Devoured each other, a tottering
Red moon sucks all reason from the human brain, and from
The man steps forth the naked beast.
It is expedient now someone should hang.
JAMES:
Now the plank.
GAVESTON:
The rope’s not running.
JAMES:
We’ll soon soap it.
SOLDIERS singing in the background:
Neddy’s woman has hair on his chest.
Pray for us, pray for us, pray for us.
A SOLDIER:
What do you feel, sir?
GAVESTON:
First take away the drum.
SOLDIER:
Will you scream, sir?
GAVESTON:
Pray you, remove the drum. I’ll not
Scream.
JAMES:
Good sir, now shut your mouth.
Put the noose on him. His neck is short.
GAVESTON:
I pray you, have done quickly.
And I pray you read again my sentence.
JAMES reads the sentence: then:
Now, onward.
GAVESTON:
Edward! My friend Edward! Help me
If thou art still of this world. Edward!
Enter a soldier.
SOLDIER:
Stop! A message from the King!
GAVESTON:
He is still of this world.
ARCHBISHOP reads:
‘I have heard that you have taken Gaveston
And I entreat you that I may
See him before he dies, since I know
That die he shall – and send my word
And seal: he shall come back.
And if you will so gratify me
I shall be mindful of the courtesy.
Edward.’
GAVESTON:
Edward!
ARCHBISHOP:
What now?
LANCASTER:
This paper, lords, is worth a battle won.
GAVESTON:
Edward. Thy name gives me life.
LANCASTER:
It need not. We might, for instance
Send the king thy heart.
GAVESTON:
Our good King Edward swears his bond and seal
He will but see me and then send me back.
LANCASTER:
When?
Laughter.
For his Danny, once he sees him
He’ll break any seal, defying God.
ARCHBISHOP:
Ere a king of England breaks an oath
This isle shall break into the ocean.
LANCASTER:
So. Send him Gaveston and hang him
After.
MORTIMER:
Hang not Gaveston but send him not.
ARCHBISHOP:
You may deprive a king of his head
But not of his desire.
LANCASTER:
So, skin the hide from him but
Deny him not the slightest courtesy.
And now the fight against Edward Gloucester
Wife to a butcher’s son.
ARCHBISHOP:
Cut him free.
And you, Lord Mortimer, see him delivered.
GAVESTON:
Another night-time’s watch, there and back again.
I bear my death with me as it were my moon.
JAMES:
Much trouble for a low meat-peddler’s son.
Exeunt all save Mortimer, James, and Gaveston.
MORTIMER:
This butcher’s son’s the alpha of the war
And its omega
A rope out of the bog, a shield against arrows; and I
Have him. Holà, James!
Take this man round about and should one ask
Whither, then say: To the knacker’s yard. But handle
Him most gingerly. And bring him
In the morning at eleven to the wood
At Killingworth. Where I shall be.
JAMES:
And if some cause should hinder you?
MORTIMER:
Then what you will.
JAMES:
Come, sir.
Exit with Gaveston.
MORTIMER:
A gentle stench of carrion seems to rise
From my command. But since the moon began
To suck up blood, like mist, and these barons
To have death writ on their faces, I, who know
What’s what and damn all moons, have been
A lump of cowardice.
One man’s enough to kill
Another who might kill a thousand. So I wrap myself
Wily as a man once bitten, in another’s
Skin, namely, the skin of this butcher’s son.
About ten in the evening.
ANNE alone:
O most miserable Queen!
Ah had, before I left sweet France
And was embarked, the waters turned to stone!
Or that those arms that twined about my neck
Had strangled me on my wedding night.
Alas, now must I pursue King Edward
For, widowing me, he’s gone to Killingworth
To battle for this devil Gaveston.
My skin crawls when I behold him.
But he soaks his heart in him as ’twere
A sponge.
And so I am for ever miserable.
O God, why hast thou brought me
Anne of France so low, that
This devil Gaveston might rise.
Enter Gaveston, James, Soldier.
JAMES:
Holà.
ANNE:
Are you soldiers of King Edward?
JAMES:
In no wise.
ANNE:
Who is that man in Irish weeds?
JAMES:
That is Daniel Gaveston, whore to the King
Of England.
ANNE:
Where are you taking him?
JAMES:
To the knacker’s yard.
GAVESTON upstage:
If I had some water for my feet.
SOLDIER:
Here is water.
ANNE:
I pray you, do not deny him this.
GAVESTON:
Let me go to her, it is the queen.
Take me with you, my lady.
JAMES:
Stay there. Just wash your feet. I have my orders.
ANNE:
Why will you not let him speak with me?
