No More Learning

I must see her.

_Enter_ RENARD.

RENARD. My Lords, you cannot see her Majesty.

HOWARD. Why then the King! for I would have him bring it
Home to the leisure wisdom of his Queen,
Before he go, that since these statutes past,
Gardiner out-Gardiners Gardiner in his heat,
Bonner cannot out-Bonner his own self--
Beast! --but they play with fire as children do,
And burn the house. I know that these are breeding
A fierce resolve and fixt heart-hate in men
Against the King, the Queen, the Holy Father,
The faith itself. Can I not see him?

RENARD. Not now.
And in all this, my Lord, her Majesty
Is flint of flint, you may strike fire from her,
Not hope to melt her. I will give your message.

[_Exeunt_ PETRE _and_ HOWARD.

_Enter_ PHILIP _(musing)_

PHILIP. She will not have Prince Philibert of Savoy,
I talk'd with her in vain--says she will live
And die true maid--a goodly creature too.
Would _she_ had been the Queen! yet she must have him;
She troubles England: that she breathes in England
Is life and lungs to every rebel birth
That passes out of embryo.
Simon Renard!
This Howard, whom they fear, what was he saying?

RENARD. What your imperial father said, my liege,
To deal with heresy gentlier. Gardiner burns,
And Bonner burns; and it would seem this people
Care more for our brief life in their wet land,
Than yours in happier Spain. I told my Lord
He should not vex her Highness; she would say
These are the means God works with, that His church
May flourish.

PHILIP. Ay, sir, but in statesmanship
To strike too soon is oft to miss the blow.
Thou knowest I bad my chaplain, Castro, preach
Against these burnings.

RENARD. And the Emperor
Approved you, and when last he wrote, declared
His comfort in your Grace that you were bland
And affable to men of all estates,
In hope to charm them from their hate of Spain.

PHILIP. In hope to crush all heresy under Spain.
But, Renard, I am sicker staying here
Than any sea could make me passing hence,
Tho' I be ever deadly sick at sea.
So sick am I with biding for this child.
Is it the fashion in this clime for women
To go twelve months in bearing of a child?
The nurses yawn'd, the cradle gaped, they led
Processions, chanted litanies, clash'd their bells,
Shot off their lying cannon, and her priests
Have preach'd, the fools, of this fair prince to come;
Till, by St. James, I find myself the fool.
Why do you lift your eyebrow at me thus?

RENARD. I never saw your Highness moved till now.

PHILIP. So weary am I of this wet land of theirs,
And every soul of man that breathes therein.

RENARD. My liege, we must not drop the mask before
The masquerade is over--

PHILIP. --Have I dropt it?
I have but shown a loathing face to you,
Who knew it from the first.

_Enter_ MARY.

MARY (_aside_). With Renard. Still
Parleying with Renard, all the day with Renard,
And scarce a greeting all the day for me--
And goes to-morrow.
[_Exit_ MARY.

PHILIP (_to_ RENARD, _who advances to him_).
Well, sir, is there more?

RENARD (_who has perceived the QUEEN_).
May Simon Renard speak a single word?

PHILIP. Ay.

RENARD. And be forgiven for it?

PHILIP. Simon Renard
Knows me too well to speak a single word
That could not be forgiven.

RENARD. Well, my liege,
Your Grace hath a most chaste and loving wife.

PHILIP. Why not? The Queen of Philip should be chaste.

RENARD. Ay, but, my Lord, you know what Virgil sings,
Woman is various and most mutable.

PHILIP. She play the harlot! never.

RENARD. No, sire, no,
Not dream'd of by the rabidest gospeller.
There was a paper thrown into the palace,
'The King hath wearied of his barren bride. '
She came upon it, read it, and then rent it,
With all the rage of one who hates a truth
He cannot but allow. Sire, I would have you--
What should I say, I cannot pick my words--
Be somewhat less--majestic to your Queen.

