[Enter William the Conqueror; Marques Lubeck, with a picture;
Mountney; Manville; Valingford; and Duke Dirot.]
MARQUES.
What means fair Britain’s mighty Conqueror
So suddenly to cast away his staff,
And all in passion to forsake the tylt?
D. DIROT.
My Lord, this triumph we solemnise here
Is of mere love to your increasing joys,
Only expecting cheerful looks for all;
What sudden pangs than moves your majesty
To dim the brightness of the day with frowns?
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
Ah, good my Lords, misconster not the cause;
At least, suspect not my displeased brows:
I amorously do bear to your intent,
For thanks and all that you can wish I yield.
But that which makes me blush and shame to tell
Is cause why thus I turn my conquering eyes
To cowards looks and beaten fantasies.
MOUNTNEY.
Since we are guiltless, we the less dismay
To see this sudden change possess your cheer,
For if it issue from your own conceits
Bred by suggestion of some envious thoughts,
Your highness wisdom may suppress it straight.
Yet tell us, good my Lord, what thought it is
That thus bereaves you of your late content,
That in advise we may assist your grace,
Or bend our forces to revive your spirits.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
Ah, Marques Lubeck, in thy power it lies
To rid my bosom of these thralled dumps:
And therefore, good my Lords, forbear a while
That we may parley of these private cares,
Whose strength subdues me more than all the world.
VALINGFORD.
We go and wish thee private conference
Publicke afffects in this accustomed peace.
[Exit all but William and the Marques.]
WILLIAM.
Now, Marques, must a Conquerer at arms
Disclose himself thrald to unarmed thoughts,
And, threatnd of a shadow, yield to lust.
No sooner had my sparkling eyes beheld
The flames of beauty blazing on this piece,
But suddenly a sense of miracle,
Imagined on thy lovely Maistre’s face,
Made me abandon bodily regard,
And cast all pleasures on my wounded soul:
Then, gentle Marques, tell me what she is,
That thus thou honourest on thy warlike shield;
And if thy love and interest be such
As justly may give place to mine,
That if it be, my soul with honors wing
May fly into the bosom of my dear;
If not, close them, and stoop into my grave!
MARQUES.
If this be all, renowned Conquerer,
Advance your drooping spirits, and revive
The wonted courage of your Conquering mind;
For this fair picture painted on my shield
Is the true counterfeit of lovely Blaunch,
Princess and daughter to the King of Danes,
Whose beauty and excess of ornaments
Deserves another manner of defence,
Pomp and high person to attend her state
Then Marques Lubeck any way presents.
Therefore her vertues I resign to thee,
Already shrined in thy religious breast,
To be advanced and honoured to the full;
Nor bear I this an argument of love,
But to renown fair Blaunch, my Sovereigns child
In every place where I by arms may do it.
WILLIAM.
Ah, Marques, thy words bring heaven unto my soul,
And had I heaven to give for thy reward,
Thou shouldst be throned in no unworthy place.
But let my uttermost wealth suffice thy worth,
Which here I vow; and to aspire the bliss
That hangs on quick achievement of my love,
Thy self and I will travel in disguise,
To bring this Lady to our Brittain Court.
MARQUES.
Let William but bethink what may avail,
And let me die if I deny my aide.
WILLIAM.
Then thus: The Duke Dirot, and Therle Dimarch,
Will I leave substitutes to rule my Realm,
While mighty love forbids my being here;
And in the name of Sir Robert of Windsor
Will go with thee unto the Danish Court.
Keep Williams secrets, Marques, if thou love him.
Bright Blaunch, I come! Sweet fortune, favour me,
And I will laud thy name eternally.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II.
Manchester. The Interior of a Mill.
[Enter the Miller and Em, his daughter.]
MILLER.
