THE Queen was taking counsel already with the Lord Treasurer, Cecil, her all-wise and all-powerful minister. This morning, she was in a harsh and vengeful mood. Many were the plots she had known in the course of a troubled life against the security of that person for whose well-being she had so great a reverence. And each one, as it occurred, had the effect of hardening that naturally ruthless temper to which, like others of her race, she was never afraid to give free play.
The young man, Gervase Heriot, had been proved guilty upon that which was held to be good and sufficient evidence, of a plot against her life. He had been condemned to death by the Court of Star Chamber sitting in camera. But by the wanton and wicked connivance of the young daughter of Sir John Feversham, in whose custody he was held in Nottingham Castle against the time of his execution, Heriot had been able to break out of his prison. Subsequently, the condemned man, in the company of this wicked girl, had wandered about the country many weeks, finally falling in with one Shakespeare, an actor and writer for the theater, who, well knowing they were proscribed, had actively befriended them. Moreover, with unforgivable effrontery, this play-actor had chosen to make public confession of his guilt at a singularly ill-chosen time.
The Queen was not in a mood to hear of leniency in this heinous matter. But Cecil, the Lord Treasurer, was a very wise man, deliberate in speech, tardy in judgment. And the view he held was at direct variance with that of his august mistress.
The Lord Treasurer had already brought the cool and detached mind of a statesman to bear upon a most difficult problem. The actors in this unhappy drama were nothing to him in themselves. Heriot was a man of family, with a considerable estate in the west of England; the girl was the daughter of Sir John Feversham, a man of good reputation, who had rendered thirty years of honest service to the Queen. The man Shakespeare was by profession an actor, and of him there was nothing more to be said. Indeed, as far as the Lord Treasurer was concerned, there was nothing more to be said of any of the persons of the drama. As mere private individuals, they had not the least interest for him; the merits of their cause concerned him but little, yet public expediency, that and only that, was a thing of paramount importance in his eyes. And when all was said, this was certainly a plaguy ill matter, and it had given my lord a very anxious night.
It seemed that Pembroke, a man whom Cecil regarded as a person of weight, had expressed a very definite opinion in regard to the case. According to Pembroke, the man Shakespeare was widely known and esteemed not in London merely, but also throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. He had behaved with the gravest unwisdom, but Pembroke held staunchly to the view that his action was not of a character to incur the inclemency of the law. Moreover, the play-actor had the excuse that he sought an occasion to establish the innocence of a deeply wronged man.
Yet here was a very sore point with the statesmanlike soul of the Lord Treasurer. Heriot had been condemned by the Court of Star Chamber, and Cecil had not the least desire that the case should be re-heard. At the best, the whole affair constituted one of those unsavory businesses which it is ever the aim of true statecraft to keep out of the light of day. To this point of view, however, Pembroke had made the cogent rejoinder that since the whole story had been given to the world, it was no longer possible to treat it as a mystery.
Doubtless it was this fact which rendered Shakespeare’s action unpardonable in the sight of the Queen. She, too, had a faculty of statesmanship, and she was well able to appreciate the point involved; but also she had a woman’s power of illogical resentment, and in her view not the least part of the player’s crime was the inconvenience it caused.
Cecil, having duly taken all the circumstances into account, was already strongly in favor of mercy. It would be wise, in his view, to grant a pardon to the player. The pressure of public opinion was likely to be great, and in the opinion of Cecil that was a cardinal matter. But the Queen was obdurate. She was incensed by the audacity of the man. Great care had been used to keep the whole of this ugly business a close secret, but all precaution had been rendered nugatory by this man’s amazing indiscretion in regard to things that did not well bear the light of day.
“My lord,” said the Queen, with an air of finality, “what I have said, I have said. This man shall make payment for his wicked folly.”
“Be it so, your grace,” said the minister, with a sad shake of the head.
He knew how vain it was to persist when once the Queen had made up her mind. She had all a Tudor’s despotism. The statesman shrugged his shoulders disconsolately. The man Shakespeare had certainly behaved like a stark fool, and richly merited any fate that could overtake him, for my Lord Treasurer’s was that practical order of mind that hates a fool quite as much as it hates a rogue. The one was intelligible, but the other was an affront to the human race. Still, the man Shakespeare had many highly placed friends. And if Cecil himself had little use for the order of things the man represented, he recognized, with that large grasp of mind in which none of his age excelled him, that this play-actor stood for human amenity. And that in itself was a thing that even the most cynical of statesmen cannot afford to neglect.
