Part 45

_Hast._ Woe, woe for England! not a whit for me; For I, too fond, might have prevented this. Stanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;   [fcd084] But I disdain’d it, and did scorn to fly:   [fcd085] Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, And startled, when he look’d upon the Tower,   [fcd087] As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house. O, now I want the priest that spake to me:   [fcd089] I now repent I told the pursuivant,    ·fcd090· As ’twere triumphing at mine enemies,   [fcd091] How they at Pomfret bloodily were butcher’d,   [fcd092] And I myself secure in grace and favour. O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse Is lighted on poor Hastings’ wretched head!   [fcd095]

_Rat._ Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:   [fcd096] Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.

_Hast._ O momentary grace of mortal men,   [fcd098] Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!   [fcd099] Who builds his hopes in air of your fair looks,   [fcd100] Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, Ready, with every nod, to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

_Lov._ Come, come, dispatch; ’tis bootless to exclaim.   [fcd104]

_Hast._ O bloody Richard! miserable England!    ·fcd105· I prophesy the fearfull’st time to thee That ever wretched age hath look’d upon. Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head: They smile at me that shortly shall be dead. [_Exeunt._   [fcd109]

## SCENE V. _The Tower-walls_.

_Enter_ GLOUCESTER _and_ BUCKINGHAM, _in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured_.

_Glou._ Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour,   [fce001] Murder thy breath in middle of a word,   [fce002] And then begin again, and stop again,   [fce003] As if thou wert distraught and mad with terror?   [fce004]

_Buck._ Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian,   [fce005] Speak and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,   [fce007] Intending deep suspicion: ghastly looks   [fce008] Are at my service, like enforced smiles; And both are ready in their offices,   [fce010] At any time, to grace my stratagems. But what, is Catesby gone?

_Glou._ He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.   [fce013]

_Enter the_ Mayor _and_ CATESBY.

_Buck._ Lord mayor,--   [fce014]

_Glou._ Look to the drawbridge there!    ·fce015·

_Buck._ Hark! a drum.   [fce016]

_Glou._ Catesby, o’erlook the walls.   [fce017]

_Buck._ Lord mayor, the reason we have sent--   [fce018]

_Glou._ Look back, defend thee, here are enemies.   [fce019]

_Buck._ God and our innocency defend and guard us!   [fce020]

_Glou._ Be patient, they are friends, Ratcliff and Lovel.   [fce021]

_Enter_ LOVEL _and_ RATCLIFF, _with_ HASTINGS’ _head_.

_Lov._ Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,   [fce022] The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.

_Glou._ So dear I loved the man, that I must weep. I took him for the plainest harmless creature   [fce025] That breathed upon this earth a Christian;   [fce026] Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded   [fce027] The history of all her secret thoughts: So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue That, his apparent open guilt omitted,    ·fce030· I mean, his conversation with Shore’s wife, He lived from all attainder of suspect.   [fce032]

_Buck._ Well, well, he was the covert’st shelter’d traitor   [fce033] That ever lived. Would you imagine, or almost believe,   [fce035] Were’t not that, by great preservation,   [fce036] We live to tell it you, the subtle traitor   [fce037] This day had plotted, in the council-house   [fce038] To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester?

_May._ What, had he so?   [fce040]

_Glou._ What, think you we are Turks or infidels?   [fce041] Or that we would, against the form of law,   [fce042] Proceed thus rashly to the villain’s death,   [fce043] But that the extreme peril of the case,   [fce044] The peace of England and our persons’ safety,    ·fce045· Enforced us to this execution?   [fce046]

_May._ Now, fair befall you! he deserved his death; And you, my good lords both, have well proceeded,   [fce048] To warn false traitors from the like attempts. I never look’d for better at his hands,   [fce050] After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.