Come, daughter, we must learn to shake of pomp,
To leave the state that earst beseemd a Knight
And gentleman of no mean discent,
To undertake this homelie millers trade:
Thus must we mask to save our wretched lives,
Threatned by Conquest of this hapless Yle,
Whose sad invasions by the Conqueror
Have made a number such as we subject
Their gentle necks unto their stubborn yoke
Of drudging labour and base peasantry.
Sir Thomas Godard now old Goddard is,
Goddard the miller of fair Manchester.
Why should not I content me with this state,
As good Sir Edmund Trofferd did the flaile?
And thou, sweet Em, must stoop to high estate
To join with mine that thus we may protect
Our harmless lives, which, led in greater port,
Would be an envious object to our foes,
That seek to root all Britains Gentry
From bearing countenance against their tyranny.
EM.
Good Father, let my full resolved thoughts
With settled patiens to support this chance
Be some poor comfort to your aged soul;
For therein rests the height of my estate,
That you are pleased with this dejection,
And that all toils my hands may undertake
May serve to work your worthiness content.
MILLER.
Thanks, my dear Daughter.
These thy pleasant words
Transfer my soul into a second heaven:
And in thy settled mind my joys consist,
My state revived, and I in former plight.
Although our outward pomp be thus abased,
And thralde to drudging, stayless of the world,
Let us retain those honorable minds
That lately governed our superior state,
Wherein true gentry is the only mean
That makes us differ from base millers borne.
Though we expect no knightly delicates,
Nor thirst in soul for former soverainty,
Yet may our minds as highly scorn to stoop
To base desires of vulgars worldliness,
As if we were in our precedent way.
And, lovely daughter, since thy youthful years
Must needs admit as young affections,
And that sweet love unpartial perceives
Her dainty subjects through every part,
In chief receive these lessons from my lips,
The true discovers of a Virgins due,
Now requisite, now that I know thy mind
Something enclined to favour Manvils suit,
A gentleman, thy Lover in protest;
And that thou maist not be by love deceived,
But try his meaning fit for thy desert,
In pursuit of all amorous desires,
Regard thine honour. Let not vehement sighs,
Nor earnest vows importing fervent love,
Render thee subject to the wrath of lust:
For that, transformed to form of sweet delight,
Will bring thy body and thy soul to shame.
Chaste thoughts and modest conversations,
Of proof to keep out all inchaunting vows,
Vain sighs, forst tears, and pitiful aspects,
Are they that make deformed Ladies fair,
Poor rich: and such intycing men,
That seek of all but only present grace,
Shall in perseverance of a Virgins due
Prefer the most refusers to the choice
Of such a soul as yielded what they thought.
But ho: where is Trotter?
[Here enters Trotter, the Millers man, to them: And they
within call to him for their gryste.]
TROTTER.
Wheres Trotter? why, Trotter is here. Yfaith, you and your
daughter go up and down weeping and wamenting, and keeping of
a wamentation, as who should say, the Mill would go with your
wamenting.
MILLER.
How now, Trotter? why complainest thou so?
TROTTER.
Why, yonder is a company of young men and maids, keep such a
stir for their grist, that they would have it before my stones
be ready to grind it. But, yfaith, I would I could break wind
enough backward: you should not tarry for your gryst, I
warrant you.
MILLER.
Content thee, Trotter, I will go pacify them.
TROTTER.
Iwis you will when I cannot. Why, look, you have a Mill—
Why, whats your Mill without me? Or rather, Mistress, what
were I without you?
[Here he taketh Em about the neck.]
EM.
Nay, Trotter, if you fall achyding, I will give you over.
TROTTER.
I chide you, dame, to amend you. You are too fine to be a
Millers daughter; for if you should but stoop to take up the
tole dish, you will have the cramp in your finger at least
ten weeks after.
MILLER.
Ah, well said, Trotter; teach her to play the good huswife,
and thou shalt have her to thy wife, if thou canst get her
good will.
TROTTER.
Ah, words wherein I see Matrimony come loaden with kisses to
salute me! Now let me alone to pick the Mill, to fill the
hopper, to take the tole, to mend the sails, yea, and to make
the mill to go with the very force of my love.