The Lord Treasurer was about to withdraw from the Queen’s presence, when one of her gentlemen came into the room.
“Madam,” he said, “under your good pleasure, one Richard Burbage, a tragedian, would speak with you upon a matter of great urgency.”
“A pox take him,” said the Queen, roughly. “A pox take all comedians and all tragedians, too. I would that I had never set eyes on any of the tribe. Send the rogue about his business with a flea in his ear. Or stay—send him to us and we will hear what he has to say. And God help the rogue, if he speaks amiss.”
The gentleman withdrew. A minute afterwards, he ushered into the room with great ceremony one Richard Burbage, a tragedian.
It happens continually, in the process of nature, that a man’s calling is declared in his personality. The soldier, the clergyman, the lawyer and the horse-dealer are cases in point. But no man could have borne clearer evidence of the unhappy estate to which it had pleased providence to call him than Richard Burbage, the tragedian. His gaunt face was haggard, his bloodshot eyes were wild, his somber dress was muddy and in sad disorder.
“Well, my man, what is your pleasure?” said the Queen sourly enough, as soon as this odd figure appeared before her.
The tragedian showed no undue haste to reply to the question. There was a slow force in him for which the Queen and Cecil were not prepared. And when he spoke, it was with the calm precision of one secure of soul.
“Your grace,” said the tragedian, and for all his wild eyes he looked steadily at the Queen, “it is my desire to offer my life for the life of William Shakespeare.”
The mood of the Queen was by no means agreeable. Nevertheless, these simple and considered words struck home to the heart of the woman. They had no savor of vainglory. They were the fruit of a rare spirit, and she who was accustomed to judge men was quick, almost in her own despite, to recognize the source from which they sprang.
“Tell me why you offer it, Master Burbage,” said the Queen. “Tell me why life has so little savor for you, that you would yield it for that of a rival actor?”
“I offer my life, your grace, for that of one so far beyond myself that, although I enjoy my days as much as any man alive, there can be no higher privilege than to give them for such a one as he. And the day will surely come when the whole world will rise up and call me blessed.”
These were wild words for prosaic ears. There was almost a core of madness in them, yet it was impossible to doubt the grim sincerity of this fanatic.
The Queen looked at the Lord Treasurer, and the Lord Treasurer looked at the Queen. One fact at once shone clear in the minds of both. It was no ordinary man who offered life itself on the altar of friendship.
“The truth is,” said the Queen at last, “you mad players, who spend your days in mouthing bombast and in tearing passions to tatters, get a kind of swelling in your brains. The truth is, Master Burbage, you over-color all the facts of life. Your speech in consequence is high-flown, your behavior nonsensical, your appearance ridiculous.”
“It may be so, your grace.” The player spoke slowly and calmly, and yet without any great show of humility. “But I would entreat your grace not to overlook the fact that Richard Burbage would pay away his life for the boon he craves.”
“Yes, sirrah, I appreciate that,” said the Queen. “And to me, Master Burbage, I confess it makes you a subject for confinement in a mad-house. How say you, my lord?”
But my lord was thinking so deeply that he failed to answer the question of his august mistress. It was the business of his life to estimate men and things; and for perhaps the first time in his career, he was face to face with men and things with which his recondite knowledge and his remarkable faculty seemed powerless to deal.
“Yes, you bombastical players have an inflammation of the mind, there is no doubt about it,” said the Queen. “In your opinion, Master Burbage, I do not doubt the author of ‘As You Like It’ is the greatest man alive.”
“Yes, your grace,” said the tragedian, very simply, “he is undoubtedly that in his own province, and as, in my humble judgment his province is the highest of all, I cannot honestly claim less than that precedence for him. But, of course, I speak, your grace, as but a strutter of boards and a mouther of bombast. Yet in my humble opinion, a man must be what he is, and be that only, and with all his heart. Nature fashioned me for the theater. Therefore, my life is consecrated to the theater, which for me is the sum of all things, the highest good. And therefore I say to your grace, that never again will the theater look upon the like of William Shakespeare, who to me, and to many another in this age and in ages yet to come, must ever remain the brightest jewel in Gloriana’s crown. And if it be given to Richard Burbage to purchase with his own life the priceless things that lie as yet unborn in the womb of our immortal poet’s invention, it will be a great end for a poor tragedian.”
