Act II, Scene III — The Wolds in Gloucestershire
Enter Bolingbroke and Northumberland with Forces.
BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord, I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire. These high wild hills and rough uneven ways Draws out our miles and makes them wearisome. And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, Making the hard way sweet and delectable. But I bethink me what a weary way From Ravenspurgh to Cotshall will be found In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company, Which, I protest, hath very much beguiled The tediousness and process of my travel. But theirs is sweetened with the hope to have The present benefit which I possess; And hope to joy is little less in joy Than hope enjoyed. By this the weary lords Shall make their way seem short as mine hath done By sight of what I have, your noble company.
BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company Than your good words. But who comes here?
Enter Harry Percy.
NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy, Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever. Harry, how fares your uncle?
PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learned his health of you.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?
PERCY. No, my good lord. He hath forsook the court, Broken his staff of office, and dispersed The household of the King.
NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason? He was not so resolved when last we spake together.
PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor. But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh To offer service to the Duke of Hereford, And sent me over by Berkeley to discover What power the Duke of York had levied there, Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?
PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot Which ne’er I did remember. To my knowledge, I never in my life did look on him.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now. This is the Duke.
PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service, Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young, Which elder days shall ripen and confirm To more approved service and desert.
BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends; And as my fortune ripens with thy love, It shall be still thy true love’s recompense. My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.
NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley, and what stir Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
PERCY. There stands the castle by yon tuft of trees, Manned with three hundred men, as I have heard. And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour, None else of name and noble estimate.
Enter Ross and Willoughby.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby, Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.
BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues A banished traitor. All my treasury Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enriched, Shall be your love and labour’s recompense.
ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.
BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor; Which, till my infant fortune comes to years, Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?
Enter Berkeley.
NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.
BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is—to “Lancaster”, And I am come to seek that name in England; And I must find that title in your tongue Before I make reply to aught you say.
BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord, ’tis not my meaning To rase one title of your honour out. To you, my lord, I come, what lord you will, From the most gracious regent of this land, The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on To take advantage of the absent time, And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.
Enter York, attended.
BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you. Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!
[Kneels.]
YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee, Whose duty is deceivable and false.
BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle—
YORK. Tut, tut! Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle. I am no traitor’s uncle, and that word “grace” In an ungracious mouth is but profane. Why have those banished and forbidden legs Dared once to touch a dust of England’s ground? But then more why: why have they dared to march So many miles upon her peaceful bosom, Frighting her pale-faced villages with war And ostentation of despised arms? Com’st thou because the anointed king is hence? Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind, And in my loyal bosom lies his power. Were I but now lord of such hot youth As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men, From forth the ranks of many thousand French, O, then how quickly should this arm of mine, Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee And minister correction to thy fault!
BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault. On what condition stands it and wherein?
YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree, In gross rebellion and detested treason. Thou art a banished man, and here art come, Before the expiration of thy time, In braving arms against thy sovereign.
BOLINGBROKE. As I was banished, I was banished Hereford; But as I come, I come for Lancaster. And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye. You are my father, for methinks in you I see old Gaunt alive. O then, my father, Will you permit that I shall stand condemned A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties Plucked from my arms perforce and given away To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born? If that my cousin king be King in England, It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster. You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin. Had you first died and he been thus trod down, He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay. I am denied to sue my livery here, And yet my letters patents give me leave. My father’s goods are all distrained and sold, And these, and all, are all amiss employed. What would you have me do? I am a subject, And challenge law. Attorneys are denied me, And therefore personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent.
NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.
ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.
WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.
YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this: I have had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs And laboured all I could to do him right. But in this kind to come, in braving arms, Be his own carver and cut out his way To find out right with wrong, it may not be. And you that do abet him in this kind Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.
NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is But for his own; and for the right of that We all have strongly sworn to give him aid; And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!
YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms. I cannot mend it, I must needs confess, Because my power is weak and all ill-left; But if I could, by Him that gave me life, I would attach you all and make you stoop Unto the sovereign mercy of the King. But since I cannot, be it known unto you I do remain as neuter. So fare you well— Unless you please to enter in the castle And there repose you for this night.
BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept; But we must win your Grace to go with us To Bristol Castle, which they say is held By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices, The caterpillars of the commonwealth, Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I’ll pause, For I am loath to break our country’s laws. Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are. Things past redress are now with me past care.
[Exeunt.]
Act II, Scene IV — A camp in Wales
Enter Earl of Salisbury and a Welsh Captain.
CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stayed ten days And hardly kept our countrymen together, And yet we hear no tidings from the King. Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman. The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
CAPTAIN. ’Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay. The bay trees in our country are all withered, And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change; Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap, The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other to enjoy by rage and war. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled, As well assured Richard their king is dead.
[Exit.]
SALISBURY. Ah, Richard! With the eyes of heavy mind I see thy glory like a shooting star Fall to the base earth from the firmament. Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west, Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest. Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes, And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.
[Exit.]
Act III, Scene I — Bristol. Bolingbroke’s camp
Enter Bolingbroke, York, Northumberland, Harry Percy, Willoughby, Ross; Officers behind, with Bushy and Green, prisoners.
BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men. Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls— Since presently your souls must part your bodies— With too much urging your pernicious lives, For ’twere no charity; yet to wash your blood From off my hands, here in the view of men I will unfold some causes of your deaths: You have misled a prince, a royal king, A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments, By you unhappied and disfigured clean. You have in manner with your sinful hours Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him, Broke the possession of a royal bed, And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs. Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth, Near to the King in blood, and near in love Till you did make him misinterpret me, Have stooped my neck under your injuries And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds, Eating the bitter bread of banishment, Whilst you have fed upon my signories, Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods, From my own windows torn my household coat, Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign Save men’s opinions and my living blood To show the world I am a gentleman. This and much more, much more than twice all this, Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over To execution and the hand of death.
BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatched.
[Exeunt Northumberland and Others, with Bushy and Green.]
Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house; For God’s sake, fairly let her be entreated. Tell her I send to her my kind commends; Take special care my greetings be delivered.
YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatched With letters of your love to her at large.
BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away, To fight with Glendower and his complices. A while to work, and after holiday.
[Exeunt.]
Act III, Scene II — The coast of Wales. A castle in view
Flourish: drums and trumpets. Enter King Richard, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle and soldiers.
KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle call they this at hand?
AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again. Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs. As a long-parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting, So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth, And do thee favours with my royal hands. Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth, Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense, But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom, And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way, Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet Which with usurping steps do trample thee. Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies; And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies. Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords. This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord. That Power that made you king Hath power to keep you king in spite of all. The means that heaven yields must be embraced And not neglected; else if heaven would, And we will not. Heaven’s offer we refuse, The proffered means of succour and redress.
AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss, Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security, Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin, know’st thou not That when the searching eye of heaven is hid Behind the globe that lights the lower world, Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen In murders and in outrage boldly here; But when from under this terrestrial ball He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines And darts his light through every guilty hole, Then murders, treasons, and detested sins, The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs, Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves? So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke, Who all this while hath revelled in the night Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes, Shall see us rising in our throne, the east, His treasons will sit blushing in his face, Not able to endure the sight of day, But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin. Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off from an anointed king; The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord. For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight, Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
Enter Salisbury.
Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord, Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue And bids me speak of nothing but despair. One day too late, I fear me, noble lord, Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. O, call back yesterday, bid time return, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men! Today, today, unhappy day, too late, O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.
AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege. Why looks your Grace so pale?
KING RICHARD. But now, the blood of twenty thousand men Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And till so much blood thither come again Have I not reason to look pale and dead? All souls that will be safe, fly from my side, For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege. Remember who you are.
KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself. Am I not king? Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest! Is not the King’s name twenty thousand names? Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes At thy great glory. Look not to the ground, Ye favourites of a king. Are we not high? High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?
Enter Sir Stephen Scroop.
SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him.
KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepared. The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold. Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, ’twas my care, And what loss is it to be rid of care? Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we? Greater he shall not be. If he serve God, We’ll serve Him too, and be his fellow so. Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend. They break their faith to God as well as us. Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay. The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP. Glad am I that your highness is so armed To bear the tidings of calamity. Like an unseasonable stormy day Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores As if the world were all dissolved to tears, So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel. Whitebeards have armed their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty; boys with women’s voices Strive to speak big and clap their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown; Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double-fatal yew against thy state; Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills Against thy seat. Both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill. Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot? What is become of Bushy? Where is Green? That they have let the dangerous enemy Measure our confines with such peaceful steps? If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it. I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damned without redemption! Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man! Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart! Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas! Would they make peace? Terrible hell Make war upon their spotted souls for this!
SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate. Again uncurse their souls. Their peace is made With heads, and not with hands. Those whom you curse Have felt the worst of death’s destroying wound And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.
AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?
KING RICHARD. No matter where. Of comfort no man speak! Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let’s choose executors and talk of wills. And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s, And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings— How some have been deposed, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, All murdered. For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and, humoured thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence. Throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, How can you say to me I am a king?
CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne’er sit and wail their woes, But presently prevent the ways to wail. To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe, And so your follies fight against yourself. Fear and be slain—no worse can come to fight; And fight and die is death destroying death, Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
AUMERLE. My father hath a power. Enquire of him, And learn to make a body of a limb.
KING RICHARD. Thou chid’st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come To change blows with thee for our day of doom. This ague fit of fear is overblown; An easy task it is to win our own. Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power? Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky The state in inclination of the day; So may you by my dull and heavy eye. My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. I play the torturer by small and small To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken: Your uncle York is joined with Bolingbroke, And all your northern castles yielded up, And all your southern gentlemen in arms Upon his party.
KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough. [To Aumerle.] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth Of that sweet way I was in to despair. What say you now? What comfort have we now? By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly That bids me be of comfort any more. Go to Flint Castle. There I’ll pine away; A king, woe’s slave, shall kingly woe obey. That power I have, discharge, and let them go To ear the land that hath some hope to grow, For I have none. Let no man speak again To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
AUMERLE. My liege, one word.
KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. Discharge my followers. Let them hence away, From Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day.
[Exeunt.]
Act III, Scene III — Wales. Before Flint Castle
Enter, with drum and colours, Bolingbroke and Forces; Northumberland and Others.
BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord: Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland To say “King Richard”. Alack the heavy day When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief Left I his title out.
YORK. The time hath been, Would you have been so brief with him, he would Have been so brief with you to shorten you, For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.
BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should, Lest you mistake. The heavens are o’er our heads.
BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself Against their will. But who comes here?
Enter Harry Percy.
Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
PERCY. The castle royally is manned, my lord, Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE. Royally! Why, it contains no king?
PERCY. Yes, my good lord, It doth contain a king. King Richard lies Within the limits of yon lime and stone, And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury, Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman Of holy reverence—who, I cannot learn.
NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
BOLINGBROKE. [To Northumberland.] Noble lord, Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle; Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley Into his ruined ears, and thus deliver: Henry Bolingbroke On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand And sends allegiance and true faith of heart To his most royal person, hither come Even at his feet to lay my arms and power, Provided that my banishment repealed And lands restored again be freely granted. If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen— The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke It is such crimson tempest should bedrench The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land, My stooping duty tenderly shall show. Go signify as much, while here we march Upon the grassy carpet of this plain. Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum, That from this castle’s tottered battlements Our fair appointments may be well perused. Methinks King Richard and myself should meet With no less terror than the elements Of fire and water, when their thund’ring shock At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven. Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water; The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain My waters—on the earth, and not on him. March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.
A parley sounded, and answered by a trumpet within. Flourish. Enter on the Walls, the King, the Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle, Scroop and Salisbury
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear, As doth the blushing discontented sun From out the fiery portal of the east, When he perceives the envious clouds are bent To dim his glory and to stain the track Of his bright passage to the occident.
YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye, As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe That any harm should stain so fair a show!
KING RICHARD. [To Northumberland.] We are amazed, and thus long have we stood To watch the fearful bending of thy knee Because we thought ourself thy lawful king. And if we be, how dare thy joints forget To pay their awful duty to our presence? If we be not, show us the hand of God That hath dismissed us from our stewardship; For well we know no hand of blood and bone Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre, Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. And though you think that all, as you have done, Have torn their souls by turning them from us, And we are barren and bereft of friends, Yet know: my master, God omnipotent, Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike Your children yet unborn and unbegot, That lift your vassal hands against my head And threat the glory of my precious crown. Tell Bolingbroke—for yon methinks he stands— That every stride he makes upon my land Is dangerous treason. He is come to open The purple testament of bleeding war; But ere the crown he looks for live in peace, Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons Shall ill become the flower of England’s face, Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace To scarlet indignation, and bedew Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.
NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King Should so with civil and uncivil arms Be rushed upon! Thy thrice-noble cousin, Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand; And by the honourable tomb he swears That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones, And by the royalties of both your bloods, Currents that spring from one most gracious head, And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt, And by the worth and honour of himself, Comprising all that may be sworn or said, His coming hither hath no further scope Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg Enfranchisement immediate on his knees; Which on thy royal party granted once, His glittering arms he will commend to rust, His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart To faithful service of your Majesty. This swears he, as he is a prince and just; And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say, thus the King returns: His noble cousin is right welcome hither, And all the number of his fair demands Shall be accomplished without contradiction. With all the gracious utterance thou hast, Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
[Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke.]
[To Aumerle.] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, To look so poorly and to speak so fair? Shall we call back Northumberland and send Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
AUMERLE. No, good my lord. Let’s fight with gentle words Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
KING RICHARD. O God, O God, that e’er this tongue of mine That laid the sentence of dread banishment On yon proud man should take it off again With words of sooth! O, that I were as great As is my grief, or lesser than my name, Or that I could forget what I have been, Or not remember what I must be now. Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to beat, Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit? The King shall do it. Must he be deposed? The King shall be contented. Must he lose The name of King? I’ God’s name, let it go. I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown, My figured goblets for a dish of wood, My sceptre for a palmer’s walking-staff, My subjects for a pair of carved saints, And my large kingdom for a little grave, A little, little grave, an obscure grave; Or I’ll be buried in the King’s highway, Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head; For on my heart they tread now whilst I live, And, buried once, why not upon my head? Aumerle, thou weep’st, my tender-hearted cousin! We’ll make foul weather with despised tears; Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn And make a dearth in this revolting land. Or shall we play the wantons with our woes And make some pretty match with shedding tears? As thus, to drop them still upon one place Till they have fretted us a pair of graves Within the earth; and, therein laid, there lies Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes. Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see I talk but idly, and you laugh at me. Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland, What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty Give Richard leave to live till Richard die? You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend To speak with you. May it please you to come down?
KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaëthon, Wanting the manage of unruly jades. In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base, To come at traitors’ calls, and do them grace. In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king! For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
[Exeunt from above.]
BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?
NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man. Yet he is come.
Enter King Richard and his attendants.
BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart, And show fair duty to his Majesty. [Kneeling.] My gracious lord.
KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee To make the base earth proud with kissing it. Me rather had my heart might feel your love Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy. Up, cousin, up. Your heart is up, I know, Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord, As my true service shall deserve your love.
KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have That know the strong’st and surest way to get. Uncle, give me your hands. Nay, dry your eyes. Tears show their love, but want their remedies. Cousin, I am too young to be your father, Though you are old enough to be my heir. What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too; For do we must what force will have us do. Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?
BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.
KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]
Act III, Scene IV — Langley. The Duke of York’s garden
Enter the Queen and two Ladies.
QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden To drive away the heavy thought of care?
LADY. Madam, we’ll play at bowls.
QUEEN. ’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs And that my fortune runs against the bias.
LADY. Madam, we’ll dance.
QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief. Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.
LADY. Madam, we’ll tell tales.
QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?
LADY. Of either, madam.
QUEEN. Of neither, girl. For if of joy, being altogether wanting, It doth remember me the more of sorrow; Or if of grief, being altogether had, It adds more sorrow to my want of joy. For what I have I need not to repeat, And what I want it boots not to complain.
LADY. Madam, I’ll sing.
QUEEN. ’Tis well that thou hast cause; But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good, And never borrow any tear of thee. But stay, here come the gardeners. Let’s step into the shadow of these trees. My wretchedness unto a row of pins, They will talk of state, for everyone doth so Against a change; woe is forerun with woe.
[Queen and Ladies retire.]
Enter a Gardener and two Servants.
GARDENER. Go, bind thou up young dangling apricocks, Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight. Give some supportance to the bending twigs. Go thou, and like an executioner Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays That look too lofty in our commonwealth. All must be even in our government. You thus employed, I will go root away The noisome weeds which without profit suck The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
SERVANT. Why should we in the compass of a pale Keep law and form and due proportion, Showing, as in a model, our firm estate, When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined, Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars?
GARDENER. Hold thy peace. He that hath suffered this disordered spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf. The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter, That seemed in eating him to hold him up, Are plucked up, root and all, by Bolingbroke— I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
SERVANT. What, are they dead?
GARDENER. They are. And Bolingbroke Hath seized the wasteful King. O, what pity is it That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land As we this garden! We at time of year Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees, Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood, With too much riches it confound itself. Had he done so to great and growing men, They might have lived to bear and he to taste Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches We lop away, that bearing boughs may live. Had he done so, himself had home the crown, Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?
GARDENER. Depressed he is already, and deposed ’Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s That tell black tidings.
QUEEN. O, I am pressed to death through want of speaking!
[Coming forward.]
