WIFE

My Lord, I do not grieve out of a thought, Or poor suspicion, they with all their malice Can stain your honour, but it troubles me, The King should grant this licence to your enemies, As he were willing to hear Chabot guilty. I am considering What form I shall put on, as best agreeing With my Lords fortune. Both wood be appareled. I'll not accuse my heart of so much weakness It a confession gainst my Lord. The Queen! She has expressed against me some displeasure. There is some mystery Within your language Madam, I would hope You have more charity than to imagine My present condition worth your triumph, In which I am not so lost, but I have Some friends and servants with proportion To my Lords fortune, but none within the list Of those that obey me can be more ready To express their duties, than my heart to serve Your just commands. My Lord? And it concerns me to begin, I have not made this pause through servile fear Or guilty apprehension of your rage, But with just wonder of the heats, and wildness Has prepossessed your nature gainst our innocence, You are my Queen, unto that title bows The humblest knee in France, my heart made lower With my obedience, and prostrate duty, Nor have I powers created for my use, When just commands of you expect their service; But were you Queen of all the world, or something To be thought greater, betwixt heaven and us That I could reach you with my eyes and voice, I would shoot both up in defence of my Abused honour, and stand all your lightning. So just and boldly innocent, I cannot fear armed with a noble conscience The tempest of your frown, were it more frightful Then every fury made a woman's anger, Prepared to kill with death's most horrid ceremony, Yet with what freedom of my soul I can Forgive your accusation of my pride. Yes, and have doubt already, and no stain To your greatness Madam, 'tis my charity I can remit, when sovereign Princes dare Do injury to those that live beneath them, They turn worth pity, and their pray rs, and 'tis In the free power of those whom they oppress To pardon e'm, each soul has a prerogative, And privilege royal that was signed by heaven, But though ith knowledge of my disposition Stranger to pride, and what you charge me with, I can forgive the injustice done to me, And striking at my person, I have no Commission from my Lord to clear you for The wrongs you have done him, and still he pardon The wounding of his loyalty, with which life Can hold no balance, I must talk just boldness To say— I would done, if the devotion to my Lord, Or piety to his innocence have led me Beyond the awful limits to be observed By one so much beneath your sacred person, I thus low crave your royal pardon Madam; I know you will remember in your goodness, My life blood is concerned while his least vein Shall run black and polluted, my heart fed With what keeps him alive, nor can there be A greater wound than that which strikes the life Of our good name, so much above the bleeding Of this rude pile we carry, as the soul Hath excellence above this earthborn frailty: My Lord, by the Kings will is led already To a severe arraignment, and to Judges, Will make no tender search into his tract Of life and state, stay but a little while, And ranc shall ho to his shame or innocence, This suit I beg with tears, I shall have sorrow Enough to hear him censured foul and monstrous, Should you forbear to antedate my sufferings. I sooner will suspect the stars may loose Their way, and crystal heaven return to Chaos; Truth its not on her square more firm than he; Yet let me tell you Madam, were his life And Actium so foul as you have charactered, And the bade world expects, though as a wife It duty I should weep my self to death, To know him fallen from virtue, yet so much I a frail woman love my King and Country, I should condemn him too, and think all honours The price of his lost faith more fatal to me, Than Cleopatra's asps warm in my bosom, And as much boast their killing. Heaven preserve the Queen, And may her heart be charitable. From whence came That found of Chabot? then we are all undone: O do not hear the Queen, she is no friend To my poor Lord, but made against his life, Which hath too many enemies already. Why do you mock my sorrow! can you flatter Your own grief so, be just, and hear me sir, And do not sacrifice a Subject's blood To appease a wrathful Queen, let mercy shine Upon your brow, and heaven will pay it back Upon your soul, be deaf to all her prayers. I beg my Chab ts life, my sorrows yet Have not destroyed my reason. Then you have no power, And are but the empty shadow of a King, To whom is it resigned? where shall I beg The forfeit life of one condemn worser by Laws To partial doom? Be lest for ever fort. Heaven preserve the King. It will but Enlarge a passion—my Lord he'll come Another time and tender you his service. Although I Like it not, I must obey. Pray heaven you may. How soon turned widow. His heart is broken. What can become of me? Both your servants.