_Glou._ Yet had not we determined he should die,   [fce052] Until your lordship came to see his death;   [fce053] Which now the loving haste of these our friends,   [fce054] Somewhat against our meaning, have prevented:   [fce055] Because, my lord, we would have had you heard   [fce056] The traitor speak and timorously confess The manner and the purpose of his treason;   [fce058] That you might well have signified the same Unto the citizens, who haply may   [fce060] Misconstrue us in him and wail his death.   [fce061]

_May._ But, my good lord, your grace’s word shall serve,   [fce062] As well as I had seen and heard him speak:   [fce063] And doubt you not, right noble princes both,   [fce064] But I’ll acquaint our duteous citizens   [fce065] With all your just proceedings in this cause.   [fce066]

_Glou._ And to that end we wish’d your lordship here,   [fce067] To avoid the carping censures of the world.   [fce068]

_Buck._ But since you come too late of our intents,   [fce069] Yet witness what you hear we did intend:   [fce070] And so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell. [_Exit Mayor._

_Glou._ Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.   [fce072] The mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post: There, at your meet’st advantage of the time,   [fce074] Infer the bastardy of Edward’s children:    ·fce075· Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen, Only for saying he would make his son Heir to the crown, meaning indeed his house, Which, by the sign thereof, was termed so. Moreover, urge his hateful luxury    ·fce080· And bestial appetite in change of lust;   [fce081] Which stretched to their servants, daughters, wives,   [fce082] Even where his lustful eye or savage heart,   [fce083] Without control, listed to make his prey.   [fce084] Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:    ·fce085· Tell them, when that my mother went with child Of that unsatiate Edward, noble York   [fce087] My princely father then had wars in France;   [fce088] And, by just computation of the time,   [fce089] Found that the issue was not his begot;    ·fce090· Which well appeared in his lineaments, Being nothing like the noble duke my father: But touch this sparingly, as ’twere far off;   [fce093] Because you know, my lord, my mother lives.   [fce094]

_Buck._ Fear not, my lord, I’ll play the orator   [fce095] As if the golden fee for which I plead Were for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.   [fce097]

_Glou._ If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard’s Castle; Where you shall find me well accompanied With reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.    ·fce100·

_Buck._ I go; and towards three or four o’clock   [fce101] Look for the news that the Guildhall affords. [_Exit._   [fce102]

_Glou._ Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;   [fce103] [_To Cate._] Go thou to Friar Penker; bid them both   [fce104] Meet me within this hour at Baynard’s Castle.   [fce105] [_Exeunt all but Gloucester._ Now will I in, to take some privy order,   [fce106] To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight; And to give notice, that no manner of person   [fce108] At any time have recourse unto the princes. [_Exit._   [fce109]

## SCENE VI. _The same. A street_.

_Enter a_ Scrivener, _with a paper in his hand_.

_Scriv._ This is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;   [fcf001] Which in a set hand fairly is engross’d, That it may be this day read o’er in Paul’s.   [fcf003] And mark how well the sequel hangs together: Eleven hours I spent to write it over,   [fcf005] For yesternight by Catesby was it brought me;   [fcf006] The precedent was full as long a-doing:   [fcf007] And yet within these five hours lived Lord Hastings,   [fcf008] Untainted, unexamined, free, at liberty. Here’s a good world the while! Why who’s so gross,   [fcf010] That seeth not this palpable device?   [fcf011] Yet who’s so blind, but says he sees it not?   [fcf012] Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,   [fcf013] When such bad dealing must be seen in thought. [_Exit._   [fcf014]

## SCENE VII. _Baynard’s Castle_.

_Enter_ GLOUCESTER _and_ BUCKINGHAM, _at several doors_.

_Glou._ How now, my lord, what say the citizens?   [fcg001]

_Buck._ Now, by the holy mother of our Lord, The citizens are mum, and speak not a word.   [fcg003]

_Glou._ Touch’d you the bastardy of Edward’s children?

_Buck._ I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,   [fcg005] And his contract by deputy in France; The insatiate greediness of his desires,   [fcg007] And his enforcement of the city wives;   [fcg008] His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy, As being got, your father then in France,    ·fcg010· And his resemblance, being not like the duke:   [fcg011] Withal I did infer your lineaments, Being the right idea of your father, Both in your form and nobleness of mind;   [fcg014] Laid open all your victories in Scotland,   [fcg015] Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace, Your bounty, virtue, fair humility; Indeed left nothing fitting for the purpose   [fcg018] Untouch’d or slightly handled in discourse: And when mine oratory grew to an end,   [fcg020] I bid them that did love their country’s good   [fcg021] Cry ‘God save Richard, England’s royal king!’

