The Barons' Wars
In the Reign of Edward the Second

by Michael Drayton

1603

Prepared using the Google books edition of The Barons' Wars, Nymphidia, and Other Poems at http://books.google.com/books?id=J3gVAAAAYAAJ

THE FIRST CANTO.

THE ARGUMENT.

The grievous plagues, and the prodigious signs,

That this great war and slaughter do foreshow;

The cause which the proud Baronage combines,

The Queen's much wrong, whence many mischiefs grow;

And how the time to this great change inclines,

As with what arms each country men do go,

   What cause to yield the Mortimers pretend,

   And their commitment doth this Canto end.

1.

The bloody factions and rebellious pride

Of a strong nation, whose ill-managed might

The Prince and Peers did many a day divide;

With whom wrong was no wrong, nor right no right,

Whose strife their swords knew only to decide,

Spurred to their high speed by their equal spite,

   Me from soft lays and tender loves doth bring,

   Of a far worse than civil war to sing,

2.

What hellish fury poisoned their hot blood?

Or can we think 'twas in the power of charms,

With those so poor hopes of the public good,

To have enticed them to tumultuous arms,

And from that safety, wherein late they stood,

Wrest them so far from feeling of their harms,

   That France and Belgia with affrighted eyes

   Stood both amazed at their miseries?

3.

The inveterate malice in their bosoms bred

Who for their Charter waged a former war,

Their angry sires, in them that venom fed,

As their true heirs of many a wide-mouthed scar:

Or was't the blood they had in conquest shed,

Having enlarged their country's bounds so far,

   That did themselves against themselves oppose,

   With blades of Bilbo changing English blows?

4.

O Thou, the wise director of my muse,

Upon whose bounty all my powers depend,

Into my breast thy sacredst fire infuse;

Ravish my spirit this great work to attend:

Let the still night my laboured lines peruse,

That when my poems gain their wished end,

   Such whose sad eyes shall read this tragic story,

   In my weak hand may see thy might and glory.

5.

What care would plot, dissension strove to cross,

Which like an earthquake rent the tottering State;

In war abroad they suffered public loss,

And were at home despoiled by private hate:

Whilst them those strange calamities did toss

(For there was none that nourished not debate),

   Confusion did the common peace confound,

   No help at hand, yet mortal was their wound.

6.

Thou Church, then swelling in thy mightiness,

Which in thy hand so ample power didst hold

To stay those factions ere their full excess,

Which at thy pleasure thou might'st have controlled,

Why didst not thou those outrages suppress,

Which to all times thy praise might have enrolled?

   Thou shouldst to them have laid thy Holy Word,

   And not thy hand to the unholy sword.

7.

Bloodthirsty war arising first from hell,

And seizing on this chief part of the isle,

Where it before near forty years did dwell,

And with abhorred pollution did defile,

In which so many a famous soldier fell;

By Edward Longshanks banished awhile,

   Transferred to Wales and to Albania, there

   To ruin them as it had ravined here.

8.

Where hovering long with inauspicious wings

About the verge of these distempered climes,

By coming back new mischief hither brings,

To work them up to those disastrous crimes;

Weakeneth their power by her diminishings:

And taking fast hold on those wicked times,

   So far enforced their fury, that at length

   It cracked the nerves which knit their ancient strength.

9.

Whose frightful vision, at the first approach,

With violent madness struck that desperate age;

And did not only those rebellions broach

Amongst the commons, but the devilish rage

Did on the best nobility encroach,

And in their damned conspiracies engage

   The royal blood, them likewise down to bring

   By unnatural treasons to their natural King.

10.

When in the North (whilst horror yet was young)

Those dangerous seasons swiftly coming on,

Whilst o'er their heads portentous meteors hung,

And in the skies stern comets brightly shone,

Prodigious births were intermixed among,

Such as before to times had been unknown:

   In bloody issues forth the earth doth break,

   Weeping for them whose woes it could not speak.

11.

And by the rankness of contagious air

A mortal plague invadeth man and beast,

Which far dispersed, and raging everywhere,

In doubt the same too quickly should have ceased

To assure them of the slaughter being near,

Yet was by famine cruelly increased;

   As though the heavens in their remissful doom

   Took those they loved from worser days to come.

12.

The level course that we intend to go

Now to the end, that ye may clearly see,

And that we every circumstance may show,

The state of things, and truly what they be,

And our materials how we do bestow,

With each occurrent right in his degree;

   From these portents we now divert our view,

   To bring to pass the horrors that ensue.

13.

The calling back of banished Gaveston,

'Gainst which the Barons had to Longshanks sworn;

The seigniories and high promotion,

Him in his lawless courses to suborn;

The abetting of that wanton minion,

Who held the old nobility in scorn;

   Stirred up that hateful and outrageous strife

   Which cost so many an Englishman his life.

14.

O much loved Lacy, hadst thou spared that breath,

Which shortly after Nature thee denied,

To Lancaster delivered at thy death,

To whom thy only daughter was affied,

Taking for pledge his knightly oath and faith,

Stiffly to stick upon the Barons' side;

   Thy manors, rents, and titles of renown

   Had not so soon been forfeit to the Crown.

15.

Those lordships Bruse to those two Spensers past,

Crossing the Barons' vehement desire;

As from Jove's arm that fearful lightning cast,

That fifty towns lay spent in hostile fire:

Alas, too vain and prodigal a waste,

The strong effect of their conceived ire,

   Urging the weak King by a violent hand

   To abjure those false lords from the troubled land.

16.

When as the fair Queen progressing in Kent,

Was there denied her entrance into Leeds

By Badlesmer, a Baron eminent

Against the King, that in this course proceeds,

Which further addeth to their discontent

A special spring, which this great mischief feeds:

   Wrong upon wrong, by heaping more and more,

   To thrust on that which went too fast before.

17.

Which more and more King Edward's hate increased,

Whose mind ran still on Gaveston degraded,

The thoughts of which so settled in his breast

That it had all his faculties invaded,

Which for the Spensers happened out the best,

By whom thereto he chiefly was persuaded;

   And by whose counsels he ere long was led

   To leave his bright Queen, and to fly her bed.

18.

That she herself who, whilst she stood in grace,

Employed her powers these discords to appease

When yet confusion had not fully place,

In times not grown so dangerous as these,

A party made in their afflicted case,

Her willing hand to his destruction lays;

   That time, whose soft palm heals the wound of war,

   May cure the sore, but never close the scar.

19.

In all that heat, then gloriously began

The serious subject of my solid vein,

Brave Mortimer, that somewhat more than man,

Of the old heroes' great and godlike strain,

For whom invention doing all it can,

His weight of honour hardly shall sustain,

   To bear his name immortalized, and high,

   When he in earth unnumbered years shall lie.

20.

Whose uncle then, whose name his nephew bore,

The only comfort of the woful Queen,

Who from his cradle held him as his care,

In whom so many early hopes were seen,

For this young lord most wisely doth prepare,

Whilst yet her deep heart-goring wound was green,

   And on this fair advantage firmly wrought

   To place him highly in her princely thought.

21.

This was the man at whose unusual birth

The stars were said to counsel to retire,

And in aspects of happiness and mirth

Marked him a spirit to greatness to aspire,

That had no mixture of the drossy earth,

But all compact of perfect heavenly fire;

   So well made up, that such a one as he,

   Jove in a man like Mortimer would be.

22.

The quickening virtue of which nobler part

With so rare pureness rectified his blood,

And to so high a temper wrought his heart,

That it could not be locked within a flood,

That no misfortune possibly could thwart;

Which from the native greatness where it stood,

   Showed, at the first, the pitch it was to fly

   Could not with less be bounded than the sky.

23.

Worthy the grandchild of so great a lord,

Who, whilst our Longshanks fortunately reigned,

Re-edified King Arthur's ancient board,

Which he at goodly Kenilworth ordained,

And to that former glory it restored,

To which a hundred gallant knights retained

   With all the pomp that might become a Court

   Or might give honour to that martial sport.

24.

The heart-swoln lords with fury throughly fired,

Whom Edward's wrongs to vengeance still provoke,

With Lancaster and Hertford had conspired,

No more to bear the Spensers' servile yoke:

The time is come that they a change desired,

That they (the bonds of their allegiance broke)

   Resolved with blood their liberty to buy,

   And in the quarrel vowed to live and die.

25.

What privilege hath our free birth, they say,

Or in our blood what virtue doth remain?

To each lascivious minion made a prey,

That us and our nobility disdain

Whilst they in triumph boast of our decay;

Either those spirits we never did retain

   That were our fathers', or by fate we fall

   Both from their greatness, liberty, and all.

26.

Our honour lifted from that sovereign state

From whence at first it challenged the being,

And prostitute to infamy and hate,

As with itself in all things disagreeing;

Quite out of order, disproportionate,

From the right way preposterously flying:

   Whilst others are themselves, and only we

   Are not held those we would but seem to be.

27.

Then to what end hath our great conquest served,

Those acts achieved by the Norman sword,

Our charters, patents, and our deeds reserved

Our offices and titles to record,

The crests that on our monuments are carved,

If they to us no greater good afford?

   Thus do they murmur every one apart,

   With many a vexed soul, many a grieved heart.

28.

This while the Queen into deep sorrow thrown,

Wherein she wastes her goodly youth away,

Beyond belief, to all but Heaven unknown,

This spark till now that closely covered lay,

By the sharp breath of desp'rate faction blown,

Converts her long night to a wished day,

   Her woful winter of misfortune cheering,

   As the dark world at the bright sun's appearing.

29.

Though much perplexed amidst these hard extremes,

Whilst helps fall short that should her hopes prefer,

Nor clearly yet could she discern those beams

To her desires that else might lighten her,

Her thoughts oft changing, like deceitful dreams,

In her sad breast such violent passions stir

   That (striving which each other should control)

   Work strange confusion in her troubled soul.

30.

To be debarred of that imperial state

Which to her graces rightly did belong,

Basely rejected, and repudiate,

A virtuous lady, goodly, fair, and young;

These with such fervour still do intimate

Her too much settled and inveterate wrong,

   That to the least all pardon she denies,

   With arguments of her indignities.

31.

Whilst to despatch the angry heavens pursue

What there unjudged had many a day depended,

When all these mischiefs to full ripeness grew,

And in their harvest hasting to be ended:

For all these lines into one centre drew,

Which way soe'er they seemed to be extended,

   And all together in proportion laid,

   Although but small, add somewhat to her aid.

32.

Now comes the time when Mortimer doth enter,

Of great employment in this tragic act,

His youth and courage boldly bid him venter,

Prompting him still how strongly he was backed;

Who at this time, even as from Heaven was sent her,

When the straight course to her desire was tracked,

   And she upon more certainty doth stay,

   In a direct, although a dangerous way.

33.

This dreadful comet drew her wond'ring eye,

Which soon began his golden head to rear,

Whose glorious fixure in so clear a sky,

Struck the beholder with a horrid fear;

And in a region elevate so high,

And by the form wherein it did appear,

   As the most skilful wisely did divine,

   Foreshowed the kingdom shortly to decline.

34.

Yet still recoiling at the Spensers' power,

So often checked with their intemperate pride,

The inconstant Barons wavering every hour

The fierce encounter of this boist'rous tide

That easily might her livelihood devour,

Had she not those that skilfully could guide,

   She from suspicion cunningly retires,

   Careless in show of what she most desires.

35.

Dissembling so, as one that knew not ill,

So can she rule the greatness of her mind,

As a most perfect rect'ress of her will,

Above the usual weakness of her kind,

For all these storms, immovable and still,

Her secret drift the wisest miss to find;

   Nor will she know yet what these factions meant,

   But with a pleased eye soothes sad discontent.

36.

The least suspicion craftily to heal,

Still in her looks humility she bears,

The safest way with mightiness to deal,

So Policy Religion's habit wears;

'Twas then no time her grievance to reveal,

"He's mad who takes a lion by the ears."

   This knew the Queen, and this well know the wise,

   This must they learn that rightly temporize.

37.

The bishop Torleton, learnedst of the land

Upon a text of politics to preach,

Which he long studying well did understand

And by a method could as aptly teach;

He was a prelate of a potent hand,

Wise was the man that went beyond his reach:

   This subtle tutor Isabel had taught

   Points, into which King Edward never sought.

38.

Rage, which no longer limits can contain,

Lastly breaks forth into a public flame,

Their slipped occasion better to regain

When to their purpose things so fitly frame,

And now discerned visibly and plain

When treason boldly dare its right proclaim,

   Casting aside all secular disguise,

   Doth with proud legions furiously arise

39.

As Severn lately in her ebbs that sank,

Vast and forsaken, leaves the uncovered sands,

Fetching full tides, luxurious, high, and rank,

Seems in her pride to invade the neighb'ring lands,

Breaking her limits, covering all her banks,

Threateneth the proud hills with her watery hands;

   As though she meant her empiry to have,

   Where even but lately she beheld her grave.

40.

Through all the land, from places far and near,

Led to the field as fortune lots their side,

With the ancient weapons used in war to bear,

As those directed when they chose their guide;

Or else perhaps as they affected were,

Or as by friendship or by duty tied;

   Swayed by the strength and motion of their blood,

   No cause examined, be it bad or good.

41.

From Norfolk, and the countries of the east,

That with the pike most skilfully could fight;

Then those of Kent, unconquered of the rest,

That to this day maintain their ancient right;

For courage no whit second to the best,

The Cornish men most active, bold, and light;

   Those near the plain, the pole-axe best that wield,

   And claim for theirs the vaward of the field.

42.

The noble Welsh of the ancient British race;

From Lancashire men famous for their bows;

The men of Cheshire chiefest for their place,

Of bone so big, as only made for blows,

Which for their faith are had in special grace,

And have been ever fearful to their foes;

   The Northern then, in feuds so deadly fell,

   That for their spear and horsemanship excel.

43.

All that for use experience could espy:

Such as in fens and marsh-lands use to trade,

The doubtful fords and passages to try

With stilts and lope-staves that do aptliest wade,

Most fit for scouts and currers, to descry;

Those from the mines with pickaxe and with spade

   For pioneers best, that for intrenching are

   Men chiefly needful in the use of war.

44.

O noble nation, furnished with arms,

So full of spirit, as almost matched by none!

Had Heaven but blest thee to foresee thy harms,

And as thy valiant nephews did, have gone

Paris, Rouen, Orleans, shaking with alarms,

As the bright sun thy glory then had shone:

   To other realms thou hadst transferred this chance,

   Nor had your sons been first that conquered France.

45.

And thus on all hands setting up their rest,

And all make forward for this mighty day,

Where every one prepares to do his best,

When at the stake their lives and fortunes lay,

No cross event their purposes to wrest,

Being now on in so direct a way:

   Yet whilst they play this strange and doubtful game,

   The Queen stands off, and secretly gives aim.

46.

But Mortimer his foot had scarcely set

Into the road where fortune had to deal,

But she, disposed his forward course to let,

Her lewd condition quickly doth reveal,

Glory to her vain deity to get

By him, whose strange birth bears her ominous seal,

   Taking occasion from that very hour,

   In him to prove and manifest her power.

47.

As when we see the early rising sun,

With his bright beams to emulate our sight;

But when his course yet newly is begun,

The hum'rous fogs deprive us of his light,

Till through the clouds he his clear forehead run,

Climbing the noontide in his glorious height:

   His clear beginning Fortune cloudeth thus,

   To make his midday great and glorious,

48.

The King, discreetly, that considered,

The space of earth whereon the Barons stand

As what the powers to them contributed,

Then being himself but partner of his land;

Of the small strength and army that he led

'Gainst them which did so great a power command,

   Wisely about him doth begin to look:

   Great was the task which now he undertook.

49.

And warned by danger to misdoubt the worst,

In equal scales whilst either's fortunes hung,

He must perform the utmost that he durst,

Or undergo intolerable wrong:

As good to stir, as after be enforced;

To stop the source whence all these mischiefs sprung,

   He with the marchers thinks best to begin,

   Which first must lose, ere he could hope to win.

50.

The Mortimers being men of greatest might,

Whose name was dreadful and commanded far,

Sturdy to manage, of a haughty spright,

Strongly allied, much followed, popular,

On whom if he but happily could light,

He hoped more easily to conclude the war:

   Which he intendeth speedily to try,

   To quit that first which most stood in.his eye.

51.

For which he expeditiously provided

That part of land into his power to get

Which, if made good, might keep his foes divided;

Their combination cunningly to let,

Which, should they join, would be so strongly sided,

Two mighty hosts, together safely met,

   The face of war would look so stern and great,

   As it might threat to heave him from his seat.

52.

Wherefore the King from London setteth forth

With a full army, furnished of the best,

Accompanied with men of special worth,

Which to this war his promises had prest.

Great Lancaster was lord of all the North,

The Mortimers were masters of the West,

   He towards mid-England makes the way 'twixt either,

   Which they must cross ere they could come together.

53.

Strongly inveigled with delightful hope,

Stoutly to affront and shoulder with debate,

Knowing to meet with a resolved troop

That came prepared with courage and with hate,

Whose stubborn crests if he enforced to stoop

It him behoves to tempt some powerful fate,

   And through stern guards of swords and hostile fir

   Make way to peace, or shamefully retire.

54.

When now the marchers well upon their way

(Expecting those that them supplies should bring,

Which had too long abused them by delay)

Were suddenly encountered by the King;

They then perceive that dilatory stay

To be the causer of their ruining,

   When at their bosoms black destruction stood,

   With open jaws prepared for their blood.

55.

And by the shifting of the inconstant wind,

Seeing what weather they were like to meet,

Which even at first so awkwardly they find

Before they could give sea-room to their fleet,

Clean from their course and cast so far behind,

And yet in peril every hour to split,

   Some unknown harbour suddenly must sound,

   Or run their fortunes desperately on ground.

56.

The elder Peer, grave, politic, and wise,

Which had all dangers absolutely scanned,

Finding high time his nephew to advise,—

Since now their state stood on this desperate hand,

And from this mischief many more to rise,

Which his experience made him understand,—

   "Nephew (saith he) 'tis but in vain to strive,

   Counsel must help our safety to contrive.

57.