PHILIP. Am I to change my manners, Simon Renard,
Because these islanders are brutal beasts?
Or would you have me turn a sonneteer,
And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers?

RENARD. Brief-sighted tho' they be, I have seen them, sire,
When you perchance were trifling royally
With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill
With such fierce fire--had it been fire indeed
It would have burnt both speakers.

PHILIP. Ay, and then?

RENARD. Sire, might it not be policy in some matter
Of small importance now and then to cede
A point to her demand?

PHILIP. Well, I am going.

RENARD. For should her love when you are gone, my liege,
Witness these papers, there will not be wanting
Those that will urge her injury--should her love--
And I have known such women more than one--
Veer to the counterpoint, and jealousy
Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse
Almost into one metal love and hate,--
And she impress her wrongs upon her Council,
And these again upon her Parliament--
We are not loved here, and would be then perhaps
Not so well holpen in our wars with France,
As else we might be--here she comes.

_Enter_ MARY.

MARY. O Philip!
Nay, must you go indeed?

PHILIP. Madam, I must.

MARY. The parting of a husband and a wife
Is like the cleaving of a heart; one half
Will flutter here, one there.

PHILIP. You say true, Madam.

MARY. The Holy Virgin will not have me yet
Lose the sweet hope that I may bear a prince.
If such a prince were born and you not here!

PHILIP. I should be here if such a prince were born.

MARY. But must you go?

PHILIP. Madam, you know my father,
Retiring into cloistral solitude
To yield the remnant of his years to heaven,
Will shift the yoke and weight of all the world
From off his neck to mine. We meet at Brussels.
But since mine absence will not be for long,
Your Majesty shall go to Dover with me,
And wait my coming back.

MARY. To Dover? no,
I am too feeble. I will go to Greenwich,
So you will have me with you; and there watch
All that is gracious in the breath of heaven
Draw with your sails from our poor land, and pass
And leave me, Philip, with my prayers for you.

PHILIP. And doubtless I shall profit by your prayers.

MARY. Methinks that would you tarry one day more
(The news was sudden) I could mould myself
To bear your going better; will you do it?

PHILIP. Madam, a day may sink or save a realm.

MARY. A day may save a heart from breaking too.

PHILIP. Well, Simon Renard, shall we stop a day?

RENARD. Your Grace's business will not suffer, sire,
For one day more, so far as I can tell.

PHILIP. Then one day more to please her Majesty.

MARY. The sunshine sweeps across my life again.
O if I knew you felt this parting, Philip,
As I do!

PHILIP. By St. James I do protest,
Upon the faith and honour of a Spaniard,
I am vastly grieved to leave your Majesty.
Simon, is supper ready?

RENARD. Ay, my liege,
I saw the covers laying.

PHILIP. Let us have it.

[_Exeunt_.




ACT IV.


SCENE I. --A ROOM IN THE PALACE.

MARY, CARDINAL POLE.


MARY. What have you there?

POLE. So please your Majesty,
A long petition from the foreign exiles
To spare the life of Cranmer. Bishop Thirlby,
And my Lord Paget and Lord William Howard,
Crave, in the same cause, hearing of your Grace.
Hath he not written himself--infatuated--
To sue you for his life?

MARY. His life? Oh, no;
Not sued for that--he knows it were in vain.
But so much of the anti-papal leaven
Works in him yet, he hath pray'd me not to sully
Mine own prerogative, and degrade the realm
By seeking justice at a stranger's hand
Against my natural subject. King and Queen,
To whom he owes his loyalty after God,
Shall these accuse him to a foreign prince?
Death would not grieve him more. I cannot be
True to this realm of England and the Pope
Together, says the heretic.

POLE. And there errs;
As he hath ever err'd thro' vanity.
A secular kingdom is but as the body
Lacking a soul; and in itself a beast.
The Holy Father in a secular kingdom
Is as the soul descending out of heaven
Into a body generate.

MARY. Write to him, then.

POLE. I will.

