with the ejaculation from her left in the Tower, where she has waited on his last moments,
“Alone, henceforth forever!”
While history makes her transfer her attachment to Pym, who must have been, in her eyes, Strafford’s murderer, on the score of her love of intellectual power, in which all other considerations were merged. This is a character so odious, and in a woman, so unnatural, that we are tempted rather to suppose it was hatred of the king for his base and treacherous conduct towards Strafford, that induced her to betray to Pym the counsels of the court, as the best means of revenge. Such a version of her motives would not be inconsistent with the character assigned her in the play. It would be making her the agent to execute her own curse, so eloquently spoken after she finds the king willing to save himself by the sacrifice of Strafford’s life.
| KING CHARLES. |
| The woman’s mad; her passion braves the skies! |
| LADY CARLISLE. |
| I brave them not; I but invoke their justice |
| To rain hot curses on a tyrant’s head; |
| Henceforth I set myself apart for mischief, |
| To find and prompt men capable of hate, |
| Until some dagger, steeled in Strafford’s blood, |
| Knocks at the heart of Strafford’s murderer. |
| KING CHARLES. |
| His murderer! O God!—no, no,—not that! |
| (Sinks back into a seat.) |
| LADY CARLISLE. |
| And here I call on all the powers above us |
| To aid the deep damnation of my curse, |
| And make this treason to the noblest man, |
| That moves alive within our English seas, |
| Fatal to him and all his race, whose baseness |
| Destroys a worth it ne’er could understand. |
| Stars in your glory, vital air and sun, |