_Glou._ Ah! and did they so?   [fcg023]

_Buck._ No, so God help me, they spake not a word;   [fcg024] But, like dumb statuas or breathing stones,   [fcg025] Gazed each on other, and look’d deadly pale.   [fcg026] Which when I saw, I reprehended them; And ask’d the mayor what meant this wilful silence:   [fcg028] His answer was, the people were not wont   [fcg029] To be spoke to but by the recorder.   [fcg030] Then he was urged to tell my tale again: ‘Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr’d;’ But nothing spake in warrant from himself.   [fcg033] When he had done, some followers of mine own At the lower end of the hall hurl’d up their caps,   [fcg035] And some ten voices cried ‘God save King Richard!’ And thus I took the vantage of those few,   [fcg037] ‘Thanks, gentle citizens and friends!’ quoth I,   [fcg038] ‘This general applause and loving shout   [fcg039] Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:’   [fcg040] And even here brake off, and came away.   [fcg041]

_Glou._ What tongueless blocks were they! would they not speak?   [fcg042]

_Buck._ No, by my troth, my lord.   [fcg043]

_Glou._ Will not the mayor then and his brethren come?

_Buck._ The mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;   [fcg045] Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:   [fcg046] And look you get a prayer-book in your hand, And stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;   [fcg048] For on that ground I’ll build a holy descant:   [fcg049] And be not easily won to our request;   [fcg050] Play the maid’s part, still answer nay, and take it.   [fcg051]

_Glou._ I go; and if you plead as well for them   [fcg052] As I can say nay to thee for myself,   [fcg053] No doubt we’ll bring it to a happy issue.   [fcg054]

_Buck._ Go, go up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.   [fcg055] [_Exit Gloucester._

_Enter the_ Mayor _and_ Citizens.

Welcome, my lord: I dance attendance here;   [fcg056] I think the duke will not be spoke withal.   [fcg057]

_Enter_ CATESBY.

Here comes his servant: how now, Catesby,   [fcg058] What says he?

_Cate._ My lord, he doth entreat your grace   [fcg059] To visit him to-morrow or next day:    ·fcg060· He is within, with two right reverend fathers,   [fcg061] Divinely bent to meditation; And in no worldly suit would he be moved,   [fcg063] To draw him from his holy exercise.

_Buck._ Return, good Catesby, to thy lord again;   [fcg065] Tell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,   [fcg066] In deep designs and matters of great moment,   [fcg067] No less importing than our general good,   [fcg068] Are come to have some conference with his grace.

_Cate._ I’ll tell him what you say, my lord. [_Exit._   [fcg070]

_Buck._ Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward! He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,   [fcg072] But on his knees at meditation; Not dallying with a brace of courtezans, But meditating with two deep divines;    ·fcg075· Not sleeping, to engross his idle body, But praying, to enrich his watchful soul: Happy were England, would this gracious prince   [fcg078] Take on himself the sovereignty thereof:   [fcg079] But, sure, I fear, we shall ne’er win him to it.   [fcg080]

_May._ Marry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!   [fcg081]

_Buck._ I fear he will.   [fcg082]

_Re-enter_ CATESBY.

How now, Catesby, what says your lord?

_Cate._ My lord,   [fcg083] He wonders to what end you have assembled Such troops of citizens to speak with him,   [fcg085] His grace not being warn’d thereof before: My lord, he fears you mean no good to him.   [fcg087]

_Buck._ Sorry I am my noble cousin should Suspect me, that I mean no good to him: By heaven, I come in perfect love to him;   [fcg090] And so once more return and tell his grace.   [fcg091] [_Exit Catesby._ When holy and devout religious men Are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence,   [fcg093] So sweet is zealous contemplation.   [fcg094]

_Enter_ GLOUCESTER _aloft, between two Bishops._ CATESBY _returns_.

_May._ See, where he stands between two clergymen!   [fcg095]

_Buck._ Two props of virtue for a Christian prince, To stay him from the fall of vanity: And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,   [fcg098] True ornaments to know a holy man.   [fcg099] Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,    ·fcg100· Lend favourable ears to our request;   [fcg101] And pardon us the interruption Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.

_Glou._ My lord, there needs no such apology: I rather do beseech you pardon me,   [fcg105] Who, earnest in the service of my God,   [fcg106] Neglect the visitation of my friends.   [fcg107] But, leaving this, what is your grace’s pleasure?

