No More Learning

Hark! the trumpets.

[_The Procession passes_, MARY _and_ ELIZABETH _riding
side by side, and disappears under the gate_.

CITIZENS. Long live Queen Mary! down with all traitors! God save her
Grace; and death to Northumberland!
[_Exeunt_.

_Manent_ TWO GENTLEMEN.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. By God's light a noble creature, right royal!

SECOND GENTLEMAN. She looks comelier than ordinary to-day; but to my
mind the Lady Elizabeth is the more noble and royal.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. I mean the Lady Elizabeth.
Did you hear (I have a
daughter in her service who reported it) that she met the Queen at
Wanstead with five hundred horse, and the Queen (tho' some say they be
much divided) took her hand, call'd her sweet sister, and kiss'd not
her alone, but all the ladies of her following.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, that was in her hour of joy; there will be
plenty to sunder and unsister them again: this Gardiner for one, who
is to be made Lord Chancellor, and will pounce like a wild beast out
of his cage to worry Cranmer.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. And furthermore, my daughter said that when there
rose a talk of the late rebellion, she spoke even of Northumberland
pitifully, and of the good Lady Jane as a poor innocent child who had
but obeyed her father; and furthermore, she said that no one in her
time should be burnt for heresy.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Well, sir, I look for happy times.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. There is but one thing against them. I know not if
you know.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. I suppose you touch upon the rumour that Charles,
the master of the world, has offer'd her his son Philip, the Pope and
the Devil. I trust it is but a rumour.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. She is going now to the Tower to loose the prisoners
there, and among them Courtenay, to be made Earl of Devon, of royal
blood, of splendid feature, whom the council and all her people wish
her to marry. May it be so, for we are many of us Catholics, but few
Papists, and the Hot Gospellers will go mad upon it.