ALEXANDER
Then thus speaks Loth, the king of Picts.
KENT
And Mordred.
ALEXANDER
Yes, too, and Mordred, Duke of Rothesay, too.
’Tis thus they speak, in fewness and in truth.
KENT
So plainly warned do I now hope for neither.
Come, tell, what would thy dwarfish duke33 proclaim?
ALEXANDER
That Arthur was by boist’rous violence34
And out of holy wedded state begot.
King Uter stole a womb from Cornwall’s bed,
There planted criminal35 seed, and slew the earl,
Ennobled false pretender, spawned no heir.
By any Christian law, adultery
Creates a bastard with no right to throne,
And crime ’gainst God it is to lift a sword
To pillar36 so triobular37 a claim.
Nor Uter nor his brother left no issue.38
Their elder sister, Anne, was wife to Loth,
Who rules all Pictland, Scots, and Irish lands,
Who’s now, by Anne’s bond, English king and Welsh.
King Loth and Mordred bid you, English lords
And bishops, rouse up London, ope its abbey
Wherein pay homage due to Loth, your king,
According as the Britons’ custom is.
DERBY
’Tis all?
ALEXANDER
With this complete and with your love,
He bids the Welsh and English chivalry
Unite with all his lands and western isles,
Together dash the Saxon from his realm.
DERBY
Art breathless yet?
GLOUCESTER
He asks no more than this?
Our lives, our wealth, vouchsafe his endless line,
And vail39 our pride to serve him as his bondmen?40
ALEXANDER
The duke hath taught me more should you dispute
The logic of my principal dispatch,
Although the latter words I fear to voice.
DERBY
How feculent41 thy northern vapors stink!
Would Mercury’s low wings be fixed above
And beating blow away these winds thou pip’st!42
Didst thou us beg pre-pardon43 and free tongue
To lick our ears with gleeks44 so sour and hot?
Come, take my true reply to your King Loth.
He strikes [Alexander]
ALEXANDER
Unrighteous knight, this violence45 done cold
’Gainst embassy’s anathema to God.
DERBY
O, messenger, pay heed to these few words.
What writing hand hast thou? A secretary’s?46
Wouldst thou then, boy, my words ink out with pen,
And dry with grains of fine white callis-sand,47
Or can thy cistern skull retain good water?48
Then tell thy king what Stephen Derby sayeth.
He strikes [Alexander]
ALEXANDER
Most vicious! Evil! Lawless, graceless knight!
NORFOLK
Do Loth and Mordred lust for England’s joys
And long t’embrace our rich and southern earth?
Then tell them, herald purpled,49 shamed to rose50
By bold Sir Derby’s steely words, that Norfolk
Doth bid them cool their passion, ice their stones51
In candied52 Clyde, for England hath her king,
A king who is beloved and temperate,
Extraught53 from ancient stock of heroes’ blood,
Full master of himself and bred to rule,
To freeze like basilisk54 the naughty Scot.
Tell this to Mordred from the Duke of Norfolk.
He strikes [Alexander]
ALEXANDER
Doth mickle55 England want for righteous men
As desert towns that God did burn to ash?56
GLOUCESTER
Restrain yourselves, nobility, and cease!
KENT
From Roman tower ride we north to Loth,
With war as key shall we unlock57 his land,
Upscale58 his Highland bounds and chastise him.
Look close this roweled59 spur of Earl of Kent
And tell Duke Mordred, jauncing60 Gall’way nag,61
That he will curb beneath King Arthur’s weight
Or feel this spur to perforate his hide.
He kicks [Alexander] with spur
ALEXANDER
But grant me leave to flee, cruel men! Enough!
GLOUCESTER
Retire, good Kent, this rage ill suits your name.
SOMERSET
Nay, Gloucester, ’tis no rage but honest law.
Attest, good prelate Caerleon, to this:
Six liberties are granted embassies:
Speak peace, or war, or amity, or none,
Set terms of ransom, voice a lord’s rebuke.
CAERLEON
’Tis by the square.
GLOUCESTER
But licenses no blows.
SOMERSET
Demands ill-mannered for our slavery
Would have us carry coals62 to King of Picts,
Heaps scorn upon our manhood and our king,
Commits felonious lese-majesty,63
Uncounted ways does tickle us to ire?
Were’t not this knave must hear our measured words
I’d cut away these hanging letters-patent.64
This froward65 wants a lesson in his speech,
And begs our gentle-voiced correction, so!
He strikes embassy
CUMBRIA
No English born, your Mordred and his Loth,
And loath are English born to bear strange rule.
To English born belongs this British isle,
To Arthur, noble bear, belongs the throne.
Now come, my saucy wayward embassy,
Bear north what words I will inscribe for thee,
[He draws dagger]
Steel quill, white parchment of your brow, red ink:
Arthur Rex!66
[He carves the letters on Alexander’s forehead]
ALEXANDER
Stop! God, O God, too cruel, hellish men, let go!
