{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/kh62/kh62.htm","path":"sks/kh62/kh62.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/kh62/kh62.htm","text":"2 KING HENRY VI\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nKING HENRY\nthe Sixth (KING HENRY VI:)\nHUMPHREY Duke of Gloucester, his uncle. (GLOUCESTER:)\nCARDINAL BEAUFORT Bishop of Winchester, great-uncle to the King.\n(CARDINAL:)\nRICHARD\nPLANTAGENET Duke of York. (YORK:)\nEDWARD |\n| his sons\nRICHARD |\nDUKE OF SOMERSET (SOMERSET:)\nDUKE OF SUFFOLK (SUFFOLK:)\nDUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (BUCKINGHAM:)\nLORD CLIFFORD (CLIFFORD:)\nYOUNG CLIFFORD his son.\nEARL OF SALISBURY (SALISBURY:)\nEARL OF WARWICK (WARWICK:)\nLORD SCALES (SCALES:)\nLORD SAY (SAY:)\nSIR HUMPHREY\nSTAFFORD (SIR HUMPHREY:)\nWILLIAM STAFFORD Sir Humphrey Stafford's brother.\nSIR JOHN STANLEY (STANLEY:)\nVAUX:\nMATTHEW GOFFE:\nA Sea-captain, (Captain:) Master, and Master's-Mate.\nWALTER WHITMORE:\nTwo Gentlemen, prisoners with Suffolk.\n(First Gentleman:)\n(Second Gentleman:)\nJOHN HUME (HUME:) |\n| priests.\nJOHN SOUTHWELL |\nBOLINGBROKE a conjurer.\nTHOMAS HORNER an armourer. (HORNER:)\nPETER Thomas Horner's man.\nClerk of Chatham. (Clerk:)\nMayor of Saint Alban's. (Mayor:)\nSIMPCOX an impostor.\nALEXANDER IDEN a Kentish gentleman. (IDEN:)\nJACK CADE a rebel. (CADE:)\nGEORGE BEVIS (BEVIS:) |\n|\nJOHN HOLLAND (HOLLAND:) |\n|\nDICK the butcher (DICK:) |\n| followers of Cade.\nSMITH the weaver (SMITH:) |\n|\nMICHAEL (MICHAEL:) |\n|\n&c. |\nTwo Murderers\n(First Murderer:)\n(Second Murderer:)\nQUEEN MARGARET Queen to King Henry.\nELEANOR Duchess of Gloucester. (DUCHESS:)\nMARGARET JOURDAIN a witch.\nWife to Simpcox (Wife:)\nLords, Ladies, and Attendants. Petitioners,\nAldermen, a Herald, a Beadle, Sheriff, and\nOfficers, Citizens, 'Prentices, Falconers,\nGuards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.\n(First Neighbour:)\n(Second Neighbour:)\n(Third Neighbour:)\n(First Petitioner:)\n(Second Petitioner:)\n(Herald:)\n(Beadle:)\n(Sheriff:)\n(Servant:)\n(Soldier:)\n(Townsman:)\n(First 'Prentice:)\n(Second 'Prentice:)\n(Post:)\n(Messenger:)\nA Spirit. (Spirit:)\nSCENE England.\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT I\nSCENE I London. The palace.\n[Flourish of trumpets: then hautboys. Enter KING\nHENRY VI, GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and\nCARDINAL, on the one side; QUEEN MARGARET, SUFFOLK,\nYORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other]\nSUFFOLK As by your high imperial majesty\nI had in charge at my depart for France,\nAs procurator to your excellence,\nTo marry Princess Margaret for your grace,\nSo, in the famous ancient city, Tours,\nIn presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,\nThe Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne and Alencon,\nSeven earls, twelve barons and twenty reverend bishops,\nI have perform'd my task and was espoused:\nAnd humbly now upon my bended knee,\nIn sight of England and her lordly peers,\nDeliver up my title in the queen\nTo your most gracious hands, that are the substance\nOf that great shadow I did represent;\nThe happiest gift that ever marquess gave,\nThe fairest queen that ever king received.\nKING HENRY VI Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:\nI can express no kinder sign of love\nThan this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,\nLend me a heart replete with thankfulness!\nFor thou hast given me in this beauteous face\nA world of earthly blessings to my soul,\nIf sympathy of love unite our thoughts.\nQUEEN MARGARET Great King of England and my gracious lord,\nThe mutual conference that my mind hath had,\nBy day, by night, waking and in my dreams,\nIn courtly company or at my beads,\nWith you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,\nMakes me the bolder to salute my king\nWith ruder terms, such as my wit affords\nAnd over-joy of heart doth minister.\nKING HENRY VI Her sight did ravish; but her grace in speech,\nHer words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,\nMakes me from wondering fall to weeping joys;\nSuch is the fulness of my heart's content.\nLords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.\nALL [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's\nhappiness!\nQUEEN MARGARET We thank you all.\n[Flourish]\nSUFFOLK My lord protector, so it please your grace,\nHere are the articles of contracted peace\nBetween our sovereign and the French king Charles,\nFor eighteen months concluded by consent.\nGLOUCESTER [Reads] 'Imprimis, it is agreed between the French\nking Charles, and William de la Pole, Marquess of\nSuffolk, ambassador for Henry King of England, that\nthe said Henry shall espouse the Lady Margaret,\ndaughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia and\nJerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the\nthirtieth of May next ensuing. Item, that the duchy\nof Anjou and the county of Maine shall be released\nand delivered to the king her father'--\n[Lets the paper fall]\nKING HENRY VI Uncle, how now!\nGLOUCESTER Pardon me, gracious lord;\nSome sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart\nAnd dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.\nKING HENRY VI Uncle of Winchester, I pray, read on.\nCARDINAL [Reads] 'Item, It is further agreed between them,\nthat the duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be\nreleased and delivered over to the king her father,\nand she sent over of the King of England's own\nproper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'\nKING HENRY VI They please us well. Lord marquess, kneel down:\nWe here create thee the first duke of Suffolk,\nAnd gird thee with the sword. Cousin of York,\nWe here discharge your grace from being regent\nI' the parts of France, till term of eighteen months\nBe full expired. Thanks, uncle Winchester,\nGloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,\nSalisbury, and Warwick;\nWe thank you all for the great favour done,\nIn entertainment to my princely queen.\nCome, let us in, and with all speed provide\nTo see her coronation be perform'd.\n[Exeunt KING HENRY VI, QUEEN MARGARET, and SUFFOLK]\nGLOUCESTER Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,\nTo you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief,\nYour grief, the common grief of all the land.\nWhat! did my brother Henry spend his youth,\nHis valour, coin and people, in the wars?\nDid he so often lodge in open field,\nIn winter's cold and summer's parching heat,\nTo conquer France, his true inheritance?\nAnd did my brother Bedford toil his wits,\nTo keep by policy what Henry got?\nHave you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,\nBrave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,\nReceived deep scars in France and Normandy?\nOr hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,\nWith all the learned council of the realm,\nStudied so long, sat in the council-house\nEarly and late, debating to and fro\nHow France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe,\nAnd had his highness in his infancy\nCrowned in Paris in despite of foes?\nAnd shall these labours and these honours die?\nShall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,\nYour deeds of war and all our counsel die?\nO peers of England, shameful is this league!\nFatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,\nBlotting your names from books of memory,\nRazing the characters of your renown,\nDefacing monuments of conquer'd France,\nUndoing all, as all had never been!\nCARDINAL Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,\nThis peroration with such circumstance?\nFor France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.\nGLOUCESTER Ay, uncle, we will keep it, if we can;\nBut now it is impossible we should:\nSuffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,\nHath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine\nUnto the poor King Reignier, whose large style\nAgrees not with the leanness of his purse.\nSALISBURY Now, by the death of Him that died for all,\nThese counties were the keys of Normandy.\nBut wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?\nWARWICK For grief that they are past recovery:\nFor, were there hope to conquer them again,\nMy sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.\nAnjou and Maine! myself did win them both;\nThose provinces these arms of mine did conquer:\nAnd are the cities, that I got with wounds,\nDelivered up again with peaceful words?\nMort Dieu!\nYORK For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,\nThat dims the honour of this warlike isle!\nFrance should have torn and rent my very heart,\nBefore I would have yielded to this league.\nI never read but England's kings have had\nLarge sums of gold and dowries with their wives:\nAnd our King Henry gives away his own,\nTo match with her that brings no vantages.\nGLOUCESTER A proper jest, and never heard before,\nThat Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth\nFor costs and charges in transporting her!\nShe should have stayed in France and starved\nin France, Before--\nCARDINAL My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:\nIt was the pleasure of my lord the King.\nGLOUCESTER My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;\n'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,\nBut 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.\nRancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face\nI see thy fury: if I longer stay,\nWe shall begin our ancient bickerings.\nLordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,\nI prophesied France will be lost ere long.\n[Exit]\nCARDINAL So, there goes our protector in a rage.\n'Tis known to you he is mine enemy,\nNay, more, an enemy unto you all,\nAnd no great friend, I fear me, to the king.\nConsider, lords, he is the next of blood,\nAnd heir apparent to the English crown:\nHad Henry got an empire by his marriage,\nAnd all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,\nThere's reason he should be displeased at it.\nLook to it, lords! let not his smoothing words\nBewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.\nWhat though the common people favour him,\nCalling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of\nGloucester,'\nClapping their hands, and crying with loud voice,\n'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'\nWith 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'\nI fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,\nHe will be found a dangerous protector.\nBUCKINGHAM Why should he, then, protect our sovereign,\nHe being of age to govern of himself?\nCousin of Somerset, join you with me,\nAnd all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,\nWe'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.\nCARDINAL This weighty business will not brook delay:\nI'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.\n[Exit]\nSOMERSET Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride\nAnd greatness of his place be grief to us,\nYet let us watch the haughty cardinal:\nHis insolence is more intolerable\nThan all the princes in the land beside:\nIf Gloucester be displaced, he'll be protector.\nBUCKINGHAM Or thou or I, Somerset, will be protector,\nDespite Duke Humphrey or the cardinal.\n[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET]\nSALISBURY Pride went before, ambition follows him.\nWhile these do labour for their own preferment,\nBehoves it us to labour for the realm.\nI never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester\nDid bear him like a noble gentleman.\nOft have I seen the haughty cardinal,\nMore like a soldier than a man o' the church,\nAs stout and proud as he were lord of all,\nSwear like a ruffian and demean himself\nUnlike the ruler of a commonweal.\nWarwick, my son, the comfort of my age,\nThy deeds, thy plainness and thy housekeeping,\nHath won the greatest favour of the commons,\nExcepting none but good Duke Humphrey:\nAnd, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,\nIn bringing them to civil discipline,\nThy late exploits done in the heart of France,\nWhen thou wert regent for our sovereign,\nHave made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:\nJoin we together, for the public good,\nIn what we can, to bridle and suppress\nThe pride of Suffolk and the cardinal,\nWith Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;\nAnd, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds,\nWhile they do tend the profit of the land.\nWARWICK So God help Warwick, as he loves the land,\nAnd common profit of his country!\nYORK [Aside] And so says York, for he hath greatest cause.\nSALISBURY Then let's make haste away, and look unto the main.\nWARWICK Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost;\nThat Maine which by main force Warwick did win,\nAnd would have kept so long as breath did last!\nMain chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,\nWhich I will win from France, or else be slain,\n[Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY]\nYORK Anjou and Maine are given to the French;\nParis is lost; the state of Normandy\nStands on a tickle point, now they are gone:\nSuffolk concluded on the articles,\nThe peers agreed, and Henry was well pleased\nTo change two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.\nI cannot blame them all: what is't to them?\n'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.\nPirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage\nAnd purchase friends and give to courtezans,\nStill revelling like lords till all be gone;\nWhile as the silly owner of the goods\nWeeps over them and wrings his hapless hands\nAnd shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,\nWhile all is shared and all is borne away,\nReady to starve and dare not touch his own:\nSo York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,\nWhile his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.\nMethinks the realms of England, France and Ireland\nBear that proportion to my flesh and blood\nAs did the fatal brand Althaea burn'd\nUnto the prince's heart of Calydon.\nAnjou and Maine both given unto the French!\nCold news for me, for I had hope of France,\nEven as I have of fertile England's soil.\nA day will come when York shall claim his own;\nAnd therefore I will take the Nevils' parts\nAnd make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,\nAnd, when I spy advantage, claim the crown,\nFor that's the golden mark I seek to hit:\nNor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,\nNor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,\nNor wear the diadem upon his head,\nWhose church-like humours fits not for a crown.\nThen, York, be still awhile, till time do serve:\nWatch thou and wake when others be asleep,\nTo pry into the secrets of the state;\nTill Henry, surfeiting in joys of love,\nWith his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,\nAnd Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars:\nThen will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,\nWith whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed;\nAnd in my standard bear the arms of York\nTo grapple with the house of Lancaster;\nAnd, force perforce, I'll make him yield the crown,\nWhose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.\n[Exit]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT I\nSCENE II GLOUCESTER'S house.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER and his DUCHESS]\nDUCHESS Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn,\nHanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?\nWhy doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,\nAs frowning at the favours of the world?\nWhy are thine eyes fixed to the sullen earth,\nGazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?\nWhat seest thou there? King Henry's diadem,\nEnchased with all the honours of the world?\nIf so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face,\nUntil thy head be circled with the same.\nPut forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.\nWhat, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine:\nAnd, having both together heaved it up,\nWe'll both together lift our heads to heaven,\nAnd never more abase our sight so low\nAs to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.\nGLOUCESTER O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,\nBanish the canker of ambitious thoughts.\nAnd may that thought, when I imagine ill\nAgainst my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,\nBe my last breathing in this mortal world!\nMy troublous dream this night doth make me sad.\nDUCHESS What dream'd my lord? tell me, and I'll requite it\nWith sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.\nGLOUCESTER Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,\nWas broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,\nBut, as I think, it was by the cardinal;\nAnd on the pieces of the broken wand\nWere placed the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset,\nAnd William de la Pole, first duke of Suffolk.\nThis was my dream: what it doth bode, God knows.\nDUCHESS Tut, this was nothing but an argument\nThat he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove\nShall lose his head for his presumption.\nBut list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet duke:\nMethought I sat in seat of majesty\nIn the cathedral church of Westminster,\nAnd in that chair where kings and queens are crown'd;\nWhere Henry and dame Margaret kneel'd to me\nAnd on my head did set the diadem.\nGLOUCESTER Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright:\nPresumptuous dame, ill-nurtured Eleanor,\nArt thou not second woman in the realm,\nAnd the protector's wife, beloved of him?\nHast thou not worldly pleasure at command,\nAbove the reach or compass of thy thought?\nAnd wilt thou still be hammering treachery,\nTo tumble down thy husband and thyself\nFrom top of honour to disgrace's feet?\nAway from me, and let me hear no more!\nDUCHESS What, what, my lord! are you so choleric\nWith Eleanor, for telling but her dream?\nNext time I'll keep my dreams unto myself,\nAnd not be cheque'd.\nGLOUCESTER Nay, be not angry; I am pleased again.\n[Enter Messenger]\nMessenger My lord protector, 'tis his highness' pleasure\nYou do prepare to ride unto Saint Alban's,\nWhere as the king and queen do mean to hawk.\nGLOUCESTER I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?\nDUCHESS Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.\n[Exeunt GLOUCESTER and Messenger]\nFollow I must; I cannot go before,\nWhile Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.\nWere I a man, a duke, and next of blood,\nI would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks\nAnd smooth my way upon their headless necks;\nAnd, being a woman, I will not be slack\nTo play my part in Fortune's pageant.\nWhere are you there? Sir John! nay, fear not, man,\nWe are alone; here's none but thee and I.\n[Enter HUME]\nHUME Jesus preserve your royal majesty!\nDUCHESS What say'st thou? majesty! I am but grace.\nHUME But, by the grace of God, and Hume's advice,\nYour grace's title shall be multiplied.\nDUCHESS What say'st thou, man? hast thou as yet conferr'd\nWith Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch,\nWith Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?\nAnd will they undertake to do me good?\nHUME This they have promised, to show your highness\nA spirit raised from depth of under-ground,\nThat shall make answer to such questions\nAs by your grace shall be propounded him.\nDUCHESS It is enough; I'll think upon the questions:\nWhen from St. Alban's we do make return,\nWe'll see these things effected to the full.\nHere, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,\nWith thy confederates in this weighty cause.\n[Exit]\nHUME Hume must make merry with the duchess' gold;\nMarry, and shall. But how now, Sir John Hume!\nSeal up your lips, and give no words but mum:\nThe business asketh silent secrecy.\nDame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:\nGold cannot come amiss, were she a devil.\nYet have I gold flies from another coast;\nI dare not say, from the rich cardinal\nAnd from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk,\nYet I do find it so; for to be plain,\nThey, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,\nHave hired me to undermine the duchess\nAnd buz these conjurations in her brain.\nThey say 'A crafty knave does need no broker;'\nYet am I Suffolk and the cardinal's broker.\nHume, if you take not heed, you shall go near\nTo call them both a pair of crafty knaves.