MARY. And sharply, Pole.

POLE. Here come the Cranmerites!

_Enter_ THIRLBY, LORD PAGET, LORD WILLIAM HOWARD.

HOWARD. Health to your Grace! Good morrow, my Lord Cardinal;
We make our humble prayer unto your Grace
That Cranmer may withdraw to foreign parts,
Or into private life within the realm.
In several bills and declarations, Madam,
He hath recanted all his heresies.

PAGET. Ay, ay; if Bonner have not forged the bills. [_Aside_.

MARY. Did not More die, and Fisher? he must burn.

HOWARD. He hath recanted, Madam.

MARY. The better for him.
He burns in Purgatory, not in Hell.

HOWARD. Ay, ay, your Grace; but it was never seen
That any one recanting thus at full,
As Cranmer hath, came to the fire on earth.

MARY. It will be seen now, then.

THIRLBY. O Madam, Madam!
I thus implore you, low upon my knees,
To reach the hand of mercy to my friend.
I have err'd with him; with him I have recanted.
What human reason is there why my friend
Should meet with lesser mercy than myself?

MARY. My Lord of Ely, this. After a riot
We hang the leaders, let their following go.
Cranmer is head and father of these heresies,
New learning as they call it; yea, may God
Forget me at most need when I forget
Her foul divorce--my sainted mother--No! --

HOWARD. Ay, ay, but mighty doctors doubted there.
The Pope himself waver'd; and more than one
Row'd in that galley--Gardiner to wit,
Whom truly I deny not to have been
Your faithful friend and trusty councillor.
Hath not your Highness ever read his book.
His tractate upon True Obedience,
Writ by himself and Bonner?

MARY. I will take
Such order with all bad, heretical books
That none shall hold them in his house and live,
Henceforward. No, my Lord.

HOWARD. Then never read it.
The truth is here. Your father was a man
Of such colossal kinghood, yet so courteous,
Except when wroth, you scarce could meet his eye
And hold your own; and were he wroth indeed,
You held it less, or not at all. I say,
Your father had a will that beat men down;
Your father had a brain that beat men down--

POLE. Not me, my Lord.

HOWARD. No, for you were not here;
You sit upon this fallen Cranmer's throne;
And it would more become you, my Lord Legate,
To join a voice, so potent with her Highness,
To ours in plea for Cranmer than to stand
On naked self-assertion.

MARY. All your voices
Are waves on flint. The heretic must burn.

HOWARD. Yet once he saved your Majesty's own life;
Stood out against the King in your behalf.
At his own peril.

MARY. I know not if he did;
And if he did I care not, my Lord Howard.
My life is not so happy, no such boon,
That I should spare to take a heretic priest's,
Who saved it or not saved. Why do you vex me?

PAGET. Yet to save Cranmer were to serve the Church,
Your Majesty's I mean; he is effaced,
Self-blotted out; so wounded in his honour,
He can but creep down into some dark hole
Like a hurt beast, and hide himself and die;
But if you burn him,--well, your Highness knows
The saying, 'Martyr's blood--seed of the Church. '

MARY. Of the true Church; but his is none, nor will be.
You are too politic for me, my Lord Paget.
And if he have to live so loath'd a life,
It were more merciful to burn him now.

THIRLBY. O yet relent. O, Madam, if you knew him
As I do, ever gentle, and so gracious,
With all his learning--

MARY. Yet a heretic still.
His learning makes his burning the more just.

THIRLBY. So worshipt of all those that came across him;
The stranger at his hearth, and all his house--

MARY. His children and his concubine, belike.

THIRLBY. To do him any wrong was to beget
A kindness from him, for his heart was rich,
Of such fine mould, that if you sow'd therein
The seed of Hate, it blossom'd Charity.

POLE. 'After his kind it costs him nothing,' there's
An old world English adage to the point.
These are but natural graces, my good Bishop,
Which in the Catholic garden are as flowers,
But on the heretic dunghill only weeds.