"The downright peril present in our eye,

Not to be shunned, we see what it assures;

Think then what weight upon our fall doth lie,

And what our being this design procures,

As, to our friends what good may grow thereby;

Prove, which the test of reason best endures:

   For who observes strict policy's true laws,

   Shifts his proceeding to the varying cause.

58.

"To hazard fight with the imperial powers,

Will our small troops undoubtedly appal;

Then this our war us wilfully devours,

Yielding ourselves, yet thus we lose not all,

We leave our friends this smaller force of ours,

Reserved for them, though haplessly we fall:

   That weakness ever hath a glorious hand,

   That falls itself to make the cause to stand.

59.

"'Twixt unexpected and so dangerous ills

That's saf st, wherein we smallest peril see,

Which to make choice of, reason justly wills,

And it doth best with policy agree:

The idle vulgar breath it nothing skills,

'Tis sound discretion must our pilot be;

   He that doth still the fairest means prefer,

   Answers opinion howsoe'er he err.

60.

"And to the world's eye seeming yet so strong,

By our descending willingly from hence,

'Twill show we were provoked by our wrong,

Not having other sinister pretence:

This force left off that doth to us belong,

Will in opinion lessen our offence:

   Men are not ever incident to loss,

   When fortune seems them frowardly to cross.

61.

"Nor give we envy absolute excess,

To search so far our subtleties to find,

There's nearer means this mischief to redress,

And make successful what is yet behind;

Let's not ourselves of all hope dispossess,

Fortune is ever variously inclined:

   A small advantage in the affairs of Kings,

   Guides a slight means to compass mighty things."

62.

This speech so caught his nephew's pliant youth

(Who his grave Erne did ever much respect)

Proceeding from integrity and truth:

Well could he counsel, well could he direct

With strong persuasions, which he still pursu'th,

Which in a short time showed by the effect,

   A wise man's counsel by a secret fate,

   Seeming from reason, yet proves fortunate.

63.

To which the King they gravely do invite,

By the most strict and ceremonious way;

No circumstance omitted, nor no rite

That might give colour to their new essay,

Or that applause might publicly excite,

To which the King doth willingly obey:

   Who like themselves, in feeling danger near,

   Rather accepts a doubt than certain fear.

64.

Which he receives in presage of his good,

To his success auspiciously applied,

Which somewhat cooled his much distempered blood,

Ere he their force in doubtful arms had tried;

And whilst they thus in his protection stood,

At his disposing wholly to abide,

   He first in safety doth dismiss their power,

   Then sends them both his prisoners to the Tower.

65.

O all-preparing Providence divine,

In thy large book what secrets are enrolled!

What sundry helps doth thy great power assign,

To prop the course which thou intend'st to hold!

What mortal sense is able to define

Thy mysteries, thy counsels manifold?

   It is thy Wisdom strangely that extends

   Obscure proceedings to apparent ends.

66.

This was the means by which the Fates dispose

More dreadful plagues upon that age, to bring

Utter confusion on the heads of those

That were before the Barons' ruining;

With the subversion of the public's foes,

The murder of the miserable King;

   And that which 'came castrophe to all,

   Great Mortimer's inevitable fall.

67.

This to these troubles lends a little breath,

As the first pause to hearten this affair,

And for a while defers oft-threatening death,

Whilst each their breach by leisure would repair,

And as a bound their fury limiteth.

But in this manner whilst things strangely fare,

   Horror beyond all wonted bounds doth swell,

   As the next Canto fearfully shall tell.

THE SECOND CANTO.

THE ARGUMENT.

At Burton Bridge the puissant powers are met;

The form and order of the doubtful fight,

Whereas the King the victory doth get,

And the proud Barons are enforced to flight;

When they again towards Borough forward set,

Where they by him were vanquished outright:

   Lastly, the laws do execute their power

   On those which there the sword did not devour.

1.

This chance of war, that suddenly had swept

So large a share from their selected store,

Which for their help they carefully had kept,

That to their aid might still have added more,

By this ill luck into their army crept,

Made them much weaker than they were before:

   So that the Barons reinforced their bands,

   Finding their hearts to stand in need of hands.

2.

For deadly hate so long and deeply rooted,

Could not abide to hear the name of peace,

So that discretion but a little booted

'Gainst that, thereby which only did increase:

For the least grief by malice was promoted,

Anger set on, beginning to surcease;

   So that all counsel much their ears offended

   But what to spoil and sad invasion tended.

3.

All up in action for the public cause,

Scarcely the mean'st but he a party stood,

Taxed by the letter of the censuring laws

In his estate, if failing in his blood;

And who was freest, entangled by some clause;

Which to their fury gives continual food,

   For where confusion once hath gotten hold,

   Till all fall flat, it hardly is controlled.

4.

And now by night, whenas pale leaden sleep

Upon their eyelids heavily did dwell

And step by step on every sense did creep,

Mischief, that black inhabitant of hell,

Which never fails continual watch to keep,

Fearful to think, a horrid thing to tell,

   Entered the place whereas those warlike lords

   Lay mailed in armour, girt with ireful swords.

5.

She, with a sharp sight and a meagre look,

Was always prying where she might do ill,

In which the fiend continual pleasure took

(Her starved body plenty could not fill),

Searching in every corner, every nook,

With winged feet, too swift to work her will,

   Furnished with deadly instruments she went

   Of every sort, to wound whercso she meant.

6.

Having a vial filled with baneful wrath

(Brought from Cocytus by that cursed spright),

Which in her pale hand purposely she hath,

And drops the poison upon every wight;

For to each one she knew the ready path,

Though in the midst and dead time of the night;

   Whose strength too soon invadeth every Peer,

   Not one escaped her that she cometh near.

7.

That the next morning breaking in the east,

With 'a much troubled and affrighted mind,

Each whom this venom lately did infest,

The strong effect in their swoln stomachs find;

Now doth the poison boil in every breast.

To sad destruction every one's inclined;

   Rumours of spoil through every ear doth fly,

   And threatening fury sits in every eye.

8.

This done, in haste she to King Edward hies,

Who late grown proud upon his good success,

His time to feasts and wantonness applies,

And with crowned cups his sorrows, doth suppress,

Upon his fortune wholly that relies,

And in the bosom of his courtly press,

   Vaunteth the hap of this victorious day,

   Whilst the sick land in sorrow pines away.

9.

Thither she comes, and in a minion's shape

She getteth near the person of the King;

And as he tastes the liquor of the grape,

Into the cup her poison she doth wring:

Not the least drop untainted doth escape,

For to that purpose she her store did bring:

   Whose strong commixture, as the sequel tried,

   Filled his hot veins with arrogance and pride.

10.

That having both such courage and such might

As to so great a business did belong,

Neither yet think by their unnatural fight

What the Republic suffered them among:

For misty error so deludes their sight

(Which still betwixt them and clear reason hung),

   And their opinions in such sort abused,

   As that their fault can never be excused.

11.

Now our Minerva puts on dreadful arms

Further to wade into this bloody war,

And from her slumber wakened with alarms

Riseth to sing of many a massacre,

Of gloomy magics and benumbing charms,

Of many a deep wound, many a fearful scar:

   For that low sock wherein she used to tread,

   Marching in greaves, a helmet on her head.

12.

Whilst thus vain hope doth these false lords delude,

Who having drawn their forces to a head,

They their full purpose seriously pursued,

By Lancaster and valiant Hertford led,

Their long proceeding lastly to conclude;

Whilst now to meet both armies hotly sped,

   The Barons taking Burton in their way,

   Till they could hear where Edward's army lay.

13.

To which report too suddenly bewrayed

Their manner of encamping, and the place,

Their present strength, and their expected aid,

As what might most avail them in this case.

The speedy march the imperial power had made,

Had brought them soon within a little space:

   For still the King conducted had his force

   Which way he heard the Barons bent their course.

14.

Upon the east, from bushy Needwood's side,

There riseth up an easy climbing hill.

At whose fair foot the silver Trent doth slide

And the slow air with her soft murmuring fill,

Which with the store of liberal brooks supplied

The insatiate meads continually doth swill,

   Over whose stream a bridge of wondrous strength

   Leads on from Burton, to that hill in length.

15.

Upon the mount the King his tentage fixed,

And in the town the Barons lay in sight,

Whenas the Trent was risen so betwixt,

That for a while prolonged the unnatural fight

With many waters that itself had mixed,

To stay their fury doing all it might:

   Things which presage both good and ill there be,

   Which Heaven foreshows, but will not let us see.

16.

The Heaven even mourning o'er our heads doth sit,

Grieving to see the times so out of course,

Looking on them who never look at it,

And in mere pity melteth with remorse,

Longer from tears that could not stay a whit,

Whose influence on every lower source,

   From the swoln fluxure of the clouds, doth shake

   A rank imposthume upon every lake.

17.

O warlike nation, hold thy conquering hand,

Even senseless things do warn thee yet to pause;

Thy mother soil, on whom thou armed dost stand,

Which should restrain thee by all natural laws,

Canst thou, unkind, inviolate that band?

Nay, heaven and earth are angry with the cause:

   Yet stay thy foot in mischief's ugly gate,

   Ill comes too soon, repentance oft too late.

18.

O, can the clouds weep over thy decay,

Yet not one drop fall from thy droughty eyes?

Seest thou the snare, and wilt not shun the way,

Nor yet be warned by passed miseries?

Tis yet but early in this dismal day,

Let late experience learn thee to be wise:

   An ill foreseen may easily be prevented,

   But happed, unhelped, though ne'er enough lamented.

19.

Cannot the Scot of your late slaughter boast?

And are ye yet scarce healéd of the sore?

Is't not enough ye have already lost,

But your own madness must needs make it more?

Will ye seek safety in some foreign coast? —

Your wives and children pitied ye before:

   But when your own bloods your own swords embrue,

   Who pities them who should have pitied you?

20.

The neighbouring groves are spoiled of their trees

For boats and timber to essay the flood,

Where men are labouring as 'twere summer bees,

Some hollowing trunks, some binding heaps of wood,

Some on their breasts, some working on their knees,

To win the bank whereon the Barons stood;

   Which o'er the current they by strength must tew,

   To shed that blood which many an age shall rue.

21.

Some sharp their swords, some right their morions set,

Their greaves and pouldrons others rivet fast,

The archers now their bearded arrows whet,

Whilst everywhere the clamorous drums are brassed;

Some taking view where they sure ground might get,

Not one but some advantage doth forecast:

   With ranks and files each plain and meadow swarms,

   As all the land were clad in angry arms.

22.

The crests and badges of each nobler name

Against their owners rudely seem to stand,

As angry for the achievements whence they came

That to their fathers gave that generous brand.

O ye unworthy of your ancient fame,

Against yourselves to lift your conquering hand,

   Since foreign swords your height could not abate,

   By your own pride yourselves to ruinate!

23.

Upon his surcoat valiant Nevil bore

A silver saltire upon martial red;

A lady's sleeve high-spirited Hastings wore,

Ferrer his tabard with rich verry spread,

Well known in many a warlike match before;

A raven set on Corbet's armed head,

   And Culpepper in silver arms enrailed,

   Bear thereupon a bloody bend engrailed.

24.

The noble Percy in this dreadful day,

With a bright crescent in his guidon came,

In his white cornet Verdon doth display

A fret of gules, prized in this mortal game,

That had been seen in many a doubtful fray,

His lances' pennons stained with the same;

   The angry horse, chafed with the stubborn bit,

   With his hard hoof the earth in fury smit.

25.

I could the sum of Stafford's arming show,

What colours Ross and Courtney did unfold,

Great Warren's blazon I could let you know,

And all the glorious circumstance have told,

Named every ensign as they stood arow;

But O, dear Muse, too soon thou art controlled!

   For in remembrance of their evil speed,

   My pen, for ink, warm drops of blood doth shed.

26.

On the King's part the imperial standard's pitched,

With all the hatchments of the English crown,

Great Lancaster, with no less power enriched,

Sets the same leopards in his colours down.

O, if ye be not frantic or bewitched,

Yet do but see that on yourselves you frown:

   A little note of difference is in all,

   How can the same stand, when the same doth fall?

27.

Behold the eagles, lions, talbots, bears,

The badges of your famous ancestries;

Shall those brave marks by their inglorious heirs

Stand thus opposed against their families?

More ancient arms no Christian nation bears,

Relics unworthy of their progenies;

   Those beasts ye bear do in their kinds agree,

   O, that than beasts more savage men should be!

28.

And whilst the King doth in sad council sit,

How he might best the other bank recover,

See how misfortune still her time can fit;

Such as were sent the country to discover

(As up and down from place to place they flit),

Had found a ford to pass their forces over;

   Ill news hath wings, and with the wind doth go,

   Comfort's a cripple, and comes ever slow.

29.

When Edward, fearing Lancaster's supplies,

Proud Richmond, Surrey, and great Pembroke sent,

On whose success he mightily relies,

Under whose conduct half his army went,

The nearest way conducted by the spies;

And he himself, and Edmond Earl of Kent,

   Upon the hill in sight of Burton lay,

   Watching to take advantage of the day.

30.

Stay, Surrey, stay, thou mayst too soon be gone,

Pause till this heat be somewhat overpast,

Full little know'st thou whither thou dost run,

Richmond and Pembroke never make such haste,

Ye do but strive to bring more horror on;

Never seek sorrow, for it comes too fast.

   Why strive ye thus to pass this fatal flood,

   To fetch but wounds and shed your nearest blood?

31.

Great Lancaster, yet sheathe thy angry sword,

On Edward's arms whose edge thou shouldst not set,

Thy natural kinsman, and thy sovereign lord,

Both from the loins of our Plantagenet;

Call yet to mind thy once engaged word:

Canst thou thy oath to Longshanks thus forget?

   Men should perform before all other things,

   The serious vows they make to God and Kings.

32.

The winds were hushed (no little breath doth blow)

Which seems sate still, as though they listening stood;

With trampling crowds the very earth doth bow,

And through the smoke the sun appeared like blood;

What with the shout, and with the dreadful show,

The herds of beasts ran bellowing to the wood,

   When drums and trumpets to the charge did sound,

   As they would shake the gross clouds to the ground.

33.

The Earls then charging with their power of horse,

Taking a signal when they should begin,

Being in view of the imperial force

Which at that time essayed the bridge to win;

Which made the Barons change their former course,

To avoid the present danger they were in,

   Which on the sudden had they not forecast,

   Of their last day that hour had been the last.

34.

When from the hill the King's main powers come down,

Which had Aquarius to their valiant guide,

Brave Lancaster and Hertford from the town

Do issue forth upon the other side;

Peer against Peer, the Crown against the Crown,

The King assails, the Barons munified,

   England's red cross upon both sides doth fly.

   "Saint George" the King, "Saint George" the Barons cry.

35.

Like as an exhalation hot and dry,

Amongst the air-bred moisty vapours thrown,

Spitteth his lightning forth outrageously,

Rending the thick clouds with the thunder-stone

Whose fiery splinters through the thin air fly

That with the horror heaven and earth doth groan:

   With the like clamour and confused O,

   To the dread shock the desp'rate armies go.

36.

There might men see the famous English bows,

Wherewith our foes we wonted to subdue,

Shoot their sharp arrows in the face of those

Which oft before victoriously them drew;

Yet shun their aim and, troubled in the loose,

Those well-winged weapons, mourning as they flew,

   Slipped from the bowstring impotent and slack,

   As to the archers they would fain turn back.

37.

Behold the remnant of Troy's ancient stock,

Laying on blows as smiths on anvils strike,

Grappling together in the fearful shock

Where still the strong encountereth with the like,

And each as ruthless as the hardened rock,

Were't with the spear, or brown-bill, or the pike,

   Still as the wings or battles came together,

   Ere fortune gave advantage yet to either.

38.

From battered helms with every envious blow

The scattered plumes fly loosely here and there,

To the beholder like to flakes of snow

That ev'ry light breath on its wings doth bear,

As they had sense and feeling of our woe:

And thus affrighted with the sudden fear,

   Now back, now forward, such strange windings make

   As though uncertain which way they should take.

39.

Slaughter alike invadeth either host,

Whilst still the battle strongly doth abide,

Which everywhere runs raking through the coast,

As't pleased outrageous fury it to guide,

Yet not sufficed where tyrannizing most;

So that their wounds, like mouths, by gaping wide,

   Made as they meant to call for present death;

   Had they but tongues, their deepness gives them breath.

40.

Here lies a heap, half slain and partly drowned,

Gasping for breath amongst the slimy segges,

And there a sort laid in a deadly swound,

Trod with the press into the mud and dregs;

Others lie bleeding on the firmer ground,

Hurt in the bodies, maimed of arms and legs:

   One sticks his foe, his scalp another cuts,

   One's feet entangled in another's guts.

41.

One his assailing enemy beguiles,

As from the bridge he fearfully doth fall,

Crushed with his weight upon the stakes and piles;

Some in their gore upon the pavement sprawl;

Our native blood our native earth defiles,

And dire destruction overwhelmeth all;

   Such hideous shrieks the bedlam soldiers breathe,

   As the damned spirits had howled from beneath.

42.

The faction still defying Edward's might,

Edmond of Woodstock, with the men of Kent

Charging afresh, renews the doubtful fight

Upon the Barons, languishing and spent,

Bringing new matter for a tragic sight;

Forth against whom their skilful warriors went,

   Bravely to end what bravely did begin,

   Their noblest spirits will quickly lose or win.

43.

As before Troy bright Thetis' godlike son

Talbot himself in this fierce conflict bare;

Mowbray in fight him matchless honour won;

Clifford for life seemed little but to care;

Audley and Elmsbridge peril scorn to shun;

Gifford seemed danger to her teeth to dare;

   Nor Badlesmer gave back to Edward's power,

   As though they strove whom death should first devour.

44.

I'll not commend thee, Mountfort, nor thee, Teis,

Else your high valour much might justly merit;

Nor, Denvil, dare I whisper of thy praise,

Nor, Willington, will I applaud thy spirit,

Your facts forbid that I your fame should raise;

Nor, Damory, thy due mayst thou inherit:

   Your bays must be your well-deserved blame,

   For your ill actions quench my sacred flame.

45.

O, had you fashioned your great deeds by them

Who summoned Aeon with an English drum;

Or theirs before, that to Jerusalem

Went with the general power of Christendom:

Then had ye wrought Fame's richest diadem,

As they who fought to free the Saviour's tomb,

   And like them had immortalized your names,

   Where now my song can be but of your shames.

