No More Learning

ONE OF THE COUNCIL. Why, what hath fluster'd Gardiner? how he rubs
His forelock!

PAGET. I have changed a word with him
In coming, and may change a word again.

GARDINER. Madam, your Highness is our sun, the King
And you together our two suns in one;
And so the beams of both may shine upon us,
The faith that seem'd to droop will feel your light,
Lift head, and flourish; yet not light alone,
There must be heat--there must be heat enough
To scorch and wither heresy to the root.
For what saith Christ? 'Compel them to come in. '
And what saith Paul? 'I would they were cut off
That trouble you. ' Let the dead letter live!
Trace it in fire, that all the louts to whom
Their A B C is darkness, clowns and grooms
May read it! so you quash rebellion too,
For heretic and traitor are all one:
Two vipers of one breed--an amphisbaena,
Each end a sting: Let the dead letter burn!

PAGET.
Yet there be some disloyal Catholics,
And many heretics loyal; heretic throats
Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane,
But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be
Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord.
To take the lives of others that are loyal,
And by the churchman's pitiless doom of fire,
Were but a thankless policy in the crown,
Ay, and against itself; for there are many.

MARY. If we could burn out heresy, my Lord Paget,
We reck not tho' we lost this crown of England--
Ay! tho' it were ten Englands!

GARDINER. Right, your Grace.
Paget, you are all for this poor life of ours,
And care but little for the life to be.

PAGET. I have some time, for curiousness, my Lord
Watch'd children playing at _their_ life to be,
And cruel at it, killing helpless flies;
Such is our time--all times for aught I know.

GARDINER. We kill the heretics that sting the soul--
They, with right reason, flies that prick the flesh.

PAGET. They had not reach'd right reason; little children!
They kill'd but for their pleasure and the power
They felt in killing.