HOWARD. Such weeds make dunghills gracious.

MARY. Enough, my Lords.
It is God's will, the Holy Father's will,
And Philip's will, and mine, that he should burn.
He is pronounced anathema.

HOWARD. Farewell, Madam,
God grant you ampler mercy at your call
Than you have shown to Cranmer.
[_Exeunt_ LORDS.

POLE. After this,
Your Grace will hardly care to overlook
This same petition of the foreign exiles
For Cranmer's life.

MARY. Make out the writ to-night.

[_Exeunt_.



SCENE II. --OXFORD. CRANMER IN PRISON.


CRANMER. Last night, I dream'd the faggots were alight,
And that myself was fasten'd to the stake, I
And found it all a visionary flame,
Cool as the light in old decaying wood;
And then King Harry look'd from out a cloud,
And bad me have good courage; and I heard
An angel cry 'There is more joy in Heaven,'--
And after that, the trumpet of the dead.
[_Trumpets without_.
Why, there are trumpets blowing now: what is it?

_Enter_ FATHER COLE.

COLE. Cranmer, I come to question you again;
Have you remain'd in the true Catholic faith
I left you in?

CRANMER. In the true Catholic faith,
By Heaven's grace, I am more and more confirm'd.
Why are the trumpets blowing, Father Cole?

COLE. Cranmer, it is decided by the Council
That you to-day should read your recantation
Before the people in St. Mary's Church.
And there be many heretics in the town,
Who loathe you for your late return to Rome,
And might assail you passing through the street,
And tear you piecemeal: so you have a guard.

CRANMER. Or seek to rescue me. I thank the Council.

COLE. Do you lack any money?

CRANMER. Nay, why should I?
The prison fare is good enough for me.

COLE. Ay, but to give the poor.

CRANMER. Hand it me, then!
I thank you.

COLE. For a little space, farewell;
Until I see you in St. Mary's Church.
[_Exit_ COLE.

CRANMER. It is against all precedent to burn
One who recants; they mean to pardon me.
To give the poor--they give the poor who die.
Well, burn me or not burn me I am fixt;
It is but a communion, not a mass:
A holy supper, not a sacrifice;
No man can make his Maker--Villa Garcia.

_Enter_ VILLA GARCIA.

VILLA GARCIA. Pray you write out this paper for me, Cranmer.

CRANMER. Have I not writ enough to satisfy you?

VILLA GARCIA. It is the last.

CRANMER. Give it me, then.
[_He writes_.

VILLA GARCIA. Now sign.

CRANMER. I have sign'd enough, and I will sign no more.

VILLA GARCIA. It is no more than what you have sign'd already,
The public form thereof.

CRANMER. It may be so;
I sign it with my presence, if I read it.

VILLA GARCIA. But this is idle of you. Well, sir, well,
You are to beg the people to pray for you;
Exhort them to a pure and virtuous life;
Declare the Queen's right to the throne; confess
Your faith before all hearers; and retract
That Eucharistic doctrine in your book.
Will you not sign it now?

CRANMER. No, Villa Garcia,
I sign no more. Will they have mercy on me?

VILLA GARCIA. Have you good hopes of mercy!
So, farewell.
[_Exit_.

CRANMER. Good hopes, not theirs, have I that I am fixt,
Fixt beyond fall; however, in strange hours,
After the long brain-dazing colloquies,
And thousand-times recurring argument
Of those two friars ever in my prison,
When left alone in my despondency,
Without a friend, a book, my faith would seem
Dead or half-drown'd, or else swam heavily
Against the huge corruptions of the Church,
Monsters of mistradition, old enough
To scare me into dreaming, 'what am I,
Cranmer, against whole ages? ' was it so,
Or am I slandering my most inward friend,
To veil the fault of my most outward foe--
The soft and tremulous coward in the flesh?
O higher, holier, earlier, purer church,
I have found thee and not leave thee any more.
It is but a communion, not a mass--
No sacrifice, but a life-giving feast!
(_Writes_. ) So, so; this will I say--thus will I pray.
[_Puts up the paper_.