46.

O age inglorious, arms untimely borne,

When that approved and victorious shield

Must in this civil massacre be torn.

Bruised with the blows of many a foreign field;

And more, in this sad overthrow be worn

By those in flight enforced it up to yield!

   For which, since then, the stones for very dread

   Against rough storms cold drops for tears do shed.

47.

When soon King Edward's faint and wavering friends,

Which had this while stood doubtfully to pause,

When they perceive that destiny intends

That his success shall justify his cause,

Each in himself fresh courage apprehends,

(For victory both fear and friendship draws)

   And smile on him on whom they late did frown,

   All lend their hands to hew the conquered down.

48.

That scarce a man, which Edward late did lack,

Whilst the proud Barons bare an upright face,

But, when they saw that they had turned their back,

Joins with the King to prosecute their chase,

The Baronage so headlong goes to wrack:

In the just trial of so near a case,

   Enforced to prove the fortune of the coast,

   The day at Burton that had clearly lost.

49.

And to the aid of the victorious King

(Which more and more gave vigour to his hope,

With good success him still encouraging,

And to his actions lent an ampler scope),

Sir Andrew Herckley happily doth bring

On their light horse a valiant Northern troop,

   Armed but too aptly, and with too much speed,

   Most to do harm, when least thereof was need.

50.

When still the Barons, making forth their way,

Through places best for their advantage known,

Retain their army, bodied as they may,

By their defeat far weaker that was grown;

In their best skill devising day by day,

To offend the assailant, and defend their own,

   Of their mishaps the utmost to endure,

   If nothing else their safety might assure.

51.

In their sad flight, with fury followed thus,

Tracing the North through many a tiresome strait,

And forced through many a passage perilous,

To Burrowbridge, led by their luckless fate;

Bridges should seem to Barons ominous,

For there they lastly were precipitate;

   Which place the mark of their mischance doth bear,

   For since that time grass never prospered there.

52.

Where, for new bloodshed they new battles ranged,

And take new breath, to make destruction new;

Changed is their ground, but yet their fate unchanged,

Which too directly still doth them pursue,

Nor are they and their miseries estranged,

To their, estates though they mere strangers grew;

   The only hope whereon they do depend,

   With courage is to consummate their end.

53.

Like as a herd of overheated deer,

By hot-spurred hunters laboured to be caught,

With hues and hounds recovered everywhere,

Whenas they find their speed avails them naught,

Upon the toils run headlong without fear,

With noise of hounds and holloas as distraught:

   Even so the Barons, in this desperate case,

   Turn upon those which lately did them chase.

54.

Ensign beards ensign, sword 'gainst sword doth shake,

Drum brawls with drum, as rank doth rank oppose,

There's not a man that care of life doth take,

But Death in earnest to his business goes,

A general havoc as of all to make,

And with destruction doth them all enclose;

   Dealing itself impartially to all,

   Friend by his friend, as foe by foe, doth fall.

55.

Yet the brave Barons, whilst they do respire,

(In spite of fortune, as they stood prepared)

With courage charge, with comeliness retire,

Make good their ground, and then relieve their guard,

Withstand the enterer, then pursue the flyer,

New form their battle, shifting every ward.

   As your high skill were but your quarrel good,

   O noble spirits, how dear had been your blood!

56.

That well-armed band ambitious Herckley led,

Of which the Barons never dreamt before,

Then greatly stood King Edward's power in stead,

And in the fight assailed the enemy sore:

O day most fatal, and most full of dread!

Never can time thy ruinous waste restore:

   Which with his strength though he attempt to do,

   Well may he strive for, and yet fail of too.

57.

Pale Death beyond his wonted bounds doth swell,

Carving proud flesh in cantles out at large;

As leaves in autumn, so the bodies fell

Under sharp steel at every boist'rous charge:

O, what sad pen can their destruction tell,

Where scalps lay beaten like the battered targe?

   And every one he claimeth as his right,

   Whose luck it was not to escape by flight.

58.

Those warlike ensigns waving in the field,

Which lately seemed to brave the embattled foe,

Longer not able their own weight to wield,

Their lofty tops to the base dust do bow:

Here sits a helmet, and there lies a shield,

O, ill did Fate those ancient arms bestow,

   Which as a quarry on the soiled earth lay,

   Seized on by conquest, as a glorious prey.

59.

Where noble Bohun, that most princely peer,

Hertford much honoured, and of high desert,

And to this nation none as he so dear,

Passing the bridge with resolvéd heart,

To stop the soldiers, which retiring were,

Was 'twixt two planks slain through his lower part:

   But Lancaster, not destined there to die,

   Taken, reserved to furhter misery.

60.

Whose tragic scene some Muse vouchsafe to sing:

His, of five earldoms who then lived possest,

A brother, son, and uncle to a king,

With favour, friends, and with abundance blest:

What could man think, or could devise the thing,

That but seemed wanting to his worldly rest?

   But on this earth what's free from Fortune's power?

   What an age got, is lost in half an hour.

61.

Some few themselves in sanctuaries hide,

Which, though they have the mercy of the place,

Yet are their bodies so unsanctified,

As that their souls can hardly hope for grace;

Where they in fear and penury abide

A poor dead life, which lengtheneth but a space:

   Hate stands without, whilst horror still within

   Prolongs their shame, yet pardoneth not their sin.

62.

Nor was Death then contented with the dead,

Of full revenge as though it were denied,

And till it might have that accomplished,

It held itself in nothing satisfied;

And with delays no longer to be fed,

An unknown torment further doth provide,

   That dead men should in misery remain,

   To make the living die with greater pain.

63.

Ye sovereign cities of this woful isle,

In cypress wreaths and your most sad attire,

Prepare yourselves to build the funeral pile,

Lay your pale hands to this exequious fire,

All mirth and comfort from your streets exile,

Filled with the groans of men when they expire:

   The noblest blood approaching to be shed,

   That ever dropt from any of your dead.

64.

When Thomas Earl of Lancaster, that late

The rebellious Barons traitorously retained,

As the chief agent in this great debate,

Was for the same, ere many days, arraigned,

'Gainst whom at Pomfret they articulate

To whom those treasons chiefly appertained;

   Whose proofs apparent, so well, nay, ill sped,

   As from his shoulders wrest his reverend head.

65.

Yet Lancaster, it is not thy lost breath

That can assure the safety of the Crown,

Or that can make a covenant with death

To warrant Edward what he thinks his own;

But he must pay the forfeit of his faith,

When they shall rise which he hath trodden down;

   All's not a man's that is from others rackt,

   And other agents other ways do act.

66.

Nor was it long, but in that fatal place,

The way to death where Lancaster had led,

But many other in the self-same case,

Him in like manner sadly followed.

London, would thou hadst had thy former grace,

As thou art first, most blood that thou hadst shed,

   By other cities not exceeded far,

   Whose streets devour the remnant of that war.

67.

O parents, ruthful and heartrending sight!

To see that son that your soft bosoms fed,

His mother's joy, his father's sole delight,

That with much cost yet with more care was bred:

O spectacle, even able to affright

A senseless thing, and terrify the dead!

   His dear, dear blood upon the cold earth poured,

   His quartered corse of crows and kites devoured.

68.

But 'tis not you that here complain alone,

Or to yourselves this fearful portion share;

Here's strange and choice variety of moan,

Poor orphans' tears with widows' mixed are,

With many friends' sigh, many maidens' groan,

So innocent, so simply pure and rare,

   As Nature, which till then had silence kept,

   Near burst with sorrow, bitterly had wept.

69.

O bloody age! had not these things been done,

I had not now in these more calmer times,

Into the search of those past troubles run;

Nor had my virgin unpolluted rhymes

Altered the course wherein they first begun,

To sing these horrid and unnatural crimes;

   My lays had still been of Idea's bower,

   Of my dear Ancor, or her loved Stour.

70.

Nor other subject than yourself had chose,

Your birth, your virtues, and your high respects,

Whose bounties oft have nourished my repose;

You, whom my Muse ingeniously elects,

Denying earth your brave thoughts to enclose,

Maugre the Momists and Satiric sects;

   That whilst my verse to after-times is sung,

   You may live with me, and be honoured long.

71.

But greater things my subject hath in store

Still to her task my armed Muse to keep,

And offereth her occasion as before

Whereon she may in mournful verses weep;

And as a ship being gotten near the shore,

By awkward winds re-driven to the deep,

   So is the Muse, from whence she came of late,

   Into the business of a troubled State.

THE THIRD CANTO.

THE ARGUMENT.

By sleepy potions that the Queen ordains,

Lord Mortimer escapes out of the Tower;

And by false sleights and many subtle trains,

She gets to France, to raise a foreign power:

The French King leaves his sister; need constrains

The Queen to Hainault in a happy hour;

   Edward her son to Philip is affied,

   They for invasion instantly provide.

1.

Scarce had these passed miseries an end,

But other troubles instantly began;

As mischief doth new matter apprehend,

By things that still irregularly ran:

For further yet their fury doth extend,

All was not yielded that King Edward won:

   And some there were in corners that did lie,

   Which o'er his actions had a watchful eye.

2.

Whenas the King, whilst things thus fairly went,

Who by this happy victory grew strong,

Summoned at York a solemn Parliament

To uphold his right, and help the Spensers' wrong

(In all affairs to establish his intent),

Whence more and more his minions' greatness sprung,

   Whose counsels still in ev'ry business crost

   The enraged Queen, in all misfortunes tost.

3.

Whenas the eld'st, a man extremely hated,

(Whom till that time the King could not prefer

Until he had the Barons' pride abated)

That Parliament made Earl of Winchester,

As Herckey Earl of Carlisle he created:

And likewise Baldock he made Chancellor;

   One whom the King had for his purpose wrought,

   A man, as subtle, so corrupt and nought.

4.

Whenas mishaps, that seldom come alone,

Thick in the necks of one another fell,

The Scot began a new invasion,

And France did thence the English powers expel;

The Irish set the English pale upon,

At home the commons every day rebel:

   Mischief on mischief, curse doth follow curse,

   One ill scarce past, but after comes a worse.

5.

For Mortimer that wind most fitly blew,

Troubling their eyes which otherwise might see,

Whilst the wise Queen, who all advantage knew,

Was closely casting how to set him free;

And did the plot so seriously pursue

Till she had found the means how it should be,

   Against opinion and imperious might,

   To work her own ends through the jaws of spite.

6.

And to that purpose she a potion made,

In operation of that poisoning power,

That it the spirits could presently invade,

And quite dissense the senses in an hour

With such cold numbness, as it might persuade

That very death the patient did devour

   For certain hours, and sealed up the eyes,

   'Gainst all that art could possibly devise.

7.

In which, she plantain and cold lettuce had,

The water-lily from the marish ground,

With the wan poppy, and the nightshade sad,

And the short moss that on the trees is found,

The pois'ning henbane, and the mandrake drad,

With cypress flowers that with the rest were pound;

   The brain of cranes amongst the rest she takes,

   Mixed with the blood of dormice and of snakes.

8.

Thus, like Medea, sate she in her cell,

Which she had circled with her potent charms,

From thence all hindrance clearly to expel;

Then her with magic instruments she arms,

And to her business instantly she fell:

A vestal fire she lights, wherewith she warms

   The mixed juices, from those simples wrung,

   To make the med'cine wonderfully strong.

9.

The sundry fears that from her fact might rise,

Men may suppose, her trembling hand might stay,

Had she considered of the enterprise,

To think what peril in the attempt there lay;

Knowing besides, that there were secret spies

Set by her foes to watch her every way:

   But when that sex leave virtue to esteem,

   Those greatly err, which think them what they seem.

10.

Their plighted faith they at their pleasure leave,

Their love is cold, but hot as fire their hate,

On whom they smile they surely those deceive,

In their desires they be insatiate:

Them of their will there's nothing can bereave,

Their anger hath no bound, revenge no date:

   They lay by fear when they at ruin aim,

   They shun not sin, as little weigh they shame.

11.

The elder of the Mortimers this while,

That their sure friends so many sundry ways,

By fight, by execution, by exile,

Had seen cut off, then finished his days:

Which, though with grief, doth somewhat reconcile

The younger's thoughts, and lends his cares some ease:

   Which oft his heart, oft troubled had his head,

   For the dear safety of his uncle dead.

12.

But there was more did on his death depend

Than Heaven was pleased the foolish world should know;

And why the Fates thus hasted on his end,

Thereby intending stranger plagues to show.

Brave lord, in vain thy breath thou didst not spend;

From thy corruption greater conflicts grow,

   Which began soon and fruitfully to spring,

   New kinds of vengeance on that age to bring.

13.

As heart could wish, when everything was fit,

The Queen attends her potion's power to prove;

Their steadfast friends their best assisting it,

Their trusty servants seal up all in love:

And Mortimer, his valour and his wit

Then must express, whom most it doth behove:

   Each place made sure, where guides and horses lay,

   And where the ship that was for his convey.

14.

Whenas his birthday he had yearly kept,

And used that day those of the Tower to feed;

And on the warders other bounties heapt,

For his advantage he that day decreed,

Which did suspicion clearly intercept,

And much availed him at that time of need

   When after cates, their thirst at last to quench,

   He mixed their liquor with that sleepy drench.

15.

Which soon each sense doth with dead coldness seize,

When he, which knew the keepers of each ward,

Out of their pockets quickly took the keys,

His corded ladders readily prepared;

And stealing forth through dark and secret ways

(Not then to learn his compass by the card)

   To win the walls courageously doth go,

   Which looked as scorning to be mastered so.

16.

They soundly sleep, whilst his quick spirits awake,

Exposed to peril in the highest extremes,

Alcides labours as to undertake,

O'er walls, o'er gates, through watches, and through streams,

By which his own way he himself must make:

And let them tell King Edward of their dreams.

   For ere they came out of their brain-sick trance

   He made no doubt to be arrived in France.

17.

The sullen night had her black curtain spread,

Lowering that day had tarried up so long,

And that the morrow might lie long a-bed,

She all the heaven with dusky clouds had hung:

Cynthia plucked in her newly horned head,

Away to west, and under earth she flung,

   As she had longed to certify the sun,

   What in his absence in our world was done.

18.

The lesser lights, like sentinels in war,

Behind the clouds stood privily to pry,

As though unseen they subtly strove from far

Of his escape the manner to descry;

Hid was each wand'ring as each fixed star,

As they had held a council in the sky

   And had concluded with that present night,

   That not a star should once give any light.

19.

In a slow silence all the shores are hushed,

Only the screech-owl sounded to the assault,

And Isis with a troubled murmur rushed,

As if consenting, and would hide the fault;

And as his foot the sand or gravel crushed,

There was a little whispering in the vault,

   Moved by his treading, softly as he went,

   Which seemed to say it furthered his intent.

20.

Whilst that wise Queen, whom care yet restless kept,

For happy speed to Heaven held up her hands,

With worlds of hopes and fears together heapt

In her full bosom, listening as she stands;

She sighed and prayed, and sighed again and wept,

She sees him how he climbs, how swims, how lands:

   Though absent, present in desires they be,

   Our soul much farther than our eyes can see.

21.

The small clouds issuing from his lips, she saith,

Labouring so fast as he the ladder clame,

Should purge the air of pestilence and death;

And as from Heaven that filched Promethean flame,

The sweetness so, and virtue of his breath

New creatures in the element should frame,

   And to what part it had the hap to stray,

   There should it make another Milky Way.

22.

Attained the top, whilst spent, he paused to blow,

She saw how round he cast his longing eyes,

The earth to greet him gently from below,

How greatly he was favoured of the skies:

She saw him mark the way he was to go,

And towards her palace how he turned his eyes;

   From the walls' height, as when he down did slide,

   She heard him cry, "Now Fortune be my guide."

23.

As he descended, so did she descend,

As she would hold him that he should not fall,

On whom alone her safety did depend;

But when some doubt did her deep thoughts appal,

Distractedly she did her hands extend

For speedy help, and earnestly did call

   Softly again, if death to him should hap,

   She begged of Heaven his grave might be her lap,

24.

To show him favour, she entreats the air,

For him she begged the mercy of the wind,

For him she kneeled before the night with prayer,

For him herself she to the earth inclined,

For him, his tides beseeching Thames to spare,

And to command his billows to be kind,

   And tells the flood, if he her love would quit,

   No flood of her should honoured be but it.

25.

But when she thought she saw him swim along,

Doubting the stream was taken with his love,

She feared the drops that on his tresses hung,

And that each wave which most should woo him strove

To his clear body that so closely clung,

Which when before him with his breast he drove,

   Pallid with grief, she turned away her face,

   Jealous that he the waters should embrace.

26.

That angiy lion having slipped his chain,

As in a fever made King Edward quake;

Who knew, before he could be caught again,

Dear was the blood that his strong thirst must slake:

He found much labour had been spent in vain,

And must be forced a further course to take,

   Perceiving tempests rising in the wind,

   Of which too late too truly he divined.

27.

By his escape that adverse part grown proud.

On each hand working for a second war,

And in their councils nothing was allowed

But what might be a motive to some jar;

And though their plots were carried in a cloud

From the discerning of the popular,

   The wiser yet, whose judgments farther wrought,

   Easily perceive how things about were brought.

28.

Those secret fires, by envious faction blown,

Brake out in France, which covered long had lain;

King Charles from Edward challenging his own,

First Guyne, next Pontieu, and then Aquitain,

To each of which he made his title known,

Nor from their seizure longer would abstain:

   The cause thereof lay out of most men's view,

   Which though fools found not, wise men quickly knew.

29.

Their projects hitting many a day in hand,

That to their purpose prosp'rously had thrived,

The base whereon a mighty frame must stand,

By all their cunnings that had been contrived;

Finding their actions were so throughly manned,

Their fainting hopes were wondrously revived;

   They made no doubt, to see in little time

   The full of that which then was in the prime.

30.

The King, much troubled with the French affair,

Which, as a shapeless and unwieldy mass,

Wholly employed the utmost of his care

To Charles of France his embassy to pass,

For which it much behoved him to prepare

Before the war too deeply settled was:

   Which, when they found, they likewise cast about,

   As they would go, to make him send them out.

31.