\nWell, so it stands; and thus, I fear, at last\nHume's knavery will be the duchess' wreck,\nAnd her attainture will be Humphrey's fall:\nSort how it will, I shall have gold for all.\n[Exit]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT I\nSCENE III The palace.\n[Enter three or four Petitioners, PETER, the\nArmourer's man, being one]\nFirst Petitioner My masters, let's stand close: my lord protector\nwill come this way by and by, and then we may deliver\nour supplications in the quill.\nSecond Petitioner Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good man!\nJesu bless him!\n[Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN MARGARET]\nPETER Here a' comes, methinks, and the queen with him.\nI'll be the first, sure.\nSecond Petitioner Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk, and\nnot my lord protector.\nSUFFOLK How now, fellow! would'st anything with me?\nFirst Petitioner I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my lord\nprotector.\nQUEEN MARGARET [Reading] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your\nsupplications to his lordship? Let me see them:\nwhat is thine?\nFirst Petitioner Mine is, an't please your grace, against John\nGoodman, my lord cardinal's man, for keeping my\nhouse, and lands, and wife and all, from me.\nSUFFOLK Thy wife, too! that's some wrong, indeed. What's\nyours? What's here!\n[Reads]\n'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing the\ncommons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!\nSecond Petitioner Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our whole township.\nPETER [Giving his petition] Against my master, Thomas\nHorner, for saying that the Duke of York was rightful\nheir to the crown.\nQUEEN MARGARET What sayst thou? did the Duke of York say he was\nrightful heir to the crown?\nPETER That my master was? no, forsooth: my master said\nthat he was, and that the king was an usurper.\nSUFFOLK Who is there?\n[Enter Servant]\nTake this fellow in, and send for\nhis master with a pursuivant presently: we'll hear\nmore of your matter before the King.\n[Exit Servant with PETER]\nQUEEN MARGARET And as for you, that love to be protected\nUnder the wings of our protector's grace,\nBegin your suits anew, and sue to him.\n[Tears the supplication]\nAway, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.\nALL Come, let's be gone.\n[Exeunt]\nQUEEN MARGARET My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,\nIs this the fashion in the court of England?\nIs this the government of Britain's isle,\nAnd this the royalty of Albion's king?\nWhat shall King Henry be a pupil still\nUnder the surly Gloucester's governance?\nAm I a queen in title and in style,\nAnd must be made a subject to a duke?\nI tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours\nThou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love\nAnd stolest away the ladies' hearts of France,\nI thought King Henry had resembled thee\nIn courage, courtship and proportion:\nBut all his mind is bent to holiness,\nTo number Ave-Maries on his beads;\nHis champions are the prophets and apostles,\nHis weapons holy saws of sacred writ,\nHis study is his tilt-yard, and his loves\nAre brazen images of canonized saints.\nI would the college of the cardinals\nWould choose him pope, and carry him to Rome,\nAnd set the triple crown upon his head:\nThat were a state fit for his holiness.\nSUFFOLK Madam, be patient: as I was cause\nYour highness came to England, so will I\nIn England work your grace's full content.\nQUEEN MARGARET Beside the haughty protector, have we Beaufort,\nThe imperious churchman, Somerset, Buckingham,\nAnd grumbling York: and not the least of these\nBut can do more in England than the king.\nSUFFOLK And he of these that can do most of all\nCannot do more in England than the Nevils:\nSalisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.\nQUEEN MARGARET Not all these lords do vex me half so much\nAs that proud dame, the lord protector's wife.\nShe sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,\nMore like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife:\nStrangers in court do take her for the queen:\nShe bears a duke's revenues on her back,\nAnd in her heart she scorns our poverty:\nShall I not live to be avenged on her?\nContemptuous base-born callet as she is,\nShe vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day,\nThe very train of her worst wearing gown\nWas better worth than all my father's lands,\nTill Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.\nSUFFOLK Madam, myself have limed a bush for her,\nAnd placed a quire of such enticing birds,\nThat she will light to listen to the lays,\nAnd never mount to trouble you again.\nSo, let her rest: and, madam, list to me;\nFor I am bold to counsel you in this.\nAlthough we fancy not the cardinal,\nYet must we join with him and with the lords,\nTill we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.\nAs for the Duke of York, this late complaint\nWill make but little for his benefit.\nSo, one by one, we'll weed them all at last,\nAnd you yourself shall steer the happy helm.\n[Sound a sennet. Enter KING HENRY VI, GLOUCESTER,\nCARDINAL, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,\nWARWICK, and the DUCHESS]\nKING HENRY VI For my part, noble lords, I care not which;\nOr Somerset or York, all's one to me.\nYORK If York have ill demean'd himself in France,\nThen let him be denay'd the regentship.\nSOMERSET If Somerset be unworthy of the place,\nLet York be regent; I will yield to him.\nWARWICK Whether your grace be worthy, yea or no,\nDispute not that: York is the worthier.\nCARDINAL Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.\nWARWICK The cardinal's not my better in the field.\nBUCKINGHAM All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.\nWARWICK Warwick may live to be the best of all.\nSALISBURY Peace, son! and show some reason, Buckingham,\nWhy Somerset should be preferred in this.\nQUEEN MARGARET Because the king, forsooth, will have it so.\nGLOUCESTER Madam, the king is old enough himself\nTo give his censure: these are no women's matters.\nQUEEN MARGARET If he be old enough, what needs your grace\nTo be protector of his excellence?\nGLOUCESTER Madam, I am protector of the realm;\nAnd, at his pleasure, will resign my place.\nSUFFOLK Resign it then and leave thine insolence.\nSince thou wert king--as who is king but thou?--\nThe commonwealth hath daily run to wreck;\nThe Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas;\nAnd all the peers and nobles of the realm\nHave been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.\nCARDINAL The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags\nAre lank and lean with thy extortions.\nSOMERSET Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire\nHave cost a mass of public treasury.\nBUCKINGHAM Thy cruelty in execution\nUpon offenders, hath exceeded law,\nAnd left thee to the mercy of the law.\nQUEEN MARGARET They sale of offices and towns in France,\nIf they were known, as the suspect is great,\nWould make thee quickly hop without thy head.\n[Exit GLOUCESTER. QUEEN MARGARET drops her fan]\nGive me my fan: what, minion! can ye not?\n[She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]\nI cry you mercy, madam; was it you?\nDUCHESS Was't I! yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman:\nCould I come near your beauty with my nails,\nI'd set my ten commandments in your face.\nKING HENRY VI Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.\nDUCHESS Against her will! good king, look to't in time;\nShe'll hamper thee, and dandle thee like a baby:\nThough in this place most master wear no breeches,\nShe shall not strike Dame Eleanor unrevenged.\n[Exit]\nBUCKINGHAM Lord cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,\nAnd listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds:\nShe's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,\nShe'll gallop far enough to her destruction.\n[Exit]\n[Re-enter GLOUCESTER]\nGLOUCESTER Now, lords, my choler being over-blown\nWith walking once about the quadrangle,\nI come to talk of commonwealth affairs.\nAs for your spiteful false objections,\nProve them, and I lie open to the law:\nBut God in mercy so deal with my soul,\nAs I in duty love my king and country!\nBut, to the matter that we have in hand:\nI say, my sovereign, York is meetest man\nTo be your regent in the realm of France.\nSUFFOLK Before we make election, give me leave\nTo show some reason, of no little force,\nThat York is most unmeet of any man.\nYORK I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:\nFirst, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;\nNext, if I be appointed for the place,\nMy Lord of Somerset will keep me here,\nWithout discharge, money, or furniture,\nTill France be won into the Dauphin's hands:\nLast time, I danced attendance on his will\nTill Paris was besieged, famish'd, and lost.\nWARWICK That can I witness; and a fouler fact\nDid never traitor in the land commit.\nSUFFOLK Peace, headstrong Warwick!\nWARWICK Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?\n[Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man\nPETER, guarded]\nSUFFOLK Because here is a man accused of treason:\nPray God the Duke of York excuse himself!\nYORK Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?\nKING HENRY VI What mean'st thou, Suffolk; tell me, what are these?\nSUFFOLK Please it your majesty, this is the man\nThat doth accuse his master of high treason:\nHis words were these: that Richard, Duke of York,\nWas rightful heir unto the English crown\nAnd that your majesty was a usurper.\nKING HENRY VI Say, man, were these thy words?\nHORNER An't shall please your majesty, I never said nor\nthought any such matter: God is my witness, I am\nfalsely accused by the villain.\nPETER By these ten bones, my lords, he did speak them to\nme in the garret one night, as we were scouring my\nLord of York's armour.\nYORK Base dunghill villain and mechanical,\nI'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.\nI do beseech your royal majesty,\nLet him have all the rigor of the law.\nHORNER Alas, my lord, hang me, if ever I spake the words.\nMy accuser is my 'prentice; and when I did correct\nhim for his fault the other day, he did vow upon his\nknees he would be even with me: I have good\nwitness of this: therefore I beseech your majesty,\ndo not cast away an honest man for a villain's\naccusation.\nKING HENRY VI Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?\nGLOUCESTER This doom, my lord, if I may judge:\nLet Somerset be regent over the French,\nBecause in York this breeds suspicion:\nAnd let these have a day appointed them\nFor single combat in convenient place,\nFor he hath witness of his servant's malice:\nThis is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.\nSOMERSET I humbly thank your royal majesty.\nHORNER And I accept the combat willingly.\nPETER Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity\nmy case. The spite of man prevaileth against me. O\nLord, have mercy upon me! I shall never be able to\nfight a blow. O Lord, my heart!\nGLOUCESTER Sirrah, or you must fight, or else be hang'd.\nKING HENRY VI Away with them to prison; and the day of combat\nshall be the last of the next month. Come,\nSomerset, we'll see thee sent away.\n[Flourish. Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT I\nSCENE IV GLOUCESTER's garden.\n[Enter MARGARET JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and\nBOLINGBROKE]\nHUME Come, my masters; the duchess, I tell you, expects\nperformance of your promises.\nBOLINGBROKE Master Hume, we are therefore provided: will her\nladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?\nHUME Ay, what else? fear you not her courage.\nBOLINGBROKE I have heard her reported to be a woman of an\ninvincible spirit: but it shall be convenient,\nMaster Hume, that you be by her aloft, while we be\nbusy below; and so, I pray you, go, in God's name,\nand leave us.\n[Exit HUME]\nMother Jourdain, be you\nprostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell,\nread you; and let us to our work.\n[Enter the DUCHESS aloft, HUME following]\nDUCHESS Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this\ngear the sooner the better.\nBOLINGBROKE Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:\nDeep night, dark night, the silent of the night,\nThe time of night when Troy was set on fire;\nThe time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,\nAnd spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves,\nThat time best fits the work we have in hand.\nMadam, sit you and fear not: whom we raise,\nWe will make fast within a hallow'd verge.\n[Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the\ncircle; BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads, Conjuro te,\n&c. It thunders and lightens terribly; then the\nSpirit riseth]\nSpirit Adsum.\nMARGARET JOURDAIN Asmath,\nBy the eternal God, whose name and power\nThou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;\nFor, till thou speak, thou shalt not pass from hence.\nSpirit Ask what thou wilt. That I had said and done!\nBOLINGBROKE 'First of the king: what shall of him become?'\n[Reading out of a paper]\nSpirit The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\nBut him outlive, and die a violent death.\n[As the Spirit speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]\nBOLINGBROKE 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'\nSpirit By water shall he die, and take his end.\nBOLINGBROKE 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'\nSpirit Let him shun castles;\nSafer shall he be upon the sandy plains\nThan where castles mounted stand.\nHave done, for more I hardly can endure.\nBOLINGBROKE Descend to darkness and the burning lake!\nFalse fiend, avoid!\n[Thunder and lightning. Exit Spirit]\n[Enter YORK and BUCKINGHAM with their Guard\nand break in]\nYORK Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.\nBeldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.\nWhat, madam, are you there? the king and commonweal\nAre deeply indebted for this piece of pains:\nMy lord protector will, I doubt it not,\nSee you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.\nDUCHESS Not half so bad as thine to England's king,\nInjurious duke, that threatest where's no cause.\nBUCKINGHAM True, madam, none at all: what call you this?\nAway with them! let them be clapp'd up close.\nAnd kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.\nStafford, take her to thee.\n[Exeunt above DUCHESS and HUME, guarded]\nWe'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.\nAll, away!\n[Exeunt guard with MARGARET JOURDAIN, SOUTHWELL, &c]\nYORK Lord Buckingham, methinks, you watch'd her well:\nA pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!\nNow, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.\nWhat have we here?\n[Reads]\n'The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose;\nBut him outlive, and die a violent death.'\nWhy, this is just\n'Aio te, AEacida, Romanos vincere posse.'\nWell, to the rest:\n'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?\nBy water shall he die, and take his end.\nWhat shall betide the Duke of Somerset?\nLet him shun castles;\nSafer shall he be upon the sandy plains\nThan where castles mounted stand.'\nCome, come, my lords;\nThese oracles are hardly attain'd,\nAnd hardly understood.\nThe king is now in progress towards Saint Alban's,\nWith him the husband of this lovely lady:\nThither go these news, as fast as horse can\ncarry them:\nA sorry breakfast for my lord protector.\nBUCKINGHAM Your grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,\nTo be the post, in hope of his reward.\nYORK At your pleasure, my good lord. Who's within\nthere, ho!\n[Enter a Servingman]\nInvite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick\nTo sup with me to-morrow night. Away!\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT II\nSCENE I Saint Alban's.\n[Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN MARGARET, GLOUCESTER,\nCARDINAL, and SUFFOLK, with Falconers halloing]\nQUEEN MARGARET Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,\nI saw not better sport these seven years' day:\nYet, by your leave, the wind was very high;\nAnd, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out.\nKING HENRY VI But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,\nAnd what a pitch she flew above the rest!\nTo see how God in all his creatures works!\nYea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.\nSUFFOLK No marvel, an it like your majesty,\nMy lord protector's hawks do tower so well;\nThey know their master loves to be aloft,\nAnd bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.\nGLOUCESTER My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind\nThat mounts no higher than a bird can soar.\nCARDINAL I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.\nGLOUCESTER Ay, my lord cardinal? how think you by that?\nWere it not good your grace could fly to heaven?\nKING HENRY VI The treasury of everlasting joy.\nCARDINAL Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts\nBeat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;\nPernicious protector, dangerous peer,\nThat smooth'st it so with king and commonweal!\nGLOUCESTER What, cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?\nTantaene animis coelestibus irae?\nChurchmen so hot? good uncle, hide such malice;\nWith such holiness can you do it?\nSUFFOLK No malice, sir; no more than well becomes\nSo good a quarrel and so bad a peer.\nGLOUCESTER As who, my lord?\nSUFFOLK Why, as you, my lord,\nAn't like your lordly lord-protectorship.\nGLOUCESTER Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.\nQUEEN MARGARET And thy ambition, Gloucester.\nKING HENRY VI I prithee, peace, good queen,\nAnd whet not on these furious peers;\nFor blessed are the peacemakers on earth.\nCARDINAL Let me be blessed for the peace I make,\nAgainst this proud protector, with my sword!\nGLOUCESTER [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would\n'twere come to that!\nCARDINAL [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou darest.\nGLOUCESTER [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious\nnumbers for the matter;\nIn thine own person answer thy abuse.\nCARDINAL [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou darest\nnot peep: an if thou darest,\nThis evening, on the east side of the grove.\nKING HENRY VI How now, my lords!\nCARDINAL Believe me, cousin Gloucester,\nHad not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,\nWe had had more sport.\n[Aside to GLOUCESTER]\nCome with thy two-hand sword.\nGLOUCESTER True, uncle.\nCARDINAL [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advised? the\neast side of the grove?\nGLOUCESTER [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.\nKING HENRY VI Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!\nGLOUCESTER Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.\n[Aside to CARDINAL]\nNow, by God's mother, priest, I'll shave your crown for this,\nOr all my fence shall fail.\nCARDINAL [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum--\nProtector, see to't well, protect yourself.\nKING HENRY VI The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.\nHow irksome is this music to my heart!\nWhen such strings jar, what hope of harmony?\nI pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.\n[Enter a Townsman of Saint Alban's, crying 'A miracle!']\nGLOUCESTER What means this noise?\nFellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?\nTownsman A miracle! a miracle!\nSUFFOLK Come to the king and tell him what miracle.\nTownsman Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine,\nWithin this half-hour, hath received his sight;\nA man that ne'er saw in his life before.\nKING HENRY VI Now, God be praised, that to believing souls\nGives light in darkness, comfort in despair!\n[Enter the Mayor of Saint Alban's and his\nbrethren, bearing SIMPCOX, between two in a\nchair, SIMPCOX's Wife following]\nCARDINAL Here comes the townsmen on procession,\nTo present your highness with the man.\nKING HENRY VI Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,\nAlthough by his sight his sin be multiplied.\nGLOUCESTER Stand by, my masters: bring him near the king;\nHis highness' pleasure is to talk with him.\nKING HENRY VI Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,\nThat we for thee may glorify the Lord.\nWhat, hast thou been long blind and now restored?\nSIMPCOX Born blind, an't please your grace.\nWife Ay, indeed, was he.