JAMES:
Go you apart, your ladyship, that he may wash.
He pushes her away.
GAVESTON:
Stay, good lady, stay!
Unhappy Gaveston, whither goest thou now?
One in the morning.
Lancaster, lords, troops, on the march to Boroughbridge.
A SOLDIER:
Straight on to Boroughbridge.
The word is passed on.
SOLDIERS singing:
Maids of England in your widows weeds mourn.
(In the night)
For your lovers lost at Bannocksbourn.
(In the night)
With aheave and aho.
The King of England bids the drums to roll
(In the night)
That no one may hear their mournful dole
(In the night)
With a rom rom below.
LANCASTER:
All’s well. We’ll take Boroughbridge this very night.
Two in the morning.
Edward, Spencer, Baldock, Young Edward. The sleeping army.
EDWARD:
I long to hear the answer from the barons
Touching my friend, my dearest Gaveston.
Ah Spencer, not all England’s gold
Can ransom him. He is marked
To die. I know the evil nature
Of Mortimer, I know the Archbishop is cruel
And Lancaster ine
xorable and never again
Shall I behold Daniel Gaveston.
And in the end they’ll place their foot upon my neck.
SPENCER:
Were I King Edward, England’s sovereign
Great Edward Longshanks’ issue, I’d not bear
These rowdies’ rage, and suffer that these
Ruffian lords should threaten me in my
Own land. Strike off their heads. Set them
Upon poles. This always works, for sure.
EDWARD:
Yea, gentle Spencer. We have been too mild
Too kind to them. Now that is ended.
Comes Gaveston not back their heads shall fly.
BALDOCK:
This high resolve becomes your majesty.
YOUNG EDWARD:
Why do they make such noise, father?
EDWARD:
They are hacking England’s body, son.
Had I sent thee to them Edward
That they might do my will touching Gaveston
Hadst thou been afraid, boy, before those savage lords?
YOUNG EDWARD:
Yes, father.
EDWARD:
That’s a good answer.
There are many evil birds in the field tonight.
Enter the Queen.
ANNE:
Are you the soldiers of King Edward?
Is this the quarry of Killingworth?
Where is King Edward, soldiers?
SPENCER:
What is it?
A SOLDIER:
ANNE:
Coming from London, for two days’ ride
I have sought you, through bog and scrub and battle.
EDWARD:
Not welcome, madam.
SPENCER:
Two days the battle’s laboured now, made worse
Since army looks like army and they both
Cry out for England and Saint George. By Saint George
Brother butchers brother and like two salamanders
Snarled in struggle army bites at army
And England’s hamlets burn in England’s name.
Toward evening, in the bog, amid the catapults and drowned
There, where Gaveston was taken, fell
So says certain news, Lord Arundel.
Soon after it rained hard. The night was unruly
With skirmishes. The king is somewhat cold but
In good spirits. Our positions are not
Bad, unless this night the barons
Have taken the town of Boroughbridge. Today
All will be settled. As to Gaveston
The lords have sworn to send him to us here.
ANNE aside:
But drag him to the knacker’s yard.
Perhaps it is for the best. But it shall not
Be I who tells him at this hour the man’s
No longer of this world.
Aloud:
Today the hunt’s after thee, Edward.
EDWARD:
Aye
And my friend, Daniel Gaveston is taken.
And through the bog and undergrowth com’st thou.
ANNE:
My lord, if you will spit upon me
Here’s my face.
EDWARD:
Your face is a tombstone. Whereon is writ:
‘Here lies poor Gaveston.’ Have you no
Small comfort even? ‘Be comforted my lord
This Gaveston squinted in one eye.’
But I reply: ‘All skins sicken me
And yours especially.’
I, Edward of England, tell you
Knowing, perchance mere hours divide me
From my wreck: you please me not.
In the eye of death: I love Gaveston.
ANNE:
Certain I shall not forget this cruel insult –
For the few things I hold in my poor head
Stay long therein and melt but very slow –
And so it is good that he is gone.
EDWARD:
Give him me again. All know
That Mortimer’s all powerful. Go thou
To him, for this man is vain
His sort fall easy to a Queen.
Beseech him, use all arts and thine
Especial. The world will soon be wrecked.
What is an oath? I give thee absolution.
ANNE:
Jesu! I cannot.
EDWARD:
Then I banish thee from out my presence.
ANNE:
In these days, when war spreads that
They say, will never end, do you send
Me back through raw butchering army bands?
EDWARD:
Aye. And further give you this charge; to levy
Troops in Scotland for your son
Edward. For things go ill for his father.
ANNE:
Cruel Edward.
