"My lords," she said, "having passed for a time our edict of silence
upon our good Leicester, we will call you to counsel on a gamesome
matter, more fitted to be now treated of, amidst mirth and music, than
in the gravity of our ordinary deliberations. Which of you, my lords,"
said she, smiling, "know aught of a petition from Orson Pinnit,
the keeper, as he qualifies himself, of our royal bears? Who stands
godfather to his request?"
"Marry, with Your Grace's good permission, that do I," said the Earl of
Sussex. "Orson Pinnit was a stout soldier before he was so mangled by
the skenes of the Irish clan MacDonough; and I trust your Grace will
be, as you always have been, good mistress to your good and trusty
servants."
"Surely," said the Queen, "it is our purpose to be so, and in especial
to our poor soldiers and sailors, who hazard their lives for little pay.
We would give," she said, with her eyes sparkling, "yonder royal palace
of ours to be an hospital for their use, rather than they should call
their mistress ungrateful. But this is not the question," she said,
her voice, which had been awakened by her patriotic feelings, once more
subsiding into the tone of gay and easy conversation; "for this Orson
Pinnit's request goes something further. He complains that, amidst the
extreme delight with which men haunt the play-houses, and in especial
their eager desire for seeing the exhibitions of one Will Shakespeare
(whom I think, my lords, we have all heard something of), the manly
amusement of bear-baiting is falling into comparative neglect, since men
will rather throng to see these roguish players kill each other in
jest, than to see our royal dogs and bears worry each other in bloody
earnest.--What say you to this, my Lord of Sussex?"
"Why, truly, gracious madam," said Sussex, "you must expect little from
an old soldier like me in favour of battles in sport, when they are
compared with battles in earnest; and yet, by my faith, I wish Will
Shakespeare no harm. He is a stout man at quarter-staff, and single
falchion, though, as I am told, a halting fellow; and he stood, they
say, a tough fight with the rangers of old Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot,
when he broke his deer-park and kissed his keeper's daughter."
"I cry you mercy, my Lord of Sussex," said Queen Elizabeth, interrupting
him; "that matter was heard in council, and we will not have this
fellow's offence exaggerated--there was no kissing in the matter, and
the defendant hath put the denial on record. But what say you to his
present practice, my lord, on the stage? for there lies the point, and
not in any ways touching his former errors, in breaking parks, or the
other follies you speak of."