\nSUFFOLK What woman is this?\nWife His wife, an't like your worship.\nGLOUCESTER Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have\nbetter told.\nKING HENRY VI Where wert thou born?\nSIMPCOX At Berwick in the north, an't like your grace.\nKING HENRY VI Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee:\nLet never day nor night unhallow'd pass,\nBut still remember what the Lord hath done.\nQUEEN MARGARET Tell me, good fellow, camest thou here by chance,\nOr of devotion, to this holy shrine?\nSIMPCOX God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd\nA hundred times and oftener, in my sleep,\nBy good Saint Alban; who said, 'Simpcox, come,\nCome, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'\nWife Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft\nMyself have heard a voice to call him so.\nCARDINAL What, art thou lame?\nSIMPCOX Ay, God Almighty help me!\nSUFFOLK How camest thou so?\nSIMPCOX A fall off of a tree.\nWife A plum-tree, master.\nGLOUCESTER How long hast thou been blind?\nSIMPCOX Born so, master.\nGLOUCESTER What, and wouldst climb a tree?\nSIMPCOX But that in all my life, when I was a youth.\nWife Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.\nGLOUCESTER Mass, thou lovedst plums well, that wouldst\nventure so.\nSIMPCOX Alas, good master, my wife desired some damsons,\nAnd made me climb, with danger of my life.\nGLOUCESTER A subtle knave! but yet it shall not serve.\nLet me see thine eyes: wink now: now open them:\nIn my opinion yet thou seest not well.\nSIMPCOX Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and\nSaint Alban.\nGLOUCESTER Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?\nSIMPCOX Red, master; red as blood.\nGLOUCESTER Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?\nSIMPCOX Black, forsooth: coal-black as jet.\nKING HENRY VI Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?\nSUFFOLK And yet, I think, jet did he never see.\nGLOUCESTER But cloaks and gowns, before this day, a many.\nWife Never, before this day, in all his life.\nGLOUCESTER Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?\nSIMPCOX Alas, master, I know not.\nGLOUCESTER What's his name?\nSIMPCOX I know not.\nGLOUCESTER Nor his?\nSIMPCOX No, indeed, master.\nGLOUCESTER What's thine own name?\nSIMPCOX Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.\nGLOUCESTER Then, Saunder, sit there, the lyingest knave in\nChristendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou\nmightest as well have known all our names as thus to\nname the several colours we do wear. Sight may\ndistinguish of colours, but suddenly to nominate them\nall, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban here\nhath done a miracle; and would ye not think his\ncunning to be great, that could restore this cripple\nto his legs again?\nSIMPCOX O master, that you could!\nGLOUCESTER My masters of Saint Alban's, have you not beadles in\nyour town, and things called whips?\nMayor Yes, my lord, if it please your grace.\nGLOUCESTER Then send for one presently.\nMayor Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.\n[Exit an Attendant]\nGLOUCESTER Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. Now, sirrah,\nif you mean to save yourself from whipping, leap me\nover this stool and run away.\nSIMPCOX Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone:\nYou go about to torture me in vain.\n[Enter a Beadle with whips]\nGLOUCESTER Well, sir, we must have you find your legs. Sirrah\nbeadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.\nBeadle I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your\ndoublet quickly.\nSIMPCOX Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.\n[After the Beadle hath hit him once, he leaps over\nthe stool and runs away; and they follow and cry, 'A miracle!']\nKING HENRY VI O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?\nQUEEN MARGARET It made me laugh to see the villain run.\nGLOUCESTER Follow the knave; and take this drab away.\nWife Alas, sir, we did it for pure need.\nGLOUCESTER Let them be whipped through every market-town, till\nthey come to Berwick, from whence they came.\n[Exeunt Wife, Beadle, Mayor, &c]\nCARDINAL Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.\nSUFFOLK True; made the lame to leap and fly away.\nGLOUCESTER But you have done more miracles than I;\nYou made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM]\nKING HENRY VI What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?\nBUCKINGHAM Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold.\nA sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,\nUnder the countenance and confederacy\nOf Lady Eleanor, the protector's wife,\nThe ringleader and head of all this rout,\nHave practised dangerously against your state,\nDealing with witches and with conjurers:\nWhom we have apprehended in the fact;\nRaising up wicked spirits from under ground,\nDemanding of King Henry's life and death,\nAnd other of your highness' privy-council;\nAs more at large your grace shall understand.\nCARDINAL [Aside to GLOUCESTER] And so, my lord protector,\nby this means\nYour lady is forthcoming yet at London.\nThis news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;\n'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.\nGLOUCESTER Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart:\nSorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;\nAnd, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to thee,\nOr to the meanest groom.\nKING HENRY VI O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,\nHeaping confusion on their own heads thereby!\nQUEEN MARGARET Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest.\nAnd look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.\nGLOUCESTER Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal,\nHow I have loved my king and commonweal:\nAnd, for my wife, I know not how it stands;\nSorry I am to hear what I have heard:\nNoble she is, but if she have forgot\nHonour and virtue and conversed with such\nAs, like to pitch, defile nobility,\nI banish her my bed and company\nAnd give her as a prey to law and shame,\nThat hath dishonour'd Gloucester's honest name.\nKING HENRY VI Well, for this night we will repose us here:\nTo-morrow toward London back again,\nTo look into this business thoroughly\nAnd call these foul offenders to their answers\nAnd poise the cause in justice' equal scales,\nWhose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.\n[Flourish. Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT II\nSCENE II London. YORK'S garden.\n[Enter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK]\nYORK Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,\nOur simple supper ended, give me leave\nIn this close walk to satisfy myself,\nIn craving your opinion of my title,\nWhich is infallible, to England's crown.\nSALISBURY My lord, I long to hear it at full.\nWARWICK Sweet York, begin: and if thy claim be good,\nThe Nevils are thy subjects to command.\nYORK Then thus:\nEdward the Third, my lords, had seven sons:\nThe first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;\nThe second, William of Hatfield, and the third,\nLionel Duke of Clarence: next to whom\nWas John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;\nThe fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;\nThe sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;\nWilliam of Windsor was the seventh and last.\nEdward the Black Prince died before his father\nAnd left behind him Richard, his only son,\nWho after Edward the Third's death reign'd as king;\nTill Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,\nThe eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,\nCrown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,\nSeized on the realm, deposed the rightful king,\nSent his poor queen to France, from whence she came,\nAnd him to Pomfret; where, as all you know,\nHarmless Richard was murder'd traitorously.\nWARWICK Father, the duke hath told the truth:\nThus got the house of Lancaster the crown.\nYORK Which now they hold by force and not by right;\nFor Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,\nThe issue of the next son should have reign'd.\nSALISBURY But William of Hatfield died without an heir.\nYORK The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line\nI claimed the crown, had issue, Philippe, a daughter,\nWho married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March:\nEdmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;\nRoger had issue, Edmund, Anne and Eleanor.\nSALISBURY This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,\nAs I have read, laid claim unto the crown;\nAnd, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,\nWho kept him in captivity till he died.\nBut to the rest.\nYORK His eldest sister, Anne,\nMy mother, being heir unto the crown\nMarried Richard Earl of Cambridge; who was son\nTo Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son.\nBy her I claim the kingdom: she was heir\nTo Roger Earl of March, who was the son\nOf Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,\nSole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence:\nSo, if the issue of the elder son\nSucceed before the younger, I am king.\nWARWICK What plain proceeding is more plain than this?\nHenry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,\nThe fourth son; York claims it from the third.\nTill Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign:\nIt fails not yet, but flourishes in thee\nAnd in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.\nThen, father Salisbury, kneel we together;\nAnd in this private plot be we the first\nThat shall salute our rightful sovereign\nWith honour of his birthright to the crown.\nBOTH Long live our sovereign Richard, England's king!\nYORK We thank you, lords. But I am not your king\nTill I be crown'd and that my sword be stain'd\nWith heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;\nAnd that's not suddenly to be perform'd,\nBut with advice and silent secrecy.\nDo you as I do in these dangerous days:\nWink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,\nAt Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,\nAt Buckingham and all the crew of them,\nTill they have snared the shepherd of the flock,\nThat virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey:\n'Tis that they seek, and they in seeking that\nShall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.\nSALISBURY My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.\nWARWICK My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick\nShall one day make the Duke of York a king.\nYORK And, Nevil, this I do assure myself:\nRichard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick\nThe greatest man in England but the king.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT II\nSCENE III A hall of justice.\n[Sound trumpets. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN\nMARGARET, GLOUCESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, and SALISBURY;\nthe DUCHESS, MARGARET JOURDAIN, SOUTHWELL, HUME,\nand BOLINGBROKE, under guard]\nKING HENRY VI Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's wife:\nIn sight of God and us, your guilt is great:\nReceive the sentence of the law for sins\nSuch as by God's book are adjudged to death.\nYou four, from hence to prison back again;\nFrom thence unto the place of execution:\nThe witch in Smithfield shall be burn'd to ashes,\nAnd you three shall be strangled on the gallows.\nYou, madam, for you are more nobly born,\nDespoiled of your honour in your life,\nShall, after three days' open penance done,\nLive in your country here in banishment,\nWith Sir John Stanley, in the Isle of Man.\nDUCHESS Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.\nGLOUCESTER Eleanor, the law, thou see'st, hath judged thee:\nI cannot justify whom the law condemns.\n[Exeunt DUCHESS and other prisoners, guarded]\nMine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.\nAh, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age\nWill bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!\nI beseech your majesty, give me leave to go;\nSorrow would solace and mine age would ease.\nKING HENRY VI Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester: ere thou go,\nGive up thy staff: Henry will to himself\nProtector be; and God shall be my hope,\nMy stay, my guide and lantern to my feet:\nAnd go in peace, Humphrey, no less beloved\nThan when thou wert protector to thy King.\nQUEEN MARGARET I see no reason why a king of years\nShould be to be protected like a child.\nGod and King Henry govern England's realm.\nGive up your staff, sir, and the king his realm.\nGLOUCESTER My staff? here, noble Henry, is my staff:\nAs willingly do I the same resign\nAs e'er thy father Henry made it mine;\nAnd even as willingly at thy feet I leave it\nAs others would ambitiously receive it.\nFarewell, good king: when I am dead and gone,\nMay honourable peace attend thy throne!\n[Exit]\nQUEEN MARGARET Why, now is Henry king, and Margaret queen;\nAnd Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,\nThat bears so shrewd a maim; two pulls at once;\nHis lady banish'd, and a limb lopp'd off.\nThis staff of honour raught, there let it stand\nWhere it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.\nSUFFOLK Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;\nThus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.\nYORK Lords, let him go. Please it your majesty,\nThis is the day appointed for the combat;\nAnd ready are the appellant and defendant,\nThe armourer and his man, to enter the lists,\nSo please your highness to behold the fight.\nQUEEN MARGARET Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore\nLeft I the court, to see this quarrel tried.\nKING HENRY VI O God's name, see the lists and all things fit:\nHere let them end it; and God defend the right!\nYORK I never saw a fellow worse bested,\nOr more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,\nThe servant of this armourer, my lords.\n[Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his\nNeighbours, drinking to him so much that he is drunk;\nand he enters with a drum before him and his staff\nwith a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the other\ndoor PETER, his man, with a drum and sand-bag, and\n'Prentices drinking to him]\nFirst Neighbour Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of\nsack: and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.\nSecond Neighbour And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.\nThird Neighbour And here's a pot of good double beer, neighbour:\ndrink, and fear not your man.\nHORNER Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and\na fig for Peter!\nFirst 'Prentice Here, Peter, I drink to thee: and be not afraid.\nSecond 'Prentice Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight\nfor credit of the 'prentices.\nPETER I thank you all: drink, and pray for me, I pray\nyou; for I think I have taken my last draught in\nthis world. Here, Robin, an if I die, I give thee\nmy apron: and, Will, thou shalt have my hammer:\nand here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O\nLord bless me! I pray God! for I am never able to\ndeal with my master, he hath learnt me so much fence already.\nSALISBURY Come, leave your drinking, and fall to blows.\nSirrah, what's thy name?\nPETER Peter, forsooth.\nSALISBURY Peter! what more?\nPETER Thump.\nSALISBURY Thump! then see thou thump thy master well.\nHORNER Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's\ninstigation, to prove him a knave and myself an\nhonest man: and touching the Duke of York, I will\ntake my death, I never meant him any ill, nor the\nking, nor the queen: and therefore, Peter, have at\nthee with a downright blow!\nYORK Dispatch: this knave's tongue begins to double.\nSound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!\n[Alarum. They fight, and PETER strikes him down]\nHORNER Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.\n[Dies]\nYORK Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the\ngood wine in thy master's way.\nPETER O God, have I overcome mine enemy in this presence?\nO Peter, thou hast prevailed in right!\nKING HENRY VI Go, take hence that traitor from our sight;\nFor his death we do perceive his guilt:\nAnd God in justice hath revealed to us\nThe truth and innocence of this poor fellow,\nWhich he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.\nCome, fellow, follow us for thy reward.\n[Sound a flourish. Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT II\nSCENE IV A street.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER and his Servingmen, in\nmourning cloaks]\nGLOUCESTER Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;\nAnd after summer evermore succeeds\nBarren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:\nSo cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.\nSirs, what's o'clock?\nServants Ten, my lord.\nGLOUCESTER Ten is the hour that was appointed me\nTo watch the coming of my punish'd duchess:\nUneath may she endure the flinty streets,\nTo tread them with her tender-feeling feet.\nSweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook\nThe abject people gazing on thy face,\nWith envious looks, laughing at thy shame,\nThat erst did follow thy proud chariot-wheels\nWhen thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.\nBut, soft! I think she comes; and I'll prepare\nMy tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.\n[Enter the DUCHESS in a white sheet, and a taper\nburning in her hand; with STANLEY, the Sheriff,\nand Officers]\nServant So please your grace, we'll take her from the sheriff.\nGLOUCESTER No, stir not, for your lives; let her pass by.\nDUCHESS Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?\nNow thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!\nSee how the giddy multitude do point,\nAnd nod their heads, and throw their eyes on thee!\nAh, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,\nAnd, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame,\nAnd ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!\nGLOUCESTER Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.\nDUCHESS Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!\nFor whilst I think I am thy married wife\nAnd thou a prince, protector of this land,\nMethinks I should not thus be led along,\nMail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,\nAnd followed with a rabble that rejoice\nTo see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.\nThe ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,\nAnd when I start, the envious people laugh\nAnd bid me be advised how I tread.\nAh, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?\nTrow'st thou that e'er I'll look upon the world,\nOr count them happy that enjoy the sun?\nNo; dark shall be my light and night my day;\nTo think upon my pomp shall be my hell.\nSometime I'll say, I am Duke Humphrey's wife,\nAnd he a prince and ruler of the land:\nYet so he ruled and such a prince he was\nAs he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,\nWas made a wonder and a pointing-stock\nTo every idle rascal follower.\nBut be thou mild and blush not at my shame,\nNor stir at nothing till the axe of death\nHang over thee, as, sure, it shortly will;\nFor Suffolk, he that can do all in all\nWith her that hateth thee and hates us all,\nAnd York and impious Beaufort, that false priest,\nHave all limed bushes to betray thy wings,\nAnd, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee:\nBut fear not thou, until thy foot be snared,\nNor never seek prevention of thy foes.\nGLOUCESTER Ah, Nell, forbear! thou aimest all awry;\nI must offend before I be attainted;\nAnd had I twenty times so many foes,\nAnd each of them had twenty times their power,\nAll these could not procure me any scathe,\nSo long as I am loyal, true and crimeless.\nWouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?\nWhy, yet thy scandal were not wiped away\nBut I in danger for the breach of law.\nThy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell:\nI pray thee, sort thy heart to patience;\nThese few days' wonder will be quickly worn.\n[Enter a Herald]\nHerald I summon your grace to his majesty's parliament,\nHolden at Bury the first of this next month.\nGLOUCESTER And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!\nThis is close dealing. Well, I will be there.\n[Exit Herald]\nMy Nell, I take my leave: and, master sheriff,\nLet not her penance exceed the king's commission.\nSheriff An't please your grace, here my commission stays,\nAnd Sir John Stanley is appointed now\nTo take her with him to the Isle of Man.