strong. Aside. on thy part: O Buckingham, I pr'ythee, pardon me, That I have given no answer all this while; My mind was troubled with deep melancholy. The cause why I have brought this army hither, Is-to remove proud Somerset from the king, "Seditious to his grace and to the state. "Buck. That is too much presumption But if thy arms be to no other end, The king hath yielded unto thy demand; The duke of Somerset is in the Tower. York. Upon the honour, is he prisoner? Buck. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner. York. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my powers. • Soldiers, I thank you all: disperse yourselves; 'Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field, You shall have pay, and every thing you wish. *And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry, *Command my eldest son,-nay, all my sons, *As pledges of my fealty and love, *I'll send them all as willing as I live; *Lands, goods, horse, armour, any thing I have *Is his to use, so Somerset may die. Buck. York, I commend this kind submission: We twain will go into his highness' tent. Enter KING HENRY, attended. 'K. Hen. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us, Enter QUEEN MARGARET and SOMERSET. But boldly stand, and front him to his face. Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor. That head of thine doth not become a crown; 'Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff, And not to grace an awful princely sceptre. That gold must round engirt these brows of mine; "Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear, Is able with the change to kill and cure.2 Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up, And with the same to act controlling laws. Give place; by heaven, thou shalt rule no more 'O'er him, whom heaven created for thy ruler. Som. O monstrous traitor!-I arrest thee, York, Of capital treason 'gainst the king and crown: *Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace. *York. Would'st have me kneel? first let me ask of these, *If they can brook I bow a knee to man.Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail; [Exit an Attendant. *I know, ere they will have me go to ward,3 *They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement. Q. Mar. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain, "That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm? *York. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence; Enter IDEN, with CADE's Head. 'Iden. If one so rude, and of so mean condition, " O, let me view his visage being dead, That living wrought me such exceeding trouble. 'Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him? Iden. I was, an't like your majesty. *To say, if that the bastard boys of York *Shall be the surety for their traitor father. * York. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan, Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge The sons of York, thy betters in their birth, Shall be their father's bail: and bane to those That for my surety will refuse the boys. ! Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET with Forces, ut one side; at the other, with Forces also, Old CLIFFORD and his Son. *See, where they come; I'll warrant they'll make it good. *Q. Mar. And here comes Clifford, to deny their bail. 'Clif. Health and all happiness to my lord the king! [Kneels. "York. I thank thee, Clifford: Say, what news with thee? Nay, do not fright us with an angry look: K. Hen. How art thou call'd? and what is thy For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee. degree? Iden. Alexander Iden, that's my name; A poor esquire of Kent, that loves his king. *Buck. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss *He were created knight for his good service. “K. Hen. Iden, kneel down; [He kneels.] Rise up a knight. We give thee for reward a thousand marks; Iden. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,1 And never live but true unto his liege! 'K. Hen. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with the queen: 'Go, bid her hide him quickly from the duke. เ Clif. This is my king, York, I do not mistake; 'But thou mistak'st me much, to think I do : To Bedlam4 with him? is the man grown mad? 'K. Hen. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour Makes him oppose himself against his king. Clif. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower, And chop away that factious pate of his. Q. Mar. He is arrested, but will not obey; His sons, he says, shall give their words for him. York. Will you not, sons? Edw. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve. 'Rich. And if words will not, then our weapons shall. 4 This has been thought an anachronism; but Stowe shows that it is not: Next unto the parish of St. Buttolph is a fayre inne for receipt of travellers; then an hospitall of S. Mary of Bethlehem, founded by Simcn Fitz-Mary, one of the Sheriffes of London, in the yeare 1246. He founded it to have beene a priorie of cannons with brethren and sisters, and King Edward the Thirde granted a protection, which I have seene, for the brethren Milicia beatæ Maria de Betleem, within the citie of London, the 14th yeare of his raigne. It was an has pitall for distracted people.'-Survey of London, p 127, 1599. *Clf. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here! * York. Look in a glass, and call thy image so; *I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,1 That, with the very shaking of their chains, They may astonish these fell lurking curs; *Bid Salisbury, and Warwick, come to me. Drums. Enter WARWICK and SALISBURY, with Forces. Clif. Are these thy bears? we'll bait thy bears to death, And manacle the bearward in their chains, If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place. * Rich. Oft have I seen a hot o'erweening cur *Run back and bite, because he was withheld; *Who, being suffer'd with the bear's fell paw, *Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs, and cried : And such a piece of service will you do, *If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick. *Clif. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump, * As crooked in thy manners as thy shape! *York. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon. *Clif. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves. *K. Hen. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow? * Old Salisbury,-shame to thy silver hair, *Thou mad misleader of thy brain-sick son!* What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian, * And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles? *O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty? *If it be banish'd from the frosty head, *Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?*Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war, *And shame thine honourable age with blood? *Why art thou old, and want'st experience? *Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it? *For shame! in duty bend thy knee to me, *That bows unto the grave with mickle age. *Sal. My lord, I have consider'd with myself *The title of this most renowned duke; *And in my conscience do repute his grace *The rightful heir to England's royal seat. *K. Hen. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me? * Sal. I have. crest, The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff, Clif. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear, canst tell. 4 'Rich. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell. [Exeunt severally. Alarums: Excur SCENE II. Saint Albans. sions. Enter WARWICK. War. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls! Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarm, And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear, And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me! Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland. Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms. Enter YORK. How now, my noble lord? what, all a-foot? York. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed; But match to match I have encounter'd him, And made a prey for carrion kites and crows Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well. Enter CLIFFord. ' War. Of one or both of us the time is come. York. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase, *K. Hen. Canst thou dispense with heaven for For I myself must hunt this deer to death. such an oath? *Sal. It is great sin, to swear unto a sin; * But greater sin, to keep a sinful oath. *Who can be bound by any solemn vow *To do a murderous deed, to rob a man, *To force a spotless virgin's chastity, To reave the orphan of his patrimony, To wring the widow from her custom'd right; *And have no other reason for this wrong, *But that he was bound by a solemn oath? * Q. Mar. A subtle traitor needs no sophister. 'K. Hen. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself. 'York. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast, 'I am resolv'd for death or dignity. 1 The Nevils, earls of Warwick, had a bear and ragged staff for their crest. 2 Bear-baiting was not only a popular but a royal entertainment in the poet's time. See Stowe's account of Queen Elizabeth's amusements of this kind, or Laneham's Letter concerning the entertainments at Kenelworth Castle. 'Being suffer'd to approach the bear's fell paw' may be the meaning; but it is probable that suffer'd is used for made to suffer. 3 A burgonet is a helmet; a Burgundian's steel cap or casque. 4 One on whom nature has set a mark of deformity, a stigma. It was originally and properly a person who had been branded with a hot iron for some crime. One notably defamed for naughtiness.' See Bullokar's Expositor, 1616; or Blount's Glossography. 1674. H War. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou 'As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day, [Exit WARWICK. 'Clif. What seest thou in me, York? why dost thou pause? "York. With thy brave bearing should I be in love, But that thou art so fast mine enemy. Clif. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem, 'But that 'tis shown ignobly, and in treason. Clif. My soul and body on the action both!"York. A dreadful lay!"-address thee instantly. [They fight, and CLIFFORD falls. Clif. La fin couronne les œuvres. [Dies. 5 In the old play: : 'The bonniest gray, that e'er was bred in north.? 6 This passage will remind the classical reader of Achilles' conduct in the twenty-second Iliad, v. 205, where he expresses his determination that Hector should fall by no other hand than his own. 7 A dreadful wager; a tremendous stake. 8 The author, in making Clifford fall by the hand of York, has departed from the truth of history, a practice not uncommon with him when he does his utmost to make his characters considerable. This circumstance, however, serves to prepare the reader or spectator for the vengeance afterwards taken by Clifford's son on York and Rutland. At the beginning of the third part of this drama the poet has forgot this circumstance, and * *K. Hen. Can we outrun the heavens? good Margaret, stay. *Q. Mar. What are you made of? you'll not *Nor is it manhood, wisdom, and defence," (As well we may, if not through your neglect,) * *Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds *To cease!2-Wast thou ordain'd, dear father, * And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus *To die in ruffian battle ?