Elizabeth R

Queen Elizabeth I:
I want to be young again. I want to have my hopes again. And I want not to feel time... like a dead child in my womb.

Queen Elizabeth I:
I thought that if all other men deserted me, you would not.

Robert Dudley:
I would die for you!

Queen Elizabeth I:
What is that to do with it?

Queen Elizabeth I:
All my life, I have been shadowed by conspiracy. The axe, the dagger, the block... they are as familiar to me as spring flowers to a countryman. Fears and doubts circle my head like black crows around a corpse. Every time a new treachery is revealed, I am strangely surprised. Foolishly, I expect good in a world where men pursue evil.

Sir Amyas Paulet:
You have been brought Fotheringay to be examined by certain lords, and you are required to make answer to the grave charges that you did conspire to displace our sovereign lady Elizabeth of England, and to ruin her kingdom by the shedding of blood.

Mary Queen Scots:
Does Bess acknowledge me as true kin and rightful heir to her throne?

Sir Amyas Paulet:
No, ma'am. She does not.

Mary Queen Scots:
Then she has no claim on me. I am no subject, Paulet, but a queen. I owe England nothing.

Sir Amyas Paulet:
You would be wise, madam, to confess your grievous faults and crimes before you are brought to trial.

Mary Queen Scots:
I am not a child to be advised, thus. Keep your counsel, for I will have none of it.

Queen Elizabeth I:
I grieve, and dare not show my discontent. I love, and yet I am forced to seem to hate. I do, yet dare not say I ever meant. I seem stark mute, but inwardly I do prate. I am, and not. I freeze, yet am burned since from myself my other self I turned. My care is like my shadow in the sun... follows me flying, flies when I pursue it. Stand and lies by me, doth what I have done. This too familiar care doth make me rue it, not means I find to rid him from my breast. Til, by the end of things, it be suppressed. O, let me live with some more sweet content. Or die, and so forget what love ere meant.

Mary Queen Scots:
Remember this, Paulet. The theatre of the world is wider than this little realm of England. And my death, should it presently occur, will blaze wide and dangerously.

Queen Elizabeth I:
You are welcomed back to court, my Lord. You see? Your policy has triumphed. What advice would you have for me now?

Robert Dudley:
I would not dare to offer you advice, my Queen.

Queen Elizabeth I:
Why not?

Robert Dudley:
The philosophers teach us that beauty is wisdom, and so you are the wisest woman in the world.

Queen Elizabeth I:
You must not speak to me like that. It is not fit. You are a married man, and I... we will deal more honestly with each other from now on. [Glares sharply at Dudley]

Mary Queen Scots:
Why, even at Tutbury,when I was grievous ill, even then you showed me no kindness.

Sir Amyas Paulet:
Your immediate needs were taken care of.

Mary Queen Scots:
My bed sheets were never changed!

Sir Amyas Paulet:
Indeed they were, madam.

Mary Queen Scots:
Only when I complained most vigorously!

Sir Amyas Paulet:
Then perhaps you would have been wiser to complain sooner.

Mary Queen Scots:
You did nothing for my comfort in that wretched house. Small wonder I fell ill. Every corner was a pissing place. The middens bred vermin, the damp knotted my bones,and the bad air mortified my spirits.

Sir Amyas Paulet:
That was at Tutbury, ma'am. Surely you are more content now that you have removed.

Mary Queen Scots:
How can I be content in a prison?

Queen Elizabeth I:
You are recovered,then, Sir Francis?

Walsingham:
Thank you, madam. The pain is less severe.

Queen Elizabeth I:
And the deed is done. Your work is accomplished. The dog died, did you know? The terrier? It refused food, grew thin and died. The dog and its mistress, both dead.

Walsingham:
There was no other path, Majesty. You acted with great wisdom.

Queen Elizabeth I:
You think there is great wisdom in killing a queen?

Walsingham:
She is at rest,madam. And with God's good grace, she will find eternal peace.

Queen Elizabeth I:
Peace. You are much mistaken, Sir Francis. There is no peace for the dead. This is a busy time for my royal cousin. Already the creatures are at work, crawling between her lips, entering her nose, burrowing beneath her eyes. Worms cluster in her belly, competing with foul maggots for the tastiest morsel. Even now she is being invaded by a legion of grey flesh-eaters. Even now the body writhes and moves with the activities of countless parasites. There is no peace for my cousin, Sir Francis, and will be none till she is consumed and rotten. Only then will her white bones be at rest. This is our common end, old Moor, picked clean by worms, flesh curdling with corruption, stinking like a blocked midden. So do not talk to me of God's good grace. Dying is a fearful process. I have known death since I was a child. I have stared long into his white, unseeing eyes. I know his dread cruelty. When you are lying on your last bed remember my words. Cry out for mercy. Bite deep intoyour lips, and recall how you plotted my cousin's most terrible end.

Queen Elizabeth I:
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,I do,yet dare not say I ever meant,I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate,I am and not,I freeze and yet am burned,Since from myself another self I turned,My care is like my shadow in the sun,Follows me flying,flies when I pursue it,Stands and lies by me,doth what I have done,His to familiar care doth make me rue it.No means I find to rid him from my breast,Till by the end of things it be supprest.Some gentler passion slide into my mind,For I am soft and made of melting snow;Or be more cruel love and yet be so kind.Let me float or sink,be high or low.Or let me live some more sweet content,Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

Sir Robert Cecil:
Ma'am, for the sake of the people you must go to bed

Queen Elizabeth I:
Little Man, the word must is not used to Princes

Queen Elizabeth I:
There is only one Jesus Christ, one faith. All else is a dispute over titles.

[during the Queen's speech to her troops at Tilbury]

Old Soldier:
God's blood, she breedeth courage in a man!

Queen Elizabeth I:
I may not be a lion, but I am a lion's cub, and I have a lion's heart.

Queen Elizabeth I:
This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes!

Mary I:
You look at me with the eyes of your mother. Who said of my mother, "She will be my death, or I hers." And when my mother lay dead, and they took her heart from her body, they found at the heart's centre a black and terrible core!

Queen Elizabeth I:
Madame, Madame, I beg you - let the past be buried.

Mary I:
No water would wash away the blackness of that thing that had stopped my mother's heart. And it came there by foul practices of witchcraft!

Queen Elizabeth I:
God forbid that should be true!

Robert Dudley:
When you were 8 years old, you told me you would never marry. I did not believe you.

Queen Elizabeth I:
You have forgotten what happened when I was 8 years old.

Robert Dudley:
Catherine Howard?

Queen Elizabeth I:
She was always kind to me. More like a sister than a stepmother. She tried to reach my father to beg for her life... but they wouldn't let her speak to him. He was her husband, but they wouldn't let her speak to him. They dragged her away, and then they cut off her head. I learned then how dangerous life was.

Robert Dudley:
You and I both know what it is to have an axe fall very close to our own heads... and yet to LIVE!

Queen Elizabeth I:
But never to live SAFELY again.

Robert Dudley:
Yielding can bring a kind of safety. You would learn that on our wedding night.

Queen Elizabeth I:
As my mother did?

Robert Dudley:
Elizabeth!

Queen Elizabeth I:
As I am now, I owe my life to no man's goodwill. Except the goodwill of the people... and I have always known how to keep that.