Were each, like me, a witness of your wrongs, Your meekness, and the noble fortitude With which you suffer these indignities-- Would you not then emerge from all these trials Like a true queen? Your prison's infamy, Hath it despoiled your beauty of its charms? You are deprived of all that graces life, Yet round you life and light eternal beam. Ne'er on this threshold can I set my foot, That my poor heart with anguish is not torn, Nor ravished with delight at gazing on you. Yet fearfully the fatal time draws near, And danger hourly growing presses on. I can delay no longer--can no more Conceal the dreadful news. (MARY: My sentence then! It is pronounced? Speak freely--I can bear it.) It is pronounced! The two-and-forty judges Have given the verdict, "guilty"; and the Houses Of Lords and Commons, with the citizens Of London, eagerly and urgently Demand the execution of the sentence:-- The queen alone still craftily delays, That she may be constrained to yield, but not From feelings of humanity or mercy. MARY (collected). Sir, I am not surprised, nor terrified. I have been long prepared for such a message. Too well I know my judges. After all Their cruel treatment I can well conceive They dare not now restore my liberty. I know their aim: they mean to keep me here In everlasting bondage, and to bury, In the sepulchral darkness of my prison, My vengeance with me, and my rightful claims.

Sir Edward Mortimer Monologue from Mary Stuart: A Tragedy

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