_Buck._ Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above And all good men of this ungovern’d isle.    ·fcg110·

_Glou._ I do suspect I have done some offence That seems disgracious in the city’s eyes,   [fcg112] And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.

_Buck._ You have, my lord: would it might please your grace,   [fcg114] At our entreaties, to amend that fault!   [fcg115]

_Glou._ Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?

_Buck._ Then know, it is your fault that you resign   [fcg117] The supreme seat, the throne majestical, The scepter’d office of your ancestors,   [fcg119] Your state of fortune and your due of birth,   [fcg120] The lineal glory of your royal house, To the corruption of a blemish’d stock: Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,   [fcg123] Which here we waken to our country’s good,   [fcg124] This noble isle doth want her proper limbs;   [fcg125] Her face defaced with scars of infamy,   [fcg126] Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,   [fcg127] And almost shoulder’d in the swallowing gulf   [fcg128] Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.   [fcg129] Which to recure, we heartily solicit   [fcg130] Your gracious self to take on you the charge   [fcg131] And kingly government of this your land; Not as protector, steward, substitute, Or lowly factor for another’s gain;   [fcg134] But as successively, from blood to blood,    ·fcg135· Your right of birth, your empery, your own. For this, consorted with the citizens, Your very worshipful and loving friends,   [fcg138] And by their vehement instigation, In this just suit come I to move your grace.   [fcg140]

_Glou._ I know not whether to depart in silence,   [fcg141] Or bitterly to speak in your reproof, Best fitteth my degree or your condition:   [fcg143] If not to answer, you might haply think   [fcg144] Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded    ·fcg145· To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty, Which fondly you would here impose on me; If to reprove you for this suit of yours So season’d with your faithful love to me, Then, on the other side, I check’d my friends.    ·fcg150· Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first, And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,   [fcg152] Definitively thus I answer you. Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert Unmeritable shuns your high request.   [fcg155] First, if all obstacles were cut away And that my path were even to the crown, As my ripe revenue and due by birth;   [fcg158] Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects,    ·fcg160· As I had rather hide me from my greatness,   [fcg161] Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid And in the vapour of my glory smother’d. But, God be thanked, there’s no need of me,   [fcg165] And much I need to help you, if need were;   [fcg166] The royal tree hath left us royal fruit, Which, mellow’d by the stealing hours of time, Will well become the seat of majesty, And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.   [fcg170] On him I lay what you would lay on me,   [fcg171] The right and fortune of his happy stars; Which God defend that I should wring from him!

_Buck._ My lord, this argues conscience in your grace; But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,    ·fcg175· All circumstances well considered. You say that Edward is your brother’s son: So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife; For first he was contract to Lady Lucy--   [fcg179] Your mother lives a witness to that vow--   [fcg180] And afterward by substitute betroth’d   [fcg181] To Bona, sister to the King of France. These both put by, a poor petitioner,   [fcg183] A care-crazed mother of a many children,   [fcg184] A beauty-waning and distressed widow,    ·fcg185· Even in the afternoon of her best days, Made prize and purchase of his lustful eye,   [fcg187] Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts   [fcg188] To base declension and loathed bigamy:   [fcg189] By her, in his unlawful bed, he got   [fcg190] This Edward, whom our manners term the prince.   [fcg191] More bitterly could I expostulate,   [fcg192] Save that, for reverence to some alive,   [fcg193] I give a sparing limit to my tongue. Then, good my lord, take to your royal self   [fcg195] This proffer’d benefit of dignity;   [fcg196] If not to bless us and the land withal, Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry   [fcg198] From the corruption of abusing times,   [fcg199] Unto a lineal true-derived course.   [fcg200]

_May._ Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.

_Buck._ Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.   [fcg202]

_Cate._ O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!

_Glou._ Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?   [fcg204] I am unfit for state and majesty:   [fcg205] I do beseech you, take it not amiss; I cannot nor I will not yield to you.