\nGLOUCESTER Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?\nSTANLEY So am I given in charge, may't please your grace.\nGLOUCESTER Entreat her not the worse in that I pray\nYou use her well: the world may laugh again;\nAnd I may live to do you kindness if\nYou do it her: and so, Sir John, farewell!\nDUCHESS What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!\nGLOUCESTER Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.\n[Exeunt GLOUCESTER and Servingmen]\nDUCHESS Art thou gone too? all comfort go with thee!\nFor none abides with me: my joy is death;\nDeath, at whose name I oft have been afear'd,\nBecause I wish'd this world's eternity.\nStanley, I prithee, go, and take me hence;\nI care not whither, for I beg no favour,\nOnly convey me where thou art commanded.\nSTANLEY Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man;\nThere to be used according to your state.\nDUCHESS That's bad enough, for I am but reproach:\nAnd shall I then be used reproachfully?\nSTANLEY Like to a duchess, and Duke Humphrey's lady;\nAccording to that state you shall be used.\nDUCHESS Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,\nAlthough thou hast been conduct of my shame.\nSheriff It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.\nDUCHESS Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharged.\nCome, Stanley, shall we go?\nSTANLEY Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,\nAnd go we to attire you for our journey.\nDUCHESS My shame will not be shifted with my sheet:\nNo, it will hang upon my richest robes\nAnd show itself, attire me how I can.\nGo, lead the way; I long to see my prison.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT III\nSCENE I The Abbey at Bury St. Edmund's.\n[Sound a sennet. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN\nMARGARET, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK, YORK, BUCKINGHAM,\nSALISBURY and WARWICK to the Parliament]\nKING HENRY VI I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come:\n'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,\nWhate'er occasion keeps him from us now.\nQUEEN MARGARET Can you not see? or will ye not observe\nThe strangeness of his alter'd countenance?\nWith what a majesty he bears himself,\nHow insolent of late he is become,\nHow proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?\nWe know the time since he was mild and affable,\nAnd if we did but glance a far-off look,\nImmediately he was upon his knee,\nThat all the court admired him for submission:\nBut meet him now, and, be it in the morn,\nWhen every one will give the time of day,\nHe knits his brow and shows an angry eye,\nAnd passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,\nDisdaining duty that to us belongs.\nSmall curs are not regarded when they grin;\nBut great men tremble when the lion roars;\nAnd Humphrey is no little man in England.\nFirst note that he is near you in descent,\nAnd should you fall, he as the next will mount.\nMe seemeth then it is no policy,\nRespecting what a rancorous mind he bears\nAnd his advantage following your decease,\nThat he should come about your royal person\nOr be admitted to your highness' council.\nBy flattery hath he won the commons' hearts,\nAnd when he please to make commotion,\n'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.\nNow 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;\nSuffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden\nAnd choke the herbs for want of husbandry.\nThe reverent care I bear unto my lord\nMade me collect these dangers in the duke.\nIf it be fond, call it a woman's fear;\nWhich fear if better reasons can supplant,\nI will subscribe and say I wrong'd the duke.\nMy Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,\nReprove my allegation, if you can;\nOr else conclude my words effectual.\nSUFFOLK Well hath your highness seen into this duke;\nAnd, had I first been put to speak my mind,\nI think I should have told your grace's tale.\nThe duchess, by his subornation,\nUpon my life, began her devilish practises:\nOr, if he were not privy to those faults,\nYet, by reputing of his high descent,\nAs next the king he was successive heir,\nAnd such high vaunts of his nobility,\nDid instigate the bedlam brain-sick duchess\nBy wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.\nSmooth runs the water where the brook is deep;\nAnd in his simple show he harbours treason.\nThe fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.\nNo, no, my sovereign; Gloucester is a man\nUnsounded yet and full of deep deceit.\nCARDINAL Did he not, contrary to form of law,\nDevise strange deaths for small offences done?\nYORK And did he not, in his protectorship,\nLevy great sums of money through the realm\nFor soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?\nBy means whereof the towns each day revolted.\nBUCKINGHAM Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown.\nWhich time will bring to light in smooth\nDuke Humphrey.\nKING HENRY VI My lords, at once: the care you have of us,\nTo mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,\nIs worthy praise: but, shall I speak my conscience,\nOur kinsman Gloucester is as innocent\nFrom meaning treason to our royal person\nAs is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:\nThe duke is virtuous, mild and too well given\nTo dream on evil or to work my downfall.\nQUEEN MARGARET Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance!\nSeems he a dove? his feathers are but borrowed,\nFor he's disposed as the hateful raven:\nIs he a lamb? his skin is surely lent him,\nFor he's inclined as is the ravenous wolf.\nWho cannot steal a shape that means deceit?\nTake heed, my lord; the welfare of us all\nHangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.\n[Enter SOMERSET]\nSOMERSET All health unto my gracious sovereign!\nKING HENRY VI Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?\nSOMERSET That all your interest in those territories\nIs utterly bereft you; all is lost.\nKING HENRY VI Cold news, Lord Somerset: but God's will be done!\nYORK [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France\nAs firmly as I hope for fertile England.\nThus are my blossoms blasted in the bud\nAnd caterpillars eat my leaves away;\nBut I will remedy this gear ere long,\nOr sell my title for a glorious grave.\n[Enter GLOUCESTER]\nGLOUCESTER All happiness unto my lord the king!\nPardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.\nSUFFOLK Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,\nUnless thou wert more loyal than thou art:\nI do arrest thee of high treason here.\nGLOUCESTER Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush\nNor change my countenance for this arrest:\nA heart unspotted is not easily daunted.\nThe purest spring is not so free from mud\nAs I am clear from treason to my sovereign:\nWho can accuse me? wherein am I guilty?\nYORK 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France,\nAnd, being protector, stayed the soldiers' pay;\nBy means whereof his highness hath lost France.\nGLOUCESTER Is it but thought so? what are they that think it?\nI never robb'd the soldiers of their pay,\nNor ever had one penny bribe from France.\nSo help me God, as I have watch'd the night,\nAy, night by night, in studying good for England,\nThat doit that e'er I wrested from the king,\nOr any groat I hoarded to my use,\nBe brought against me at my trial-day!\nNo; many a pound of mine own proper store,\nBecause I would not tax the needy commons,\nHave I disbursed to the garrisons,\nAnd never ask'd for restitution.\nCARDINAL It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.\nGLOUCESTER I say no more than truth, so help me God!\nYORK In your protectorship you did devise\nStrange tortures for offenders never heard of,\nThat England was defamed by tyranny.\nGLOUCESTER Why, 'tis well known that, whiles I was\nprotector,\nPity was all the fault that was in me;\nFor I should melt at an offender's tears,\nAnd lowly words were ransom for their fault.\nUnless it were a bloody murderer,\nOr foul felonious thief that fleeced poor passengers,\nI never gave them condign punishment:\nMurder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortured\nAbove the felon or what trespass else.\nSUFFOLK My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answered:\nBut mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,\nWhereof you cannot easily purge yourself.\nI do arrest you in his highness' name;\nAnd here commit you to my lord cardinal\nTo keep, until your further time of trial.\nKING HENRY VI My lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope\nThat you will clear yourself from all suspect:\nMy conscience tells me you are innocent.\nGLOUCESTER Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous:\nVirtue is choked with foul ambition\nAnd charity chased hence by rancour's hand;\nFoul subornation is predominant\nAnd equity exiled your highness' land.\nI know their complot is to have my life,\nAnd if my death might make this island happy,\nAnd prove the period of their tyranny,\nI would expend it with all willingness:\nBut mine is made the prologue to their play;\nFor thousands more, that yet suspect no peril,\nWill not conclude their plotted tragedy.\nBeaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,\nAnd Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;\nSharp Buckingham unburthens with his tongue\nThe envious load that lies upon his heart;\nAnd dogged York, that reaches at the moon,\nWhose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,\nBy false accuse doth level at my life:\nAnd you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,\nCauseless have laid disgraces on my head,\nAnd with your best endeavour have stirr'd up\nMy liefest liege to be mine enemy:\nAy, all you have laid your heads together--\nMyself had notice of your conventicles--\nAnd all to make away my guiltless life.\nI shall not want false witness to condemn me,\nNor store of treasons to augment my guilt;\nThe ancient proverb will be well effected:\n'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'\nCARDINAL My liege, his railing is intolerable:\nIf those that care to keep your royal person\nFrom treason's secret knife and traitors' rage\nBe thus upbraided, chid and rated at,\nAnd the offender granted scope of speech,\n'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your grace.\nSUFFOLK Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here\nWith ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,\nAs if she had suborned some to swear\nFalse allegations to o'erthrow his state?\nQUEEN MARGARET But I can give the loser leave to chide.\nGLOUCESTER Far truer spoke than meant: I lose, indeed;\nBeshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!\nAnd well such losers may have leave to speak.\nBUCKINGHAM He'll wrest the sense and hold us here all day:\nLord cardinal, he is your prisoner.\nCARDINAL Sirs, take away the duke, and guard him sure.\nGLOUCESTER Ah! thus King Henry throws away his crutch\nBefore his legs be firm to bear his body.\nThus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,\nAnd wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.\nAh, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!\nFor, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.\n[Exit, guarded]\nKING HENRY VI My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best,\nDo or undo, as if ourself were here.\nQUEEN MARGARET What, will your highness leave the parliament?\nKING HENRY VI Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,\nWhose flood begins to flow within mine eyes,\nMy body round engirt with misery,\nFor what's more miserable than discontent?\nAh, uncle Humphrey! in thy face I see\nThe map of honour, truth and loyalty:\nAnd yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come\nThat e'er I proved thee false or fear'd thy faith.\nWhat louring star now envies thy estate,\nThat these great lords and Margaret our queen\nDo seek subversion of thy harmless life?\nThou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;\nAnd as the butcher takes away the calf\nAnd binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,\nBearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,\nEven so remorseless have they borne him hence;\nAnd as the dam runs lowing up and down,\nLooking the way her harmless young one went,\nAnd can do nought but wail her darling's loss,\nEven so myself bewails good Gloucester's case\nWith sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes\nLook after him and cannot do him good,\nSo mighty are his vowed enemies.\nHis fortunes I will weep; and, 'twixt each groan\nSay 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'\n[Exeunt all but QUEEN MARGARET, CARDINAL,\nSUFFOLK, and YORK; SOMERSET remains apart]\nQUEEN MARGARET Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams.\nHenry my lord is cold in great affairs,\nToo full of foolish pity, and Gloucester's show\nBeguiles him as the mournful crocodile\nWith sorrow snares relenting passengers,\nOr as the snake roll'd in a flowering bank,\nWith shining chequer'd slough, doth sting a child\nThat for the beauty thinks it excellent.\nBelieve me, lords, were none more wise than I--\nAnd yet herein I judge mine own wit good--\nThis Gloucester should be quickly rid the world,\nTo rid us of the fear we have of him.\nCARDINAL That he should die is worthy policy;\nBut yet we want a colour for his death:\n'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.\nSUFFOLK But, in my mind, that were no policy:\nThe king will labour still to save his life,\nThe commons haply rise, to save his life;\nAnd yet we have but trivial argument,\nMore than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.\nYORK So that, by this, you would not have him die.\nSUFFOLK Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!\nYORK 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.\nBut, my lord cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,\nSay as you think, and speak it from your souls,\nWere't not all one, an empty eagle were set\nTo guard the chicken from a hungry kite,\nAs place Duke Humphrey for the king's protector?\nQUEEN MARGARET So the poor chicken should be sure of death.\nSUFFOLK Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness, then,\nTo make the fox surveyor of the fold?\nWho being accused a crafty murderer,\nHis guilt should be but idly posted over,\nBecause his purpose is not executed.\nNo; let him die, in that he is a fox,\nBy nature proved an enemy to the flock,\nBefore his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,\nAs Humphrey, proved by reasons, to my liege.\nAnd do not stand on quillets how to slay him:\nBe it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,\nSleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,\nSo he be dead; for that is good deceit\nWhich mates him first that first intends deceit.\nQUEEN MARGARET Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.\nSUFFOLK Not resolute, except so much were done;\nFor things are often spoke and seldom meant:\nBut that my heart accordeth with my tongue,\nSeeing the deed is meritorious,\nAnd to preserve my sovereign from his foe,\nSay but the word, and I will be his priest.\nCARDINAL But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,\nEre you can take due orders for a priest:\nSay you consent and censure well the deed,\nAnd I'll provide his executioner,\nI tender so the safety of my liege.\nSUFFOLK Here is my hand, the deed is worthy doing.\nQUEEN MARGARET And so say I.\nYORK And I and now we three have spoke it,\nIt skills not greatly who impugns our doom.\n[Enter a Post]\nPost Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain,\nTo signify that rebels there are up\nAnd put the Englishmen unto the sword:\nSend succors, lords, and stop the rage betime,\nBefore the wound do grow uncurable;\nFor, being green, there is great hope of help.\nCARDINAL A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!\nWhat counsel give you in this weighty cause?\nYORK That Somerset be sent as regent thither:\n'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd;\nWitness the fortune he hath had in France.\nSOMERSET If York, with all his far-fet policy,\nHad been the regent there instead of me,\nHe never would have stay'd in France so long.\nYORK No, not to lose it all, as thou hast done:\nI rather would have lost my life betimes\nThan bring a burthen of dishonour home\nBy staying there so long till all were lost.\nShow me one scar character'd on thy skin:\nMen's flesh preserved so whole do seldom win.\nQUEEN MARGARET Nay, then, this spark will prove a raging fire,\nIf wind and fuel be brought to feed it with:\nNo more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still:\nThy fortune, York, hadst thou been regent there,\nMight happily have proved far worse than his.\nYORK What, worse than nought? nay, then, a shame take all!\nSOMERSET And, in the number, thee that wishest shame!\nCARDINAL My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.\nThe uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms\nAnd temper clay with blood of Englishmen:\nTo Ireland will you lead a band of men,\nCollected choicely, from each county some,\nAnd try your hap against the Irishmen?\nYORK I will, my lord, so please his majesty.\nSUFFOLK Why, our authority is his consent,\nAnd what we do establish he confirms:\nThen, noble York, take thou this task in hand.\nYORK I am content: provide me soldiers, lords,\nWhiles I take order for mine own affairs.\nSUFFOLK A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.\nBut now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.\nCARDINAL No more of him; for I will deal with him\nThat henceforth he shall trouble us no more.\nAnd so break off; the day is almost spent:\nLord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.\nYORK My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days\nAt Bristol I expect my soldiers;\nFor there I'll ship them all for Ireland.\nSUFFOLK I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.\n[Exeunt all but YORK]\nYORK Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts,\nAnd change misdoubt to resolution:\nBe that thou hopest to be, or what thou art\nResign to death; it is not worth the enjoying:\nLet pale-faced fear keep with the mean-born man,\nAnd find no harbour in a royal heart.\nFaster than spring-time showers comes thought\non thought,\nAnd not a thought but thinks on dignity.\nMy brain more busy than the labouring spider\nWeaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.\nWell, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done,\nTo send me packing with an host of men:\nI fear me you but warm the starved snake,\nWho, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting\nyour hearts.\n'Twas men I lack'd and you will give them me:\nI take it kindly; and yet be well assured\nYou put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.\nWhiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,\nI will stir up in England some black storm\nShall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;\nAnd this fell tempest shall not cease to rage\nUntil the golden circuit on my head,\nLike to the glorious sun's transparent beams,\nDo calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.\nAnd, for a minister of my intent,\nI have seduced a headstrong Kentishman,\nJohn Cade of Ashford,\nTo make commotion, as full well he can,\nUnder the title of John Mortimer.\nIn Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade\nOppose himself against a troop of kerns,\nAnd fought so long, till that his thighs with darts\nWere almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;\nAnd, in the end being rescued, I have seen\nHim caper upright like a wild Morisco,\nShaking the bloody darts as he his bells.\nFull often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,\nHath he conversed with the enemy,\nAnd undiscover'd come to me again\nAnd given me notice of their villanies.\nThis devil here shall be my substitute;\nFor that John Mortimer, which now is dead,\nIn face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble:\nBy this I shall perceive the commons' mind,\nHow they affect the house and claim of York.\nSay he be taken, rack'd and tortured,\nI know no pain they can inflict upon him\nWill make him say I moved him to those arms.\nSay that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,\nWhy, then from Ireland come I with my strength\nAnd reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;\nFor Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,\nAnd Henry put apart, the next for me.