Which, when they came in council to debate,

And to the depth had seriously discussed,

Finding how nearly it concerned the State

To stay a war both dangerous and unjust,

That weighty business to negotiate

They must find one of special worth and trust:

   Where every lord his censure freely past

   Of whom he liked, the Bishop was the last.

32.

Torlton,—whose tongue men's ears in chains could tie

And like Jove's fearful thunderbolt could pierce,

In which there more authority did lie

Than in those words the Sibyls did rehearse

Whose sentence was so absolute and high,

As had the power a judgment to reverse,—

   For the wise Queen, with all his might did stand,

   To lay that charge on her well-guiding hand.

33.

Urging what credit she the cause might bring,

Impartial 'twixt a husband and a brother,

A Queen in person betwixt King and King;

And more than that, to show herself a mother

There for her son, his right establishing,

Which did as much concern them as the other:

   Which colour served to work, in this extreme,

   That of which then the King did never dream.

34.

Torlton, was this thy spiritual pretence?

Would God thy thoughts had been spiritual,

Or less persuasive thy great eloquence:

But O! thy actions were too temporal,

Thy knowledge had too much pre-eminence,

Thy reason subtle and sophistical.

   But all's not true that supposition saith,

   Nor have the mightiest arguments most faith.

35.

Nor did the Bishop those his learned lack,

As well of power as policy and wit,

That were prepared his great design to back,

And could amend where aught he did omit:

For with such cunning they had made their pack,

That it went hard if that they should not hit

   That the fair Queen to France with speed must go,

   Hard had he plied, that had persuaded so.

36.

When she was fitted both of wind and tide,

And saw the coast was every way so clear,

As a wise woman she her business plied,

Whilst things went current, and well carried were,

Herself and hers to get abroad she hied

As one whose fortune made her still to fear:

   Knowing those times so variously inclined,

   And every toy soon altering Edward's mind.

37.

Her followers such as merely friendless stood,

Sunk and dejected by the Spensers' pride,

Who bore the taints of treason in their blood

And for revenge would leave no ways untried,

Whose means were bad, but yet their minds were good

When now at hand they had their help descried;

   Nor were they wanting mischief to invent,

   To work their wills and further her intent.

38.

Whilst Mortimer (that all this while hath lain

From our fair course) by fortune strangely crost,

In France was struggling how he might regain

That which before in England he had lost,

And all good means doth gladly entertain,

No jot dismayed in all those tempests tost;

   Nor his great mind could so be overthrown,

   All men his friends, all countries were his own.

39.

Then Muse, transported by thy former zeal,

Led in thy progress, where his fortune lies,

To thy sure aid I seriously appeal;

To show him fully, without feigned disguise,

The ancient Heroes then I shall reveal,

And in their patterns I shall be precise,

   When in my verse, transparent, neat and clear,

   They shall in his pure character appear.

40.

He was a man, then boldly dare to say,

In whose rich soul the virtues well did suit,

In whom so mixed the elements all lay,

That none to one could sov'reignty impute,

As all did govern yet all did obey:

He of a temper was so absolute,

   As that it seemed, when Nature him began,

   She meant to show all that might be in man.

41.

So throughly seasoned, and so rightly set,

That in the level of the clearest eye

Time never touched him with deforming fret,

Nor had the power to warp him but awry;

Whom in his course no cross could ever let,

His elevation fixed was so high

   That those rough storms, whose rage the world doth prove,

   Never wrought him, who sate them far above.

42.

Which the Queen saw, who had a seeing spirit,

For she had marked the largeness of his mind

And with much judgment looked into his merit,

Above the usual compass of her kind,

His grandsires' greatness rightly to inherit

Whenas the ages in their course inclined,

   And the world, weak with time, began to bow

   To that poor baseness that it rests at now.

43.

He weighs not wealth, nor yet his Wigmore left,

Let needless heaps, as things of nothing stand,

That was not his that man could take by theft,

He was a lord if he had sea or land,

And thought him rich of those who was not reft;

Man of all creatures hath an upright hand,

   And by the stars is only taught to know,

   That as they progress heaven, he earth should do.

44.

Wherefore wise Nature from this face of ground

Into the deep taught man to find the way,

That in the floods her treasure might be found,

To make him search for what she there did lay;

And that her secrets he might throughly sound,

She gave him courage, as her only key,

   That of all creatures as the worthiest he

   Her glory there and wondrous works should see.

45.

Let wretched worldlings sweat for mud and earth,

Whose grovelling bosoms lick the recreant stones,

Such peasants cark for plenty and for dearth,

Fame never looks upon those prostrate drones;

The brave mind is allotted in the birth

To manage empires from the state of thrones,

   Frighting coy fortune, when she sternest appears,

   Which scorneth sighs and jeereth at our tears.

46.

But when report, as with a trembling wing,

Tickled the entrance of his listening ear,

With news of ships sent out the Queen to bring,

For her at Sandwich which then waiting were,

He surely thought he heard the angels sing

And the whole frame of Heaven make up the choir,

   That his full soul was smothered with excess.

   Her ample joys unable to express.

47.

Quoth he, "Slide billows smoothly for her sake,

Whose sight can make your aged Nereus young,

For her fair passage even alleys make,

And as the soft winds waft her sails along,

Sleek every little dimple of the lake,

Sweet Syrens, and be ready with your song;

   Though 'tis not Venus that doth pass that way,

   Yet is as fair as she borne on the sea.

48.

"Ye scaly creatures, gaze upon her eye,

And never after with your kind make war;

O steal the accents from her lips that fly,

Which like the tunes of the Celestials are,

And them to your sick amorous thoughts apply,

Compared with which, Arion's did but jar:

   Wrap them in air, and when black tempests rage,

   Use them as charms the rough seas to assuage.

49.

"France, send to attend her with full shoals of oars,

With which her fleet may every way be plied;

And when she landeth on thy blessed shores,

And the vast navy doth at anchor ride

For her departure, when the wild sea roars,

Ship mount to heaven, and there be stellified:

   Next Jason's Argo, on the burnished throne,

   Assume thyself a constellation."

50.

Queen Isabel then landing with delight,

Had what rich France could lend her for her ease;

And as she passed, no town but did invite

Her with some show, her appetite to please:

But Mortimer once coming in her sight,

His shape and features did her fancy seize;

   When she, that knew how her fit time to take,

   Thus she her most loved Mortimer bespake:

51.

"O Mortimer, sweet Mortimer," quoth she,

"What angry power did first the means devise

To separate Queen Isabel and thee,

Whom to despite love yet together ties?

But if thou think'st the fault was made by me,

For a just penance to my longing eyes,

   Though guiltless they, this be to them assigned,

   To gaze upon thee till they leave me blind.

52.

"My dear, dear heart, thought I to see thee thus,

When first in Court thou didst my favour wear,

When we have watched, lest any noted us,

Whilst our looks used love's messages to bear,

And we by signs sent many a secret buss,

An exile then, thought I to see thee here?

   But what couldst thou be then, but now thou art?

   Though banished England, yet not from my heart.

53.

"That fate which did thy franchisement enforce,

And from the depth of danger set thee free,

Still regular and constant in that course,

Made me this straight and even path to thee;

Of our affections as it took remorse,

Our birth-fixed stars so luckily agree,

   Whose revolution seriously directs

   Our like proceedings to the like effects.

54.

"Only wise counsel hath contrived this thing,

For which we wished so many a woful day,

Of which the clear and perfect managing

Is that strong prop, whereon our hopes may stay;

Which in itself the authority doth bring

That weak opinion hath not power to sway,

   Confuting those whose sightless judgments sit

   In the thick rank with ev'ry common wit.

55.

"Then since the essay our good success affords,

And we her fav'rites lean on Fortune's breast,

That every hour new comfort us procures,

Of these her blessings let us choose the best;

And whilst the day of our good hap endures,

Let's take the bounteous benefits of rest:

   Let's fear no storm before we feel a shower,

   My son a King, two kingdoms help my dower.

56.

"Of wanton Edward when I first was wooed,

Why cam'st thou not into the Court of France?

Before thy King thou in my grace hadst stood;

O Mortimer, how good had been thy chance!

My love attempted in that youthful mood,

I might have been thine own inheritance;

   Where entering now by force thou hold'st by might

   And art disseisor of another's right.

57.

"Thou idol, Honour, which we fools adore,

How many plagues do rest in thee to grieve us!

Which when we have, we find there is much more

Than that which only is a name can give us;

Of real comforts thou dost leave us poor,

And of those joys thou often dost deprive us,

   That with ourselves doth set us at debate,

   And makes us beggars in our greatest state."

58.

With such brave raptures from her words that rise,

She made a breach in his impressive breast,

And all his powers so fully did surprise

As seemed to rock his senses to their rest,

So that his wit could not that thing devise

Of which he thought his soul was not possest:

   Whose great abundance, like a swelling flood

   After a shower, ran through his ravished blood.

59.

Like as a lute, that's touched with curious skill,

Each string stretched up, his right tone to retain,

Music's true language that doth speak at will,

The bass and treble married by the mean,

Whose sounds each note with harmony do fill

Whether it be in descant or on plain,

   So their affections, set in keys alike,

   In true consent meet, as their humours strike.

60.

As the plain path to their design appears,

Of whose wished sight they had been long debarred;

By the dissolving of those threatening fears

That many a purpose, many a plot had marred,

Their hope at full, so heartily them cheers,

And their protection by a stronger guard

   Lends them that leisure, the events to cast

   Of things to come by those already past.

61.

For this great business easily setting out,

By due proportion measuring every pace,

To avoid the cumbrance of each hindering doubt

And not to fail of comeliness and grace,

They came with every circumstance about,

Observe the person, as the time and place,

   Nor leave they aught, that in discretion's laws,

   They could but think might beautify the cause.

62.

Their embassy delivering in that height

As of the same the dignity might fit,

Apparelling a matter of that weight

In ceremony well beseeming it;

And that it should go steadily and right

They at their audience no one point omit,

   As to the full each tittle to effect,

   That in such cases wisdom should respect.

63.

Nor to negotiate never do they cease

Till they again that ancient league combine;

Yet so, that Edward should his right release,

And to his son the Provinces resign,

With whom King Charles concludes the happy peace,

Having the homage due to him for Guine;

   And that both realms should ratify their deed,

   They for both Kings an interview decreed.

64.

Yet in this thing, which all men thought so plain,

And to have been accomplished with such care,

Their inward falsehood hidden did remain,

Quite from the colour that the outside bare:

For only they this interview did gain,

To entrap the King, so trained to their snare:

   For which they knew that he must pass the seas,

   Or else the Prince, which better would them please.

65.

Which by the Spensers was approved, who

(As in his councils they did chiefly guide)

With him their sovereign, nor to France durst go,

Nor in his absence durst at home abide;

Whilst the weak King stood doubtful what to do,

His listening ears they with persuasions plied,

   That he to stay was absolutely won,

   And for that business to despatch his son.

66.

Thus is the King encompassed by their skill,

And made to act what Torlton did devise,

Who thrust him on, to draw them up the hill,

That by his strength they might get power to rise,

For they in all things were before him still:

That perfect steersman in all policies

   Had cast to walk where Edward bare the light,

   And by his aim he levelled their sight.

67.

Thus having made what Edward most did will

For his advantage further their intent,

With seeming good so varnishing their ill

That it went current by the fair event,

And of their hopes the utmost to fulfil,

Things in their course came in so true consent,

   To bring their business to that happy end,

   That they the same might publicly defend.

68.

The precious time no longer they protract,

Nor in suspense their friends at home do hold,

Being abroad so absolutely backed,

They quickly waxed confident and bold,

In their proceeding publishing their act;

Nor did they fear to whom report it told,

   But with an armed and erected hand

   To abet their own did absolutely stand.

69.

And that base Bishop then of Exeter,

A man experienced in their councils long,

Thinking perhaps his falsehood might prefer

Him, or else moved with King Edward's wrong,

Or whether that his frailty made him err,

Or other fatal accident among:

   But he from France and them to England flew,

   And knowing all, discovered all he knew.

70.

Their treasons long in hatching thus disclosed,

And Torlton's drift by circumstances found,

With what conveyance things had been disposed,

The cunning used in casting of their ground,

The frame as fit in every point composed,

When better counsel coldly came to sound,

   Awaked the King to see his weak estate,

   When the prevention came a day too late.

71.

Yet her departing whilst she doth adjourn,

Charles, as a brother, by persuasion deals,

Edward with threats would force her to return;

Pope John her with his dreadful curse assails:

But all in vain against her will they spurn,

Persuasion, threat, nor curse with her prevails:

   Charles, Edward, John, strive all to do your worst,

   The Queen fares best when she the most is curst.

72.

Which to the Spensers speedily made seen,

With what clean sleight things had been brought about,

And that those here, which well might ruled have been,

Quickly had found that they were gotten out,

And knowing well their wit, their power, and spleen,

Of their own safeties much began to doubt,

   And therefore must some present means invent,

   To avoid a danger, else most imminent.

73.

When they, who had the Frenchmen's humours felt

And knew the bait wherewith they might be caught,

By promise of large pensions with them dealt

If that King Charles might from her aid be wrought:

What mind so hard, that money cannot melt?

Which they to pass in little time had brought;

   That Isabel, too easily over-weighed

   By their great sums, was frustrate of her aid.

74.

Yet could not this amaze that mighty Queen,

Whom sad affliction never had controlled,

Never such courage in that, sex was seen,

She was not cast in other women's mould,

Nor could rebate the edge of her high spleen,

Who could endure war, travel, want, and cold,

   Struggling with fortune, ne'er by her opprest,

   Most cheerful still when she was most distrest.

75.

But then resolved to leave ungrateful France

And in the world her better fate to try,

Changing the air, hopes time may alter chance,

Under her burthen scorning so to lie,

Her weakened state still striving to advance,

Her mighty mind flew in a pitch so high:

   Yet ere she went, her vexed heart that did ache,

   Somewhat to ease, thus to the King she spake:

76.

"Is this a King's, a brother's part?" quoth she,

"And to this end did I my grief unfold?

Came I, to heal my wounded heart, to thee

Where slain outright I now the same behold?

Be these thy vows, thy promises to me?

In all this heat art thou become so cold

   To leave me thus forsaken at the worst,

   My state at last more wretched than at first?

77.

"Thy wisdom, weighing what my wants require,

To thy dear mercy might my tears have tied,

Our bloods receiving heat both from one fire;

And we by fortune, as by birth allied,

My suit supported by my just desire,

Were arguments not to have been denied:

   The grievous wrongs that in my bosom be,

   Should be as near thy care as I to thee.

78.

"Nature, too easily working on my sex,

Thus at thy pleasure my poor fortune leaves,

Which being enticed with hopes of due respects

From thee, my trust dishonestly deceives,

Who me and mine unnaturally neglects,

And of all comfort lastly us bereaves,

   What 'twixt thy baseness and thy beastly will,

   To expose thy sister to the worst of ill.

79.

"But for my farewell thus I prophesy,

That from my womb he's sprung, or he shall spring,

Who shall subdue thy next posterity,

And lead a captive thy succeeding King,

The just revenge of thy vile injury:

To fatal France, I as a Sibyl sing

   Her cities' sack, the slaughter of her men,

   Of whom one Englishman shall conquer ten."

80.

The Earl of Hainault, in that season great,

The wealthy lord of many a warlike tower,

Whom for his friendship princes did entreat,

As fearing both his policy and power,

Having a brother wondrously complete.

Called John of Beaumont (in a happy hour,

   As it for the distressed Queen did chance)

   That time abiding in the Court of France.

81.

He, there the while, this shuffling that had seen,

Whom to her party Isabel had won,

To pass for Hainault humbly prays the Queen,

Prompting her still what good might there be done,

To ease the anguish of her tumorous spleen,

Offering his fair niece to the Prince her son,

   The only way to win his brother's might

   Against the King, to back her in her right.

82.

Who had an ear not filled with his report

To whom the soldiers of that time did throng?

The pattern to all other of his sort,

Well learned in what to honour did belong,

With that brave Queen long trained up in Court,

And constantly confirmed in her wrong:

   Besides all this, crossed by the adverse part

   In things that sate too near to his great heart.

83.

Sufficient motives to invite distress

To apprehend so excellent a mean

Against those ills that did so strongly press,

Whereon the Queen her weak estate might lean,

And at that season, though it were the less,

Yet for a while it might her want sustain

   Until the approaching of more prosperous days

   Her drooping hopes to their first height might raise

84.

When they at large had leisure to debate,

Where welcome looked with a well-pleased face

From those dishonours she received late,

For there she wanted no obsequious grace,

Under the guidance of a gentler fate,

All bounteous offers freely they embrace,

   And to conclude, all ceremonies past,

   The Prince affies fair Philip at the last.

85.

All covenants betwixt them surely sealed

Each to the other lastingly to bind,

Nothing but done with equity and zeal,

And suiting well with Hainault's mighty mind

Which to them all did much content reveal;

The ease the Queen was like thereby to find,

   The comfort coming to the lovely bride,

   Prince Edward pleased, and joy on every side.

THE FOURTH CANTO.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Queen in Hainault mighty friends doth win,

In Harwich Haven safely is arrived,

Garboils in England more and more begin;

King Edward of his safety is deprived,

Flieth to Wales, at Neath received in,

Whilst many plots against him are contrived:

   Lastly betrayed, the Spensers and his friends

   Are put to death, with which this Canto ends.

1.

Now seven times Phoebus had his welkéd wain

Upon the top of Cancer's tropic set,

And seven times in his descent again,

His fiery wheels had with the Fishes wet,

In the occurrents of King Edward's reign,

Since mischief did these miseries beget;

   Which through more strange varieties had run

   Than he that while celestial signs had done.

2.

Whilst our ill-thriving in those Scottish broils

Their strength and courage greatly did advance,

In a small time made wealthy by our spoils;

And we much weakened by our wars in France

Were well near quite disheartened by our foils:

But at these things the Muse must only glance,

   And Herckley's treasons haste to bring to view,

   Her serious subject sooner to pursue.

3.

When Robert Bruce with his brave Scottish band,

By other inroads on the Borders made,

Had well near wasted all Northumberland,

Whose towns he level with the earth had laid;

And finding none his power there to withstand,

On the north part of spacious Yorkshire preyed,

   Bearing away with pride his pillage got,

   As fate to him did our last fall allot.