Thou, old Adam’s likeness, set to dress this garden, How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee To make a second fall of cursed man? Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed? Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth, Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how, Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch!
GARDENER. Pardon me, madam. Little joy have I To breathe this news; yet what I say is true. King Richard, he is in the mighty hold Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weighed. In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself, And some few vanities that make him light; But in the balance of great Bolingbroke, Besides himself, are all the English peers, And with that odds he weighs King Richard down. Post you to London, and you will find it so. I speak no more than everyone doth know.
QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot, Doth not thy embassage belong to me, And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest To serve me last that I may longest keep Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go To meet at London London’s king in woe. What, was I born to this, that my sad look Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke? Gard’ner, for telling me these news of woe, Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow!
[Exeunt Queen and Ladies.]
GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse, I would my skill were subject to thy curse. Here did she fall a tear. Here in this place I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace. Rue even for ruth here shortly shall be seen In the remembrance of a weeping queen.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene I — Westminster Hall
The Lords spiritual on the right side of the throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below. Enter Bolingbroke, Aumerle, Surrey, Northumberland, Harry Percy, Fitzwater, another Lord, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster and attendants.
BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.
Enter Officers with Bagot.
Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind, What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death, Who wrought it with the King, and who performed The bloody office of his timeless end.
BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue Scorns to unsay what once it hath delivered. In that dead time when Gloucester’s death was plotted, I heard you say “Is not my arm of length, That reacheth from the restful English Court As far as Calais, to mine uncle’s head?” Amongst much other talk that very time I heard you say that you had rather refuse The offer of an hundred thousand crowns Than Bolingbroke’s return to England, Adding withal, how blest this land would be In this your cousin’s death.
AUMERLE. Princes and noble lords, What answer shall I make to this base man? Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars On equal terms to give him chastisement? Either I must, or have mine honour soiled With the attainder of his slanderous lips. There is my gage, the manual seal of death That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest, And will maintain what thou hast said is false In thy heart-blood, though being all too base To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear. Thou shalt not take it up.
AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best In all this presence that hath moved me so.
FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine. By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand’st, I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it, That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death. If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest! And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart, Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point.
AUMERLE. Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see that day.
FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damned to hell for this.
HARRY PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest. His honour is as true In this appeal as thou art an unjust; And that thou art so, there I throw my gage, To prove it on thee to the extremest point Of mortal breathing. Seize it if thou dar’st.
AUMERLE. And if I do not, may my hands rot off And never brandish more revengeful steel Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle, And spur thee on with full as many lies As may be holloaed in thy treacherous ear From sun to sun. There is my honour’s pawn. Engage it to the trial if thou dar’st.
AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I’ll throw at all. I have a thousand spirits in one breast To answer twenty thousand such as you.
SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
FITZWATER. ’Tis very true. You were in presence then, And you can witness with me this is true.
SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.
SURREY. Dishonourable boy! That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword That it shall render vengeance and revenge Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull. In proof whereof, there is my honour’s pawn. Engage it to the trial if thou dar’st.
FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse! If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live, I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith To tie thee to my strong correction. As I intend to thrive in this new world, Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal. Besides, I heard the banished Norfolk say That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men To execute the noble duke at Calais.
AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage. That Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this, If he may be repealed to try his honour.
BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage Till Norfolk be repealed. Repealed he shall be, And, though mine enemy, restored again To all his lands and signories. When he is returned, Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
CARLISLE. That honourable day shall ne’er be seen. Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens; And, toiled with works of war, retired himself To Italy, and there at Venice gave His body to that pleasant country’s earth And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long.
BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.
BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants, Your differences shall all rest under gage Till we assign you to your days of trial.
Enter York, attended.
YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields To the possession of thy royal hand. Ascend his throne, descending now from him, And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!
BOLINGBROKE. In God’s name, I’ll ascend the regal throne.
CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid! Worst in this royal presence may I speak, Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth. Would God that any in this noble presence Were enough noble to be upright judge Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong. What subject can give sentence on his king? And who sits here that is not Richard’s subject? Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear, Although apparent guilt be seen in them; And shall the figure of God’s majesty, His captain, steward, deputy elect, Anointed, crowned, planted many years, Be judged by subject and inferior breath, And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God, That in a Christian climate souls refined Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed! I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, Stirred up by God, thus boldly for his king. My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king, Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford’s king. And if you crown him, let me prophesy The blood of English shall manure the ground And future ages groan for this foul act. Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels, And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound. Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny Shall here inhabit, and this land be called The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls. O, if you raise this house against this house, It will the woefullest division prove That ever fell upon this cursed earth. Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so, Lest child, child’s children, cry against you, “woe!”
NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains, Of capital treason we arrest you here. My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge To keep him safely till his day of trial. May it please you, lords, to grant the commons’ suit?
BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view He may surrender. So we shall proceed Without suspicion.
YORK. I will be his conduct.
[Exit.]
BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest, Procure your sureties for your days of answer. Little are we beholding to your love, And little looked for at your helping hands.
Enter York with King Richard and Officers bearing the Crown, &c.
KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king Before I have shook off the regal thoughts Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee. Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me To this submission. Yet I well remember The favours of these men. Were they not mine? Did they not sometime cry “All hail!” to me? So Judas did to Christ, but He in twelve, Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none. God save the King! Will no man say, “Amen”? Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen. God save the King, although I be not he, And yet, Amen, if heaven do think him me. To do what service am I sent for hither?
YORK. To do that office of thine own good will Which tired majesty did make thee offer: The resignation of thy state and crown To Henry Bolingbroke.
KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here, cousin, On this side my hand, and on that side thine. Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets, filling one another, The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other down, unseen, and full of water. That bucket down and full of tears am I, Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.
KING RICHARD. My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine. You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down. My care is loss of care, by old care done; Your care is gain of care, by new care won. The cares I give I have, though given away; They ’tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?
KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be. Therefore no “no”, for I resign to thee. Now mark me how I will undo myself: I give this heavy weight from off my head, And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, The pride of kingly sway from out my heart; With mine own tears I wash away my balm, With mine own hands I give away my crown, With mine own tongue deny my sacred state, With mine own breath release all duteous oaths. All pomp and majesty I do forswear; My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo; My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny. God pardon all oaths that are broke to me; God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee. Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved, And thou with all pleased that hast all achieved. Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit, And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit! God save King Henry, unkinged Richard says, And send him many years of sunshine days! What more remains?
NORTHUMBERLAND. [Offering a paper.] No more, but that you read These accusations, and these grievous crimes Committed by your person and your followers Against the state and profit of this land; That, by confessing them, the souls of men May deem that you are worthily deposed.
KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out My weaved-up follies? Gentle Northumberland, If thy offences were upon record, Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst, There shouldst thou find one heinous article Containing the deposing of a king And cracking the strong warrant of an oath, Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven. Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself, Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands, Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates Have here delivered me to my sour cross, And water cannot wash away your sin.
NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch. Read o’er these articles.
KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see: And yet salt water blinds them not so much But they can see a sort of traitors here. Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest; For I have given here my soul’s consent T’ undeck the pompous body of a king, Made glory base and sovereignty a slave, Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord—
KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man, Nor no man’s lord! I have no name, no title, No, not that name was given me at the font, But ’tis usurped. Alack the heavy day! That I have worn so many winters out And know not now what name to call myself. O, that I were a mockery king of snow, Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, To melt myself away in water-drops! Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good, An if my word be sterling yet in England, Let it command a mirror hither straight, That it may show me what a face I have, Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you, and fetch a looking-glass.
[Exit an Attendant.]
NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.
KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!
BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
NORTHUMBERLAND. The commons will not then be satisfied.
KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I’ll read enough When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.
Re-enter Attendant with glass.
Give me that glass, and therein will I read. No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck So many blows upon this face of mine And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass, Like to my followers in prosperity, Thou dost beguile me. Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face That like the sun did make beholders wink? Is this the face which faced so many follies, That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke? A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face!
[Dashes the glass against the ground.]
For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers. Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed The shadow of your face.
KING RICHARD. Say that again. The shadow of my sorrow? Ha, let’s see. ’Tis very true, my grief lies all within; And these external manner of laments Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul. There lies the substance. And I thank thee, king, For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way How to lament the cause. I’ll beg one boon, And then be gone and trouble you no more. Shall I obtain it?
BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.
KING RICHARD. “Fair cousin”? I am greater than a king; For when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects. Being now a subject, I have a king here to my flatterer. Being so great, I have no need to beg.
BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.
KING RICHARD. And shall I have?
BOLINGBROKE. You shall.
KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.
BOLINGBROKE. Whither?
KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you, convey him to the Tower.
KING RICHARD. O, good! “Convey”? Conveyers are you all, That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.
[Exeunt King Richard and Guard.]
BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.
[Exeunt all but the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster and Aumerle.]
ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
CARLISLE. The woe’s to come. The children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
ABBOT. My lord, Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament To bury mine intents, but also to effect Whatever I shall happen to devise. I see your brows are full of discontent, Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears. Come home with me to supper. I will lay A plot shall show us all a merry day.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene I — London. A street leading to the Tower
Enter the Queen and ladies.
QUEEN. This way the King will come. This is the way To Julius Caesar’s ill-erected tower, To whose flint bosom my condemned lord Is doomed a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke. Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth Have any resting for her true king’s queen.
Enter King Richard and Guard.
But soft, but see, or rather do not see My fair rose wither; yet look up, behold, That you in pity may dissolve to dew And wash him fresh again with true-love tears. Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand, Thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb, And not King Richard! Thou most beauteous inn, Why should hard-favoured grief be lodged in thee, When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so, To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul, To think our former state a happy dream, From which awaked, the truth of what we are Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet, To grim Necessity, and he and I Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France, And cloister thee in some religious house. Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown, Which our profane hours here have thrown down.
QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transformed and weakened! Hath Bolingbroke Deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart? The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage To be o’erpowered; and wilt thou, pupil-like, Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod, And fawn on rage with base humility, Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts, I had been still a happy king of men. Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France. Think I am dead, and that even here thou tak’st, As from my death-bed, thy last living leave. In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages long ago betid; And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs, Tell thou the lamentable tale of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. For why, the senseless brands will sympathize The heavy accent of thy moving tongue, And in compassion weep the fire out; And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black, For the deposing of a rightful king.
Enter Northumberland, attended.
NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed. You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower. And, madam, there is order ta’en for you: With all swift speed you must away to France.
KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne, The time shall not be many hours of age More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head, Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think, Though he divide the realm and give thee half It is too little, helping him to all. And he shall think that thou, which knowst the way To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, Being ne’er so little urged, another way To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne. The love of wicked men converts to fear, That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both To worthy danger and deserved death.
NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave and part, for you must part forthwith.
KING RICHARD. Doubly divorced! Bad men, you violate A twofold marriage, ’twixt my crown and me, And then betwixt me and my married wife. Let me unkiss the oath ’twixt thee and me; And yet not so, for with a kiss ’twas made. Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north, Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime; My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp, She came adorned hither like sweet May, Sent back like Hallowmas or short’st of day.
QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?
KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.
NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.
QUEEN. Then whither he goes, thither let me go.
KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; Better far off than near, be ne’er the near. Go, count thy way with sighs, I mine with groans.
QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.
KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I’ll groan, the way being short, And piece the way out with a heavy heart. Come, come, in wooing sorrow let’s be brief, Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief. One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part; Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
[They kiss.]
QUEEN. Give me mine own again; ’twere no good part To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
[They kiss again.]
So, now I have mine own again, be gone, That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay: Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene II — The same. A room in the Duke of York’s palace
Enter York and his Duchess.
DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off Of our two cousins’ coming into London.