CUMBRIA
Rest still, my lazy drone67 and from this nest
Of eagles thou wilt fly true north with words
That weasel68 Pict might at his leisure read.
Exit [Alexander]
GLOUCESTER
Unruly lords of England, ’morrow’s king
May rue today’s ill-judged intemp’rature.69
Our gear70 allows no palfrey’s71 walking pace:
We now must lash your rights along the path:
How many liegemen here swear Arthur king?
CUMBRIA
We all our faithful love to Arthur swear.
ALL
We all do swear. To Arthur! Arthur’s king!
GLOUCESTER
Then waits for you a prince to crown, then war,
And, far-afield, most patient-hopeful, peace.
Exeunt [not Gloucester]
Improvidently Loth in haste and pride,
If not from charity, hath served my king,
And graciously invited jarring72 lords
To point unitedly at him their swords.
Exit
[ACT I,] SCENE V
[Location: The Royal Court, London]
[Enter] Arthur [crowned] solus
ARTHUR
So on a sudden am I made a king.
There is no boy who’d have it otherwise:
To step from forest games and don true crown.
But London’s gamesters1 mark at ten on one2
That Arthur balance still this crown on head,
Or head on neck, ere summer’s come and blown.
Those numbers tickle me; I’ll Gloucester send
To play
a thousand marks that I will fall.
E’en now do am’rous Pict and German hie
From north and east to visit me at court,
And finger my own hat on this my seat.3
There’s something in this wooden chair calls out
To men of vaulting ween4 but little wit.
What? Dare I hold myself above them? Nay.
I know I have no right to wear this crown.
I’ll contradict no pope who calls me king,
But in this privy council kings speak troth:
No right have I, no higher claim than Loth.
A bastard, I, from bloody tyrant sire.
Unkingly, too, am I from th’angry mood
In which I was conceived, some kindnesses
Neglected, mother forced in loveless bed,
And from my part in this bed’s play, they tell,
My monstrous getting surely cursed the land,
Which God will ceaseless venge with pox and drought.
What action might I take to ease this doom?
I stripe my back5 at butchered Cornwall’s tomb?
Still I th’usurper am, by father damned.
O, Arthur, coward boy! Ungrateful churl!6
Say who art thou that acts as solemn judge
Of own creator, shoves him off thy dam,
With pitying heart unbirths thy thankless self?
What king was he to spawn such king as I?
What king he was now lives within my skin.
I bear his blood, his wit, his faults, his sin,
Save he did crave a kingdom for his own,
While crown unsought now perches up on me.
This glistering7 ring was plucked o’ my father’s corpse:
Have I no will in me to venge his death?
He murdered fell whilst I did weave up stems
Into a crown t’anoint a maiden’s brow.
That circlet placed, was she in some sort8 changed?
Nay, nay. Nor can a crown make me a king.
What king am I to be? Not wise, not bold,
My kingdom ought to be the wood and bank,
The vast infinity of summer eves.
But, hear: I talk as if I might now choose.
Cheer up thy mewling self; put doubt to th’axe!
[He looks in mirror]
Here, search this glass: what kingly sight is there?
By right or no, this cap doth suit us9 well.
What foes will come, let come, but no man tell
That Arthur yielded ere he fought to death
For that was his, bestowed by father’s breath.
Exit Arthur
ACT II, SCENE I
[Location: The Royal Kennels]
Enter the Royal Master of the Hounds and his Boy
MASTER
Raised, lifted, up high I am. There’s none less than
the pope who said it so, for say if Arthur is the king,
then is his kennel-duke the king’s kennel-duke,
and all his hounds the king’s hounds now, not prince’s.
The pope in Rome proclaims it, and that’s how we
are all trans-substanced1 now. Tell the beagles,
though they’ll likely bide thee no more, now they
are king’s beagles now, not the same, not at all. They
make voice the same, but the meaning’s altered. And
thou! No more a boy to the prince’s hound-master.
Stand tall, boy, so tall as great hound’s withers! Thou
servest the master of the king’s hounds now. Cuff the
other boys so far thou hast a will.
BOY
And they’ll not cuff me more?
MASTER
An if they do, thou sayest the pope will
excommasticate2 ’em.
BOY
They say the king will not see the dogs no more, no
time for hunts now.
MASTER
When the king had thy years, he passed all hours with
me, slipped his watchers, came tripping to the
hounds. Knew them all and one, e’en by their name,
called ’em to their slips, learnt to flesh3 ’em.
“Highness,” says I, “they’ll be wanting you in for
lessons,” I’d say, but no, I knew he’d stay by. “Or
tilting,” I’d say, “dancing,” and
the king—were not the king, then—the king, says he to me, “If it please,”
talk sweet and crisple4 up their coats with his light
fingers, “If it please, not to give out, leave me just to
see to Peritas, his leg ails, his gait’s not good.” Not for
long years, but back then, he knew better than thou
hast shown, could make ’em bark or hold mum at his