SCENE III.

France. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish. Enter Lewis, the French King, and LADY BONA, attended; the King takes his State. Then enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD her Son, and the EARL of OXFORD.

K. Lew. Fair queen of England, worthy Mar

garet,

[Rising. · And birth, that thou shouldst stand, while Lewis

Sit down with us; it ill befits thy state,

doth sit.

Q. Mar. No, mighty king of France; now Mar

garet

Must strike her sail, and learn awhile to serve, * Where kings command. I was, I must confess,

Great Albion's queen in former golden days: * But now mischance hath trod my title down, * And with dishonour laid me on the ground; *Where I must take like seat unto my fortune, And to my humble seat conform myself.

K. Lew. Why, say, fair queen, whence springs this deep despair?

Q. Mar. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears,

And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in

cares.

K. Lew. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself, *And sit thee by our side: yield not thy neck [Seats her by him. To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind *Still ride in triumph over all mischance. * Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief; It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.

Q. Mar. Those gracious words revive my drooping thoughts,

And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak. Now, therefore, be it known to noble Lewis,

That Henry, sole possessor of my love, *Is, of a king, become a banish'd man, And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn; * While proud ambitious Edward, duke of York, * Usurps the regal title, and the seat

*Of England's true anointed lawful king. *This is the cause, that I, poor Margaret, * With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid; And, if thou fail us, all our hope is done: Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help; Our people and our peers are both misled, Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight, And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight. K. Lew. Renowned queen, with patience calm the storm,

While we bethink a means to break it off. * Q. Mar. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.

*K. Lew. The more I stay, the more I'll succour

thee.

Q. Mar. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow: * And see, where comes the breeder of my sorrow.

Enter WARWICK1, attended.

K. Lew. What's he, approacheth boldly to our presence?

Q. Mar. Our earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.

1 This nobleman's embassy and commission, the insult he receives by the king's hasty marriage, and his consequent resolution to avenge it, with the capture, i imprisonment, and escape of the king, Shakspeare found in Hall and Holinshed; but later as well as earlier writers of better authority incline us to discredit the whole; and to refer the rupture between the king and his political creator to other causes. Perhaps we need seek no further than that jealousy and ingratitude which is but too often experienced in those who are under great obligations-too great to be discharged. There needs no other proof how little our common histories are to be depended on than this fabulous story of Warwick and the Lady Bona. The king was privately married to the Lady Elizabeth Widville, in 1463, and in February, 1465, Warwick actually stood sponsor to the Princess Elizabeth,

K. Lew. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?

[Descending from his State, Queen MARGARET rises.

Q. Mar. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;
For this is he that moves both wind and tide.
War. From worthy Edward, king of Albion,
My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,
I come,-in kindness, and unfeigned love,-
First, to do greetings to thy royal person;
And, then, to crave a league of amity;
And, lastly, to confirm that amity

With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant
That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,
To England's king in lawful marriage.

Q. Mar. If that go forward, Henry's hope is
done2.

War. And, gracious madam [To BONA], in our king's behalf, vinall your pen, pior an7 I am commanded, with your leave and favour, Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart; Where fame, late entering at his sheedful ears, Hath plac'd thy beauty's image, and thy virtue. 32 Q. Mar. King Lewis, and Lady Bona,-hear me speak,

Before you answer Warwick. His demand *Springs not from Edward's well meant honest love, But from deceit, bred by necessity; For how can tyrants safely govern home, * Unless abroad they purchase great alliance ? To prove him tyrant, this reason may suffice,That Henry liveth still: but were he dead,

Annales of W

W. of

HIDY D wollen zid to listaveb en ni 197H their first child. It should seem from the Annales Wyrcester that no open rupture had taken place between the king and Warwick up to the beginning of November, 1468; at ofleast nothing appears to the contrary in that historian, whose work is unfortunately defective from that period. by

2 There is nearly the same line in a former speech of Margaret. It is found in its present situation in the old play.

* Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son. Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage

*Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour: *For though usurpers sway the rule awhile, * Yet heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.. War. Injurious Margaret!

Prince.

And why not queen? War. Because thy father Henry did usurp; And thou no more art prince, than she is queen. Oxf. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt, Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain; And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth, Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest; And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth, Who by his prowess conquered all France: From these our Henry lineally descends. War. Oxford, how haps it, in this smooth discourse, You told not, how Henry the Sixth hath lost All that which Henry thence should smile at that. Fifth had gotten? Methinks, these peers of France

But for the rest, You tell a pedigree

Of threescore and two years; a silly time.

To make prescription for a kingdom's worth of Oaf Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,

Whom thou obey'dst thirty and six years,

And not bewray thy treason with a blush?

War. Can Oxford, that did deyer fence the right, Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree? od For shame, leave Henry, and call Edward king. Oxf. Call him my king, by whose injurious doom My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere, Was done to death? and more than so, my father, Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,

When nature, brought him to the door of death?

1

ЗБЕЗ Т

This passage unavoidably brings to mind that admirable image of old age in Sackville's Induction to the Mirror for Magis

strates ass

His withered fist still knocking at death's door.

No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,
This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.
War. And I the house of York.

K. Lew. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and
Oxford,

• Vouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside, While I use further conference with Warwick. Q. Mar. Heaven grant, that Warwick's words bewitch him not!

[Retiring with the Prince and OXFORD. K. Lew. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,

Is Edward your true king? for I were loath
To link with him that were not lawful chosen.
War. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.
K. Lew. But is he gracious in the people's eye?
War. The more, that Henry was unfortunatea.
K. Lew. Then further,―all dissembling set aside,
Tell me for truth the measure of his love
Unto our sister Bona.

War.

Such it seems, webA

As may beseem a monarch like himself.s
Myself have often heard him say, and swear,
That this his love was an eternal

Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,
The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun;
Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,
Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain. Makanti
K. Lew. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.
Bona. Your grant, or your denial, shall be mine:-
Yet I confess, [To WAR.] that often ere this day,
When I have heard your king's desert recounted,
Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.

He means that Henry was unsuccessful in war, having lost his dominions in France, &c.

5 In the language of Shakspeare's time, by an eternal plant was meant what we now call a perennial one.

6 Steevens thinks that envy in this place, as in many others, is put for malice or hatred. His situation places him above these, though it cannot secure him from female disdain.