\n[Exit]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT III\nSCENE II Bury St. Edmund's. A room of state.\n[Enter certain Murderers, hastily]\nFirst Murderer Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know\nWe have dispatch'd the duke, as he commanded.\nSecond Murderer O that it were to do! What have we done?\nDidst ever hear a man so penitent?\n[Enter SUFFOLK]\nFirst Murder Here comes my lord.\nSUFFOLK Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?\nFirst Murderer Ay, my good lord, he's dead.\nSUFFOLK Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;\nI will reward you for this venturous deed.\nThe king and all the peers are here at hand.\nHave you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,\nAccording as I gave directions?\nFirst Murderer 'Tis, my good lord.\nSUFFOLK Away! be gone.\n[Exeunt Murderers]\n[Sound trumpets. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN\nMARGARET, CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with Attendants]\nKING HENRY VI Go, call our uncle to our presence straight;\nSay we intend to try his grace to-day.\nIf he be guilty, as 'tis published.\nSUFFOLK I'll call him presently, my noble lord.\n[Exit]\nKING HENRY VI Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,\nProceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester\nThan from true evidence of good esteem\nHe be approved in practise culpable.\nQUEEN MARGARET God forbid any malice should prevail,\nThat faultless may condemn a nobleman!\nPray God he may acquit him of suspicion!\nKING HENRY VI I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.\n[Re-enter SUFFOLK]\nHow now! why look'st thou pale? why tremblest thou?\nWhere is our uncle? what's the matter, Suffolk?\nSUFFOLK Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.\nQUEEN MARGARET Marry, God forfend!\nCARDINAL God's secret judgment: I did dream to-night\nThe duke was dumb and could not speak a word.\n[KING HENRY VI swoons]\nQUEEN MARGARET How fares my lord? Help, lords! the king is dead.\nSOMERSET Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.\nQUEEN MARGARET Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!\nSUFFOLK He doth revive again: madam, be patient.\nKING HENRY VI O heavenly God!\nQUEEN MARGARET How fares my gracious lord?\nSUFFOLK Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry, comfort!\nKING HENRY VI What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?\nCame he right now to sing a raven's note,\nWhose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;\nAnd thinks he that the chirping of a wren,\nBy crying comfort from a hollow breast,\nCan chase away the first-conceived sound?\nHide not thy poison with such sugar'd words;\nLay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;\nTheir touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.\nThou baleful messenger, out of my sight!\nUpon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny\nSits in grim majesty, to fright the world.\nLook not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:\nYet do not go away: come, basilisk,\nAnd kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;\nFor in the shade of death I shall find joy;\nIn life but double death, now Gloucester's dead.\nQUEEN MARGARET Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?\nAlthough the duke was enemy to him,\nYet he most Christian-like laments his death:\nAnd for myself, foe as he was to me,\nMight liquid tears or heart-offending groans\nOr blood-consuming sighs recall his life,\nI would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,\nLook pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,\nAnd all to have the noble duke alive.\nWhat know I how the world may deem of me?\nFor it is known we were but hollow friends:\nIt may be judged I made the duke away;\nSo shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,\nAnd princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.\nThis get I by his death: ay me, unhappy!\nTo be a queen, and crown'd with infamy!\nKING HENRY VI Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!\nQUEEN MARGARET Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.\nWhat, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?\nI am no loathsome leper; look on me.\nWhat! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?\nBe poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.\nIs all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?\nWhy, then, dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.\nErect his statue and worship it,\nAnd make my image but an alehouse sign.\nWas I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea\nAnd twice by awkward wind from England's bank\nDrove back again unto my native clime?\nWhat boded this, but well forewarning wind\nDid seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,\nNor set no footing on this unkind shore'?\nWhat did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts\nAnd he that loosed them forth their brazen caves:\nAnd bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,\nOr turn our stern upon a dreadful rock\nYet AEolus would not be a murderer,\nBut left that hateful office unto thee:\nThe pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,\nKnowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore,\nWith tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:\nThe splitting rocks cower'd in the sinking sands\nAnd would not dash me with their ragged sides,\nBecause thy flinty heart, more hard than they,\nMight in thy palace perish Margaret.\nAs far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,\nWhen from thy shore the tempest beat us back,\nI stood upon the hatches in the storm,\nAnd when the dusky sky began to rob\nMy earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,\nI took a costly jewel from my neck,\nA heart it was, bound in with diamonds,\nAnd threw it towards thy land: the sea received it,\nAnd so I wish'd thy body might my heart:\nAnd even with this I lost fair England's view\nAnd bid mine eyes be packing with my heart\nAnd call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,\nFor losing ken of Albion's wished coast.\nHow often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue,\nThe agent of thy foul inconstancy,\nTo sit and witch me, as Ascanius did\nWhen he to madding Dido would unfold\nHis father's acts commenced in burning Troy!\nAm I not witch'd like her? or thou not false like him?\nAy me, I can no more! die, Margaret!\nFor Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.\n[Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY, and many Commons]\nWARWICK It is reported, mighty sovereign,\nThat good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murder'd\nBy Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.\nThe commons, like an angry hive of bees\nThat want their leader, scatter up and down\nAnd care not who they sting in his revenge.\nMyself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,\nUntil they hear the order of his death.\nKING HENRY VI That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;\nBut how he died God knows, not Henry:\nEnter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,\nAnd comment then upon his sudden death.\nWARWICK That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,\nWith the rude multitude till I return.\n[Exit]\nKING HENRY VI O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts,\nMy thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul\nSome violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!\nIf my suspect be false, forgive me, God,\nFor judgment only doth belong to thee.\nFain would I go to chafe his paly lips\nWith twenty thousand kisses, and to drain\nUpon his face an ocean of salt tears,\nTo tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,\nAnd with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling:\nBut all in vain are these mean obsequies;\nAnd to survey his dead and earthly image,\nWhat were it but to make my sorrow greater?\n[Re-enter WARWICK and others, bearing\nGLOUCESTER'S body on a bed]\nWARWICK Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.\nKING HENRY VI That is to see how deep my grave is made;\nFor with his soul fled all my worldly solace,\nFor seeing him I see my life in death.\nWARWICK As surely as my soul intends to live\nWith that dread King that took our state upon him\nTo free us from his father's wrathful curse,\nI do believe that violent hands were laid\nUpon the life of this thrice-famed duke.\nSUFFOLK A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!\nWhat instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?\nWARWICK See how the blood is settled in his face.\nOft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,\nOf ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless,\nBeing all descended to the labouring heart;\nWho, in the conflict that it holds with death,\nAttracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;\nWhich with the heart there cools and ne'er returneth\nTo blush and beautify the cheek again.\nBut see, his face is black and full of blood,\nHis eye-balls further out than when he lived,\nStaring full ghastly like a strangled man;\nHis hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretched with struggling;\nHis hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd\nAnd tugg'd for life and was by strength subdued:\nLook, on the sheets his hair you see, is sticking;\nHis well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,\nLike to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.\nIt cannot be but he was murder'd here;\nThe least of all these signs were probable.\nSUFFOLK Why, Warwick, who should do the duke to death?\nMyself and Beaufort had him in protection;\nAnd we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.\nWARWICK But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes,\nAnd you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep:\n'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;\nAnd 'tis well seen he found an enemy.\nQUEEN MARGARET Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen\nAs guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.\nWARWICK Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh\nAnd sees fast by a butcher with an axe,\nBut will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?\nWho finds the partridge in the puttock's nest,\nBut may imagine how the bird was dead,\nAlthough the kite soar with unbloodied beak?\nEven so suspicious is this tragedy.\nQUEEN MARGARET Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?\nIs Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?\nSUFFOLK I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;\nBut here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,\nThat shall be scoured in his rancorous heart\nThat slanders me with murder's crimson badge.\nSay, if thou darest, proud Lord of Warwick-shire,\nThat I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.\n[Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others]\nWARWICK What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?\nQUEEN MARGARET He dares not calm his contumelious spirit\nNor cease to be an arrogant controller,\nThough Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.\nWARWICK Madam, be still; with reverence may I say;\nFor every word you speak in his behalf\nIs slander to your royal dignity.\nSUFFOLK Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanor!\nIf ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,\nThy mother took into her blameful bed\nSome stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock\nWas graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art,\nAnd never of the Nevils' noble race.\nWARWICK But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee\nAnd I should rob the deathsman of his fee,\nQuitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,\nAnd that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,\nI would, false murderous coward, on thy knee\nMake thee beg pardon for thy passed speech,\nAnd say it was thy mother that thou meant'st\nThat thou thyself was born in bastardy;\nAnd after all this fearful homage done,\nGive thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,\nPernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men!\nSUFFOLK Thou shall be waking well I shed thy blood,\nIf from this presence thou darest go with me.\nWARWICK Away even now, or I will drag thee hence:\nUnworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee\nAnd do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.\n[Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK]\nKING HENRY VI What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!\nThrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,\nAnd he but naked, though lock'd up in steel\nWhose conscience with injustice is corrupted.\n[A noise within]\nQUEEN MARGARET What noise is this?\n[Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their\nweapons drawn]\nKING HENRY VI Why, how now, lords! your wrathful weapons drawn\nHere in our presence! dare you be so bold?\nWhy, what tumultuous clamour have we here?\nSUFFOLK The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury\nSet all upon me, mighty sovereign.\nSALISBURY [To the Commons, entering] Sirs, stand apart;\nthe king shall know your mind.\nDread lord, the commons send you word by me,\nUnless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,\nOr banished fair England's territories,\nThey will by violence tear him from your palace\nAnd torture him with grievous lingering death.\nThey say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died;\nThey say, in him they fear your highness' death;\nAnd mere instinct of love and loyalty,\nFree from a stubborn opposite intent,\nAs being thought to contradict your liking,\nMakes them thus forward in his banishment.\nThey say, in care of your most royal person,\nThat if your highness should intend to sleep\nAnd charge that no man should disturb your rest\nIn pain of your dislike or pain of death,\nYet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,\nWere there a serpent seen, with forked tongue,\nThat slily glided towards your majesty,\nIt were but necessary you were waked,\nLest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,\nThe mortal worm might make the sleep eternal;\nAnd therefore do they cry, though you forbid,\nThat they will guard you, whether you will or no,\nFrom such fell serpents as false Suffolk is,\nWith whose envenomed and fatal sting,\nYour loving uncle, twenty times his worth,\nThey say, is shamefully bereft of life.\nCommons [Within] An answer from the king, my\nLord of Salisbury!\nSUFFOLK 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,\nCould send such message to their sovereign:\nBut you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,\nTo show how quaint an orator you are:\nBut all the honour Salisbury hath won\nIs, that he was the lord ambassador\nSent from a sort of tinkers to the king.\nCommons [Within] An answer from the king, or we will all break in!\nKING HENRY VI Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me.\nI thank them for their tender loving care;\nAnd had I not been cited so by them,\nYet did I purpose as they do entreat;\nFor, sure, my thoughts do hourly prophesy\nMischance unto my state by Suffolk's means:\nAnd therefore, by His majesty I swear,\nWhose far unworthy deputy I am,\nHe shall not breathe infection in this air\nBut three days longer, on the pain of death.\n[Exit SALISBURY]\nQUEEN MARGARET O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!\nKING HENRY VI Ungentle queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!\nNo more, I say: if thou dost plead for him,\nThou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.\nHad I but said, I would have kept my word,\nBut when I swear, it is irrevocable.\nIf, after three days' space, thou here be'st found\nOn any ground that I am ruler of,\nThe world shall not be ransom for thy life.\nCome, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;\nI have great matters to impart to thee.\n[Exeunt all but QUEEN MARGARET and SUFFOLK]\nQUEEN MARGARET Mischance and sorrow go along with you!\nHeart's discontent and sour affliction\nBe playfellows to keep you company!\nThere's two of you; the devil make a third!\nAnd threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!\nSUFFOLK Cease, gentle queen, these execrations,\nAnd let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.\nQUEEN MARGARET Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch!\nHast thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?\nSUFFOLK A plague upon them! wherefore should I curse them?\nWould curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,\nI would invent as bitter-searching terms,\nAs curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,\nDeliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,\nWith full as many signs of deadly hate,\nAs lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave:\nMy tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;\nMine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;\nMine hair be fixed on end, as one distract;\nAy, every joint should seem to curse and ban:\nAnd even now my burthen'd heart would break,\nShould I not curse them. Poison be their drink!\nGall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!\nTheir sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!\nTheir chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!\nTheir softest touch as smart as lizards' sting!\nTheir music frightful as the serpent's hiss,\nAnd boding screech-owls make the concert full!\nAll the foul terrors in dark-seated hell--\nQUEEN MARGARET Enough, sweet Suffolk; thou torment'st thyself;\nAnd these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,\nOr like an overcharged gun, recoil,\nAnd turn the force of them upon thyself.\nSUFFOLK You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?\nNow, by the ground that I am banish'd from,\nWell could I curse away a winter's night,\nThough standing naked on a mountain top,\nWhere biting cold would never let grass grow,\nAnd think it but a minute spent in sport.\nQUEEN MARGARET O, let me entreat thee cease. Give me thy hand,\nThat I may dew it with my mournful tears;\nNor let the rain of heaven wet this place,\nTo wash away my woful monuments.\nO, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,\nThat thou mightst think upon these by the seal,\nThrough whom a thousand sighs are breathed for thee!\nSo, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;\n'Tis but surmised whiles thou art standing by,\nAs one that surfeits thinking on a want.\nI will repeal thee, or, be well assured,\nAdventure to be banished myself:\nAnd banished I am, if but from thee.\nGo; speak not to me; even now be gone.\nO, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd\nEmbrace and kiss and take ten thousand leaves,\nLoather a hundred times to part than die.\nYet now farewell; and farewell life with thee!\nSUFFOLK Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished;\nOnce by the king, and three times thrice by thee.\n'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;\nA wilderness is populous enough,\nSo Suffolk had thy heavenly company:\nFor where thou art, there is the world itself,\nWith every several pleasure in the world,\nAnd where thou art not, desolation.\nI can no more: live thou to joy thy life;\nMyself no joy in nought but that thou livest.\n[Enter VAUX]\nQUEEN MARGARET Wither goes Vaux so fast? what news, I prithee?\nVAUX To signify unto his majesty\nThat Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;\nFor suddenly a grievous sickness took him,\nThat makes him gasp and stare and catch the air,\nBlaspheming God and cursing men on earth.\nSometimes he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost\nWere by his side; sometime he calls the king,\nAnd whispers to his pillow, as to him,\nThe secrets of his overcharged soul;\nAnd I am sent to tell his majesty\nThat even now he cries aloud for him.\nQUEEN MARGARET Go tell this heavy message to the king.\n[Exit VAUX]\nAy me! what is this world! what news are these!\nBut wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,\nOmitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?\nWhy only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,\nAnd with the southern clouds contend in tears,\nTheirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?\nNow get thee hence: the king, thou know'st, is coming;\nIf thou be found by me, thou art but dead.