Touch him upon his old heretical talk,

He'll burn a diocese to prove his orthodoxy.

And let him call me truckler. In those times,

Thou knowest we had to dodge, or duck, or die;

I kept my head for use of Holy Church;

And see you, we shall have to dodge again,

And let the Pope trample our rights, and plunge

His foreign fist into our island Church To plump the leaner pouch of Italy. For a time, for a time.

Why? that these statutes may be put in force,

And that his fan may thoroughly purge his floor.

Bonner. So then you hold the Pope Gardiner. I hold the Pope! What do I hold him? what do I hold the Pope? Come, come, the morsel stuck Cardinal's fault

this

Is now content to grant you full for giveness,

So that you crave full pardon of the Legate.

I am sent to fetch you.

Gardiner. Doth Pole yield, sir,
ha!

Did you hear 'em? were you by ?
Usher.
I cannot tell you,

His bearing is so courtly-delicate; And yet methinks he falters their two Graces

Do so dear-cousin and royal-cousin him,

So press on him the duty which as Legate

He owes himself, and with such royal smiles

Gardiner. Smiles that burn men. Bonner, it will be carried. He falters, ha? 'fore God, we change and change;

Men now are bow'd and old, the doctors tell you,

At three-score years; then if we change at all

We needs must do it quickly; it is an age

Of brief life, and brief purpose, and brief patience,

As I have shown to-day. I am sorry for it

If Pole be like to turn. Our old friend Cranmer,

Your more especial love, hath turn'd so often,

He knows not where he stands, which, if this pass,

We two shall have to teach him; let 'em look to it,

Cranmer and Hooper, Ridley and Latimer,

Rogers and Ferrar, for their time is come,

Their hour is hard at hand, their "dies Iræ,"

Their "dies Illa," which will test their sect.

I feel it but a duty - you will find in
it
Pleasure as well as duty, worthy
Bonner, -

Alters it passing, till it spells and speaks

Quite other than at first.

Lady.
I do not follow.
Elizabeth. How many names in the
long sweep of time

That so foreshortens greatness, may but hang

On the chance mention of some fool that once

Brake bread with us, perhaps: and my poor chronicle

Is but of glass. Sir Henry Bedingfield

May split it for a spite.
Lady.
God grant it last,
And witness to your Grace's innocence,
Till doomsday melt it.
Elizabeth.

Or a second fire,

tongue

daily range

her tripping."

Catch me who can; yet, sometime I have wish'd

That I were caught, and kill'd away