4.

For which that Herckley by his sovereign sent,

To entreat a needful though dishonoured peace,

Under the colour of a true intent

Kindled the war, in a fair way to cease,

And with King Robert did a course invent

His homage due to Edward to release:

   Besides, their faith they each to other plight,

   In peace and war to join with all their might.

5.

Yet more, King Robert (things being carried so,

His sister to that treach'rous Earl affied,

Which made too plain and evident a show

Of what before his trust did closely hide:

But the cause found, from whence this league should grow,

By such as, near, into their actions pryed),

   Discovered treasons, which not quickly crost,

   Had shed more blood than all the wars had cost.

6.

Whether the King's weak councils causes are

That everything so badly falleth out,

Or that the Earl did of our state despair,

When nothing prospered that was gone about,

And therefore careless how the English fare,

I'll not dispute, but leave it as a doubt,

   Or some vain title his ambition lacked,

   But something hatched this treasonable act.

7.

Which once revealéd to the jealous King,

The apprehension of that traitorous Peer

He left to the Lord Lucie's managing,

(One whose proved faith he had held ever dear)

By whose brave carriage in so hard a thing,

He did well worthy of his trust appear:

   Who in his castle, carelessly defended,

   That crafty Carlel closely apprehended.

8.

For which, ere long, to his just trial led,

In all the robes befitting his degree,

Where Scroope, Chief Justice in that dang'rous stead,

Commission had his lawful judge to be:

And on the proofs of his indictment read,

His treasons all so easily might see:

   Which soon themselves so plainly did express,

   As might assure them of his ill success,

9.

His style and titles to the King restored,

Noted with names of infamy and scorn,

And next, disarmed of his knightly sword,

On which before his fealty was sworn,

Then, by a varlet of his spurs disspurred,

His coat of arms, before him, razed and torn;

   And to the hurdle lastly he was sent,

   To a trait'rous death, that trait'rously had meant.

10.

Whereon the King a Parliament procured,

To fix some things whose fall he else might fear;

Whereby he hoped the Queen to have abjured,

His son, and such as their adjutors were:

But those of whom himself he most assured

What they had seemed, the same did not appear,

   When he soon found he had his purpose missed,

   For there were those that durst his power resist.

11.

For Hereford, in Parliament accused

Of sundry treasons, wherein he was caught,

By such his courses strictly as perused,

Whereby subversion of the realm was sought,

His holy habit and his trust abused,

Who, to his answer when he should be brought,

   Was by the clergy (in the King's despite)

   Seized, under colour of the Church's right.

12.

When some, the favourers of this fatal war,

Whom this example did more sharply whet,

Those for the cause that then imprisoned were

Boldly attempt at liberty to set;

Whose purpose frustrate by their enemies' care,

New garboils doth continually beget,

   Bidding the King with care to look about,

   Those secret fires so hourly breaking out.

13.

And the Earl of Kent, who was by Edward placed

As the great General of his force in Guyne,

Was in his absence here at home disgraced,

And frustrated both of supplies and coin

By such lewd persons, to maintain their waste,

As from his treasures ceased not to purloin:

   Nor could the King be moved, so careless still

   Both of his own loss and his brother's ill.

14.

Whose discontent too quickly being found,

By such as all advantages did wait,

Who still applied strong corsives to the wound,

And by their tricks and intricate deceit

Hindered those means that haply might redound

That fast arising mischief to defeat,

   Till Edmund's wrongs were to that ripeness grown,

   That they had made him absolute their own.

15.

With all his faithful followers in those wars,

Men well experienced and of worthiest parts,

Who for their pay received only scars,

Whilst the inglorious had their due deserts,

And minions' hate of other hope debars,

Which vexed them deeply to the very hearts,

   That to their General for revenge they cry,

   Joining with Beaumont, giving him supply.

16.

These great commanders, and with them combine

The Lord Pocelles, Sares, and Boyseers,

Dambretticourt, the young and valiant Heine,

Estotivyle, Comines, and Villeers,

The valiant knights, Sir Michael de la Lyne,

Sir Robert Baliol, Boswit, and Semeers;

   Men of great skill, whom spoil and glory warms,

   Such as, indeed, were dedicate to arms.

17.

Leading three thousand mustered men in pay,

Of French, Scots, Alman, Switzer and the Dutch;

Of native English fled beyond the sea,

Whose number near amounted to as much,

Which long had looked, nay, waited for that day,

Whom their revenge did but too nearly touch,

   Besides, friends ready to receive them in;

   And new commotions ev'ry day begin.

18.

Whilst the wise Queen, from England day by day

Of all those doings that had certain word,

Whose friends much blamed her over-long delay,

Whenas the time such fitness did afford,

Doth for her passage presently purvey,

Bearing provision every hour aboard,

   Ships of all burthens rigged and manned are,

   Fit for invasion, to transport a war.

19.

When she for England fairly setting forth,

Spreading her proud sails on the watery plain,

Steereth her course directly to the North,

With her young Edward, Duke of Aquitaine,

With other three, of special name and worth,

The destined scourges of King Edward's reign,

   Her soldier Beaumont, and the Earl of Kent,

   With Mortimer, that mighty malcontent.

20.

For Harwich Road a fore-wind finely blows,

But blew too fast, to kindle such a fire,

Whilst with full sail and the stiff tide she goes;

It should have turned and forced her to retire;

The fleet it drove, was fraughted with our woes,

But seas and winds do Edward's wrack conspire:

   For when just Heaven to chastise us is bent,

   All things convert to our due punishment.

21.

The coasts were kept with a continual ward,

The beacons watched, her coming to descry;

Had but the love of subjects been his guard,

It had been to effect that he did fortify:

But whilst he stood against his foes prepared,

He was betrayed by his home enemy:

   Small help by this he was but like to win,

   Shutting war out, he locked destruction in.

22.

When Henry, brother to that luckless prince,

The first great mover of that civil strife,

Thomas, whom law but lately did convince,

That had at Pomfret left his wretched life;

That Henry, in whose bosom ever since

Revenge lay covered, watching for relief,

   Like fire in some fat mineral of the earth,

   Finding a fit vent, gives her fury birth.

23.

And being Earl Marshal, great upon that coast,

With bells and bonfires welcomes her ashore;

And by his office gathering up a host,

Showed the great spleen that he to Edward bore,

Nor of the same abashed at all to boast;

The clergy's power, in readiness before,

   And on their friends a tax as freely laid,

   To raise munition for their present aid.

24.

And to confusion all their powers expose

On the rent bosom of the land, which long

War, like the sea, on each side did enclose,

A war from our own home dissensions sprung,

In little time which to that greatness rose,

As made us loathed our neighbouring States among;

   But this invasion, that they hither brought,

   More mischief far than all the former wrought.

25.

Besides, this innovation in the State

Lent their great action such a violent hand,

When it so boldly durst insinuate

On the cold faintness of the enfeebled land,

That being armed with all the power of fate,

Finding a way so openly to stand,

   To their intendment might, if followed well,

   Regain that height from whence they lately fell.

26.

Their strengths together in this meantime met,

All helps and hurts by war's best counsels weighed,

As what might further, what their course might let,

As their reliefs conveniently they laid,

As where they hoped security to get,

Whereon at worst their fortunes might be stayed,

   So fully furnished as themselves desired

   Of what the action needfully required.

27.

When at Saint Edmund's they a while repose,

To rest themselves and their sea-beaten force,

Better to learn the manner of their foes,

To the end not idly to direct their course,

And seeing daily how their army grows,

To take a full view of their foot and horse,

   With much discretion managing the war,

   To let the world know what to do, they dare.

28.

Whenas the King of their proceedings heard,

And of the routs that daily to them run;

But little strength at London then prepared,

Where he had hoped most favour to have won:

He left the City to the watchful guard

Of his approved, most trusted Stapleton,

   To John of Eltham, his dear son, the Tower,

   And goes himself towards Wales, to raise him power.

29.

Yet whilst his name doth any hope admit,

He made proclaimed, in pain of goods and life,

Or who would have a subject's benefit

Should bend themselves against his son and wife;

And doth all slaughters generally acquit,

Committed on the movers of this strife;

   As who could bring in Mortimer's proud head

   Should freely take the revenues of the dead.

30.

Which was encountered by the Queen's edict,

By publishing the justness of her cause,

That she proceeded in a course so strict

To uphold their ancient liberties and laws:

And that on Edward she did nought inflict

For private hate or popular applause;

   Only the Spensers to account to bring,

   Whose wicked counsels had abused the King.

31.

Which ballasted the multitude, that stood

As a bark beaten betwixt wind and tide,

By winds exposed, opposed by the flood,

Nought therein left, to land the same to guide:

Thus floated they in their inconstant mood

Till that the weakness of King Edward's side

   Suffered a seizure of itself at last,

   Which to the Queen a free advantage cast.

32.

Thus Edwald reft his England to his foes,

Whom danger did to recreant flight debase,

As far from hope as he was near his woes,

Deprived of princely sovereignty and grace,

Yet still grew less the farther that he goes,

His safety soon suspecting every place:

   No help at home, nor succour seen abroad,

   His mind wants rest, his body safe abode.

33.

One scarce to him his sad discourse hath done

Of Hainault's power and what the Queen intends,

But whilst he speaks, another hath begun:

A third then takes it where the second ends,

And tells what rumours through the countries run,

Of those new foes, of those revolted friends:

   Straight came a fourth, in post that thither sped,

   With news of foes come in of friends outfled.

34.

What plagues did Edward for himself prepare?

Forsaken King, O whither didst thou fly!

Changing the clime, thou couldst not change thy care.

Thou fledst thy foes, but followedst misery:

Those evil lucks in numbers many are

That to thy footsteps do themselves apply;

   And still, thy conscience corrosived with grief,

   Thou but pursuest thyself, both robbed and thief.

35.

Who seeking succour, offered next at hand,

At last for Wales he takes him to the seas,

And seeing Lundy that so fair did stand,

Thither would steer to give his sorrows ease;

That little model of his greater land,

As in a dream his fancy seemed to please:

   For fain he would be King yet of an isle,

   Although his empire bounded in a mile.

36.

But when he thought to strike his prosperous sail,

As under lee, past danger of the flood,

A sudden storm of mixed sleet and hail,

Not suffereth him to rule that piece of wood:

What doth his labour, what his toil avail,

That is by the Celestial Powers withstood?

   And all his hopes him vainly do delude,

   By God and man incessantly pursued.

37.

In that black tempest long turmoiled and tost,

Quite from his course and well he knew not where,

'Mongst rocks and sands in danger to be lost,

Not in more peril than he was in fear;

At length perceiving he was near some coast,

And that the weather somewhat 'gan to clear,

   He found 'twas Wales; and by the mountains tall

   That part thereof which we Glamorgan call.

38.

In Neath, a castle next at hand, and strong,

Where he commandeth entrance with his crew,

The Earl of Gloucester, worker of much wrong,

His Chancellor Baldock, which much evil knew,

Reding his Marshal, other friends among;

Where closely hid, though not from envy's view,

   The Muse a little leaveth them to dwell,

   And of great slaughter shapes herself to tell.

39.

Now lighter humour leave me and be gone,

Your passion poor yields matter much too slight:

To write those plagues that then were coming on,

Doth ask a pen of ebon and the night,

If there be ghosts their murder that bemoan,

Let them approach me and in piteous plight

   Howl, and about me with black tapers stand

   To lend a sad light to my sadder hand.

40.

Each line shall lead to some one weeping woe,

And every cadence as a tortured cry,

Till they force tears in such excess to flow,

That they surround the circle of each eye:

Then whilst these sad calamities I show.

All loose affections stand ye idly by,

   Destined again to dip my pen in gore,

   For the saddest tale that time did e'er deplore.

41.

New sorts of plagues were threatened to the earth,

The raging ocean past his bounds did rise,

Strange apparitions and prodigious birth,

Unheard-of sickness and calamities,

More unaccustomed and unlooked-for dearth,

New sorts of meteors gazing from the skies:

   As what before had small or nothing been,

   And only then their plagues did but begin.

42.

And whilst the Queen- did in this course proceed,

The land lay open to all offered ill;

The lawless exile did return with speed,

Not to defend his country, but to kill;

Then were the prisons dissolutely freed,

Both field and town with wretchedness to fill;

   London, as thou wast author of such shame,

   Even so wast thou most plagued with the same.

43.

Whose giddy commons, merciless and rude,

Let loose to mischief on that dismal day,

Their hands in blood of Edward's friends imbrued;

Which in their madness having made away,

The implacable, the monstrous multitude,

On his Lieutenant Stapleton did prey,

   Who dragged by them o'er many a loathsome heap,

   Beheaded was before the Cross in Cheap.

44.

Here first she read upon her ruined wall

Her sad destruction, which was but too nigh,

Upon her gates was charactered her fall,

In mangled bodies her anatomy,

Which for her errors did that reckoning call

As might have wrought tears from her ruthless eye;

   And if the thick air dimmed her hateful sight,

   Her buildings were on fire, to give her light.

45.

Her channels served for ink, her paper stones,

Whereon to write her murder, incest, rape;

And for her pens, a heap of dead men's bones

To make each letter in some monstrous shape,

And for her accents, sad departing groans;

And that to time no desperate act should 'scape,

   If she with pride again should be o'ergone,

   To take that book and sadly look thereon.

46.

The tender girl spoiled of her virgin shame,

Yet for that sin no ravisher was shent;

Black is my ink, more black was her defame,

None to revenge, scarce any to lament;

Nought could be done to remedy the same,

It was too late those mischiefs to prevent:

   Against those horrors she did idly strive,

   But saw herself to be devoured alive.

47.

She wants redress, and ravishment remorse,

None would be found to whom she could complain,

And crying out against the adulterer's force

Her plaints untimely did return in vain;

The more she grieved, her misery the worse:

Only to her this help there did remain,

   She spoiled of fame was prodigal of breath,

   And made her life clear by her resolute death.

48.

Then of that world men did the want complain

When they might have been buried when they died,

Young children safely in their cradles lain,

The man new married have enjoyed his bride,

When in some bounds ill could itself contain,

The son kneeled by his father's death-bed side;

   The living wronged, the dead no rite could have,

   The father saw his son to want a grave.

49.

But 'twas too late those courses to recall,

None have external nor internal fear,

Those deadly sounds by their continual fall

Settle confusion in each deafened ear;

Of our ill times this was the worst of all,

Only of garboils that did love to hear,

   Arms our attire and wounds were all our good,

   Branded the most with rapine and with blood.

50.

Inglorious age, of whom it should be said,

That all these mischiefs should abound in thee,

That all these sins should to thy charge be laid,

From no calumnious nor vile action free!

O let not time us with those ills upbraid,

Lest fear what hath been argue what may be,

   And fashioning so a habit in the mind,

   Make us alone the haters of our kind!

51.

O powerful Heaven, in whose most sov'reign reign

All thy pure bodies move in harmony,

By thee in an inviolable chain

Together linked, so tied in unity

That they therein continually remain,

Swayed in one certain course eternally:

   Why his true motion keepeth every star,

   Yet what they govern so irregular.

52.

But in the course of this unnatural war,

Muse, say from whence this height of mischief grew

That in so short time spread itself so far,

From whence so sundry bloodsheds did ensue,

The cause, I pray thee, faithfully declare:

What? men, religious, was the fault in you,

   Which resty grown, with your much power, withdraw

   Your stiffened necks from yoke of civil awe?

53.

No wonder though the people grew profane

When churchmen's lives gave laymen leave to fall,

And did their former humbleness disdain;

The shirt of hair turned coat of costly pall,

The holy ephod made a cloak for gain,

What done with cunning was canonical,

   And blind promotion shunned that dangerous road

   Which the old prophets diligently trode.

54.

Hence 'twas that God so slightly was adored,

That Rock removed whereon our faith was grounded,

Conscience esteemed but as an idle word,

And being weak, by vain opinions wounded;

Professors' lives did little fruit afford,

And, in her sects, Religion lay confounded:

   Most sacred things were merchandise become,

   None talked of texts, but prophesying dumb.

55.

The Church then rich, and with such pride possest,

Was like the poison of infectious air,

That having found a way into the breast,

Is not prescribed, nor long time stays it there,

But through the organs seizeth on the rest,

The rank contagion spreading everywhere:

   So, from that evil by the Church begun,

   The Commonwealth was lastly overrun.

56.

When craft crept in to cancel wholesome laws,

Which fastening once on the defective weal,

Where doubts should cease they rose in ev'ry clause,

And made them hurt which first were made to heal;

One evil still another forward draws;

For when disorder doth so far prevail,

   That conscience is cast off as out of use,

   Right is the cloak of wrong and all abuse.

57.

Meanwhile, the King, thus keeping in his hold

(In that his poor imprisoned liberty,

Living a death, in hunger, want, and cold,

Almost beyond imagined misery),

By hateful treason secretly was sold,

Through keys delivered to the enemy:

   For when the oppressed is once up to the chin,

   Quite overhead all help to thrust him in.

58.

The dire disaster of that captived King,

So surely seized on by the adverse part

(To his few friends sad matter menacing)

Struck with pale terror every willing heart,

Their expectation clean discouraging,

Him no evasion left, whereby to start,

   And the black cloud, which greatliest did them fear,

   Rose, where their hopes once brightest did appear.

59.

For first, their envy with unusual force,

Fell on the Spensers, from whose only hate

The war first sprung; who found their lawless course

Drew to an end, confined by their fate:

Of whom there was not any took remorse,

But as pernicious cankers of the State,

   The father first, to Bristol being led,

   Was drawn to death, then hanged and quartered.

60.

Whenas the heir to Winchester, then dead,

The lot ere long to his son Gloster fell;

Reding the Marshal the like way was led,

And after him the Earl of Arundel,

To pay the forfeit of a reverend head:

Then Muchelden, and with him Daniel,

   These following him in his lascivious ways,

   Then went before him, to his fatal days.

61.

Like some large pillar of a lordly height,

On whose proud top some huge frame doth depend,

By time disabled to uphold the weight,

And that with age his back begins to bend,

Shrinks to his first seat, and in piteous plight,

The lesser props with his sad load doth spend:

   So fared it with King Edward, crushing all

   That had stood near him in his violent fall.