\nSUFFOLK If I depart from thee, I cannot live;\nAnd in thy sight to die, what were it else\nBut like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?\nHere could I breathe my soul into the air,\nAs mild and gentle as the cradle-babe\nDying with mother's dug between its lips:\nWhere, from thy sight, I should be raging mad,\nAnd cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,\nTo have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;\nSo shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,\nOr I should breathe it so into thy body,\nAnd then it lived in sweet Elysium.\nTo die by thee were but to die in jest;\nFrom thee to die were torture more than death:\nO, let me stay, befall what may befall!\nQUEEN MARGARET Away! though parting be a fretful corrosive,\nIt is applied to a deathful wound.\nTo France, sweet Suffolk: let me hear from thee;\nFor wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe,\nI'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.\nSUFFOLK I go.\nQUEEN MARGARET And take my heart with thee.\nSUFFOLK A jewel, lock'd into the wofull'st cask\nThat ever did contain a thing of worth.\nEven as a splitted bark, so sunder we\nThis way fall I to death.\nQUEEN MARGARET This way for me.\n[Exeunt severally]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT III\nSCENE III A bedchamber.\n[Enter the KING, SALISBURY, WARWICK, to the\nCARDINAL in bed]\nKING HENRY VI How fares my lord? speak, Beaufort, to\nthy sovereign.\nCARDINAL If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's treasure,\nEnough to purchase such another island,\nSo thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.\nKING HENRY VI Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,\nWhere death's approach is seen so terrible!\nWARWICK Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.\nCARDINAL Bring me unto my trial when you will.\nDied he not in his bed? where should he die?\nCan I make men live, whether they will or no?\nO, torture me no more! I will confess.\nAlive again? then show me where he is:\nI'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.\nHe hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.\nComb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,\nLike lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul.\nGive me some drink; and bid the apothecary\nBring the strong poison that I bought of him.\nKING HENRY VI O thou eternal Mover of the heavens.\nLook with a gentle eye upon this wretch!\nO, beat away the busy meddling fiend\nThat lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul.\nAnd from his bosom purge this black despair!\nWARWICK See, how the pangs of death do make him grin!\nSALISBURY Disturb him not; let him pass peaceably.\nKING HENRY VI Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!\nLord cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,\nHold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.\nHe dies, and makes no sign. O God, forgive him!\nWARWICK So bad a death argues a monstrous life.\nKING HENRY VI Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.\nClose up his eyes and draw the curtain close;\nAnd let us all to meditation.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE I The coast of Kent.\n[Alarum. Fight at sea. Ordnance goes off. Enter a\nCaptain, a Master, a Master's-mate, WALTER WHITMORE,\nand others; with them SUFFOLK, and others, prisoners]\nCaptain The gaudy, blabbing and remorseful day\nIs crept into the bosom of the sea;\nAnd now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades\nThat drag the tragic melancholy night;\nWho, with their drowsy, slow and flagging wings,\nClip dead men's graves and from their misty jaws\nBreathe foul contagious darkness in the air.\nTherefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;\nFor, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,\nHere shall they make their ransom on the sand,\nOr with their blood stain this discolour'd shore.\nMaster, this prisoner freely give I thee;\nAnd thou that art his mate, make boot of this;\nThe other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.\nFirst Gentleman What is my ransom, master? let me know.\nMaster A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.\nMaster's-Mate And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.\nCaptain What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,\nAnd bear the name and port of gentlemen?\nCut both the villains' throats; for die you shall:\nThe lives of those which we have lost in fight\nBe counterpoised with such a petty sum!\nFirst Gentleman I'll give it, sir; and therefore spare my life.\nSecond Gentleman And so will I and write home for it straight.\nWHITMORE I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,\nAnd therefore to revenge it, shalt thou die;\n[To SUFFOLK]\nAnd so should these, if I might have my will.\nCaptain Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.\nSUFFOLK Look on my George; I am a gentleman:\nRate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.\nWHITMORE And so am I; my name is Walter Whitmore.\nHow now! why start'st thou? what, doth\ndeath affright?\nSUFFOLK Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.\nA cunning man did calculate my birth\nAnd told me that by water I should die:\nYet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;\nThy name is Gaultier, being rightly sounded.\nWHITMORE Gaultier or Walter, which it is, I care not:\nNever yet did base dishonour blur our name,\nBut with our sword we wiped away the blot;\nTherefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,\nBroke be my sword, my arms torn and defaced,\nAnd I proclaim'd a coward through the world!\nSUFFOLK Stay, Whitmore; for thy prisoner is a prince,\nThe Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.\nWHITMORE The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags!\nSUFFOLK Ay, but these rags are no part of the duke:\nJove sometimes went disguised, and why not I?\nCaptain But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.\nSUFFOLK Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,\nThe honourable blood of Lancaster,\nMust not be shed by such a jaded groom.\nHast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup?\nBare-headed plodded by my foot-cloth mule\nAnd thought thee happy when I shook my head?\nHow often hast thou waited at my cup,\nFed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board.\nWhen I have feasted with Queen Margaret?\nRemember it and let it make thee crest-fall'n,\nAy, and allay this thy abortive pride;\nHow in our voiding lobby hast thou stood\nAnd duly waited for my coming forth?\nThis hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,\nAnd therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.\nWHITMORE Speak, captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?\nCaptain First let my words stab him, as he hath me.\nSUFFOLK Base slave, thy words are blunt and so art thou.\nCaptain Convey him hence and on our longboat's side\nStrike off his head.\nSUFFOLK Thou darest not, for thy own.\nCaptain Yes, Pole.\nSUFFOLK Pole!\nCaptain Pool! Sir Pool! lord!\nAy, kennel, puddle, sink; whose filth and dirt\nTroubles the silver spring where England drinks.\nNow will I dam up this thy yawning mouth\nFor swallowing the treasure of the realm:\nThy lips that kiss'd the queen shall sweep the ground;\nAnd thou that smiledst at good Duke Humphrey's death,\nAgainst the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,\nWho in contempt shall hiss at thee again:\nAnd wedded be thou to the hags of hell,\nFor daring to affy a mighty lord\nUnto the daughter of a worthless king,\nHaving neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.\nBy devilish policy art thou grown great,\nAnd, like ambitious Sylla, overgorged\nWith gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.\nBy thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France,\nThe false revolting Normans thorough thee\nDisdain to call us lord, and Picardy\nHath slain their governors, surprised our forts,\nAnd sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.\nThe princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,\nWhose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,\nAs hating thee, are rising up in arms:\nAnd now the house of York, thrust from the crown\nBy shameful murder of a guiltless king\nAnd lofty proud encroaching tyranny,\nBurns with revenging fire; whose hopeful colours\nAdvance our half-faced sun, striving to shine,\nUnder the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'\nThe commons here in Kent are up in arms:\nAnd, to conclude, reproach and beggary\nIs crept into the palace of our king.\nAnd all by thee. Away! convey him hence.\nSUFFOLK O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder\nUpon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!\nSmall things make base men proud: this villain here,\nBeing captain of a pinnace, threatens more\nThan Bargulus the strong Illyrian pirate.\nDrones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives:\nIt is impossible that I should die\nBy such a lowly vassal as thyself.\nThy words move rage and not remorse in me:\nI go of message from the queen to France;\nI charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.\nCaptain Walter,--\nWHITMORE Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.\nSUFFOLK Gelidus timor occupat artus it is thee I fear.\nWHITMORE Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.\nWhat, are ye daunted now? now will ye stoop?\nFirst Gentleman My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.\nSUFFOLK Suffolk's imperial tongue is stern and rough,\nUsed to command, untaught to plead for favour.\nFar be it we should honour such as these\nWith humble suit: no, rather let my head\nStoop to the block than these knees bow to any\nSave to the God of heaven and to my king;\nAnd sooner dance upon a bloody pole\nThan stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.\nTrue nobility is exempt from fear:\nMore can I bear than you dare execute.\nCaptain Hale him away, and let him talk no more.\nSUFFOLK Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,\nThat this my death may never be forgot!\nGreat men oft die by vile bezonians:\nA Roman sworder and banditto slave\nMurder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand\nStabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders\nPompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.\n[Exeunt Whitmore and others with Suffolk]\nCaptain And as for these whose ransom we have set,\nIt is our pleasure one of them depart;\nTherefore come you with us and let him go.\n[Exeunt all but the First Gentleman]\n[Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK's body]\nWHITMORE There let his head and lifeless body lie,\nUntil the queen his mistress bury it.\n[Exit]\nFirst Gentleman O barbarous and bloody spectacle!\nHis body will I bear unto the king:\nIf he revenge it not, yet will his friends;\nSo will the queen, that living held him dear.\n[Exit with the body]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE II Blackheath.\n[Enter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND]\nBEVIS Come, and get thee a sword, though made of a lath;\nthey have been up these two days.\nHOLLAND They have the more need to sleep now, then.\nBEVIS I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress\nthe commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.\nHOLLAND So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it\nwas never merry world in England since gentlemen came up.\nBEVIS O miserable age! virtue is not regarded in handicrafts-men.\nHOLLAND The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.\nBEVIS Nay, more, the king's council are no good workmen.\nHOLLAND True; and yet it is said, labour in thy vocation;\nwhich is as much to say as, let the magistrates be\nlabouring men; and therefore should we be\nmagistrates.\nBEVIS Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a\nbrave mind than a hard hand.\nHOLLAND I see them! I see them! there's Best's son, the\ntanner of Wingham,--\nBEVIS He shall have the skin of our enemies, to make\ndog's-leather of.\nHOLLAND And Dick the Butcher,--\nBEVIS Then is sin struck down like an ox, and iniquity's\nthroat cut like a calf.\nHOLLAND And Smith the weaver,--\nBEVIS Argo, their thread of life is spun.\nHOLLAND Come, come, let's fall in with them.\n[Drum. Enter CADE, DICK the Butcher, SMITH the\nWeaver, and a Sawyer, with infinite numbers]\nCADE We John Cade, so termed of our supposed father,--\nDICK [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.\nCADE For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with\nthe spirit of putting down kings and princes,\n--Command silence.\nDICK Silence!\nCADE My father was a Mortimer,--\nDICK [Aside] He was an honest man, and a good\nbricklayer.\nCADE My mother a Plantagenet,--\nDICK [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.\nCADE My wife descended of the Lacies,--\nDICK [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedler's daughter, and\nsold many laces.\nSMITH [Aside] But now of late, notable to travel with her\nfurred pack, she washes bucks here at home.\nCADE Therefore am I of an honourable house.\nDICK [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable;\nand there was he borne, under a hedge, for his\nfather had never a house but the cage.\nCADE Valiant I am.\nSMITH [Aside] A' must needs; for beggary is valiant.\nCADE I am able to endure much.\nDICK [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him\nwhipped three market-days together.\nCADE I fear neither sword nor fire.\nSMITH [Aside] He need not fear the sword; for his coat is of proof.\nDICK [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of\nfire, being burnt i' the hand for stealing of sheep.\nCADE Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows\nreformation. There shall be in England seven\nhalfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped\npot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony\nto drink small beer: all the realm shall be in\ncommon; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to\ngrass: and when I am king, as king I will be,--\nALL God save your majesty!\nCADE I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;\nall shall eat and drink on my score; and I will\napparel them all in one livery, that they may agree\nlike brothers and worship me their lord.\nDICK The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.\nCADE Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable\nthing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should\nbe made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled\no'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:\nbut I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal\nonce to a thing, and I was never mine own man\nsince. How now! who's there?\n[Enter some, bringing forward the Clerk of Chatham]\nSMITH The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read and\ncast accompt.\nCADE O monstrous!\nSMITH We took him setting of boys' copies.\nCADE Here's a villain!\nSMITH Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.\nCADE Nay, then, he is a conjurer.\nDICK Nay, he can make obligations, and write court-hand.\nCADE I am sorry for't: the man is a proper man, of mine\nhonour; unless I find him guilty, he shall not die.\nCome hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: what is thy name?\nClerk Emmanuel.\nDICK They use to write it on the top of letters: 'twill\ngo hard with you.\nCADE Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name? or\nhast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest\nplain-dealing man?\nCLERK Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up\nthat I can write my name.\nALL He hath confessed: away with him! he's a villain\nand a traitor.\nCADE Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and\nink-horn about his neck.\n[Exit one with the Clerk]\n[Enter MICHAEL]\nMICHAEL Where's our general?\nCADE Here I am, thou particular fellow.\nMICHAEL Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his\nbrother are hard by, with the king's forces.\nCADE Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He\nshall be encountered with a man as good as himself:\nhe is but a knight, is a'?\nMICHAEL No.\nCADE To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.\n[Kneels]\nRise up Sir John Mortimer.\n[Rises]\nNow have at him!\n[Enter SIR HUMPHREY and WILLIAM STAFFORD, with\ndrum and soldiers]\nSIR HUMPHREY Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,\nMark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;\nHome to your cottages, forsake this groom:\nThe king is merciful, if you revolt.\nWILLIAM STAFFORD But angry, wrathful, and inclined to blood,\nIf you go forward; therefore yield, or die.\nCADE As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not:\nIt is to you, good people, that I speak,\nOver whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;\nFor I am rightful heir unto the crown.\nSIR HUMPHREY Villain, thy father was a plasterer;\nAnd thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?\nCADE And Adam was a gardener.\nWILLIAM STAFFORD And what of that?\nCADE Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.\nMarried the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?\nSIR HUMPHREY Ay, sir.\nCADE By her he had two children at one birth.\nWILLIAM STAFFORD That's false.\nCADE Ay, there's the question; but I say, 'tis true:\nThe elder of them, being put to nurse,\nWas by a beggar-woman stolen away;\nAnd, ignorant of his birth and parentage,\nBecame a bricklayer when he came to age:\nHis son am I; deny it, if you can.\nDICK Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.\nSMITH Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and\nthe bricks are alive at this day to testify it;\ntherefore deny it not.\nSIR HUMPHREY And will you credit this base drudge's words,\nThat speaks he knows not what?\nALL Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.\nWILLIAM STAFFORD Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.\nCADE [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself.\nGo to, sirrah, tell the king from me, that, for his\nfather's sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys\nwent to span-counter for French crowns, I am content\nhe shall reign; but I'll be protector over him.\nDICK And furthermore, well have the Lord Say's head for\nselling the dukedom of Maine.\nCADE And good reason; for thereby is England mained, and\nfain to go with a staff, but that my puissance holds\nit up. Fellow kings, I tell you that that Lord Say\nhath gelded the commonwealth, and made it an eunuch:\nand more than that, he can speak French; and\ntherefore he is a traitor.\nSIR HUMPHREY O gross and miserable ignorance!\nCADE Nay, answer, if you can: the Frenchmen are our\nenemies; go to, then, I ask but this: can he that\nspeaks with the tongue of an enemy be a good\ncounsellor, or no?\nALL No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.\nWILLIAM STAFFORD Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,\nAssail them with the army of the king.\nSIR HUMPHREY Herald, away; and throughout every town\nProclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;\nThat those which fly before the battle ends\nMay, even in their wives' and children's sight,\nBe hang'd up for example at their doors:\nAnd you that be the king's friends, follow me.\n[Exeunt WILLIAM STAFFORD and SIR HUMPHREY, and soldiers]\nCADE And you that love the commons, follow me.\nNow show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.\nWe will not leave one lord, one gentleman:\nSpare none but such as go in clouted shoon;\nFor they are thrifty honest men, and such\nAs would, but that they dare not, take our parts.\nDICK They are all in order and march toward us.\nCADE But then are we in order when we are most\nout of order. Come, march forward.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE III Another part of Blackheath.\n[Alarums to the fight, wherein SIR HUMPHREY and\nWILLIAM STAFFORD are slain. Enter CADE and the rest]\nCADE Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?\nDICK Here, sir.\nCADE They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou\nbehavedst thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own\nslaughter-house: therefore thus will I reward thee,\nthe Lent shall be as long again as it is; and thou\nshalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking\none.\nDICK I desire no more.