[Here they must call for their gryst within.]
TROTTER.
I come, I come; yfaith, now you shall have your gryst, or else
Trotter will trot and amble himself to death.
[They call him again. Exit.]
SCENE III.
The Danish Court.
[Enter king of Denmark, with some attendants, Blanch his
daughter, Mariana, Marques Lubeck, William disguised.]
KING OF DENMARK.
Lord Marques Lubecke, welcome home.
Welcome, brave Knight, unto the Denmark King,
For Williams sake, the noble Norman Duke,
So famous for his fortunes and success,
That graceth him with name of Conqueror:
Right double welcome must thou be to us.
ROBERT WINDSOR.
And to my Lord the king shall I recount
Your graces courteous entertainment,
That for his sake vouchsafe to honor me,
A simple Knight attendant on his grace.
KING OF DENMARK.
But say, Sir Knight, what may I call your name?
ROBERT WINDSOR.
Robert Windsor, and like your Majesty.
KING OF DENMARK.
I tell thee, Robert, I so admire the man
As that I count it heinous guilt in him
That honors not Duke William with his heart.
Blanch, bid this stranger welcome, good my girl.
BLANCH.
Sir,
Shouyld I neglect your highness charge herein,
It might be thought of base discourtesy.
Welcome, Sir Knight, to Denmark, heartily.
ROBERT WINDSOR.
Thanks gentle Lady. Lord Marques, who is she?
LUBECK.
That same is Blanch, daughter to the King.
The substance of the shadow that you saw.
ROBERT WINDSOR.
May this be she, for whom I crost the Seas?
I am ashamed to think I was so fond.
In whom there’s nothing that contents my mind:
Ill head, worse featured, uncomely, nothing courtly;
Swart and ill favoured, a Colliers sanguine skin.
I never saw a harder favoured slut.
Love her? for what? I can no whit abide her.
KIND OF DENMARK.
Mariana, I have this day received letters
From Swethia, that lets me understand
Your ransom is collecting there with speed,
And shortly shalbe hither sent to us.
MARIANA.
Not that I find occasion of mislike
My entertainment in your graces court,
But that I long to see my native home—
KING OF DENMARK.
And reason have you, Madam, for the same.
Lord Marques, I commit unto your charge
The entertainment of Sir Robert here;
Let him remain with you within the Court,
In solace and disport to spend the time.
ROBERT WINDSOR.
I thank your highness, whose bounden I remain.
[Exit King of Denmark. Blanch speaketh this secretly at one
end of the stage.]
Unhappy Blanch, what strange effects are these
That works within my thoughts confusedly?
That still, me thinks, affection draws me on,
To take, to like, nay more, to love this Knight?
ROBERT WINDSOR.
A modest countenance; no heavy sullen look;
Not very fair, but richly deckt with favour;
A sweet face, an exceeding dainty hand;
A body were it framed of wax
By all the cunning artists of the world,
It could not better be proportioned.
LUBECK.
How now, Sir Robert? in a study, man?
Here is no time for contemplation.
ROBERT WINDSOR.
My Lord, there is a certain odd conceit,
Which on the sudden greatly troubles me.
LUBECK.
How like you Blanch? I partly do perceive
The little boy hath played the wag with you.
SIR ROBERT.
The more I look the more I love to look.
Who says that Mariana is not fair?
I’ll gage my gauntlet gainst the envious man
That dares avow there liveth her compare.
LUBECK.
Sir Robert, you mistake your counterfeit.
This is the Lady which you came to see.
SIR ROBERT.
Yes, my Lord: She is counterfeit in deed,
For there is the substance that best contents me.
LUBECK.
That is my love. Sir Robert, you do wrong me.
ROBERT.
The better for you, sir, she is your Love—
As for the wrong, I see not how it grows.
LUBECK.
In seeking that which is anothers right.
ROBERT.
As who should say your love were privileged,
That none might look upon her but your self.