62.

The State whereon these princes proudly lean,

Whose high ascent men trembling still behold,

From whence ofttimes with insolent disdain

The kneeling subject hears himself controlled,

Their earthly weakness truly doth explain,

Promoting whom they please not whom they should,

   Whenas their fall shows how they foully erred,

   Procured by those whom fondly they preferred.

63.

For when that men of merit go ungraced,

And by her fautors ignorance held in,

And parasites in good men's rooms are placed

Only to soothe the highest in their sin,

From those whose skill and knowledge is debased

There many strange enormities begin:

   For great wits forged into factious tools,

   Prove great men oft to be the greatest fools.

64.

But why so vainly time do I bestow,

The base abuse of this vile world to chide?

Whose blinded judgment every hour doth show,

What folly weak mortality doth guide.

Wise was that man who laughed at human woe;

My subject still more sorrow doth provide,

   And these designs more matter still do breed,

   To hasten that which quickly must succeed.

THE FIFTH CANTO.

THE ARGUMENT.

The imprisoned King his sceptre doth forsake,

To quit himself of what he was accused;

His foes him from the Earl of Leicester take,

Who their commission fain would have refused:

His torturers a mockery of him make,

And basely and reproachfully abused,

   By secret ways to Berkeley he is led,

   And there in prison lastly murdered.

1.

The wretched King unnaturally betrayed,

By too much trusting to his native land,

From Neath in Wales to Kenilworth conveyed,

By the Earl of Leicester, with a mighty band;

Some few his favourers quickly over-weighed:

When straight there went a Parliament in hand,

   To ratify the general intent,

   For resignation of his government.

2.

Fallen through his frailty and intemperate will,

That with his fortune it so weakly fared,

To undergo that unexpected ill

For his deserved punishment prepared

Past measure, as those miseries to fill

To him allotted as his just reward:

   All armed with malice, either less or more,

   To strike at him who struck at all before.

3.

It being a thing the Commons still did crave,

The Barons thereto resolutely bent,

Such happy helps on every side to have,

To forward that their forcible intent,

So perfect speed to their great action gave,

Established by the general consent

   On Edward that such miseries did bring,

   As never were inflicted on a King.

4.

Earls, Bishops, Barons, and the Abbots all,

Each in due order, as became their state,

By heralds placed in the Castle hall;

The burgesses for places corporate,

Whom the great business at that time did call,

For the Cinque Ports the Barons convocate

   With the Shire knights, for the whole body sent,

   Both for the south and for the north of Trent.

5.

When Edward, clothed mournfully in black,

Was forth before the great assembly brought,

A doleful hearse upon a dead man's back,

Whose heavy looks expressed his heavy thought,

In which there did no part of sorrow lack,

True grief needs not feigned action to be taught:

   His funeral solemnized in his cheer,

   His eyes the mourners and his legs the bier.

6.

Torlton, as one select to that intent,

The best experienced in that great affair,

A man grave, subtle, stout, and eloquent,

First with fair speech the assembly doth prepare

Then with a grace austere and eminent

Doth his abuse effectually declare,

   Winning each sad eye to a reverend fear,

   To due attention drawing every ear.

7.

Urging the exactions raised by the King,

With whose full plenty he his minions fed

Him and his subjects still impoverishing;

And the much blood he lavishly had shed,

A desolation on the land to bring:

As under him how ill all business sped,

   The loss in war, sustained through his blame,

   A lasting scandal to the English name.

8.

Withal, proceeding with the future good

That they thereby did happily intend,

And with what upright policy it stood,

No other hopes their fortunes to amend;

The resignation to his proper blood,

That might the action lawfully defend;

   The present want that willed it to be so,

   Whose imposition they might not foreslow.

9.

Much more he spake, but fain would I be short,

To this intent a speech delivering:

Nor may I be too curious to report

What toucheth the deposing of a King:

Wherefore I warn thee, Muse, not to exhort

The after-times to this forbidden thing

   By reasons for it by the Bishop laid,

   Or from my feeling what he might have said.

10.

The grave delivery of whose vehement speech,

Graced with a dauntless, uncontracted brow,

The assembly with severity did teach,

Each word of his authentic to allow,

That in the business there could be no breach,

Each thereto bound by a peculiar vow

   Which they in public generally protest,

   Calling the King to consummate the rest.

11.

Whose fair cheeks covered with pale sheets of shame,

Near in a swoon, he his first scene began,

Wherein his passions did such postures frame,

As every sense played the tragedian,

Truly to show from whence his sorrows came,

Far from the compass of a common man:

   As Nature to herself had added art,

   To teach Despair to act a kingly part.

12.

O Pity, didst thou live, or wert thou not?

Mortals by such sights have to stone been turned.

Or what men have been, had their seed forgot?

Or that for one another never mourned?

In what so strangely were ye over-shot,

Against yourselves, that your own frailty spurned?

   Or had tears then abandoned human eyes,

   That there was none to pity miseries?

13.

His passion calmed, his crown he taketh to him,

With a slight view, as though he thought not on it,

As he were senseless that it should forego him;

And then he casts a scornful eye upon it,

As he would leave it, yet would have it woo him:

Then snatching at it, loth to have foregone it,

   He puts it from him; yet he would not so,

   He fain would keep what fain he would forego.

14.

In this confused conflict in his mind,

Tears drowning sighs and sighs repelling tears;

But when in neither that he ease could find,

And to his wrong no remedy appears,

Perceiving none to pity there inclined,

Besides the time to him prefixed wears;

   As then his sorrow somewhat 'gan to slake,

   From his full bosom thus he them bespake:

15.

"If first my title steadfastly were planted

Upon a true indubitate succession,

Confirmed by nations, as by Nature granted,

Which lawfully delivered me possession;

You must think Heaven sufficiency hath wanted,

And so deny it power by your oppression,

   That into question dare thus boldly bring

   The awful right of an anointed King.

16.

"That hallowed unction by a sacred hand,

Which once was poured upon this crowned head,

And of this kingdom gave me the command

When it about me the rich verdure spread,

Either my right in greater stead should stand,

Or wherefore then was it so vainly shed?

   Whose profanation and unreverend touch,

   Just Heaven hath often punished, always much.

17.

"As from the sun, when from our sovereign due,

Whose virtual influence as the source of right

Lends safety of your livelihood to you,

As from our fulness taking borrowed light,

Which to the subject being ever true,

Why thus oppugn you by prepost'rous might?

   But what Heaven lent me wisely to have used,

   It gives to him that vainly I abused.

18.

"Then here I do resign it to your King."

Pausing thereat, as though his tongue offended,

With griping throes seemed forth that word to bring,

Sighing a full point as he there had ended.

O, how that sound his grieved heart did wring!

Which he recalling gladly would have mended.

   Things of small moment we can scarcely hold,

   But griefs that touch the heart are hardly told.

19.

Which said, his eyes seemed to dissolve to tears,

After some great storm, like a shower of rain,

As his tongue strove to keep it from his ears,

Or he had spoke it with exceeding pain;

O, in his lips how vile that word appears,

Wishing it were within his breast again!

   Yet saith he, "Say so to the man you bear it,

   And thus say to him that you mean shall wear it:

20.

"Let him account his bondage from that day

That he is with a diadem invested

(A glittering crown hath made this hair so gray),

Within whose circle he is but arrested;

To true content this is no certain way,

With sweeter cates the mean estate is feasted:

   For when his proud feet scorn to touch the mould,

   His head's a prisoner in a gaol of gold.

21.

"In numbering subjects he but numbers care,

And when with shouts the people do begin,

Let him suppose the applause but prayers are,

That he may escape the danger he is in,

Wherein to adventure he so boldly dares:

The multitude hath multitudes of sin,

   And he that first doth cry, God save the King,

   Is the first man him evil news doth bring.

22.

"Lost in his own, misled in others' ways,

Soothed with deceits and fed with flatteries,

Himself displeasing wicked men to please,

Obeyed no more than he shall tyrannize,

The least in safety being most at ease,

With one friend winning many enemies;

   And when he sitteth in his greatest state,

   They that behold him most, bear him most hate.

23.

"A King was he but now that now is none,

Disarmed of power and here dejected is;

By whose deposing he enjoys a throne

Who, were he natural, should not have done this:

I must confess the inheritance his own,

But whilst I live it should be none of his:

   But the son climbs and thrusts the father down,

   And thus the crowned goes without a crown."

24.

Thus having played his hard constrained part,

His speech, his reign, the day together ended,

His breast shot through with sorrow's deadliest dart,

Cared for of none, nor looked on, unattended,

Sadly returning with a heavy heart

To his strait lodging strictly recommended,

   Left to bemoan his miserable plight

   To the deaf walls and to the darksome night.

25.

Whilst things were thus disastrously decreed,

Seditious libels every day were spread

By such as liked not of the violent deed,

That he by force should be delivered;

Whether his wrong remorse in some did breed,

That him, alas, untimely pitied,

   Who knew: or whether but devised by some

   To cloak his murder, afterward to come.

26.

And hate at hand, which hearkening still did lurk,

And still suspicious Edward was not sure,

Fearing that blood with Leicester might work,

Or that him friends his name might yet procure,

Which the Queen's faction mightily did irk,

At Kenilworth that no way could endure

   His longer stay, but cast to have him laid

   Where his friends least might hope to lend him aid.

27.

Of which, whenas they had debated long,

Of Berkeley Castle they themselves bethought,

A place by Nature that was wondrous strong,

And yet far stronger easily might be wrought:

Besides, it stood their chiefest friends among,

And where he was unlikeliest to be sought;

   And for their men to work what they desired,

   They knew where villains were that might be hired.

28.

For though the great, to cover their intent,

Seem not to know of any that are ill,

Yet want they not a devilish instrument,

Which they have ready ever at their will;

Such men these had, to mischief wholly bent,

In villany notorious for their skill,

   Dishonest, desperate, merciless, and rude,

   That dared into damnation to intrude.

29.

Vile Gurney and Maltravers were the men

Of this black scene the actors chose to be,

Whose hateful deed pollutes my maiden pen;

But, I beseech you, be not grieved with me,

Who have these names now, that were famous then;

Some boughs grow crooked from the straightest tree,

   Ye are no way partakers of their shame,

   The fault is in their fact, not in their name.

30.

To Kenilworth they speedily despatched,

Fitted with each thing that they could desire,

At such a time as few their coming watched,

When of their business none was to enquire;

Well were the men and their commission matched,

For they had their authority entire,

   To take the King, his guardian to acquit,

   And to bestow him where they thought it fit.

31.

This crew of ribalds, villanous and nought,

With their co-agents in this damned thing,

To noble Leicester their commission brought,

Commanding the delivery of the King,

Which, with much grief, they lastly from him wrought,

About the castle closely hovering,

   Watching the time till silence and the night

   Could with convenience privilege their flight.

32.

With shameful scoffs and barbarous disgrace,

Him on a lean ill-favoured jade they set,

In a vile garment, beggarly and base,

Which it should seem they purposely did get;

So carrying him in a most wretched case,

Benumbed and beaten with the cold and wet,

   Deprived of all repose and natural rest,

   With thirst and hunger grievously opprest.

33.

Yet still suspicious that he should be known,

From beard and head they shaved away the hair,

Which was the last that he could call his own;

Never left Fortune any wight so bare;

Such tyranny on King was never shown,

And, till that time, with mortals had been rare;

   His comforts then did utterly deceive him,

   But to his death his sorrows did not leave him.

34.

For when they had him far from all resort,

They took him down from his poor weary beast,

And on a molehill (for a state in Court)

With puddle water him they lewdly drest,

Then with his woful miseries made sport;

And for his basin, fitting with the rest,

   A rusty iron skull; O wretched sight!

   Was ever man so miserably dight?

35.

His tears increased the water with their fall,

Like a pool rising with a sudden rain,

Which wrestled with the puddle, and withal

A troubled circle made it to retain

His endless grief which to his mind did call.

His sighs made billows like a little main;

   Water and tears contending whether should

   The mastery have, the hot ones or the cold.

36.

Vile traitors, hold off your unhallowed hands,

His brow upon it majesty still bears;

Dare ye thus keep your sovereign lord in bands?

And can your eyes behold the anointed's tears?

Or if your sight all pity thus withstands,

Are not your hearts yet pierced through your ears?

   The mind is free, whate'er afflict the man,

   A King's a King, do Fortune what she can.

37.

Dare man take that which God himself hath given?

Or mortal spill the spirit by him infused,

Whose power is subject to the power of Heaven?

Wrongs pass not unrevenged, although excused.

Except that thou set all at six and seven,

Rise, majesty, when thou art thus abused:

   Or for thy refuge which way wilt thou take,

   When in this sort thou dost thyself forsake?

38.

When in despite and mockery of a crown

A wreath of grass they for his temples make,

Which when he felt, then coming from a swoon.

And that his spirits a little 'gan to wake;

"Fortune," quoth he, " thou dost not always frown,

I see thou giv'st as well as thou dost take,

   That wanting natural cover for my brain,

   For that defect thou lend'st me this again.

39.

"To whom, just Heaven, should I my grief complain,

Since it is only thou that workest all?

How can this body natural strength retain,

To suffer things so much unnatural?

My cogitations labour but in vain,

'Tis from thy justice that I have my fall,

   That when so many miseries do meet,

   The change of sorrow makes my torment sweet."

40.

Thus they to Berkeley brought the wretched King,

Which for their purpose was the place forethought.

Ye Heavenly Powers, do ye behold this thing

And let this deed of horror to be wrought,

That might the nation into question bring?

But O, your ways with justice still are fraught!

   But he is happed into his earthly hell,

   From whence he bade the wicked world farewell!

41.

They lodged him in a melancholy room,

Where through strait windows the dull light came far,

In which the sun did at no season come,

Which strengthened were with many an iron bar,

Like to a vault under some mighty tomb,

Where night and day waged a continual war;

   Under whose floor the common sewer past,

   Up to the same a loathsome stench that cast.

42.

The ominous raven often he doth hear,

Whose croaking him of following horror tells,

Begetting strange imaginary fear,

With heavy echoes, like to passing bells:

The howling dogs a doleful part doth bear,

As though they chimed his last sad burying knells:

   Under his eave the buzzing screech-owl sings,

   Beating the windows with her fatal wings.

43.

By night affrighted in his fearful dreams

Of raging fiends and goblins that he meets,

Of falling down from steep rocks into streams,

Of deaths, of burials, and of winding-sheets,

Of wandering helpless in far foreign realms,

Of strong temptations by seducing sprights;

   Wherewith awaked, and calling out for aid,

   His hollow voice doth make himself afraid.

44.

Then came the vision of his bloody reign,

Marching along with Lancaster's stern ghost,

Twenty-eight Barons, either hanged or slain,

Attended with the rueful mangled host

That unrevenged did all that while remain,

At Burton Bridge, and fatal Borough lost;

   Threatening with frowns and quaking every limb,

   As though that piecemeal they would torture him.

45.

And if it chanced that from the troubled skies

The least small star through any chink gave light,

Straightways on heaps the thronging clouds did rise,

As though that Heaven were angry with the night

That it should lend that comfort to his eyes;

Deformed shadows glimpsing in his sight,

   As darkness, that it might more ugly be,

   Through the least cranny would not let him see.

46.

When all the affliction that they could impose

Upon him, to the utmost of their hate,

Above his torments yet his strength so rose,

As though that Nature had conspired with Fate;

Whenas his watchful and too wary foes,

That ceased not still his woes to aggravate,

   His further helps suspected to prevent,

   To take away his life to Berkeley sent.

47.

And to that end a letter fashioning,

Which in the words a double sense did bear,

Which seemed to bid them not to kill the King,

Showing withal how vile a thing it were;

But by the pointing was another thing,

And to despatch him bids them not to fear:

   Which taught to find, the murderers need no more,

   Being thereto too ready long before.

48.

When Edward happed a chronicle to find

Of those nine Kings which did him there precede,

Which some there lodged forgotten had behind,

On which, to pass the hours, he fell to read,

Thinking thereby to recreate his mind;

But in his breast that did sore conflicts breed:

   For when true sorrow once the fancy seizeth,

   Whate'er we see our misery increaseth.

49.

And to that Norman, entering on this isle,

Called William Conqueror, first his time he plies,

The fields of Hastings how he did defile

With Saxon blood, and Harold did surprise;

And those which he so could not reconcile,

How over them he long did tyrannize:

   Where he read how the strong o'ercame the strong,

   As God ofttimes makes wrong to punish wrong.

50.

How Robert then, his eldest son, abroad,

Rufus, his second, seized on his estate,

His father's steps apparently that trode,

Depressing those who had been conquered late;

But as on them he laid a heavy load,

So was he guerdoned by impartial fate:

   For whilst men's rooms for beasts he did intend,

   He in that Forest had a beastly end.

51.

Henry, his youngest, his brother William dead,

Taketh the crown from his usurping hand,

Due to the eldest, good Duke Robert's head,

Not then returned from the Holy Land;

Whose power was there so much diminished,

That he his foe not able to withstand,

   Was ta'en in battle and his eyes outdone,

   For which the seas left Henry not a son.

52.

To Maud the Empress he the sceptre leaves,

His only daughter, whom (through false pretext)

Stephen Earl of Boulogne from the kingdom heaves,

The Conqueror's nephew, in succession next,

By which the land a stranger war receives,

Wherewith it long was miserably vext:

   Till Stephen failing and his issue gone,

   The heir of Maud steps up into the throne.

53.

Henry the Second, Maud the Empress' son,

Of the English kings, Plantagenet the first,

By Stephen's end a glorious reign begun;

But yet his greatness strangely was accurst

By his son Henry's coronation:

Which to his age much woe and sorrow nurst,

   When his, whom he had laboured to make great,

   Abroad his towns, at home usurped his seat.

54.

Richard, his son, him worthily succeeds,

Who not content with what was safely ours,

(A man whose mind sought after glorious deeds)

Into the East transports the English powers;

Where with his sword, whilst many a Pagan bleeds,

Relentless Fate doth haste on his last hours,

   By one whose sire he justly there had slain

   With a sharp arrow shot into the brain.

55.