\nCADE And, to speak truth, thou deservest no less. This\nmonument of the victory will I bear;\n[Putting on SIR HUMPHREY'S brigandine]\nand the bodies shall be dragged at my horse' heels\ntill I do come to London, where we will have the\nmayor's sword borne before us.\nDICK If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the\ngaols and let out the prisoners.\nCADE Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march\ntowards London.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE IV London. The palace.\n[Enter KING HENRY VI with a supplication, and the\nQUEEN with SUFFOLK'S head, BUCKINGHAM and Lord SAY]\nQUEEN MARGARET Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind,\nAnd makes it fearful and degenerate;\nThink therefore on revenge and cease to weep.\nBut who can cease to weep and look on this?\nHere may his head lie on my throbbing breast:\nBut where's the body that I should embrace?\nBUCKINGHAM What answer makes your grace to the rebels'\nsupplication?\nKING HENRY VI I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;\nFor God forbid so many simple souls\nShould perish by the sword! And I myself,\nRather than bloody war shall cut them short,\nWill parley with Jack Cade their general:\nBut stay, I'll read it over once again.\nQUEEN MARGARET Ah, barbarous villains! hath this lovely face\nRuled, like a wandering planet, over me,\nAnd could it not enforce them to relent,\nThat were unworthy to behold the same?\nKING HENRY VI Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.\nSAY Ay, but I hope your highness shall have his.\nKING HENRY VI How now, madam!\nStill lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?\nI fear me, love, if that I had been dead,\nThou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.\nQUEEN MARGARET No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nKING HENRY VI How now! what news? why comest thou in such haste?\nMessenger The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!\nJack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,\nDescended from the Duke of Clarence' house,\nAnd calls your grace usurper openly\nAnd vows to crown himself in Westminster.\nHis army is a ragged multitude\nOf hinds and peasants, rude and merciless:\nSir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death\nHath given them heart and courage to proceed:\nAll scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,\nThey call false caterpillars, and intend their death.\nKING HENRY VI O graceless men! they know not what they do.\nBUCKINGHAM My gracious lord, return to Killingworth,\nUntil a power be raised to put them down.\nQUEEN MARGARET Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,\nThese Kentish rebels would be soon appeased!\nKING HENRY VI Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;\nTherefore away with us to Killingworth.\nSAY So might your grace's person be in danger.\nThe sight of me is odious in their eyes;\nAnd therefore in this city will I stay\nAnd live alone as secret as I may.\n[Enter another Messenger]\nMessenger Jack Cade hath gotten London bridge:\nThe citizens fly and forsake their houses:\nThe rascal people, thirsting after prey,\nJoin with the traitor, and they jointly swear\nTo spoil the city and your royal court.\nBUCKINGHAM Then linger not, my lord, away, take horse.\nKING HENRY VI Come, Margaret; God, our hope, will succor us.\nQUEEN MARGARET My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceased.\nKING HENRY VI Farewell, my lord: trust not the Kentish rebels.\nBUCKINGHAM Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.\nSAY The trust I have is in mine innocence,\nAnd therefore am I bold and resolute.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE V London. The Tower.\n[Enter SCALES upon the Tower, walking.\nThen enter two or three Citizens below]\nSCALES How now! is Jack Cade slain?\nFirst Citizen No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have\nwon the bridge, killing all those that withstand\nthem: the lord mayor craves aid of your honour from\nthe Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.\nSCALES Such aid as I can spare you shall command;\nBut I am troubled here with them myself;\nThe rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.\nBut get you to Smithfield, and gather head,\nAnd thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;\nFight for your king, your country and your lives;\nAnd so, farewell, for I must hence again.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE VI London. Cannon Street.\n[Enter CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on\nLondon-stone]\nCADE Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting\nupon London-stone, I charge and command that, of the\ncity's cost, the pissing-conduit run nothing but\nclaret wine this first year of our reign. And now\nhenceforward it shall be treason for any that calls\nme other than Lord Mortimer.\n[Enter a Soldier, running]\nSoldier Jack Cade! Jack Cade!\nCADE Knock him down there.\n[They kill him]\nSMITH If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack\nCade more: I think he hath a very fair warning.\nDICK My lord, there's an army gathered together in\nSmithfield.\nCADE Come, then, let's go fight with them; but first, go\nand set London bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn\ndown the Tower too. Come, let's away.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE VII London. Smithfield.\n[Alarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.\nThen enter CADE, with his company.\nCADE So, sirs: now go some and pull down the Savoy;\nothers to the inns of court; down with them all.\nDICK I have a suit unto your lordship.\nCADE Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.\nDICK Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.\nHOLLAND [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law, then; for he was\nthrust in the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole\nyet.\nSMITH [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law for his\nbreath stinks with eating toasted cheese.\nCADE I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, burn\nall the records of the realm: my mouth shall be\nthe parliament of England.\nHOLLAND [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes,\nunless his teeth be pulled out.\nCADE And henceforward all things shall be in common.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger My lord, a prize, a prize! here's the Lord Say,\nwhich sold the towns in France; he that made us pay\none and twenty fifteens, and one shilling to the\npound, the last subsidy.\n[Enter BEVIS, with Lord SAY]\nCADE Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah,\nthou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! now\nart thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction\nregal. What canst thou answer to my majesty for\ngiving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu, the\ndauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these\npresence, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I\nam the besom that must sweep the court clean of such\nfilth as thou art. Thou hast most traitorously\ncorrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a\ngrammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers\nhad no other books but the score and the tally, thou\nhast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to\nthe king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a\npaper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou\nhast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and\na verb, and such abominable words as no Christian\near can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed\njustices of peace, to call poor men before them\nabout matters they were not able to answer.\nMoreover, thou hast put them in prison; and because\nthey could not read, thou hast hanged them; when,\nindeed, only for that cause they have been most\nworthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth, dost thou not?\nSAY What of that?\nCADE Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse wear a\ncloak, when honester men than thou go in their hose\nand doublets.\nDICK And work in their shirt too; as myself, for example,\nthat am a butcher.\nSAY You men of Kent,--\nDICK What say you of Kent?\nSAY Nothing but this; 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'\nCADE Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin.\nSAY Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.\nKent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,\nIs term'd the civil'st place of this isle:\nSweet is the country, because full of riches;\nThe people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy;\nWhich makes me hope you are not void of pity.\nI sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy,\nYet, to recover them, would lose my life.\nJustice with favour have I always done;\nPrayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never.\nWhen have I aught exacted at your hands,\nBut to maintain the king, the realm and you?\nLarge gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,\nBecause my book preferr'd me to the king,\nAnd seeing ignorance is the curse of God,\nKnowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,\nUnless you be possess'd with devilish spirits,\nYou cannot but forbear to murder me:\nThis tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings\nFor your behoof,--\nCADE Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?\nSAY Great men have reaching hands: oft have I struck\nThose that I never saw and struck them dead.\nBEVIS O monstrous coward! what, to come behind folks?\nSAY These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.\nCADE Give him a box o' the ear and that will make 'em red again.\nSAY Long sitting to determine poor men's causes\nHath made me full of sickness and diseases.\nCADE Ye shall have a hempen caudle, then, and the help of hatchet.\nDICK Why dost thou quiver, man?\nSAY The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.\nCADE Nay, he nods at us, as who should say, I'll be even\nwith you: I'll see if his head will stand steadier\non a pole, or no. Take him away, and behead him.\nSAY Tell me wherein have I offended most?\nHave I affected wealth or honour? speak.\nAre my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?\nIs my apparel sumptuous to behold?\nWhom have I injured, that ye seek my death?\nThese hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,\nThis breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.\nO, let me live!\nCADE [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words;\nbut I'll bridle it: he shall die, an it be but for\npleading so well for his life. Away with him! he\nhas a familiar under his tongue; he speaks not o'\nGod's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike\noff his head presently; and then break into his\nson-in-law's house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off\nhis head, and bring them both upon two poles hither.\nALL It shall be done.\nSAY Ah, countrymen! if when you make your prayers,\nGod should be so obdurate as yourselves,\nHow would it fare with your departed souls?\nAnd therefore yet relent, and save my life.\nCADE Away with him! and do as I command ye.\n[Exeunt some with Lord SAY]\nThe proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head\non his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there\nshall not a maid be married, but she shall pay to me\nher maidenhead ere they have it: men shall hold of\nme in capite; and we charge and command that their\nwives be as free as heart can wish or tongue can tell.\nDICK My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside and take up\ncommodities upon our bills?\nCADE Marry, presently.\nALL O, brave!\n[Re-enter one with the heads]\nCADE But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another,\nfor they loved well when they were alive. Now part\nthem again, lest they consult about the giving up of\nsome more towns in France. Soldiers, defer the\nspoil of the city until night: for with these borne\nbefore us, instead of maces, will we ride through\nthe streets, and at every corner have them kiss. Away!\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE VIII Southwark.\n[Alarum and retreat. Enter CADE and all his\nrabblement]\nCADE Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill\nand knock down! throw them into Thames!\n[Sound a parley]\nWhat noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to\nsound retreat or parley, when I command them kill?\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM and CLIFFORD, attended]\nBUCKINGHAM Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee:\nKnow, Cade, we come ambassadors from the king\nUnto the commons whom thou hast misled;\nAnd here pronounce free pardon to them all\nThat will forsake thee and go home in peace.\nCLIFFORD What say ye, countrymen? will ye relent,\nAnd yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you;\nOr let a rebel lead you to your deaths?\nWho loves the king and will embrace his pardon,\nFling up his cap, and say 'God save his majesty!'\nWho hateth him and honours not his father,\nHenry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,\nShake he his weapon at us and pass by.\nALL God save the king! God save the king!\nCADE What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave? And\nyou, base peasants, do ye believe him? will you\nneeds be hanged with your pardons about your necks?\nHath my sword therefore broke through London gates,\nthat you should leave me at the White Hart in\nSouthwark? I thought ye would never have given out\nthese arms till you had recovered your ancient\nfreedom: but you are all recreants and dastards,\nand delight to live in slavery to the nobility. Let\nthem break your backs with burthens, take your\nhouses over your heads, ravish your wives and\ndaughters before your faces: for me, I will make\nshift for one; and so, God's curse light upon you\nall!\nALL We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!\nCLIFFORD Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,\nThat thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?\nWill he conduct you through the heart of France,\nAnd make the meanest of you earls and dukes?\nAlas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;\nNor knows he how to live but by the spoil,\nUnless by robbing of your friends and us.\nWere't not a shame, that whilst you live at jar,\nThe fearful French, whom you late vanquished,\nShould make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?\nMethinks already in this civil broil\nI see them lording it in London streets,\nCrying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.\nBetter ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry\nThan you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.\nTo France, to France, and get what you have lost;\nSpare England, for it is your native coast;\nHenry hath money, you are strong and manly;\nGod on our side, doubt not of victory.\nALL A Clifford! a Clifford! we'll follow the king and Clifford.\nCADE Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this\nmultitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them\nto an hundred mischiefs, and makes them leave me\ndesolate. I see them lay their heads together to\nsurprise me. My sword make way for me, for here is\nno staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have\nthrough the very middest of you? and heavens and\nhonour be witness, that no want of resolution in me.\nbut only my followers' base and ignominious\ntreasons, makes me betake me to my heels.\n[Exit]\nBUCKINGHAM What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;\nAnd he that brings his head unto the king\nShall have a thousand crowns for his reward.\n[Exeunt some of them]\nFollow me, soldiers: we'll devise a mean\nTo reconcile you all unto the king.\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE IX Kenilworth Castle.\n[Sound Trumpets. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN\nMARGARET, and SOMERSET, on the terrace]\nKING HENRY VI Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne,\nAnd could command no more content than I?\nNo sooner was I crept out of my cradle\nBut I was made a king, at nine months old.\nWas never subject long'd to be a king\nAs I do long and wish to be a subject.\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM and CLIFFORD]\nBUCKINGHAM Health and glad tidings to your majesty!\nKING HENRY VI Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surprised?\nOr is he but retired to make him strong?\n[Enter below, multitudes, with halters about\ntheir necks]\nCLIFFORD He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield;\nAnd humbly thus, with halters on their necks,\nExpect your highness' doom of life or death.\nKING HENRY VI Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,\nTo entertain my vows of thanks and praise!\nSoldiers, this day have you redeemed your lives,\nAnd show'd how well you love your prince and country:\nContinue still in this so good a mind,\nAnd Henry, though he be infortunate,\nAssure yourselves, will never be unkind:\nAnd so, with thanks and pardon to you all,\nI do dismiss you to your several countries.\nALL God save the king! God save the king!\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger Please it your grace to be advertised\nThe Duke of York is newly come from Ireland,\nAnd with a puissant and a mighty power\nOf gallowglasses and stout kerns\nIs marching hitherward in proud array,\nAnd still proclaimeth, as he comes along,\nHis arms are only to remove from thee\nThe Duke of Somerset, whom he terms traitor.\nKING HENRY VI Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd.\nLike to a ship that, having 'scaped a tempest,\nIs straightway calm'd and boarded with a pirate:\nBut now is Cade driven back, his men dispersed;\nAnd now is York in arms to second him.\nI pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him,\nAnd ask him what's the reason of these arms.\nTell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower;\nAnd, Somerset, we'll commit thee thither,\nUntil his army be dismiss'd from him.\nSOMERSET My lord,\nI'll yield myself to prison willingly,\nOr unto death, to do my country good.\nKING HENRY VI In any case, be not too rough in terms;\nFor he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.\nBUCKINGHAM I will, my lord; and doubt not so to deal\nAs all things shall redound unto your good.\nKING HENRY VI Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;\nFor yet may England curse my wretched reign.\n[Flourish. Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT IV\nSCENE X Kent. IDEN's garden.\n[Enter CADE]\nCADE Fie on ambition! fie on myself, that have a sword,\nand yet am ready to famish! These five days have I\nhid me in these woods and durst not peep out, for\nall the country is laid for me; but now am I so\nhungry that if I might have a lease of my life for a\nthousand years I could stay no longer. Wherefore,\non a brick wall have I climbed into this garden, to\nsee if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet another\nwhile, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach\nthis hot weather. And I think this word 'sallet'\nwas born to do me good: for many a time, but for a\nsallet, my brainpan had been cleft with a brown\nbill; and many a time, when I have been dry and\nbravely marching, it hath served me instead of a\nquart pot to drink in; and now the word 'sallet'\nmust serve me to feed on.\n[Enter IDEN]\nIDEN Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court,\nAnd may enjoy such quiet walks as these?\nThis small inheritance my father left me\nContenteth me, and worth a monarchy.\nI seek not to wax great by others' waning,\nOr gather wealth, I care not, with what envy:\nSufficeth that I have maintains my state\nAnd sends the poor well pleased from my gate.\nCADE Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a\nstray, for entering his fee-simple without leave.\nAh, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand\ncrowns of the king carrying my head to him: but\nI'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow\nmy sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.\nIDEN Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,\nI know thee not; why, then, should I betray thee?\nIs't not enough to break into my garden,\nAnd, like a thief, to come to rob my grounds,\nClimbing my walls in spite of me the owner,\nBut thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?\nCADE Brave thee! ay, by the best blood that ever was\nbroached, and beard thee too. Look on me well: I\nhave eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and\nthy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead\nas a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.