MARSHALMAN.
Stand back, keep a clear lane! When will her Majesty pass, sayst thou? why now, even now; wherefore draw back your heads and your horns before I break them, and make what noise you will with your tongues, so it be not treason. Long live Queen Mary, the lawful and legitimate daughter of Harry the Eighth! Shout, knaves!

    CITIZENS.
Long live Queen Mary!

    FIRST CITIZEN.
That’s a hard word, legitimate; what does it mean?

    SECOND CITIZEN.
It means a bastard.

    THIRD CITIZEN.
Nay, it means true-born.

    FIRST CITIZEN.
Why, didn’t the Parliament make her a bastard?

    SECOND CITIZEN.
No; it was the Lady Elizabeth.

    THIRD CITIZEN.
That was after, man; that was after.

    FIRST CITIZEN.
Then which is the bastard?

    SECOND CITIZEN.
Troth, they be both bastards by Act of Parliament and Council.

    THIRD CITIZEN.
Ay, the Parliament can make every true-born man of us a bastard. Old Nokes, can’t it make thee a bastard? thou shouldst know, for thou art as white as three Christmasses.

    OLD NOKES (dreamily).
Who’s a-passing? King Edward or King Richard?

    THIRD CITIZEN.
No, old Nokes.

    OLD NOKES.
It’s Harry!

    THIRD CITIZEN.
It’s Queen Mary.

    OLD NOKES.
The blessed Mary’s a-passing!

    NOKES.
Let father alone, my masters! he’s past your questioning.

    THIRD CITIZEN.
Answer thou for him, then thou’rt no such cockerel thyself, for thou was born i’ the tail end of old Harry the Seventh.

    NOKES.
Eh! that was afore bastard-making began. I was born true man at five in the forenoon i’ the tail of old Harry, and so they can’t make me a bastard.

    THIRD CITIZEN.
But if Parliament can make the Queen a bastard, why, it follows all the more that they can make thee one, who art fray’d i’ the knees, and out at elbow, and bald o’ the back, and bursten at the toes, and down at heels.

    NOKES.
I was born of a true man and a ring’d wife, and I can’t argue upon it; but I and my old woman ’ud burn upon it, that would we.

    MARSHALMAN.
What are you cackling of bastardy under the Queen’s own nose? I’ll have you flogg’d and burnt too, by the Rood I will.

    FIRST CITIZEN.
He swears by the Rood. Whew!

    SECOND CITIZEN.
Hark! the trumpets.

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

    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.

    SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Was she not betroth’d in her babyhood to the Great Emperor himself?

    FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Ay, but he’s too old.

    SECOND GENTLEMAN.
And again to her cousin Reginald Pole, now Cardinal; but I hear that he too is full of aches and broken before his day.

    FIRST GENTLEMAN.
O, the Pope could dispense with his Cardinalate, and his achage, and his breakage, if that were all: will you not follow the procession?

    SECOND GENTLEMAN.
No; I have seen enough for this day.

    FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Well, I shall follow; if I can get near enough I shall judge with my own eyes whether her Grace incline to this splendid scion of Plantagenet.