Next followed him his faithless brother John,

By Arthur's murder, compassed by his might,

His brother Geoffrey, the Earl of Britain's son;

But he by poison was repaid his spite;

For whilst he strove to have made all his own,

For what he got by wrong he held his right,

   And on the clergy tyrannously fed,

   Was by a monk of Swinsted poisoned.

56.

Henry his son, then crowned very young,

For hate the English to the father bare,

The son's here reigning was in question long,

Who thought on France to have cast the kingdom's care;

With whom the Barons, insolent and strong,

For the old Charter in commotion were:

   Which his long reign did with much care molest,

   Yet with much peace went lastly to his rest.

57.

Of him descends a Prince, stout, just, and sage

(In all things happy, but in him, his son),

In whom wise Nature did herself engage,

More than in man, in Edward to have done;

Whose happy reign recurred the former rage,

By the large bounds he to his empire won:

   "O God," quoth he, "had he my pattern been,

   Heaven had not poured these plagues upon my sin!"

58.

Turning the leaf, he found at unawares

What day young Edward, Prince of Wales, was born;

Which letters looked like conjuring characters,

Or to despite him they were set in scorn,

Blotting the paper like disfiguring scars:

"O, let that name," quoth he, "from books be torn,

   Lest in that place the sad displeased earth

   Doth loathe itself, as slandered with my birth.

59.

"Be thence hereafter human birth exiled,

Sunk to a lake, or swallowed by the sea;

And future ages, asking for that child,

Say 'twas abortive, or 'twas stolen away;

And lest, O Time, thou be therewith defiled,

In thy unnumbered hours devour that day:

   Let all be done that power can bring to pass,

   To make forgot that such a one there was."

60.

The troubled tears then standing in his eyes,

Through which he did upon the letters look,

Made them to seem like roundlets that arise

By a stone cast into a standing brook,

Appearing to him in such various wise,

And at one time such sundry fashions took,

   As like deluding goblins did affright,

   And with their foul shapes terrify his sight.

61.

And on his deathbed sits him down at last,

His fainting spirits foreshowing danger nigh,'

When the doors forth a fearful howling cast,

To let those in by whom he was to die;

At whose approach, whilst there he lay aghast,

Those ruthless villains did upon him fly:

   Who, seeing none to whom to call for aid,

   Thus to these cruel regicides he said:

62.

"O be not authors of so vile an act,

My blood on your posterity to bring,

Which after-time with horror shall distract,

When fame shall tell it how you killed a King;

And yet more, by the manner of the fact,

Mortality so much astonishing,

   That they should count their wickedness scarce sin,

   Compared to that which done by you hath been.

63.

"And since you deadly hate me, let me live;

Yea, this advantage angry Heaven hath left,

Which, except life, hath ta'en what it did give;

But that revenge should not from you be reft,

Me yet with greater misery to grieve,

Hath still reserved this from its former theft;

   That this, which might of all these plagues prevent me,

   Were I deprived it, lasteth to torment me."

64.

Thus spake this woful and distressed lord,

As yet his breath found passage to and fro,

With many a short pant, many a broken word,

Many a sore groan, many a grievous throe,

Whilst him his spirit could any strength afford

To his last gasp, to move them with his woe;

   Till overmastered by their too much strength,

   His sickly heart submitted at the length.

65.

When 'twixt two beds they closed his wearied corse,

Basely uncovering his most secret part,

And without human pity or remorse,

With a hot spit they thrust him to the heart.

O that my pen had in it but that force

To express the pain! but that surpasseth art;

   And that the soul must even with trembling do,

   For words want weight, nor can they reach thereto.

66.

When those (i' th' depth and dead time of the night)

Poor simple people, that then dwelled near,

Whom that strange noise did wondrously affright,

That his last shriek did in his parting hear,

As pitying that most miserable wight,

(Betwixt compassion and obedient fear)

   Turned up their eyes, with heaviness opprest,

   Praying to Heaven to give the soul good rest.

67.

Berkeley, whose fair seat hath been famous long,

Let thy sad echoes shriek a deadly sound,

To the vast air complain his grievous wrong,

And keep the blood that issued from his wound,

The tears that dropped from his dead eyes among,

In their black footsteps printed on the ground,

   Thereby that all the ages that succeed

   May call to mind the foulness of their deed.

68.

Let thy large buildings still retain his groans,

His sad complaints by learning to repeat,

And let the dull walls and the senseless stones

By the impression of his torment sweat,

And for not able to express his moans,

Therefore with pain and agony replete,

   That all may thither come that shall be told it,

   As in a mirror clearly to behold it.

69.

And let the Genius of that woful place

Become the guide to his more frightful ghost,

With hair dishevelled and a ghastly face,

And haunt the prison where his life was lost,

And as the den of horror and disgrace,

Let it be fearful over all the coast;

   That those hereafter that do travel near

   Never may view it but with heavy cheer.

THE SIXTH CANTO.

THE ARGUMENT.

Lord Mortimer made Earl of March, how he

And the bright Queen rule all things by their might;

The state wherein at Nottingham they be,

The cost wherewith their pompous Court is dight,

Envied by those their hateful pride that see:

The King attempts the dreadful cave by night,

   Entering the Castle, taketh him from thence,

   And March at London dies for his offence.

1.

Now, whilst of sundry accidents we sing,

Some of much sadness, others of delight,

In our conceit strange objects fashioning;

We our free numbers tenderly invite

Somewhat to slack this melancholy string:

For we too soon of death come to indite,

   When things of moment in the course we hold

   Fall in their order fitly to be told.

2.

Whilst they the hours do carefully redeem,

Their fraudful courses finely to contrive,

How foul soe'er, to make them fair to seem,

For which they all did diligently strive,

To tempt men still so of them to esteem

That all might wish their purposes to thrive:

   For it was cunning mixed with their might,

   That had and still must make their wrong seem right.

3.

The pompous Synod of those earthly gods

Was then assigned to Salisbury, to bring

Things to be even that had been at odds,

To the fair entrance of the new-crowned King,

And thereby so to settle their abodes

That peace from their first Parliament might spring:

   Wisely to end what well they had begun,

   For many thought that strange things had been done.

4.

Whilst Mortimer (so lord of his desire

That none prevailed his purpose to defeat)

His style of Baron heaved an Earldom higher,

To extend the honour of his ancient seat,

That his command might be the more entire;

Who only then but the Earl of March was great?

   Who knew the land into her lap was thrown,

   Which having all would never starve her own.

5.

And firm they stood, as those two steadfast poles

'Twixt which this all doth on the axtree move,

Whose strength the frame of government upholds,

Which to those times their wisdoms did approve:

Strong must that fate be which their will controls,

Or had the power them from their seats to shove:

   For well they found that that which they could feel

   Must of force make the realm itself to reel.

6.

When Edward's nonage, that of peace had need,

The Scot encouraged to renew the war,

Of which it much behoved them to take heed,

Matters so strangely managed as they were,

Which should they suffer by neglect to breed

Nothing they yet had made but it might mar,

   Which for their good, reserving their estate,

   They prove to purchase at the dearest rate.

7.

Nor less than Ragman the rough Scot sufficed,

Of all our writings of the most renown,

By which the Kings of Scotland had demised

Their yearly homage to the English Crown,

With other relics that were highly prized,

But that which made the patient'st men to frown

   Was the black Cross of Scotland, ominous deemed

   Before all other anciently esteemed.

8.

To colour which and to confirm the peace,

They made a marriage between them and us,

And for a strong pretext to that release,

Which to the wisest seemed most dangerous,

Whilst Robert reigned, and after his decease

That it might last, it was concluded thus:

   David their Prince our Princess Joan should take,

   Betwixt the realms a lasting league to make.

9.

When the Earl of Kent, that had been long of those

Which in their actions had a powerful hand,

Perceiving them of matters to dispose

Tending to the subversion of the land,

And further danger daily did disclose,

If that the kingdom they should still command;

   Whilst he their fall did cunningly forecast,

   Did but his own too violently haste.

10.

For giving out his brother to survive,

Of all men called the deceased King,

Into the people's head such doubts did drive

As into question Edward's right did bring.

Ill this report was raised, and worse did thrive,

Being so foul and dangerous a thing;

   That as a mover of intestine strife

   He for the treason forfeited his life.

11.

Whilst Edward takes but what they only give,

Whose nonage craved their carefullest protection,

Who knew to rule, and he but learned to live,

From their experience taking his direction:

Hard was the thing that they could not contrive,

When he that reigned was crowned by their'election;

   And that the right which did to him belong,

   And must uphold him, chiefly made them strong.

12.

Providing for the council of the King

Those of most power, the noblest of the Peers,

Experienced well, complete in everything,

Whose judgments had been ripened with their years,

With comeliness their actions managing:

Yet whilst they row 'tis Mortimer that steers;

   Well might we think the man were more than blind

   That wanted sea-room and could rule the wind.

13.

Keeping their course that it still clearly shone,

By the most curious cunning to be scanned,

And make that which was Edward's then their own,

Being received from his sovereign hand,

Into their bosoms absolutely thrown

Both for his good and safety of his land,

   All their proceedings coloured with that care

   To the world's eye so fair an outside bare.

14.

And they which could the complements of State

To greatness gave each ceremonious rite,

To their designs to give the longer date,

The like again in others to excite;

In entertaining love they welcomed hate,

And to one banquet freely both invite;

   A Prince's wealth by spending still doth spread,

   Like to a brook by many fountains fed.

15.

To Nottingham the North's imperious eye,

Which as a Pharus doth survey the soil,

Armed by Nature danger to defy;

March, to repose him after all his toil,

Where treason least advantage might espy,

Closely conveyed his past-price valued spoil;

   That there residing from the public sight

   He might with pleasure relish his delight.

16.

Ninescore in check belonging to their Court,

By honoured knighthood knit in mutual bands,

Men most select, of special worth and sort;

Much might they do that had so many hands;

March and the Queen maintain one equal port

In that proud castle which so far commands;

   From whence they seemed as they like those would rise

   Who once threw rocks at the imperial skies.

17.

As Fortune meant her power on March to show,

And in her arms to bear him through the sky,

By him to daunt whosoever sat below,

Having above them mounted him so high:

Who at his beck was he that did not bow,

If at his feet he did not humbly lie?

   All things concur with more than happy chance

   To raise the man whom Fortune will advance.

18.

Here all along the flower-befilléd vales

On her clear lands the silver Trent doth slide,

And to the meadows, telling wanton tales,

Her crystal limbs lasciviously, in pride,

As ravished with the enamoured gales,

With often turnings casts from side to side;

   As she were loth the fair sight to forsake

   And run herself into the German lake.

19.

And North from thence, rude Sherwood as she roves

Casts many a long look at those lofty towers,

And with the thickness of her well-grown groves,

Shelters the town from stormy winter's showers,

In pleasant summer, and to show her loves,

Bids it again to see her shady bowers;

   Courting the castle which, as turning to her,

   Smiles to behold the enamoured wood-nymph woo her.

20.

March and the Queen so planted in that place,

Thither in person princely Edward draws,

Who seemed their friendships friendly to embrace

And upon every little offered cause

Ready to do them ceremonious grace;

Whom they observe, of Court that knew the laws;

   Whilst in the town King Edward took his seat,

   The Queen's great confluence made the castle sweat.

21.

Where, when they pleased in council to debate,

Or they the King at any pleasure met,

They came with such magnificence of state

As did all eyes upon their greatness set,

Prizing their presence at that costly rate

As to the same due reverence might beget;

   Which in most people admiration wrought,

   And much amazed many a wandering thought.

22.

O, could ambition apprehend a stay,

The giddy course it wandereth in to guide!

And give it safety in that slippery way

Where the most worldly provident do slide,

It not so soon should see its own decay;

But it so much besotted is with pride

   That it ne'er thinketh of that pit at all

   Wherein, through boldness, it doth blindly fall.

23.

But never doth it surfeit with excess,

Each dish so savoury, seasoned with delight,

Nor nothing can the gluttony suppress,

But still it longs, so liquorish is the sight,

Nor having all is in desire the less,

Till it so much be tempted past the might,

   That the full stomach, more than well sufficed,

   Vomits what late it vilely gormandized.

24.

Like to some low brook from a loftier ground

By waste of waters that is overflowed,

Is sated, till it shouldereth down the mound,

And the old course quite of itself unload,

That where it was it after is not found,

But from the strait banks lays itself abroad,

   Leading the fountain that doth feed it by

   So leaves the channel desolate and dry.

25.

Whenas those few that many tears had spent,

By gazing long on murdered Edward's grave,

Muttered in corners, grieved and discontent;

And finding those them willing ear that gave,

Still as they durst discovered what they meant,

Tending their pride and greatness to deprave;

   Urging withal what some might justly do,

   If things so borne were rightly looked into.

26.

And some gave out, that Mortimer to rise

Had cut off Kent, that next was to succeed,

Whose treasons they avowed March to surmise,

As a mere colour to that lawless deed;

Which his ambition only did devise

Quite out the Royal Family to weed,

   And made account, if Edward once were gone,

   He o'er the rest might step into the throne.

27.

As those his favourers, in those former times,

Then credulous that honour was his end,

And for the hate they bare to others' crimes

Did not his faults so carefully attend:

Perceiving he so dissolutely climbs,

Having then brought his purpose to an end,

   With a severe eye did more strictly look

   Into the course which his ambition took.

28.

All fence the tree that serveth for a shade,

Whose big-grown body doth bear off the wind,

Till that his wasteful branches do invade

The new-sprung plants, and them in prison bind;

Whenas a tyrant to his weaker made,

And as a vile devourer of his kind,

   All lend their hands at his large root to hew

   Whose greatness hindereth others that would grow.

29.

So at his ease securely whilst he sate,

And as he would so all things settled were,

Under the guidance of a gracious fate,

Never more free from jealousy and fear;

So great his mind, so mighty his estate,

As they admit not danger to be near:

   But still we see, before a sudden shower,

   The sun upon us hath the greatest power.

30.

Within the castle had the Queen devised,

Long about which she busied had her thought,

A chamber, wherein she imparadised

What shapes for her could anywhere be sought;

Which in the same were curiously comprised

By skilful painters, excellently wrought:

   And in the place of greatest safety there,

   Which she had named the Tower of Mortimer.

31.

A room prepared with pilasters she chose,

That to the roof their slender points did rear,

Arching the top, whereas they all did close,

Which from below showed like an hemisphere;

In whose concavity she did compose

The constellations that to us appear

   In their corporeal shapes, with stars enchased,

   As by the old poets they on Heaven were placed.

32.

About which lodging, towards the upper face,

Ran a fine border, circularly led,

As equal 'twixt the zenith and the base,

Which as a zone the waist engirdled,

That lent the sight a breathing, by the space

'Twixt things near hand and those far overhead,

   Upon the plain wall of which lower part

   Painting expressed the utmost of her art.

33.

There Phoebus clipping Hyacinthus stood,

Whose life's last drops did the god's breast imbrue,

His tears so mixed with the young boy's blood,

That whether was the more no eye could view;

And though together lost as in a flood,

Yet here and there the one from the other drew:

   The pretty wood-nymphs chasing him with balm,

   Proving to wake him from his deadly qualm.

34.

Apollo's quiver and far-killing bow,

His gold-fringed mantle on the grassful ground,

To express whose act, Art even her best did show,

The sledge so shadowed still as to rebound,

As it had scarce done giving of the blow,

Lending a lasting freshness to the wound;

   The purple flower from the boy's blood begun,

   That since ne'er spreads but to the rising sun.

35.

Near that was lo in a heifer's shape,

Viewing her new-ta'en figure in a brook,

In which her shadow seemed on her to gape

As on the same she greedily did look,

To see how Jove could cloud his wanton 'scape;

So done that the beholders oft mistook

   Themselves; to some that one way did allow

   A woman's likeness, the other way a cow.

36.

There Mercury was like a shepherd's boy,

Sporting with Hebe by a fountain brim,

With many a sweet glance, many an amorous toy;

He sprinkling drops at her, and she at him:

Wherein the painter so explained their joy

As he had meant the very life to limn:

   For on their brows he made the drops so clear

   That through each drop their fair skins did appear.

37.

By them in landscape rocky Cynthus reared,

With the clouds leaning on his lofty crown,

On his sides showing many a straggling herd,

And from his top the clear springs creeping down

By the old rocks, each with a hoary beard,

With moss and climbing ivy overgrown:

   So done that the beholders with the skill

   Never enough their longing eyes could fill.

38.

The half-naked nymphs, some climbing, some descending,

The sundry flowers at one another flung,

In postures strange their limber bodies bending;

Some cropping branches that seemed lately sprung,

Upon the brakes their coloured mantles rending,

Which on the mount grew here and there among;

   Combing their hair some, some made garlands by,

   So strove the painter to content the eye.

39.

In one part, Phaeton cast amongst the clouds

By Phoebus' palfreys, that their reins had broke,

His chariot tumbling from the welked shrouds,

And the fierce steeds flew madding from their yoke,

The elements confusedly in crowds,

And heaven and earth were nought but flame and smoke;

   A piece so done that many did desire

   To warm themselves, some frighted with the fire;

40.

And into Padus falling, as he burned,

Thereinto thrown by Jove out of the skies;

His weeping sisters there to trees were turned,

Yet so of women did retain the guise,

That none could censure, whether as they mourned

Drops from their boughs, or tears fell from their eyes;

   Done for the last, with such exceeding life,

   As Art therein with Nature seemed at strife.

41.

And for the light to this brave lodging lent,

The workman, who as wisely could direct,

Did for the same the windows so invent

That they should artificially reflect

The day alike on every lineament

To their proportion, and had such respect

   As that the beams, condensated and grave,

   To every figure a sure colour gave.

42.

In part of which, under a golden vine,

Which held a curious canopy through all,

Stood a rich bed, quite covered with the twine,

Shadowing the same in the redoubling fall,

Whose clusters drew the branches to decline,

'Mongst which did many a naked Cupid sprawl:

   Some at the sundry-coloured birds did shoot,

   And some, about to pluck the purple fruit.

43.

On which a tissue counterpane was cast,

Arachne's web did not the same surpass,

Wherein the story of his fortunes past

In lively pictures neatly handled was,

How he escaped the Tower, in France how graced,

With stones embroidered of a wondrous mass;

   About the border, in a fine-wrought fret.