YORK. Where did I leave?
DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgoverned hands from windows’ tops Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard’s head.
YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seemed to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course, Whilst all tongues cried “God save thee, Bolingbroke!” You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage, and that all the walls With painted imagery had said at once “Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!” Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning, Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed’s neck, Bespake them thus, “I thank you, countrymen.” And thus still doing, thus he passed along.
DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! Where rode he the whilst?
YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious, Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes Did scowl on gentle Richard. No man cried “God save him!” No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home, But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience, That had not God for some strong purpose, steeled The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him. But heaven hath a hand in these events, To whose high will we bound our calm contents. To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now, Whose state and honour I for aye allow.
Enter Aumerle.
DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.
YORK. Aumerle that was; But that is lost for being Richard’s friend, And, madam, you must call him Rutland now. I am in Parliament pledge for his truth And lasting fealty to the new-made king.
DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?
AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not. God knows I had as lief be none as one.
YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time, Lest you be cropped before you come to prime. What news from Oxford? Do these jousts and triumphs hold?
AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.
YORK. You will be there, I know.
AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.
YORK. What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom? Yea, look’st thou pale? Let me see the writing.
AUMERLE. My lord, ’tis nothing.
YORK. No matter, then, who see it. I will be satisfied. Let me see the writing.
AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me. It is a matter of small consequence, Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see. I fear, I fear—
DUCHESS. What should you fear? ’Tis nothing but some bond that he is entered into For gay apparel ’gainst the triumph day.
YORK. Bound to himself? What doth he with a bond That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool. Boy, let me see the writing.
AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me. I may not show it.
YORK. I will be satisfied. Let me see it, I say.
[Snatches it and reads it.]
Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!
DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?
YORK. Ho! who is within there?
Enter a Servant.
Saddle my horse. God for his mercy, what treachery is here!
DUCHESS. Why, what is it, my lord?
YORK. Give me my boots, I say. Saddle my horse. Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth, I will appeach the villain.
[Exit Servant.]
DUCHESS. What is the matter?
YORK. Peace, foolish woman.
DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?
AUMERLE. Good mother, be content. It is no more Than my poor life must answer.
DUCHESS. Thy life answer?
YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.
Re-enter Servant with boots.
DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle! Poor boy, thou art amazed. [To Servant.] Hence, villain! Never more come in my sight.
[Exit Servant.]
YORK. Give me my boots, I say.
DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do? Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own? Have we more sons? Or are we like to have? Is not my teeming date drunk up with time? And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age And rob me of a happy mother’s name? Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
YORK. Thou fond mad woman, Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy? A dozen of them here have ta’en the sacrament And interchangeably set down their hands To kill the King at Oxford.
DUCHESS. He shall be none; We’ll keep him here. Then what is that to him?
YORK. Away, fond woman! Were he twenty times my son, I would appeach him.
DUCHESS. Hadst thou groaned for him As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful. But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect That I have been disloyal to thy bed And that he is a bastard, not thy son. Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind. He is as like thee as a man may be, Not like to me, or any of my kin, And yet I love him.
YORK. Make way, unruly woman!
[Exit.]
DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse! Spur post, and get before him to the King, And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee. I’ll not be long behind. Though I be old, I doubt not but to ride as fast as York. And never will I rise up from the ground Till Bolingbroke have pardoned thee. Away, be gone!
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene III — Windsor. A room in the Castle
Enter Bolingbroke as King, Harry Percy and other Lords.
KING HENRY. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son? ’Tis full three months since I did see him last. If any plague hang over us, ’tis he. I would to God, my lords, he might be found. Inquire at London, ’mongst the taverns there, For there, they say, he daily doth frequent With unrestrained loose companions, Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes And beat our watch and rob our passengers, While he, young wanton and effeminate boy, Takes on the point of honour to support So dissolute a crew.
PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince, And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
KING HENRY. And what said the gallant?
PERCY. His answer was he would unto the stews, And from the common’st creature pluck a glove And wear it as a favour, and with that He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
KING HENRY. As dissolute as desperate! Yet through both I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years May happily bring forth. But who comes here?
Enter Aumerle.
AUMERLE. Where is the King?
KING HENRY. What means our cousin that he stares and looks so wildly?
AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your majesty To have some conference with your Grace alone.
KING HENRY. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
[Exeunt Harry Percy and Lords.]
What is the matter with our cousin now?
AUMERLE. [Kneels.] For ever may my knees grow to the earth, My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth, Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
KING HENRY. Intended or committed was this fault? If on the first, how heinous e’er it be, To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key, That no man enter till my tale be done.
KING HENRY. Have thy desire.
[Aumerle locks the door.]
YORK. [Within.] My liege, beware! Look to thyself! Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
KING HENRY. [Drawing.] Villain, I’ll make thee safe.
AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand. Thou hast no cause to fear.
YORK. [Within.] Open the door, secure, foolhardy king! Shall I for love speak treason to thy face? Open the door, or I will break it open.
[King Henry unlocks the door; and afterwards, relocks it.]
Enter York.
KING HENRY. What is the matter, uncle? Speak! Recover breath. Tell us how near is danger, That we may arm us to encounter it.
YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know The treason that my haste forbids me show.
AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read’st, thy promise passed. I do repent me. Read not my name there; My heart is not confederate with my hand.
YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down. I tore it from the traitor’s bosom, king. Fear, and not love, begets his penitence. Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
KING HENRY. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy! O loyal father of a treacherous son! Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain From whence this stream through muddy passages Hath held his current and defiled himself! Thy overflow of good converts to bad, And thy abundant goodness shall excuse This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice’s bawd, And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers’ gold. Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies, Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies. Thou kill’st me in his life: giving him breath, The traitor lives, the true man’s put to death.
DUCHESS. [Within.] What ho, my liege! For God’s sake, let me in!
KING HENRY. What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?
DUCHESS. [Within.] A woman, and thine aunt, great king, ’tis I. Speak with me, pity me, open the door! A beggar begs that never begged before.
