And close me round; your thick and clammy air,
As though 'twere loaded with dire imprecations,
Wailings of dying and of tortured men,
Tainted afar the wholesome atmosphere.
Kingston (to the guard.) Advance your
Queen.
Oh! sir, pause-one look,
One last long look, to satiate all my senses.
Oh! thou blue cloudless canopy, just tinged
With the faint amber of the setting sun,
Where one by one steal forth the modest stars
To diadem the sky :-thou noble river,
Whose quiet ebb, not like my fortune, sinks
With gentle downfall, and around the keels
Of those thy myriad barks mak'st passing music:
Oh! thou great silent city, with thy spires
And palaces; where I was once the greatest,
The happiest-I, whose presence made a tumult

halberds.

In all your wondering streets and jocund marts:-
But most of all, thou cool and twilight air,
That art a rapture to the breath! The slave,
The beggar, the most base down-trodden outcast,
The plague-struck livid wretch, there's none so vile,
• So abject, in your streets, that swarm with life,—
They may inhale the liquid joy heaven breathes,
They may behold the rosy evening sky,

They may go rest their free limbs where they will:
But I-but I, to whom this summer world
Was all bright sunshine; I, whose time was noted
But by succession of delights.-Oh! Kingston,
Thou dost remember, thou wert then Lieutenant,
'Tis now-how many years ?-my memory wanders,
Since I set forth from yon dark low-brow'd porch,
A bride a monarch's bride-King Henry's bride!
Oh! the glad pomp, that burn'd upon the waters-
Oh! the rich streams of music that kept time
With oars as musical-the people's shouts,
That called heaven's blessings on my head, in sounds
That might have drown'd the thunders-I've more need
Of blessing now, and not a voice would say it.

Kingston. Your grace, no doubt, will long survive this trial,
Queen. Sir, sir, it is too late to flatter me:

Time was I trusted each fond possibility,

For hope sat queen of all my golden fortunes;
But now-

Kingston.

Day wears, and our imperious mandate

Brooks no delay-advance.

Queen.

Back, back, I say!

I will not enter! Whether will ye plunge me

Into what chamber where the sickly air

Smells not of blood,—the black and cobwebb'd walls

Are all o'ertraced by dying hands, who've noted

In the damp dews indelible their tale

Of torture--not a bed nor straw-laid pallet

But bears th' impression of a wretch call'd forth

To execution. Will ye place me there,

Where those poor babes, their crook-back'd uncle murder'd,

Still haunt? Inhuman hospitality!

Look there! look there! fear mantles o'er my soul

As with a prophet's robe, the ghostly walls

Are sentinel'd with mute and headless spectres,

Whose lank and grief-attenuated fingers

Point to their gory and dissever'd necks,
The least a lordly noble, some like princes.

Through the dim loopholes gleam the haggard faces
Of those, whose dark unalterable fate

Lies buried in your dungeons' depths; some wan
With famine, some with writhing features fix'd

In the agony of torture.-Back! I say:
They beckon me across the fatal threshold,

Which none may pass and live.

Kingston.

The deaths of traitors,

If such have died within these gloomy towers,
Should not appal your grace with such vain terrors;
The chamber is prepared where slept your highness
When last within the Tower.

Queen.
Oh! 'tis too good
For such a wretch-a death-doom'd wretch as me.
My lord, my Henry-he that called me forth
Even from that chamber, with a voice more gentle
Than flutes o'er calmest waters, will not wrong
Th' eternal justice-the great law of kings!
Let him arraign me, bribe as witnesses
The angels that behold our inmost thoughts,
He'll find no crime but loving him too fondly;
And let him visit that with his worst vengeance.
Come, sir, your wearied patience well may fail:
On to that chamber where I slept so sweetly,
When guiltier far than now, on-on, good Kingston.

SCENE IV.

A Hall in the Tower. Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Suffolk, Marquis Exeter, and othe as Judges. The Queen and officers.

Norfolk. Read our commission.

Officer.

Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,

The Duke of Suffolk, Marquis Exeter,

Earl Arundel, and certain other peers

Here present; ye are met in the Tower of London,
By special mandate from the king, t' arraign
Of certain dangerous and capital treasons
Against the peace and person of the king

Anne, queen of England.

Crier.

Anne, queen of England.

Queen.

Officer.

Come into the court,

Here.

Anne, queen of England,

(Be seated, it beseems your grace's station,)
Look on this court these peers of England, met,
By the king's high commission, to pass sentence
Between thyself and the king's grace-hast aught
T'object ere thou 'rt arraign'd?

Queen.
I'd thought, my lords,
It had stood more with the king's justice, more
With the usage of the land, a poor weak woman
Had not been forced t' abide your awful ordeal
Alone and unadvised; that counsel, learned
In forms of law, and versed by subtle practice
In forcing from the bribed or partial witnesses
Th' unwilling truth, had been assigned me.
Be 't as it is—I have an advocate
Gold cannot fee, nor circumstance appal;

Well,

An advocate, whose voiceless eloquence,
If it should fail before your earthly court,
Shall in a higher gain me that acquittal
Mine enemies' malice may deny me here,—
Mine Innocence. Proceed.

Officer.

Anne, queen of England,

Thou stand'st arraign'd, that treasonously and foully,
To the dishonour of his highness' person

And slander of his issue, thou hast conspired
With certain traitors, now convict and sentenced,-
George, Viscount Rochford, Henry Norreys, knight,
Sir William Brereton, Francis Weston, knights,
And one Mark Smeaton.

I beseech you,

Queen.
Please, sir, heard I rightly
My brother's name, lord Rochford's ?
My lords, what part bears he in this indictment?
Officer. The same with all the rest.
Queen.
Refrain thy bolt! my lords, there are among ye
Have noble sisters, if ye deem this possible,

Great God of thunder,

I do consent ye deem it true. Go on, sir.
Officer. And one Mark Smeaton.
Queen.

Would they make me smile

With iteration of that name-a meet
And likely lover for king Henry's queen!

Norfolk. Read, now, the depositions.

Each and all,

My lords, ye have perused that dangerous paper
Written by the lady Wingfield, now deceased-
Heard sundry evidence of words unseemly

And most unroyal spoken by her grace.

Queen. The depositions! good, my lord-I'd thought

T' have seen my accusers face to face: is this

The far renown'd and ancient English justice?

Officer. The deposition of lord Viscount Rochford :

That for th' impossible and hideous charge,

His soul abhors it with such sickly loathing,
Words cannot utter it: to stab the babe

I' the mother's arms, to beat the brains from out
A father's hoary head, had been to nature
Less odious, less accurst.

Queen.

There spake my brother. Officer. The deposition of sir Henry Norreys :That the queen's grace is as the new-born babe

For him for others, he will prove her so

In mortal combat 'gainst all England.

Sir Francis Weston-doth deny all guilt,

With an asseveration, if in thought

Or word he hath demean'd her grace's honour,
He imprecates heaven's instant thunderbolt.
Sir William Brereton-if all women here
In England were as blameless as her grace,
The angels would mistake this land for heaven.