_Enter_ BONNER.

BONNER. Good day, old friend; what, you look somewhat worn;
And yet it is a day to test your health
Ev'n at the best: I scarce have spoken with you
Since when? --your degradation. At your trial
Never stood up a bolder man than you;
You would not cap the Pope's commissioner--
Your learning, and your stoutness, and your heresy,
Dumbfounded half of us. So, after that,
We had to dis-archbishop and unlord,
And make you simple Cranmer once again.
The common barber dipt your hair, and I
Scraped from your finger-points the holy oil;
And worse than all, you had to kneel to _me_;
Which was not pleasant for you, Master Cranmer.
Now you, that would not recognise the Pope,
And you, that would not own the Real Presence,
Have found a real presence in the stake,
Which frights you back into the ancient faith:
And so you have recanted to the Pope.
How are the mighty fallen, Master Cranmer!

CRANMER. You have been more fierce against the Pope than I;
But why fling back the stone he strikes me with?
[_Aside_.
O Bonner, if I ever did you kindness--
Power hath been given you to try faith by fire--
Pray you, remembering how yourself have changed,
Be somewhat pitiful, after I have gone,
To the poor flock--to women and to children--
That when I was archbishop held with me.

BONNER. Ay--gentle as they call you--live or die!
Pitiful to this pitiful heresy?
I must obey the Queen and Council, man.
Win thro' this day with honour to yourself,
And I'll say something for you--so--good-bye.
[_Exit_.

CRANMER. This hard coarse man of old hath crouch'd to me
Till I myself was half ashamed for him.

_Enter_ THIRLBY.

Weep not, good Thirlby.

THIRLBY. Oh, my Lord, my Lord!
My heart is no such block as Bonner's is:
Who would not weep?

CRANMER. Why do you so my--lord me,
Who am disgraced?

THIRLBY. On earth; but saved in heaven
By your recanting.

CRANMER. Will they burn me, Thirlby?

THIRLBY. Alas, they will; these burnings will not help
The purpose of the faith; but my poor voice
Against them is a whisper to the roar
Of a spring-tide.

CRANMER. And they will surely burn me?

THIRLBY. Ay; and besides, will have you in the church
Repeat your recantation in the ears
Of all men, to the saving of their souls,
Before your execution. May God help you
Thro' that hard hour!

CRANMER. And may God bless you, Thirlby!
Well, they shall hear my recantation there.

[_Exit_ THIRLBY.

Disgraced, dishonour'd! --not by them, indeed,
By mine own self--by mine own hand!
O thin-skinn'd hand and jutting veins, 'twas you
That sign'd the burning of poor Joan of Kent;
But then she was a witch. You have written much,
But you were never raised to plead for Frith,
Whose dogmas I have reach'd: he was deliver'd
To the secular arm to burn; and there was Lambert;
Who can foresee himself? truly these burnings,
As Thirlby says, are profitless to the burners,
And help the other side. You shall burn too,
Burn first when I am burnt.
Fire--inch by inch to die in agony! Latimer
Had a brief end--not Ridley. Hooper burn'd
Three-quarters of an hour. Will my faggots
Be wet as his were? It is a day of rain.
I will not muse upon it.
My fancy takes the burner's part, and makes
The fire seem even crueller than it is.
No, I not doubt that God will give me strength,
Albeit I have denied him.

_Enter_ SOTO _and_ VILLA GARCIA.

VILLA GARCIA. We are ready
To take you to St. Mary's, Master Cranmer.

CRANMER. And I: lead on; ye loose me from my bonds.

[_Exeunt_.



SCENE III. --ST. MARY'S CHURCH.

COLE _in the Pulpit_, LORD WILLIAMS OF THAME _presiding_. LORD WILLIAM
HOWARD, LORD PAGET, _and others_.