KING HENRY. Our scene is altered from a serious thing, And now changed to “The Beggar and the King.” My dangerous cousin, let your mother in. I know she’s come to pray for your foul sin.
Enter Duchess.
YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray, More sins for this forgiveness prosper may. This festered joint cut off, the rest rest sound; This let alone will all the rest confound.
DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man. Love loving not itself none other can.
YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here? Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. [Kneels.] Hear me, gentle liege.
KING HENRY. Rise up, good aunt.
DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech. For ever will I walk upon my knees And never see day that the happy sees, Till thou give joy, until thou bid me joy By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
AUMERLE. Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.
[Kneels.]
YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.
[Kneels.]
Ill mayst thou thrive if thou grant any grace!
DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face. His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest; His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast. He prays but faintly and would be denied; We pray with heart and soul and all beside: His weary joints would gladly rise, I know; Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow. His prayers are full of false hypocrisy; Ours of true zeal and deep integrity. Our prayers do outpray his; then let them have That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
KING HENRY. Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS. Nay, do not say “stand up”. Say “pardon” first, and afterwards “stand up”. An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach, “Pardon” should be the first word of thy speech. I never longed to hear a word till now. Say “pardon,” king; let pity teach thee how. The word is short, but not so short as sweet; No word like “pardon” for kings’ mouths so meet.
YORK. Speak it in French, King, say “pardonne moy.”
DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy? Ah! my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord, That sets the word itself against the word! Speak “pardon” as ’tis current in our land; The chopping French we do not understand. Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there, Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear, That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce, Pity may move thee “pardon” to rehearse.
KING HENRY. Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand. Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
KING HENRY. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
DUCHESS. O, happy vantage of a kneeling knee! Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again, Twice saying “pardon” doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong.
KING HENRY. With all my heart I pardon him.
DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.
KING HENRY. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot, With all the rest of that consorted crew, Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels. Good uncle, help to order several powers To Oxford, or where’er these traitors are; They shall not live within this world, I swear, But I will have them, if I once know where. Uncle, farewell, and cousin, adieu. Your mother well hath prayed, and prove you true.
DUCHESS. Come, my old son. I pray God make thee new.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene IV — Another room in the Castle
Enter Exton and a Servant.
EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake: “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?” Was it not so?
SERVANT. These were his very words.
EXTON. “Have I no friend?” quoth he. He spake it twice And urged it twice together, did he not?
SERVANT. He did.
EXTON. And speaking it, he wishtly looked on me, As who should say “I would thou wert the man That would divorce this terror from my heart”, Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let’s go. I am the King’s friend, and will rid his foe.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene V — Pomfret. The dungeon of the Castle
Enter Richard.
RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And for because the world is populous And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer it out. My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul, My soul the father, and these two beget A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world, In humours like the people of this world, For no thought is contented. The better sort, As thoughts of things divine, are intermixed With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word, as thus: “Come, little ones”; And then again: “It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a needle’s eye.” Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails May tear a passage through the flinty ribs Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls, And, for they cannot, die in their own pride. Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves, Nor shall not be the last, like silly beggars Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame That many have and others must sit there; And in this thought they find a kind of ease, Bearing their own misfortunes on the back Of such as have before endured the like. Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented. Sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am. Then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I kinged again, and by and by Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased With being nothing. Music do I hear? [Music.] Ha, ha! keep time! How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men’s lives. And here have I the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disordered string; But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock. My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell. So sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours. But my time Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy, While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’ the clock. This music mads me! Let it sound no more; For though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad. Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me, For ’tis a sign of love; and love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter a Groom of the stable.
GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!
RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer. The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. What art thou, and how comest thou hither Where no man never comes but that sad dog That brings me food to make misfortune live?
GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king, When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York, With much ado at length have gotten leave To look upon my sometimes royal master’s face. O, how it erned my heart when I beheld In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary, That horse that thou so often hast bestrid, That horse that I so carefully have dressed.
RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?
GROOM. So proudly as if he disdained the ground.
RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down, Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee, Since thou, created to be awed by man, Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse, And yet I bear a burden like an ass, Spurred, galled and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke.
Enter Keeper with a dish.
KEEPER. [To the Groom.] Fellow, give place. Here is no longer stay.
RICHARD. If thou love me, ’tis time thou wert away.
GROOM. My tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
[Exit.]
KEEPER. My lord, will’t please you to fall to?
RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.
KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton, Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
[Strikes the Keeper.]
KEEPER. Help, help, help!
Enter Exton and Servants, armed.
RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault? Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument.
[Snatching a weapon and killing one.]
Go thou and fill another room in hell.
[He kills another, then Exton strikes him down.]
That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand Hath with the King’s blood stained the King’s own land. Mount, mount, my soul! Thy seat is up on high, Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
[Dies.]
EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood! Both have I spilled. O, would the deed were good! For now the devil that told me I did well Says that this deed is chronicled in hell. This dead king to the living king I’ll bear. Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene VI — Windsor. An Apartment in the Castle
Flourish. Enter King Henry and York with Lords and Attendants.
KING HENRY. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear Is that the rebels have consumed with fire Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire, But whether they be ta’en or slain we hear not.
Enter Northumberland.
Welcome, my lord. What is the news?
NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness. The next news is: I have to London sent The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent. The manner of their taking may appear At large discoursed in this paper here.
KING HENRY. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains, And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
Enter Fitzwater.
FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely, Two of the dangerous consorted traitors That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
KING HENRY. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot. Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
Enter Harry Percy with the Bishop of Carlisle.
PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster, With clog of conscience and sour melancholy, Hath yielded up his body to the grave. But here is Carlisle living, to abide Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.
KING HENRY. Carlisle, this is your doom: Choose out some secret place, some reverend room, More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life. So as thou liv’st in peace, die free from strife; For though mine enemy thou hast ever been, High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
Enter Exton with attendants, bearing a coffin.