\nIDEN Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,\nThat Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,\nTook odds to combat a poor famish'd man.\nOppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine,\nSee if thou canst outface me with thy looks:\nSet limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;\nThy hand is but a finger to my fist,\nThy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;\nMy foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast;\nAnd if mine arm be heaved in the air,\nThy grave is digg'd already in the earth.\nAs for words, whose greatness answers words,\nLet this my sword report what speech forbears.\nCADE By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I\nheard! Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out\nthe burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou\nsleep in thy sheath, I beseech God on my knees thou\nmayst be turned to hobnails.\n[Here they fight. CADE falls]\nO, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain me:\nlet ten thousand devils come against me, and give me\nbut the ten meals I have lost, and I'll defy them\nall. Wither, garden; and be henceforth a\nburying-place to all that do dwell in this house,\nbecause the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.\nIDEN Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?\nSword, I will hollow thee for this thy deed,\nAnd hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead:\nNe'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point;\nBut thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat,\nTo emblaze the honour that thy master got.\nCADE Iden, farewell, and be proud of thy victory. Tell\nKent from me, she hath lost her best man, and exhort\nall the world to be cowards; for I, that never\nfeared any, am vanquished by famine, not by valour.\n[Dies]\nIDEN How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.\nDie, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee;\nAnd as I thrust thy body in with my sword,\nSo wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.\nHence will I drag thee headlong by the heels\nUnto a dunghill which shall be thy grave,\nAnd there cut off thy most ungracious head;\nWhich I will bear in triumph to the king,\nLeaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.\n[Exit]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT V\nSCENE I Fields between Dartford and Blackheath.\n[Enter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum\nand colours]\nYORK From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right,\nAnd pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:\nRing, bells, aloud; burn, bonfires, clear and bright,\nTo entertain great England's lawful king.\nAh! sancta majestas, who would not buy thee dear?\nLet them obey that know not how to rule;\nThis hand was made to handle naught but gold.\nI cannot give due action to my words,\nExcept a sword or sceptre balance it:\nA sceptre shall it have, have I a soul,\nOn which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.\n[Enter BUCKINGHAM]\nWhom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?\nThe king hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.\nBUCKINGHAM York, if thou meanest well, I greet thee well.\nYORK Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.\nArt thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?\nBUCKINGHAM A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,\nTo know the reason of these arms in peace;\nOr why thou, being a subject as I am,\nAgainst thy oath and true allegiance sworn,\nShould raise so great a power without his leave,\nOr dare to bring thy force so near the court.\nYORK [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great:\nO, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,\nI am so angry at these abject terms;\nAnd now, like Ajax Telamonius,\nOn sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.\nI am far better born than is the king,\nMore like a king, more kingly in my thoughts:\nBut I must make fair weather yet a while,\nTill Henry be more weak and I more strong,--\nBuckingham, I prithee, pardon me,\nThat I have given no answer all this while;\nMy mind was troubled with deep melancholy.\nThe cause why I have brought this army hither\nIs to remove proud Somerset from the king,\nSeditious to his grace and to the state.\nBUCKINGHAM That is too much presumption on thy part:\nBut if thy arms be to no other end,\nThe king hath yielded unto thy demand:\nThe Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.\nYORK Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?\nBUCKINGHAM Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.\nYORK Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my powers.\nSoldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;\nMeet me to-morrow in St. George's field,\nYou shall have pay and every thing you wish.\nAnd let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,\nCommand my eldest son, nay, all my sons,\nAs pledges of my fealty and love;\nI'll send them all as willing as I live:\nLands, goods, horse, armour, any thing I have,\nIs his to use, so Somerset may die.\nBUCKINGHAM York, I commend this kind submission:\nWe twain will go into his highness' tent.\n[Enter KING HENRY VI and Attendants]\nKING HENRY VI Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,\nThat thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?\nYORK In all submission and humility\nYork doth present himself unto your highness.\nKING HENRY VI Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?\nYORK To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,\nAnd fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,\nWho since I heard to be discomfited.\n[Enter IDEN, with CADE'S head]\nIDEN If one so rude and of so mean condition\nMay pass into the presence of a king,\nLo, I present your grace a traitor's head,\nThe head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.\nKING HENRY VI The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!\nO, let me view his visage, being dead,\nThat living wrought me such exceeding trouble.\nTell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?\nIDEN I was, an't like your majesty.\nKING HENRY VI How art thou call'd? and what is thy degree?\nIDEN Alexander Iden, that's my name;\nA poor esquire of Kent, that loves his king.\nBUCKINGHAM So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss\nHe were created knight for his good service.\nKING HENRY VI Iden, kneel down.\n[He kneels]\nRise up a knight.\nWe give thee for reward a thousand marks,\nAnd will that thou henceforth attend on us.\nIDEN May Iden live to merit such a bounty.\nAnd never live but true unto his liege!\n[Rises]\n[Enter QUEEN MARGARET and SOMERSET]\nKING HENRY VI See, Buckingham, Somerset comes with the queen:\nGo, bid her hide him quickly from the duke.\nQUEEN MARGARET For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,\nBut boldly stand and front him to his face.\nYORK How now! is Somerset at liberty?\nThen, York, unloose thy long-imprison'd thoughts,\nAnd let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.\nShall I endure the sight of Somerset?\nFalse king! why hast thou broken faith with me,\nKnowing how hardly I can brook abuse?\nKing did I call thee? no, thou art not king,\nNot fit to govern and rule multitudes,\nWhich darest not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.\nThat head of thine doth not become a crown;\nThy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,\nAnd not to grace an awful princely sceptre.\nThat gold must round engirt these brows of mine,\nWhose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,\nIs able with the change to kill and cure.\nHere is a hand to hold a sceptre up\nAnd with the same to act controlling laws.\nGive place: by heaven, thou shalt rule no more\nO'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.\nSOMERSET O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,\nOf capital treason 'gainst the king and crown;\nObey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.\nYORK Wouldst have me kneel? first let me ask of these,\nIf they can brook I bow a knee to man.\nSirrah, call in my sons to be my bail;\n[Exit Attendant]\nI know, ere they will have me go to ward,\nThey'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.\nQUEEN MARGARET Call hither Clifford! bid him come amain,\nTo say if that the bastard boys of York\nShall be the surety for their traitor father.\n[Exit BUCKINGHAM]\nYORK O blood-besotted Neapolitan,\nOutcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!\nThe sons of York, thy betters in their birth,\nShall be their father's bail; and bane to those\nThat for my surety will refuse the boys!\n[Enter EDWARD and RICHARD]\nSee where they come: I'll warrant they'll\nmake it good.\n[Enter CLIFFORD and YOUNG CLIFFORD]\nQUEEN MARGARET And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.\nCLIFFORD Health and all happiness to my lord the king!\n[Kneels]\nYORK I thank thee, Clifford: say, what news with thee?\nNay, do not fright us with an angry look;\nWe are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;\nFor thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.\nCLIFFORD This is my king, York, I do not mistake;\nBut thou mistakest me much to think I do:\nTo Bedlam with him! is the man grown mad?\nKING HENRY VI Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour\nMakes him oppose himself against his king.\nCLIFFORD He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,\nAnd chop away that factious pate of his.\nQUEEN MARGARET He is arrested, but will not obey;\nHis sons, he says, shall give their words for him.\nYORK Will you not, sons?\nEDWARD Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.\nRICHARD And if words will not, then our weapons shall.\nCLIFFORD Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!\nYORK Look in a glass, and call thy image so:\nI am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.\nCall hither to the stake my two brave bears,\nThat with the very shaking of their chains\nThey may astonish these fell-lurking curs:\nBid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.\n[Enter the WARWICK and SALISBURY]\nCLIFFORD Are these thy bears? we'll bait thy bears to death.\nAnd manacle the bear-ward in their chains,\nIf thou darest bring them to the baiting place.\nRICHARD Oft have I seen a hot o'erweening cur\nRun back and bite, because he was withheld;\nWho, being suffer'd with the bear's fell paw,\nHath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried:\nAnd such a piece of service will you do,\nIf you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.\nCLIFFORD Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,\nAs crooked in thy manners as thy shape!\nYORK Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.\nCLIFFORD Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.\nKING HENRY VI Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?\nOld Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,\nThou mad misleader of thy brain-sick son!\nWhat, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian,\nAnd seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?\nO, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?\nIf it be banish'd from the frosty head,\nWhere shall it find a harbour in the earth?\nWilt thou go dig a grave to find out war,\nAnd shame thine honourable age with blood?\nWhy art thou old, and want'st experience?\nOr wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?\nFor shame! in duty bend thy knee to me\nThat bows unto the grave with mickle age.\nSALISBURY My lord, I have consider'd with myself\nThe title of this most renowned duke;\nAnd in my conscience do repute his grace\nThe rightful heir to England's royal seat.\nKING HENRY VI Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?\nSALISBURY I have.\nKING HENRY VI Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?\nSALISBURY It is great sin to swear unto a sin,\nBut greater sin to keep a sinful oath.\nWho can be bound by any solemn vow\nTo do a murderous deed, to rob a man,\nTo force a spotless virgin's chastity,\nTo reave the orphan of his patrimony,\nTo wring the widow from her custom'd right,\nAnd have no other reason for this wrong\nBut that he was bound by a solemn oath?\nQUEEN MARGARET A subtle traitor needs no sophister.\nKING HENRY VI Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.\nYORK Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,\nI am resolved for death or dignity.\nCLIFFORD The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.\nWARWICK You were best to go to bed and dream again,\nTo keep thee from the tempest of the field.\nCLIFFORD I am resolved to bear a greater storm\nThan any thou canst conjure up to-day;\nAnd that I'll write upon thy burgonet,\nMight I but know thee by thy household badge.\nWARWICK Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,\nThe rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,\nThis day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,\nAs on a mountain top the cedar shows\nThat keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,\nEven to affright thee with the view thereof.\nCLIFFORD And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear\nAnd tread it under foot with all contempt,\nDespite the bear-ward that protects the bear.\nYOUNG CLIFFORD And so to arms, victorious father,\nTo quell the rebels and their complices.\nRICHARD Fie! charity, for shame! speak not in spite,\nFor you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.\nYOUNG CLIFFORD Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell.\nRICHARD If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.\n[Exeunt severally]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT V\nSCENE II Saint Alban's.\n[Alarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK]\nWARWICK Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls:\nAnd if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,\nNow, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum\nAnd dead men's cries do fill the empty air,\nClifford, I say, come forth and fight with me:\nProud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,\nWarwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms.\n[Enter YORK]\nHow now, my noble lord? what, all afoot?\nYORK The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed,\nBut match to match I have encounter'd him\nAnd made a prey for carrion kites and crows\nEven of the bonny beast he loved so well.\n[Enter CLIFFORD]\nWARWICK Of one or both of us the time is come.\nYORK Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,\nFor I myself must hunt this deer to death.\nWARWICK Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.\nAs I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,\nIt grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.\n[Exit]\nCLIFFORD What seest thou in me, York? why dost thou pause?\nYORK With thy brave bearing should I be in love,\nBut that thou art so fast mine enemy.\nCLIFFORD Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem,\nBut that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.\nYORK So let it help me now against thy sword\nAs I in justice and true right express it.\nCLIFFORD My soul and body on the action both!\nYORK A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.\n[They fight, and CLIFFORD falls]\nCLIFFORD La fin couronne les oeuvres.\n[Dies]\nYORK Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.\nPeace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!\n[Exit]\n[Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD]\nYOUNG CLIFFORD Shame and confusion! all is on the rout;\nFear frames disorder, and disorder wounds\nWhere it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,\nWhom angry heavens do make their minister\nThrow in the frozen bosoms of our part\nHot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.\nHe that is truly dedicate to war\nHath no self-love, nor he that loves himself\nHath not essentially but by circumstance\nThe name of valour.\n[Seeing his dead father]\nO, let the vile world end,\nAnd the premised flames of the last day\nKnit earth and heaven together!\nNow let the general trumpet blow his blast,\nParticularities and petty sounds\nTo cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,\nTo lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve\nThe silver livery of advised age,\nAnd, in thy reverence and thy chair-days, thus\nTo die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight\nMy heart is turn'd to stone: and while 'tis mine,\nIt shall be stony. York not our old men spares;\nNo more will I their babes: tears virginal\nShall be to me even as the dew to fire,\nAnd beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims\nShall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.\nHenceforth I will not have to do with pity:\nMeet I an infant of the house of York,\nInto as many gobbets will I cut it\nAs wild Medea young Absyrtus did:\nIn cruelty will I seek out my fame.\nCome, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house:\nAs did AEneas old Anchises bear,\nSo bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;\nBut then AEneas bare a living load,\nNothing so heavy as these woes of mine.\n[Exit, bearing off his father]\n[Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET\nis killed]\nRICHARD So, lie thou there;\nFor underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,\nThe Castle in Saint Alban's, Somerset\nHath made the wizard famous in his death.\nSword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:\nPriests pray for enemies, but princes kill.\n[Exit]\n[Fight: excursions. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN\nMARGARET, and others]\nQUEEN MARGARET Away, my lord! you are slow; for shame, away!\nKING HENRY VI Can we outrun the heavens? good Margaret, stay.\nQUEEN MARGARET What are you made of? you'll nor fight nor fly:\nNow is it manhood, wisdom and defence,\nTo give the enemy way, and to secure us\nBy what we can, which can no more but fly.\n[Alarum afar off]\nIf you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom\nOf all our fortunes: but if we haply scape,\nAs well we may, if not through your neglect,\nWe shall to London get, where you are loved\nAnd where this breach now in our fortunes made\nMay readily be stopp'd.\n[Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD]\nYOUNG CLIFFORD But that my heart's on future mischief set,\nI would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly:\nBut fly you must; uncurable discomfit\nReigns in the hearts of all our present parts.\nAway, for your relief! and we will live\nTo see their day and them our fortune give:\nAway, my lord, away!\n[Exeunt]\n2 KING HENRY VI\nACT V\nSCENE III Fields near St. Alban's.\n[Alarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK,\nand Soldiers, with drum and colours]\nYORK Of Salisbury, who can report of him,\nThat winter lion, who in rage forgets\nAged contusions and all brush of time,\nAnd, like a gallant in the brow of youth,\nRepairs him with occasion? This happy day\nIs not itself, nor have we won one foot,\nIf Salisbury be lost.\nRICHARD My noble father,\nThree times to-day I holp him to his horse,\nThree times bestrid him; thrice I led him off,\nPersuaded him from any further act:\nBut still, where danger was, still there I met him;\nAnd like rich hangings in a homely house,\nSo was his will in his old feeble body.\nBut, noble as he is, look where he comes.\n[Enter SALISBURY]\nSALISBURY Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day;\nBy the mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:\nGod knows how long it is I have to live;\nAnd it hath pleased him that three times to-day\nYou have defended me from imminent death.\nWell, lords, we have not got that which we have:\n'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,\nBeing opposites of such repairing nature.\nYORK I know our safety is to follow them;\nFor, as I hear, the king is fled to London,\nTo call a present court of parliament.\nLet us pursue him ere the writs go forth.\nWhat says Lord Warwick? shall we after them?\nWARWICK After them! nay, before them, if we can.\nNow, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:\nSaint Alban's battle won by famous York\nShall be eternized in all age to come.\nSound drums and trumpets, and to London all:\nAnd more such days as these to us befall!\n[Exeunt]","title":"King Henry the Sixth, Part II","type":"page"}