War. A thousand blessings guard our lawful

arms!

A thousand horrors pierce our enemies' souls! Pale fear unedge their weapons' sharpest points, And when they draw their arrows to the head, Numbness shall strike their sinews! such advantage

Hath majesty in its pursuit of justice,

That on the proppers up of Truth's old throne,
It both enlightens counsel, and gives heart
To execution; whilst the throats of traitors
Lie bare before our mercy. O divinity
Of royal birth! how it strikes dumb the tongues
Whose prodigality of breath is bribed

By trains to greatness! Princes are but men,
Distinguish'd in the fineness of their frailty;
Yet not so gross in beauty of the mind;
For there's a fire more sacred, purifies

The dross of mixture. Herein stand the odds,
Subjects are men on earth, kings men and gods.

[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall.8

Enter KATHERINE and JANE, in Riding-suits, with one Servant.

Kath. It is decreed; and we must yield to fate, Whose angry justice, though it threaten ruin, Contempt, and poverty, is all but trial Of a weak woman's constancy in suffering. Here in a stranger's, and an enemy's land, Forsaken and unfurnish'd of all hopes, But such as wait on misery, I range To meet affliction wheresoe'er 1 tread. My train, and pomp of servants, is reduced To one kind gentlewoman, and this groom. Sweet Jane, now whither must we?

Jane. To your ships,

Dear lady, and turn home.

Kath. Home! I have none.

Fly thou to Scotland; thou hast friends will weep
For joy to bid thee welcome; but, oh Jane,
My Jane! my friends are desperate of comfort,
As I must be of them: the common charity,
Good people's alms, and prayers of the gentle,
Is the revenue must support my state.
As for my native country, since it once

St. Michael's Mount.] It appears that when Perkin marched on his ill-fated expedition, Lady Katherine was left at this place, from which she was now preparing to withdraw, on some rumours of her husband's want of success.

Saw me a princess in the height of greatness
My birth allow'd me; here I make a vow,
Scotland shall never see me, being fallen,
Or lessen'd in my fortunes. Never, Jane,
Never to Scotland more will I return.
Could I be England's queen, a glory, Jane,
I never fawn'd on, yet the king who gave me,
Hath sent me with my husband from his presence;
Deliver'd us suspected to his nation;

Render'd us spectacles to time and pity:
And is it fit I should return to such

As only listen after our descent

From happiness enjoy'd, to misery,

Expected, though uncertain? Never, never!
Alas, why dost thou weep? and that poor creature
Wipe his wet cheeks too? let me feel alone
Extremities, who know to give them harbour;
Nor thou nor he has cause: you may live safely.
Jane. There is no safety whilst your dangers,
madam,

Are every way apparent.

Serv. Pardon, lady;

I cannot choose but shew my honest heart;

You were ever my good lady.

Kath. Oh, dear souls,

Your shares in grief are too too much.

Dal. I bring,

Enter DALYELL.

Fair princess, news of further sadness yet,

Than your sweet youth hath been acquainted with.

Kath. Not more, my lord, than I can welcome;

speak it,

The worst, the worst I look for.

Dal. All the Cornish,

At Exeter were by the citizens

Repulsed, encounter'd by the earl of Devonshire,
And other worthy gentlemen of the country.
Your husband march'd to Taunton, and was there
Affronted by king Henry's chamberlain ;9
;9
The king himself in person, with his army
Advancing nearer, to renew the fight
On all occasions: but the night before

The battles were to join, your husband privately,
Accompanied with some few horse, departed
From out the camp, and posted none knows whi-
ther.

Kath. Fled without battle given?

Dal. Fled, but follow'd

By Dawbeney; all his parties left to taste
King Henry's mercy, for to that they yielded;
Victorious without bloodshed.

Kath. Oh, my sorrows!

If both our lives had proved the sacrifice

9 Affronted by King Henry's chamberlain.] i.e. met directly in front by Dawbeney. It is sufficiently clear from the exulting language of this wily monarch in the scene with Urswick, p. 95. that he had made himself sure of the overthrow of Warbeck, whom he had, by this time, environed with his agents: hence the disgraceful flight of the usurper, the recourse to the sanctuary of Bewley, and subsequent surrender. Bacon shrewdly observes, on this occasion, that the king was grown to be such a partner with Fortune, as no body could tell what actions the one, and what the other owned. It was generally believed, he adds, that Perkin was betrayed, and that the king led him, at the time of his flight, in a line;" a fact to which he does not seem disposed to give credit.

66

To Henry's tyranny, we had fall'n like princes,
And robb'd him of the glory of his pride.

Dal. Impute it not to faintness or to weakness
Of noble courage, lady, but [to] foresight;
For by some secret friend he had intelligence
Of being bought and sold by his base followers.
Worse yet remains untold.

Kath. No, no, it cannot.

Dal. I fear you are betray'd: the Earl of Oxford

Runs hot in your pursuit.'

1

Kath. He shall not need;

the Earl of Oxford

Runs hot in your pursuit.] "There were also sent (Lord Bacon says) with all speed some horse to St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, where the Lady Catharine Gordon was left by her husband, whom in all fortunes she intirely loved, adding the virtues of a wife to the virtues of her sex.'

The reader, in whose breast the extraordinary merits of this highborn lady can scarcely fail to have created some degree of interest, will not be displeased, perhaps, with the brief recital of her subsequent fortunes, as given by Sir R. Gordon, whom Douglas calls the Historian of the Family. After quoting the preceding passage from Bacon, Sir Robert adds—" shoe wes brought from St. Michael's Mount, in Cornuall, and delyvered to King Henrie the Seaventh, who intertayned her honorablie, and for her better mantenance, according to her birth and vertue, did assigne vnto her good lands and rents for all the dayes of her lyff. After the death of her husband Richard, shoe mareid Sir Mathie Cradock, (a man of great power at that tyme in Clamorganshyre, in Wales,) of the which mariage is descended this William, Earle of Pembroke, by his grandmother, and had some lands by inheritance from the Cradockes. Lady Katheren Gordon died in Wales, and was buried in a chappell at one of the Earle of Pembrok his dwelling-places in that cuntrey. The Englesh histories doe much commend her for her beauty, comliness, and chastetie."

It would be a pity to omit the pretty passage with which Bacon winds up her eventful story. "The name of the WhiteRose, which had been given to her husband's false title, was continued in common speech to her true beauty."