-Even at this sight, * My heart is turn'd to stone: and, while 'tis mine, *It shall be stony. York not our old men spares; *No more will I their babes: tears virginal * Shall be to me even as the dew to fire; And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims, *Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax. *Henceforth I will not have to do with pity: * Meet I an infant of the house of York, * Into as many gobbets will I cut it, As wild Medea young Absyrtus did : * In cruelty will I seek out my fame. 'Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house: [Taking up the body. As did Æneas old Anchises bear, So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders: *But then Æneas bare a living load, *Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine. [Exit. Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET and SOMERSET, fighting, and SOMERSET is killed. Rich. So, lie thou there ; For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign, QUEEN MARGARET, and others, retreating. there represents Clifford's death as it really Enter Young CLIFFORD. *Y. Cliff. But that my heart's on future mischiet set, *I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly; * * To see their day, and them our fortune give: Retreat. Flourish; then enter YORK, RICHARD Drum and Colours. York. Of Salisbury, who can report of him; *That winter lion, who, in rage forgets * 11 Aged contusions and all brush of time 'Rich. Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day; By the mass, so did we all.-I thank you, Richard: God knows, how long it is I have to live; And it hath pleas'd him, that three times to-day You have defended me from imminent death.* Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;14 "Tis not enough our foes are this time fled, *Being opposites of such repairing nature.' 'York. I know, our safety is to follow them; For, as I hear, the king is fled to London, 15 Chronicles represented as accomplishing them: being hap-delivered in obscure terms, any fortuitous event was the more readily supposed to verify them. 'Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast, Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in, Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.' These lines were adopted by Shakspeare from The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, upon which the Third Part of King Henry VI. is founded. 1 Premised is sent before their time. The sense is 'let the flames reserved for the last day be sent now.' 2 To cease is to stop, a verb active. 3 To achieve is to arrive at, or accomplish. 4 i. e. circumspect, cautious. 5 In that period of life which is entitled to command reverence. Reverenda canities. Shakspeare has used the word in the same manner in As You Like It, where Orlando says to his brother (speaking of their father) 'thou art indeed nearer to his reverence.' 6 When Medea fled with Jason from Colchos, she murdered her brother Absyrtus, and cut his body into several pieces, that her father might be prevented for some time from pursuing her. 7 The death of Somerset here accomplishes that equivocal prediction of Jourdain the witch in the first 8 This line, Steevens observes, may serve to countenance his emendation of a passage at the commencement of the third scene, Act iv. of Macbeth, where he proposed to read and wisdom is it to offer,' &c. See note on that passage. 9 This expression, the bottom of all our fortunes, is peculiarly Shakspeare's ; he has it in King Henry IV. Part 1.: The very bottom and the soul of hope, 10 Parts may stand for parties; but I cannot help thinking that it is an error for party; by which, as Mr. Tyrwhitt and Steevens observe, the jingle of hearts and parts would be avoided. 11 Warburton would substitute 'all bruise of time." But, as Steevens observes, 'the brush of time' is the gradual detrition of time. 12 i. e. the height of youth: the brow of a hill is its summit. 13 That is three times I saw him fallen, and striding over him defended him till he recovered.' 14 i. e. we have not secured that which we have ac quired. 15 i. e. being enemies that are likely so soon to rally and recover themselves from this defeat. To repair, in ancient language, was to renovate, to restore to a former condition. THE duced with the name of Shakspeare on the title page, printed by T. P. no date, but ascertained to have been printed in 1619. The present historical drama was altered by Crown, and brought on the stage in 1680, under the title of The Miseries of Civil War. Surely the works of Shakspeare could have been little read at that period; for Crown, in his prologue, declares the play to be entirely his own composition: 'For by his feeble skill 'tis built alone, The title of the old play, which Shakspeare altered and improved, is 'The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henry the Sixth: with the whole Contention between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke: as it was sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembroke his Servants. Printed at London by P. S. for Thomas Milling-Whereas the very first scene is that of Jack Cade, ton, and are to be solde at his Shoppe under St Peter's copied almost verbatim from the Second Part of King Church in Cornewal, 1595.' There was another edi- Henry VI. and several others from this Third Part, with tion in 1600 by the same publisher: and it was repro- as little variation. The divine Shakspeare did not lay one stone.' Rich. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.1 [Throwing down the DUKE of SOMERSET'S Head. *York. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons. What, is your grace dead, my lord of Somerset ? Norf. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt! Rich. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head. War. And so do I.-Victorious prince of York, Before I see thee seated in that throne Which now the house of Lancaster usurps, I vow by heaven, these eyes shall never close. This is the palace of the fearful king, And this the regal seat: possess it, York: For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'. York. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will; For hither we have broken in by force. Norf. We'll all assist you; he, that flies, shall die. York. Thanks, gentle Norfolk.-Stay by me, my lords; And, soldiers, stay, and lodge by me this night. War. And, when the king comes, offer him no violence, Unless he seek to thrust you out by force. [They retire. *York. The queen, this day, here holds her parliament, *But little thinks we shall be of her council: *By words, or blows, here let us win our right. Rich. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house. War. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd, Unless Plantagenet, duke of York, be king; And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice Hath made us by-words to our enemies. "York. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute; I mean to take possession of my right. War. Neither the king, nor he that loves him best, The proudest he that holds up Lancaster, Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.2 I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares:Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown. [WARWICK leads YORK to the Throne, who seats himself. Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND, WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red Roses in their Hats. K. Hen. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits, Even in the chair of state! belike, he means (Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,) To aspire unto the crown, and reign as king.Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd 1 Shakspeare was also led into this anachronism by the old plays. At the time of the first battle of St. Albans, where Richard is represented to have fought in the last scene of the preceding play, he was not one year old; having been born at Fotheringay Castle, October 21, 1454. At the time to which the third scene of the present act refers, he was but six years old; and in the fifth act, in which Henry is represented as having been killed by him in the Tower, not more than sixteen and eight months. 2 The allusion is to falconry. Hawks had sometimes little bells hung on them, perhaps to dare the birds; that is, to fright them from rising. 3 The old play reads as the kingdom is.' Why Shakspeare altered it, it is not easy to say, for the new My gracious lord, here m the parliament Let us assail the family of York. North. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so. K. Hen. Ah, know you not, the city favours them, And they have troops of soldiers at their back? Exe. But when the duke is slain, they'll quickly fly. K. Hen Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart, To make a shambles of the parliament-house! [They advance to the Duke. York. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was. Exe. Thy father was a traitor to the crown, War. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown, In following this usurping Henry. Clif. Whom should he follow, but his natural king? War. True, Clifford; and that's Richard, duke of York. K. Hen. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne ? 'York. It must and shall be so. Content thyself. War. Be duke of Lancaster, let him be king. West. He is both king and duke of Lancaster: And that the lord of Westmoreland shall maintain. War. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget, That we are those, which chas'd you from the field, And slew your fathers, and with colours spread March'd through the city to the palace gates. 'North. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief; And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it. West. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons, Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives, Than drops of blood were in my father's veins. 'Clif. Urge it no more; lest that, instead of words, I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger, As shall revenge his death, before I stir. 'War. Poor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless threats! York. Will you, we show our title to the crown? it all. line only exhibits the same meaning more obscurely. York means that the dukedom was his inheritance from his father, as the earldom of March. was his inheritance from his mother. His title to the crown was not as duke of York, but as earl of March, and by naming that he covertly asserts his right to the crown. 4 Another mistake of the author of the old play. York's father was earl of Cambridge, and was beheaded in the lifetime of his elder brother, Edward duke of York. 5 The military reputation of King Henry V. is the sole support of his son. The name of King Henry the Fifth dispersed the followers of Cade. 6 Since. A contraction of sithence |