Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come,
Before the expiration of thy time,

In braving arms against thy sovereign.qulové Boling. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;

But as I come, I come for Lancaster,

And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace, on
Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye;
You are my father, for, methinks, in you
I see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father!
Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd
A wand'ring vagabond; my rights and royalties
Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away
To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
If that my cousin king be king of England, baa
It must be granted, I am duke of Lancaster.
You have a son, Aumerle, my noble kinsman;
Had you first died, and he had been thus trod down,
He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,
To rouse his wrongs, and chase them to the bay,
I am denied to sue my livery9 here, h
And yet my letters patent give me leave:
My father's goods are all distrain'd, and sold;
And these, and all, are all amiss employ'd.
What would you have me do? I am a subject,
And challenge law; Attornies are denied me;
And therefore personally I lay my claim y
inheritance of free descent.

To my

North. The noble duke hath been too much abus'd. Ross. It stands your grace upon10 to do him right.

So,

Indifferent is impartial. The instances of this use of the word among the poet's contemporaries are very numerous. in King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 4, Queen Katharine says:Born out of your dominions, having here No judge indifferent."

Sec Baret's Alvearie, in letter I, 108, where he translates, 'Aequus judex, a just and indifferent judge; nothing partial.'

8 Wrongs is probably here used for wrongers,

9 See the former scene, p. 32, note 5.

10 Steevens explains the phrase, It stands your grace upon, to mean, it is your interest; it is matter of consequence to you.

Willo. Base men by his endowments are made

great.

York. My lords of England, let me tell you this, I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs, 91 And labour'd all I could to do him right:0 But in this kind to come, in braving arms, Be his own carver, and cut out his way, To find out right with wrong, it may not be; And you, that do abet him in this kind, Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.

North. The noble duke hath sworn, his coming is
But for his own: and, for the right of that,
We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;
And let him ne'er see joy, that breaks that oath.
York. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms;
I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
Because my power is weak, and all ill left:
But, if I could, by him that gave me life,
I would attach you all, and make
you
stoop
Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;
But, since I cannot, be it known to you,
I do remain as neuter.
So,
fare you well;.
Unless you please to enter in the castle,
And there repose you for this night.

Boling. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
But we must win your grace, to go with us
To Bristol Castle; which, they say, is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed, and pluck away.

But hear Baret, "The heyre is bound; the heyre ought, or it is the heyre's part to defend; it standeth him upon; or is in his charge. Incumbit defensio mortis haeredi. The phrase is therefore equivalent to it is incumbent upon your grace. Shakspeare uses it again in King Richard III:

It stands me much upon

To stop all hopes whose growth may danger me.'

Sir N. Throckmorton, writing to Queen Elizabeth, says, 'Howsoever things do fall out, it standeth your majestie so uppon, for your own suretie and reputation to be well ware,' &c. Conway Papers. Vide Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2.

York. It may be, 1 will go with you:-but yet

I'll pause;

For I am loath to break our country's laws.
Nor friends, nor foes, to me welcome you are:
Things past redress, are now with me past carell,
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV1. A Camp in Wales.

Enter SALISBURY2, and a Captain.

Cap. My lord of Salisbury, we have staid ten days,

And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the king;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.
Sal. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:
The king reposeth all his confidence

In thee.

Cap. "Tis thought, the king is dead: we will not stay.

The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd3,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,-
The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war:

These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.—

11

Things without remedy
Should be without regard.

Macbeth.

1 Johnson thought this scene had been by some accident transposed, and that it should stand as the second scene in the third act. 2 John Montacute, earl of Salisbury.

This enumeration of prodigies is in the highest degree poetical and striking. The poet received the hint from Holinshed: In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of Englande, old baie trees withered,' &c. This, as it appears from T. Lupton's Syxt Booke of Notable Things, bl. 4to. was esteemed a bad omen. 'Neyther falling sickness, neyther devyll, wyll infest or hurt one in that place whereas a bay tree is. The Romaynes call it the plant of the good angel,' &c. See also Evelyn's Sylva, 4to. 1776, p. 396.

Farewell; our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assur'd, Richard their king is dead. [Exit.
Sal. Ah, Richard! with the eyes of heavy mind,
I see thy glory, like a shooting star,

Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest: in A
Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes:
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes. [Exit.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Bolingbroke's Camp at Bristol.

Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, Ross: Officers behind with Busay and GREEN, prisoners.

forth t

Boling. Bring forth these men.

(Since

Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls
presently your souls must part your bodies),
With too much urging your pernicious lives,
For 'twere no charity: yet, to wash your blood
From off my hands, here, in the view of men,
I will unfold some causes of
your deaths.
You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
By you unhappied and disfigur'd clean1.

a divorce bet

You have, in manner, with your sinful hours,
Made his queen and him;
Broke the possession of a royal bed2,

1 i. e. quite, completely. Thus in Shakspeare's seventy-fifth Sonnet:

And by and by clean starved for a look."

Quite and cleane to take away an opinion from one. Excutere opinionem radicitus.-Baret.esloda Baz

3 There seems to be no authority for this. Isabel, Richard's second queen, was but nine years old at this period; his first queen, Anne, died in 1392, and he was very fond of her.

And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your fou
foul wrongs.
Myself a prince, by fortune of my birth,
Near to the king in blood; and near in love,
Till you did make him misinterpret me,
Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment:

Whilst you have fed upon my signories,

Dispark'd3 my parks, and fell'd my forest woods;
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Raz'd out my impress1, leaving me no sign,-
Save men's opinions, and my living blood,-
To show the world I am a gentleman.

This, and much more, much more than twice all this,

Condemns you to the death:-See them deliver'd

over

To execution and the hand of death.

Bushy. More welcome is the stroke of death to me, Than Bolingbroke to England.-Lords, farewell.. Green. My comfort is, that heaven will take our souls,

And plague injustice with the pains of hell. Boling. My Lord Northumberland, see them despatch'd.

[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND and Others, with
Prisoners.

Uncle, you say, the queen is at your house;
For heaven's sake, fairly let her be entreated:
Tell her, I send to her
my kind commends5;
Take special care my greetings be deliver'd.

3 To dispark signifies to divest a park of its name and character, by destroying the enclosures, and the vert (or whatever bears green leaves, whether wood or underwood), and the beasts of the chase therein; laying it open.

The impress was a device, or motto. Ferne, in his Blazon of Gentry, 1588, observes that the arms, &c. of traitors and rebels may be defaced and removed wheresoever they are fixed or set. For the punishment of a base knight see Spenser's Faerie Queen, b. v. c. iii. st. 37.

5 Commendations.