[Exit Archy.]

KING: I’ll go in.

NOTE: _254-_455 For by...I’ll go in 1870; omitted 1824.

QUEEN: MY beloved lord, Have you not noted that the Fool of late Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears? What can it mean? I should be loth to think Some factious slave had tutored him.

KING: Oh, no! He is but Occasion’s pupil. Partly ’tis That our minds piece the vacant intervals Of his wild words with their own fashioning,— As in the imagery of summer clouds, Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts: And partly, that the terrors of the time Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits; And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind.

NOTES: _460, _461 Oh...pupil 1870; omitted 1824. _461 Partly ’tis 1870; It partly is 1824. _465 of 1870; in 1824.

QUEEN: Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pass The gallery, we’ll decide where that Correggio Shall hang—the Virgin Mother With her child, born the King of heaven and earth, Whose reign is men’s salvation. And you shall see A cradled miniature of yourself asleep, Stamped on the heart by never-erring love; Liker than any Vandyke ever made, A pattern to the unborn age of thee, Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow, Did I not think that after we were dead Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that The cares we waste upon our heavy crown Would make it light and glorious as a wreath Of Heaven’s beams for his dear innocent brow.

NOTE: _473-_477 and, as...salvation 1870; omitted 1824.

KING: Dear Henrietta!

SCENE 3: THE STAR CHAMBER. LAUD, JUXON, STRAFFORD, AND OTHERS, AS JUDGES. PRYNNE AS A PRISONER, AND THEN BASTWICK.

LAUD: Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk Recite his sentence.

CLERK: ‘That he pay five thousand Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead, And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle During the pleasure of the Court.’

LAUD: Prisoner, If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak.

JUXON: If you have aught to plead in mitigation, Speak.

BASTWICK: Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I Were an invader of the royal power A public scorner of the word of God, Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious, Impious in heart and in tyrannic act, Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; If Satan were my lord, as theirs,—our God Pattern of all I should avoid to do; Were I an enemy of my God and King And of good men, as ye are;—I should merit Your fearful state and gilt prosperity, Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn To cowls and robes of everlasting fire. But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not The only earthly favour ye can yield, Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,— Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment. even as my Master did, Until Heaven’s kingdom shall descend on earth, Or earth be like a shadow in the light Of Heaven absorbed—some few tumultuous years Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes His will whose will is power.

NOTE: _27-_32 even...power printed as a fragment, Garnett, 1862; inserted here conjecturally, Rossetti, 1870.

LAUD: Officer, take the prisoner from the bar, And be his tongue slit for his insolence.

BASTWICK: While this hand holds a pen—

LAUD: Be his hands—

JUXON: Stop! Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak No terror, would interpret, being dumb, Heaven’s thunder to our harm;... And hands, which now write only their own shame, With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away.

LAUD: Much more such ‘mercy’ among men would be, Did all the ministers of Heaven’s revenge Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I Could suffer what I would inflict. [EXIT BASTWICK GUARDED.] Bring up The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.— [TO STRAFFORD.] Know you not That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln, Were found these scandalous and seditious letters Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled? I speak it not as touching this poor person; But of the office which should make it holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless. Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes His Majesty, if I misinterpret not.