_Buck._ If you refuse it,--as, in love and zeal, Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son; As well we know your tenderness of heart    ·fcg210· And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse, Which we have noted in you to your kin,   [fcg212] And egally indeed to all estates,--   [fcg213] Yet whether you accept our suit or no,   [fcg214] Your brother’s son shall never reign our king;    ·fcg215· But we will plant some other in the throne, To the disgrace and downfall of your house:   [fcg217] And in this resolution here we leave you.   [fcg218] Come, citizens: ’zounds! I’ll entreat no more.   [fcg219]

_Glou._ O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.   [fcg220] [_Exit Buckingham with the Citizens._

_Cate._ Call them again, my lord, and accept their suit:   [fcg221]

_Another._ Do, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.   [fcg222]

_Glou._ Would you enforce me to a world of care?   [fcg223] Well, call them again. I am not made of stone,   [fcg224] But penetrable to your kind entreats,   [fcg225] Albeit against my conscience and my soul.   [fcg226]

_Re-enter_ BUCKINGHAM _and the rest_.

Cousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,   [fcg227] Since you will buckle fortune on my back,   [fcg228] To bear her burthen, whether I will or no,   [fcg229] I must have patience to endure the load:    ·fcg230· But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach   [fcg231] Attend the sequel of your imposition, Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me From all the impure blots and stains thereof;   [fcg234] For God he knows, and you may partly see,   [fcg235] How far I am from the desire thereof.   [fcg236]

_May._ God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.

_Glou._ In saying so, you shall but say the truth.

_Buck._ Then I salute you with this kingly title:   [fcg239] Long live Richard, England’s royal king!   [fcg240]

_May. and Cit._ Amen.   [fcg241]

_Buck._ To-morrow will it please you to be crown’d?   [fcg242]

_Glou._ Even when you please, since you will have it so.   [fcg243]

_Buck._ To-morrow then we will attend your grace: And so most joyfully we take our leave.   [fcg245]

_Glou._ Come, let us to our holy task again.   [fcg246] Farewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends. [_Exeunt._  [fcg247]

## ACT IV.

## SCENE I. _Before the Tower_.

_Enter, on one side_, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF YORK, _and_ MARQUESS OF DORSET; _on the other_, ANNE, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, _leading_ LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET, CLARENCE’S _young daughter_.

_Duch._ Who meets us here? my niece Plantagenet   [fda001] Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?   [fda002] Now, for my life, she’s wandering to the Tower, On pure heart’s love to greet the tender princes.   [fda004] Daughter, well met.

_Anne._ God give your graces both   [fda005] A happy and a joyful time of day!

_Q. Eliz._ As much to you, good sister! Whither away?   [fda007]

_Anne._ No farther than the Tower, and, as I guess,   [fda008] Upon the like devotion as yourselves, To gratulate the gentle princes there.   [fda010]

_Q. Eliz._ Kind sister, thanks: we’ll enter all together.

_Enter_ BRAKENBURY.

And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.   [fda012] Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave, How doth the prince, and my young son of York?   [fda014]

_Brak._ Right well, dear madam. By your patience,   [fda015] I may not suffer you to visit them;   [fda016] The king hath straitly charged the contrary.   [fda017]

_Q. Eliz._ The king! why, who’s that?   [fda018]

_Brak._ I cry you mercy: I mean the lord protector.   [fda019]

_Q. Eliz._ The Lord protect him from that kingly title!    ·fda020· Hath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?   [fda021] I am their mother; who should keep me from them?   [fda022]

_Duch._ I am their father’s mother; I will see them.   [fda023]

_Anne._ Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother: Then bring me to their sights; I’ll bear thy blame,   [fda025] And take thy office from thee, on my peril.

_Brak._ No, madam, no; I may not leave it so:   [fda027] I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me. [_Exit._   [fda028]

_Enter_ LORD STANLEY.

_Stan._ Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,   [fda029] And I’ll salute your grace of York as mother,   [fda030] And reverend looker on, of two fair queens.   [fda031] [_To Anne_] Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,   [fda032] There to be crowned Richard’s royal queen.

_Q. Eliz._ O, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart   [fda034] May have some scope to beat, or else I swoon   [fda035] With this dead-killing news!   [fda036]

_Anne._ Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!   [fda037]

_Dor._ Be of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?   [fda038]

_Q. Eliz._ O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!   [fda039] Death and destruction dog thee at the heels;   [fda040] Thy mother’s name is ominous to children.   [fda041] If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,   [fda042] And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell:   [fda043] Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house, Lest thou increase the number of the dead;    ·fda045· And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curse, Nor mother, wife, nor England’s counted queen.   [fda047]