   Emblems, impresses, hieroglyphics set.

44.

This flattering sunshine had begot the shower,

And the black clouds with such abundance fed,

That for a wind they waited but the hour

With force to let their fury on his head;

Which when it came, it came with such a power

As he could hardly have imagined:

   But when men think they most in safety stand,

   Their greatest peril often is at hand.

45.

For to that largeness they increased were,

That Edward felt March heavy on his throne,

Whose props no longer both of them could bear,

Two for one seat that over-great were grown,

Preposterously that moved in one sphere,

And to the like predominancy prone,

   That the young King down Mortimer must cast,

   If he himself would e'er hope to sit fast.

46.

Who finding the necessity was such

That urged him still the assault to undertake,

And yet his person it might nearly touch

Should he too soon his sleeping power awake;

The attempt, wherein the danger was so much,

Drove him at length a secret means to make

   Whereby he might the enterprise effect,

   And hurt him most where he did least suspect.

47.

Without the castle, in the earth is found

A cave, resembling sleepy Morpheus' cell,

In strange meanders winding underground,

Where darkness seeks continually to dwell,

Which with such fear and horror doth abound

As though it were an entrance into hell:

   By architects to serve the castle, made

   Whenas the Danes this island did invade.

48.

Now, on along the crankling path doth keep,

Then by a rock turns up another way,

Rising towards day, then falling towards the deep,

On a smooth level then itself doth lay,

Directly then, then obliquely doth creep,

Nor in the course keeps any certain stay,

   Till in the castle, in an odd by-place,

   It casts the foul mask from its dusky face.

49.

By which the King, with a selected crew

Of such as he with his intent acquainted,

Which he affected to the action knew,

And in revenge of Edward had not fainted,

That to their utmost would the cause pursue,

And with those treasons that had not been tainted,

   Adventured the labyrinth to essay

   To rouse the beast which kept them all at bay.

50.

Long after Phoebus took his labouring team

To his pale sister and resigned his place,

To wash his cauples in the ocean stream,

And cool the fervour of his glowing face;

And Phoebe, scanted of her brother's beam,

Into the West went after him apace,

   Leaving black darkness to possess the sky,

   To fit the time of that black tragedy.

51.

What time by torchlight they attempt the cave,

Which at their entrance seemed in a fright

With the reflection that their armour gave,

As it till then had ne'er seen any light;

Which striving there pre-eminence to have,

Darkness therewith so daringly doth fight

   That each confounding other, both appear

   As darkness light, and light but darkness were.

52.

The craggy cleeves which cross them as they go,

Made as their passage they would have denied,

And threatened them their journey to foreslow,

As angry with the path that was their guide,

And sadly seemed their discontent to show

To the vile hand that did them first divide:

   Whose cumbrous falls and risings seemed to say

   So ill an action could not brook the day.

53.

And by the lights as they along were led,

Their shadows then them following at their back,

Were like to mourners carrying forth their dead,

And as the deed so were they ugly black,

Or like to fiends that them had followed,

Pricking them on to bloodshed and to wrack;

   Whilst the light looked as it had been amazed

   At their deformed shapes whereon it gazed.

54.

The clattering arms their masters seemed to chide,

As they would reason wherefore they should wound,

And struck the cave in passing on each side,

As they were angry with the hollow ground

That it an act so pitiless should hide;

Whose stony roof locked in their angry sound,

   And hanging in the creeks, drew back again,

   As willing them from murder to refrain.

55.

The night waxed old (not dreaming of these things),

And to her chamber is the Queen withdrawn,

To whom a choice musician plays and sings

Whilst she sat under an estate of lawn,

In night attire more godlike glittering

Than any eye had seen the cheerful dawn,

   Leaning upon her most loved Mortimer,

   Whose voice, more than the music, pleased her ear.

56.

Where her fair breasts at liberty were let,

Whose violet veins in branched riverets flow,

And Venus' swans and milky doves were set

Upon those swelling mounts of driven snow;

Whereon, whilst Love to sport himself doth get,

He lost his way, nor back again could go,

   But with those banks of beauty set about

   He wandered still, yet never could get out.

57.

Her loose hair looked like gold (O word too base!

Nay, more than sin but so to name her hair)

Declining, as to kiss her fairer face,

No word is fair enough for thing so fair,

Nor ever was there epithet could grace

That by much praising which we much impair;

   And where the pen fails, pencils cannot show it.

   Only the soul may be supposed to know it.

58.

She laid her fingers on his manly cheek,

The god's pure sceptres and the darts of love,

That with their touch might make a tiger meek

Or might great Atlas from his seat remove;

So white, so soft, so delicate, so sleek,

As she had worn a lily for a glove,

   As might beget life where was never none,

   And put a spirit into the hardest stone.

59.

The fire, of precious wood; the light perfume,

Which left a sweetness on each thing it shone,

As everything did to itself assume

The scent from them, and made the same their own

So that the painted flowers within the room

Were sweet, as if they naturally had grown;

   The light gave colours which upon them fell,

   And to the colours the perfume gave smell.

60.

When on those sundry pictures they devise,

And from one piece they to another run,

Commend that face, that arm, that hand, those eyes,

Show how that bird, how well that flower was done,

How this part shadowed, and how that did rise,

This top was clouded, how that trail was spun,

   The landscape, mixture, and delineatings,

   And in that art a thousand curious things.

61.

Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire,

The gentle Queen did much bewail his fall;

But Mortimer commended his desire,

To lose one poor life or to govern all:

"What though," quoth he "he madly did aspire,

And his great mind made him proud Fortune's thrall

   Yet in despite, when she her worst had done,

   He perished in the chariot of the sun."

62.

"Phoebus," she said, " was over-forced by Art,"

Nor could she find how that embrace could be:

But Mortimer then took the painter's part,

"Why thus, bright Empress, thus and thus," quoth he;

"That hand doth hold his back, and this his heart,

Thus their arms twine, and thus their lips,- you see;

   Now are you Phoebus, Hyacinthus I,

   It were a life thus every hour to die."

63.

When by that time into the Castle hall

Was rudely entered that well-armed rout,

And they within suspecting nought at all,

Had then no guard to watch for them without:

See how mischances suddenly do fall,

And steal upon us, being farth'st from doubt:

   Our life's uncertain and our death is sure,

   And towards most peril man is most secure.

64.

Whilst youthful Nevil and brave Turrington,

To the bright Queen that ever waited near,

Two with great March much credit that had won,

That in the lobby with the ladies were,

Staying delight, whilst time away did run,

With such discourse as women love to hear;

   Charged on the sudden by the arméd train,

   Were at their entrance miserably slain.

65.

When, as from snow-crowned Skiddaw's lofty cleeves

Some fleet-winged haggard, towards her preying hour,

Amongst the teal and moor-bred mallard drives

And the air of all her feathered flock doth scour,

Whilst to regain her former height she strives,

The fearful fowl all prostrate to her power:

   Such a sharp shriek did ring throughout the vault,

   Made by the women at the fierce assault.

66.

Unarmed was March (she only in his arms,

Too soft a shield to bear their boist'rous blows),

Who least of all suspected such alarms,

And to be so encountered by his foes,

When he was most improvident of harms.

O, had he had but weapons to his woes!

   Either his valour had his life redeemed,

   Or in her sight died happily esteemed.

67.

But there, about him looking for the King,

Whom he supposed his judgment could not miss;

Which when he found by his imagining

Of those most perfect lineaments of his:

Quoth he, "The man that to thy crown did bring

Thee, at thy hands might least have looked for this;

   And in this place the least of all the rest,

   Where only sacred solitude is blest.

68.

"Her presence frees the offender of this ill,

Whose godlike greatness makes the place divine;

And canst thou, King, thus countermand her will

Who gave to thee the power that now is thine,

And in her arms in safety kept thee still,

As in a most inviolated shrine?

   Yet darest thou irreligiously despise,

   And thus profane, these sacred liberties."

69.

But even as when old Ilion was surprised

The Grecians issuing from the wooden horse,

The pride and fury roughly exercised,

Opening the wide gates, letting in their force.

Putting in act what was before devised,

Without all human pity or remorse;

   Even so did they with whose confused sound

   Words were not heard, and poor complaints were drowned.

70.

Dissolved to tears, she followed him: O tears!

Elixir-like, turn all to pearl you touch;

To weep with her the hard wall scarce forbears,

The woful words she uttered were such

Able to wound the impenetrablest ears,

Her plaints so piercing and her grief so much:

   And to the King when she at last could come,

   Thus to him spake, though he to her were dumb.

71.

"Dear son," quoth she, "let not his blood be spilt,

So often ventured to redeem thy crown,

In all his life can there be found that guilt?

Think of his love, on which thou once shouldst frown:

'Twas he thy seat that so substantial built,

Long with his shoulder saved from shaking down;

   'Twas he the means that first for thee did find

   To pass for France to exercise thy mind.

72.

"Even for the love thou bear'st to that dear blood

From which, my son, thou didst receive thy life,

Play not the niggard in so small a good

With her to whom thy bounties should be rife,

Begged on those knees at which thou oft hast stood;

O, let my upheld hands appease this strife!

   Let not the breath from this sad bosom sent,

   Without thy pity be but vainly spent."

73.

When in the tumult, with the sudden fright,

Whilst every one for safety sought about,

And none regarded to maintain the light,

Which being over-wasted was gone out,

It being then the midtime of the night

Ere they could quit the castle of the rout;

   The Queen alone—at least if any near

   They were her women, almost dead with fear.

74.

When horror, darkness, and her inward woe

Began to work on her afflicted mind,

Upon her weakness tyrannizing so

As they would do their utmost in their kind,

And as than those she need no other foe,

Such power her fortune had to them assigned

   To rack her conscience by their torture due,

   Itself to accuse of whatsoe'er it knew.

75.

"O God !" thought she, "is yet an hour scarce past,

Since that my greatness, my command more high,

And eminency, wherein I was placed,

Won me respect in every humble eye?

How am I now abused? how disgraced?

Did ever Queen in my dejection lie?"

   These things she pondered as despair still brought

   Their sundry forms into her troubled thought.

76.

To London thus they March a prisoner led,

Which there had oft been courted by the Queen,

From whom his friends and his late followers fled,

Of many a gallant followed that had been

Of which there was not one durst show his head,

Much less to abet his side that durst be seen;

   Which at his fall made them to wonder more

   Who saw the pomp wherein he lived before.

77.

O misery! where once thou art possest,

See but how quickly thou canst alter kind,

And like a Circe metamorphosest

The man that hath not a most godlike mind:

The fainting spirit, O how thou canst infest!

Whose yielding frailty easily thou canst find,

   And by thy vicious presence with a breath

   Gives him up fettered, basely feared, to death.

78.

When soon the King a Parliament decreed,

Ne'er till that time sole master of his crown,

And against March doth legally proceed,

Fitted with tools to dig that mountain down,

To which both high and low took special heed;

He ne'er had fawn, but then he had a frown,

   King Edward's blood, with both the Spensers', call

   For vengeance on him, by the voice of all.

79.

With dear Kent's death his credit next they blot,

Then on him lay the wards and liveries

Which he by craft into his hands had got,

The sums then seized to his treasuries;

Then Joan the Princess, married to the Scot,

The sign at Stanhope to the enemies;

   With all things ripped from the records of time

   That any way might aggravate his crime.

80.

O dire revenge! when thou by time art raked

Out of the ashes which have hid thee long,

(Wherein thou layest as thou hadst quite been slaked)

And becom'st kindled with the breath of wrong,

How soon thy hideous fury is awaked?

From thy poor sparks what flames are quickly sprung?

   To waste their tops how soon dost thou aspire

   Whose weight and greatness once represt thy fire?

81.

And what availed his answer in that case?

Which the time then did utterly distaste,

And looked upon him with so stern a face

As it his actions utterly disgraced;

No friendly bosom gave him any place

Who was clean out of all opinion cast;

   Taking his pen, his sorrows to deceive,

   Thus of the Queen he lastly took his leave.

82.

"Bright Empress, yet be pleased to peruse

The swan-like dirges of a dying man,

Although not like the raptures of the Muse

In our fresh youth, when our love first began,

Into my breast that did the fire infuse

That glorious day that I thy rich glove won,

   And in my course a flame of lightning bet

   Out of proud Hertford's high-plumed burgonet.

83.

"As for your son, that hasteneth on my death,

Madam, you know I- loved him as mine own,

And when I could have grasped out his breath,

I set him easily on his father's throne;

Which now his power too quickly witnesseth,

Who to this height in tyranny is grown;

   But yet be his ingratitude forgiven,

   As, after death, I wish to be in heaven.

84.

"And for the sole rule whereon so he stands

Came bastard William but himself to shore?

Or had he not our father's valiant hands,

Who in that field our ancient ensign bore

(Guarded about with our well-ordered bands)

Which then his leopards for their safety wore,

   Looking at Hastings like that ominous lake

   From whose black depths our glorious name we take?

85.

"Why fell I not from that my all-armed horse,

On which I rode before the gates of Gaunt,

Before the Belgic and Burgonian force.

There challenging their countries' combatant;

Cast from my feet in some robustious course,

That they of me the Victory might vaunt?

   Why sunk I not under my battered shield,

   To grace a brave foe and renown a field?

86.

"Yet never served I Fortune like a slave,

Nor have, through baseness, made her bounties less,

In me her judgment poorly to deprave,

Nought hath she lent me that I'll not confess:

Nay, interest for her principal I gave,

My mind hath suited with her mightiness,

   Her frowns with scorn and Mortimer doth bear

   For nothing can she do that he can fear.

87.

"That ne'er quails me at which your greatest quake,

Nor aught that's dreadful danger me can show,

Through sword and fire so used my way to take:

In death what can be that I do not know,

That I should fear a covenant to make

With it, which welcomed, finisheth my woe?

   And nothing can the afflicted conscience grieve,

   But He may pardon who can all forgive.

88.

"And thus, thou most adored in my heart,

The thoughts of whom my humbled spirit doth raise,

Lady most fair, most dear, of most desert,

Worthy of more than any mortal praise,

Condemned March thus lastly doth depart

From the great'st Empress living in her days;

   Nor with my dust mine honour I inter:

   Caesar thus died, and thus dies Mortimer."

89.

When secretly he sent this letter to her,

Whose supersciption was her princely style,

She knew the hand, and thought it came to woo her,

With which conceit she pleased herself a while,

Than which no one thing served so to undo her,

By feeding her with flattery and with guile

   To make her still more sensible of pain

   Which her sad heart was shortly to sustain.

90.

Using her fingers to rip up the seal

Which helped to hide these ill news from her eyes,

Loth as it were such tidings to reveal

As might her senses suddenly surprise;

But when her white hand did so hardly deal

With the poor paper that the wax must rise,

   It stuck upon her fingers bloody red,

   As to portend some dear blood should be shed.

91.

When by degrees she easily doth begin,

And as a fish plays with a baited hook,

So softly yet she swallowed sorrow in,

Till she her bane into her bowels took;

And then she sees the expenses of her sin,

Sadly set down in that black doomsday book,

   And the dear sums that were to be defrayed

   Before the debt were absolutely paid.

92.

Whole hosts of sorrows her sick heart assail,

When every letter lanced her like a dart,

Striving against her which should most prevail,

And yet not one but pricked her to the heart;

Where one word might another's woe bewail,

And with its neighbour seemed to bear a part,

   Each line served for so true a text to her,

   As in her woes would no way let her err.

93.

Grief bade her look, yet soon it bade her leave,

Wherewith o'ercharged she neither sees nor hears,

Her usefullest senses soonest her deceive,

The sight shuts up her eyes, the sound her ears,

And of her reading doth her quite bereave,

When for a fescue she doth use her tears,

   Which when some line she loosely overpast

   The drops could tell her where she left the last.

94.

Somewhat at length recovering of her sight,

Deeply she cursed her sorrow-seeing eye,

And said she was deluded by the light,

Or was abused by the orthography,

Or some one had devised it in spite,

Pointing it false, her scholarship to try:

   Thus when we fondly flatter our desires,

   Our best conceits do prove the greatest liars.

95.

Her trembling hand as in a fever quakes,

Wherewith the paper doth a little stir,

Which she imagines at her sorrow shakes,

And pities it which she think pities her;

Each small thing somewhat to the greater makes,

And to her humour something doth infer:

   Her woe-tied tongue but when she once could free,

   "Sweet Mortimer, my most loved lord," quoth she,

96.

"For thy dear ashes be my breast the urn,

Which as a relic I of thee will save,

Mixed with the tears that I for thee shall mourn,

Which in this bosom shall their burial have;

Out of which place they never shall return,

Nor give the honour to another grave:

   But here, as in a temple, be preserved,

   Wherein thy image is most lively carved."

97.

Then breaks she out in cursing of her son,

But Mortimer so runneth in her mind

As that she ended ere she" had begun,

Speaking before what should have come behind;

From that she to another course doth run,

To be revenged in some notorious kind:

   By stab, or poison, and she'll swear to both,

   But for her life she could not find an oath.

98.

She pen and paper takes, and makes no doubt

But the King's cruel dealing to discover;

But soon forgetting what she went about,

Poor Queen, she fell to scribbling to her lover;

Here she put in, and there she blotted out;

Her passion did so violently move her,

   That turning back to read what she had writ,

   She tore the paper and condemned her wit.

99.

But from her passion being somewhat raised,

Like one that lately had been in a swound

Or felt some strange extremity appeased

That had been taken from some blow or wound,

Yet on that part it had so strongly seized,

That for the same no remedy was found:

   But at the very point their life to lose,

   As they their goods, she doth her grief dispose.

100.

Quoth she, "King Edward, as thou art my son,

Leaving the world, this legacy I leave thee:

My heart's true love my Mortimer hath won,

And yet of all he shall not so bereave thee;

But for this mischief to thy mother done,

Take thou my curse, so that it may outlive thee,

   That as thy deed doth daily me torment,

   So may my Curse thee, by my testament.

101.

"And henceforth in this solitary place,

Ever residing from the public sight,

A private life I willingly embrace,

No more rejoicing in the obvious light,

To consummate this too long lingering space,

Till death enclose me in continual night,

   Let never sleep more close my wearied eye,

   So, Isabella, lay thee down and die."

THE END.