EXTON. Great king, within this coffin I present Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies The mightiest of thy greatest enemies, Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
KING HENRY. Exton, I thank thee not, for thou hast wrought A deed of slander with thy fatal hand Upon my head and all this famous land.
EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
KING HENRY. They love not poison that do poison need, Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead, I hate the murderer, love him murdered. The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour, But neither my good word nor princely favour. With Cain go wander thorough shades of night, And never show thy head by day nor light. Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow. Come, mourn with me for what I do lament, And put on sullen black incontinent. I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. March sadly after; grace my mournings here In weeping after this untimely bier.
[Exeunt.]
KING RICHARD THE THIRD
Dramatis Personæ
RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, afterwards KING RICHARD III. LADY ANNE, widow to Edward, Prince of Wales, son to King Henry VI.; afterwards married to the Duke of Gloucester
KING EDWARD THE FOURTH, brother to Richard QUEEN ELIZABETH, Queen to King Edward IV. Sons to the king: EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards KING EDWARD V. RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK
GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE, brother to Edward and Richard BOY, son to Clarence GIRL, daughter to Clarence
DUCHESS OF YORK, mother to King Edward IV., Clarence, and Gloucester QUEEN MARGARET, widow to King Henry VI. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM LORD HASTINGS, the Lord Chamberlain LORD STANLEY, the Earl of Derby EARL RIVERS, brother to Queen Elizabeth LORD GREY, son of Queen Elizabeth by her former marriage MARQUESS OF DORSET, son of Queen Elizabeth by her former marriage SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN
SIR WILLIAM CATESBY SIR RICHARD RATCLIFFE LORD LOVELL DUKE OF NORFOLK EARL OF SURREY
HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, afterwards KING HENRY VII. EARL OF OXFORD SIR JAMES BLUNT SIR WALTER HERBERT SIR WILLIAM BRANDON CHRISTOPHER URSWICK, a priest THOMAS ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK CARDINAL BOURCHIER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY John Morton, BISHOP OF ELY SIR ROBERT BRAKENBURY, Lieutenant of the Tower SIR JAMES TYRREL Another Priest LORD MAYOR OF LONDON SHERIFF OF WILTSHIRE
Lords, and other Attendants; two Gentlemen, a Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers, Ghosts, Soldiers, &c.
SCENE: England
Act I, Scene I — London. A street
Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, alone.
RICHARD. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, And descant on mine own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate the one against the other; And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mewed up About a prophecy which says that “G” Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.
Enter Clarence, guarded and Brakenbury.
Brother, good day. What means this armed guard That waits upon your Grace?
CLARENCE. His Majesty, Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointed This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
RICHARD. Upon what cause?
CLARENCE. Because my name is George.
RICHARD. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours. He should, for that, commit your godfathers. O, belike his Majesty hath some intent That you should be new-christened in the Tower. But what’s the matter, Clarence? May I know?
CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know, for I protest As yet I do not. But, as I can learn, He hearkens after prophecies and dreams, And from the cross-row plucks the letter G, And says a wizard told him that by “G” His issue disinherited should be. And for my name of George begins with G, It follows in his thought that I am he. These, as I learn, and such like toys as these, Hath moved his Highness to commit me now.
RICHARD. Why, this it is when men are ruled by women. ’Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower; My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, ’tis she That tempers him to this extremity. Was it not she and that good man of worship, Antony Woodville, her brother there, That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower, From whence this present day he is delivered? We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.
CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man secure But the Queen’s kindred, and night-walking heralds That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore. Heard you not what an humble suppliant Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery?
RICHARD. Humbly complaining to her deity Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty. I’ll tell you what: I think it is our way, If we will keep in favour with the King, To be her men and wear her livery. The jealous o’er-worn widow and herself, Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen, Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.
BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me. His Majesty hath straitly given in charge That no man shall have private conference, Of what degree soever, with your brother.
RICHARD. Even so; an please your worship, Brakenbury, You may partake of anything we say. We speak no treason, man. We say the King Is wise and virtuous, and his noble Queen Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous. We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot, A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue; And that the Queen’s kindred are made gentlefolks. How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.
RICHARD. Naught to do with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow, He that doth naught with her, excepting one, Were best to do it secretly alone.
BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?
RICHARD. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?
BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and withal Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.
CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.
RICHARD. We are the Queen’s abjects and must obey. Brother, farewell. I will unto the King, And whatsoe’er you will employ me in, Were it to call King Edward’s widow “sister,” I will perform it to enfranchise you. Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
RICHARD. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long. I will deliver or else lie for you. Meantime, have patience.
CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.
[Exeunt Clarence, Brakenbury and guard.]
RICHARD. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return. Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, If heaven will take the present at our hands. But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?
Enter Lord Hastings.
HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord.
RICHARD. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain. Well are you welcome to the open air. How hath your lordship brooked imprisonment?
HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must; But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks That were the cause of my imprisonment.
RICHARD. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too, For they that were your enemies are his, And have prevailed as much on him as you.
HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mewed, Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
RICHARD. What news abroad?
HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home: The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy, And his physicians fear him mightily.
RICHARD. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed. O, he hath kept an evil diet long, And overmuch consumed his royal person. ’Tis very grievous to be thought upon. Where is he, in his bed?
HASTINGS. He is.
RICHARD. Go you before, and I will follow you.
[Exit Hastings.]
He cannot live, I hope, and must not die Till George be packed with post-horse up to heaven. I’ll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence With lies well steeled with weighty arguments; And, if I fail not in my deep intent, Clarence hath not another day to live; Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy, And leave the world for me to bustle in. For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter. What though I killed her husband and her father? The readiest way to make the wench amends Is to become her husband and her father; The which will I, not all so much for love As for another secret close intent, By marrying her which I must reach unto. But yet I run before my horse to market. Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns. When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
[Exit.]