These singular words were spoken plainly and bluntly enough, but with an air of deference. And they were absolutely sincere. Whatever the Queen’s views might be concerning the sanity of play-actors, she was compelled to recognize this speech, perhaps more by its manner than by its matter, as the product of a powerful and well-ordered mind. It was now the turn of the Queen to ponder deeply. In spite of herself, she could not help being affected by the demeanor of this man.
Now it almost seemed as if Providence had set itself to work on the poet’s behalf, and was determined to make the most of a favorable turn. For that was the moment chosen by it for the announcement to be made to the Queen that two most distinguished persons, the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Walter Raleigh to wit, most humbly craved audience of her Grace.
“I will see them,” said the Queen, peremptorily. “Let them be brought to me.” She then added sourly to the Lord Treasurer, “They are upon this same plaguy business, I’ll warrant.”
Presently appeared these two distinguished gentlemen, true ornaments of their age. Each was a singularly handsome man, not yet in middle life; each had the marked ease of bearing of those who are very familiar with their surroundings. The Queen received them with the rough humor, caustic, witty and by no means unpleasant, which she inherited from her father and kept for her intimates.
“Well, my friends,” she said, “I’ll wager a tester I know already what is your good pleasure.”
“Your grace were infinitely less in wisdom were the case otherwise,” said Pembroke.
“You have come to plead the cause, I do not doubt, of a very foolish and wicked man.”
The silence of Pembroke gave assent to the harsh words.
“Well, my lord, I hope you are prepared as is Master Burbage here to yield your life for him.”
“If it were our privilege, your grace, to do that, we should be greater men than we are like to be—with all respect to Sir Walter here—in the eyes of posterity.”
“A pox upon posterity! Who cares a fig for it? The hour in which we live alone matters to all of us. But tell me, my lord, why do you choose to concern yourself with the matter of this foolish play-actor? And also I would have you make known your wishes in regard to him.”
“Touching your grace’s first question,” said Pembroke, “I am honored by the friendship of one whom I esteem beyond all other men, and for whose deliverance I will gladly pay into the treasury as round a sum as I can well afford.”
The Queen gave a grunt of disgust. The raddled face wore a very unpleasant look.
“Humph,” said she. “That seems little enough, my lord. Master Burbage here offers his life.”
Pembroke turned instantly to the tragedian, with his most courtier-like bow.
“Master Burbage does himself infinite honor,” he said. “I offer the half of my estate and he offers the whole of his, therefore is he twice the man that I am in the sight of heaven.”
“A well-turned speech, my lord,” said the Queen. She then fixed her sour smile upon Raleigh. “Tell me, Sir Walter,” she said, “what is the price you are prepared to pay for this foolish and wicked player’s ransom?”
The point-blank question was answered readily enough.
“The half of my fortune, your grace,” said Raleigh, “even as my Lord Pembroke.”
“But Master Burbage here,” said the Queen, acidly, “is prepared to pay the whole of his life.”
“Your grace,” said Raleigh with shining eyes, “Master Burbage is indeed a man happy in his valor and noble in the scope and compass of his nature. Our poet is fortunate in such a friend, yet such high constancy is not less than his deserts.”
This frank speech gave pause to the Queen. When the worst had been said of her, a robust commonsense remained the keystone of her character. These were men she was bound to respect. And to hear them express such unqualified opinions in regard to this play-actor had the effect in some degree of modifying her attitude. Besides, she herself believed the playwright to be a very remarkable man. But the combined testimony of such men as Pembroke and Raleigh made it clear that he was even more remarkable than she knew him to be.
“My Lord Burleigh,” she said abruptly, addressing Cecil, “let this man Shakespeare be brought to us. We will hear what defence he will venture of his froward conduct.”
The Lord Treasurer quitted the room at once, in obedience to this command. Burbage, Pembroke and Raleigh would have followed him, had not the Queen ordered them to remain where they were.