EDWARD:
He says this to you: it is your lot.
You are bound to this most cruel Edward, who
Knows you from your heart down to your thighs
Till, like a wild beast in a trap, you die.
ANNE:
Are you most certain of this?
EDWARD:
A thing, willed over to me. You are
Mine alone. Subscribed to me, unasked for
But never free except by my consent.
ANNE:
You send me forth but bind me to you?
EDWARD:
Aye.
ANNE:
Heaven is my witness that I love thee only.
My arms, I thought, could stretch to hold thee
Across this isle. The time to fear is
When they tire.
Do you bind me to you yet send me forth?
EDWARD:
Has no man any news of Gaveston?
ANNE:
He who bids me go but will not let me go
From him shall all men go and yet not let him go.
May his end elude him flayed and wandering.
If he should need a human hand
May the skin be hanging from it, leprous.
And if he would escape from them, to die
May they hold him and not let him go.
EDWARD:
Has no man any news of Gaveston?
ANNE:
If thou waitest for thy friend Gaveston
King Edward, then put an end to hope.
In the bog I saw a man in Irish weeds
And heard them say that he was for the knacker’s yard.
SPENCER:
O bloody perjury!
EDWARD kneeling:
By earth the common mother of us all
By this hard, sere hand
By all the steel that’s in this isle
By the last oaths of a weary breast
By all England’s glory – by my teeth:
I will have your misbegotten bodies
And change them so your mothers will
Not know you. I will have your white
Headless trunks.
ANNE:
Now I see he has become the slave
Body and soul, of this devil Gaveston.
Exit with Young Edward.
Enter a soldier.
SOLDIER:
The barons answer:
We have Boroughbridge, the battle’s done.
If without bloodshed you would have
Relief and help England says to you:
Forget Gaveston, now not in dispute —
EDWARD:
Now not in this world.
SOLDIER:
And foreswear his memory and you’ll
Have peace.
EDWARD:
Good. Tell the barons:
Since you have Boroughbridge and I, therefore
Can fight no further battles, and since
My friend Gaveston’s no longer of
this world
I take your offer; and let there be peace
Between you and me. Come about midday
To the quarry of Killingworth, where I
As you demand, will foreswear
His memory. And come you without arms.
For they would our kingly eye
Offend.
Exit soldier.
EDWARD rousing his soldiers:
Up, you sluggards! Lie in the quarry
Like the dead. Edward Softhand’s
Expecting guests. And when they come
Leap at their throats.
Five in the morning.
Gaveston, James, the other soldier.
GAVESTON:
Where the devil are we going?
Here’s the quarry once again.
We’re going in a circle.
Why do you look at me so cold?
Fifty silver shillings!
Five hundred!
I will not die.
Throws himself on the ground.
JAMES:
Well, so you have shouted. Now we go on.
Enter two soldiers.
SHOUT: Saint George and England!
FIRST: What see’st thou yonder?
SECOND: Fire.
FIRST: That’s Boroughbridge. What hearest thou?
SECOND: Clanging bells.
FIRST: Those are the bell-ropes of Bristol, they are tolling because the King of England and his barons are to conclude a peace.
SECOND: Why so sudden?
FIRST: So England won’t be hacked to bits – they say.
JAMES: Now it seems that once again you are to get off cheap, sir. What time is it?
OTHER SOLDIER: About five o’clock.
Eleven in the morning.
Edward, Spencer, Baldock.
SPENCER:
The peers of England come unarmed
From the hills.
EDWARD:
The sentries are posted?
SPENCER:
Aye.
EDWARD:
Have they ropes?
SPENCER:
Aye.
EDWARD:
Are the troops drawn up, to fall upon
The headless army?
SPENCER:
Aye.
Enter Archbishop, Lancaster, peers.
BALDOCK:
My lord, your peers.
EDWARD:
Bind them with ropes.
PEERS shouting:
Treason! We are in an ambush! Your sworn oath!
EDWARD:
It is fine weather for breaking oaths.
ARCHBISHOP:
You had sworn.
EDWARD:
Drums!
The drums drown the shouting of the peers who are led away bound.
SPENCER:
Mortimer’s missing.
EDWARD:
Then fetch him.
Have you crossbows, slings, catapults?
Bring me the maps!
Scour the land with steel. Comb it through!
Say, before you strangle him, to each man in the scrub:
England’s king is changed into a tiger
In the wood at Killingworth.
Go!
Great battle.
Twelve noon.
Gaveston, James, the other soldier.
JAMES: Shovel, boy. The battle grows. Thy friend shall win.
GAVESTON: What’s this hole for?