LUBECK.
These jars becomes not our familiarity,
Nor will I stand on terms to move your patience.
ROBERT.
Why, my Lord, am
Not I of flesh and blood as well as you?
Then give me leave to love as well as you.
LUBECK.
To Love, Sir Robert? but whom? not she I Love?
Nor stands it with the honor my state
To brook corrivals with me in my love.
ROBERT.
So, Sir, we are thorough for that Lady.
Ladies, farewell. Lord Marques, will you go?
I will find a time to speak with her, I trowe.
LUBECK.
With all my heart. Come, Ladies, will you walk?
[Exit.]
SCENE IV.
The English Court.
[Enter Manvile alone, disguised.]
MANVILE.
Ah, Em! the subject of my restless thoughts,
The Anvil whereupon my heart doth be
Framing thy state to thy desert—
Full ill this life becomes thy heavenly look,
Wherein sweet love and vertue sits enthroned.
Bad world, where riches is esteemd above them both,
In whose base eyes nought else is bountifull!
A Millers daughter, says the multitude,
Should not be loved of a Gentleman.
But let them breath their souls into the air,
Yet will I still affect thee as my self,
So thou be constant in thy plighted vow.
But here comes one—I will listen to his talk.
[Manvile stays, hiding himself.]
[Enter Valingford at another door, disguised.]
VALINGFORD.
Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love
Seek thou a minion in a foreign land,
Whilest I draw back and court my love at home.
The millers daughter of fair Manchester
Hath bound my feet to this delightsome soil,
And from her eyes do dart such golden beams
That holds my heart in her subjection.
MANVILE.
He ruminates on my beloved choice:
God grant he come not to prevent my hope.
But here’s another, him I’ll listen to.
[Enter Mountney, disguised, at another door.]
LORD MOUNTNEY.
Nature unjust, in utterance of thy art,
To grace a peasant with a Princes fame!
Peasant am I, so to misterm my love:
Although a millers daughter by her birth,
Yet may her beauty and her vertues well suffice
To hide the blemish of her birth in hell,
Where neither envious eyes nor thought can pierce,
But endless darkness ever smother it.
Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love,
Whilest I draw back and court mine own the while,
Decking her body with such costly robes
As may become her beauties worthiness;
That so thy labors may be laughed to scorn,
And she thou seekest in foreign regions
Be darkened and eclipst when she arrives
By one that I have chosen nearer home.
MANVILE.
What! comes he too, to intercept my love?
Then hie thee Manvile to forestall such foes.
[Exit Manvile.]
MOUNTNEY.
What now, Lord Valingford, are you behind?
The king had chosen you to go with him.
VALINGFORD.
So chose he you, therefore I marvel much
That both of us should linger in this sort.
What may the king imagine of our stay?
MOUNTNEY.
The king may justly think we are to blame:
But I imagined I might well be spared,
And that no other man had borne my mind.
VALINGFORD.
The like did I: in friendship then resolve
What is the cause of your unlookt for stay?
MOUNTNEY.
Lord Valingford, I tell thee as a friend,
Love is the cause why I have stayed behind.
VALINGFORD.
Love, my Lord? of whom?
MOUNTNEY.
Em, the millers daughter of Manchester.
VALINGFORD.
But may this be?
MOUNTNEY.
Why not, my Lord? I hope full well you know
That love respects no difference of state,
So beauty serve to stir affection.
VALINGFORD.
But this it is that makes me wonder most:
That you and I should be of one conceit
I such a strange unlikely passion.
MOUNTNEY.
But is that true? My Lord, I hope you do but jest.
VALINGFORD.
I would I did; then were my grief the less.
MOUNTNEY.
Nay, never grieve; for if the cause be such
To join our thoughts in such a Simpathy,
All envy set aside, let us agree
To yield to eithers fortune in this choice.
VALINGFORD.
Content, say I: and what so ere befall,
Shake hands, my Lord, and fortune thrive at all.
[Exeunt.]
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