K.Edw. Madam, yourself are not exempt in this,Nor your son Dorset,-Buckingham, nor you;— You have been factious one against the other. Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand; And what you do, do it unfeignedly. Q. Eliz. There, Hastings;-I will never more remember Our former hatred, so thrive I, and mine! K. Edw. Dorset, embrace him,-Hastings, love Dor. This interchange of love, I here protest, [Embraces DORSET. K. Edw. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league With thy embracements to my wife's allies, Buck. Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate teous love Doth cherish you, and yours, God punish me [Embracing RIVERS, &c. K. Edw. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham, Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart. There wanteth now our brother Gloster here, To make the blessed period of this Buck. And, in good time, here comes the noble duke. Enter GLOSTER. peace. Glo. Good-morrow to my sovereign king, and| queen; And, princely peers, a happy time of day! Q. Eliz. A holy-day shall this be kept hereafter :I would to God all strifes were well compounded.My sovereign lord, I do beseech your highness To take our brother Clarence to your grace. Glo. Why, madam, have I offer'd love for this, To be so flouted in this royal presence? Who knows not, that the gentle duke is dead? [They all start. You do him injury to scorn his corse. K. Edw. Who knows not he is dead! who knows he is? Q. Eliz. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this! Buck. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest? Dor. Ay,my good lord; and no man in the presence, But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks. K. Edw. Is Clarence dead? the order was revers'd. Glo. But he, poor man, by your first order died, And that a winged Mercury did bear; Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,2 That came too lag to see him buried:--God grant, that some, less noble, and less loyal, Nearer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood, Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did, And yet go current from suspicion. Enter STANLEY. Stan. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done! K. Edw. I pr'ythee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow. Stan. I will not rise, unless your highness hear mo. K. Edw. Then say at once, what is it thou request'st? Stan. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life; Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman, Lately attendant on the duke of Norfolk. K. Edw. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death," And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave? K. Edw. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the My brother kill'd no man, his fault was thought, day: peers. Brother, we have done deeds of chanty; If I unwittingly, or in my rage, I hate it, and desire all good men's love.- If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us :- 1 Milton has this observation :-- The poets, and some English, have been in this point so mindful of decorum, as to put never more pious words in the mouth of any person than of a tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse anthor, wherein the king might be less conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet companion of these his solitudes, William Shakspeare; who introduced the person of Richard the Third, speaking in as high a strain of piety and mortification as is uttered in any passage in this book, and sometimes to the same sense and purpose with some words in this place. I intended (saith he), not only to oblige my friends, but my enemies. The like saith Richard: 'I do not know that Englishman alive, Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the tra gedy, wherein the poet used not much licence in depart And yet his punishment was bitter death. ing from the truth of history, which delivers him a deep dissembler, not of his affections only, but his religion." 2 This is an allusion to a proverbial expression which Drayton has versified in his Baron's Wars: Ill news hath wings, and with the wind doth go, Comfort's a cripple, and comes ever slow.' Canto II. Ed. 1619. 3 We have the same play on words in Macbeth:"--the near in blood, The nearer bloody,' 4 He means the remission of the forfeit. The 5 This lamentation is very tender and pathetic. The recollection of the good qualities of the dead is very natural, and no less naturally does the king endeavour to communicate the crime to others.'-Johnson. hint for this pathetic speech is to be found in Sir Thomas More's History of Edward V, inserted in the Chronicles. 6 i. e. be circumspect, deliberate, or consider what I was about. 029100 Yet none of you would once plead for his life.- [Exeunt King, Queen, HASTINGS, RIVERS, Glo. This is the fruit of rashness!-Mark'd you not, How that the guilty kindred of the queen Daugh. Why do you weep so oft? and beat your breast; And cry-O Clarence, my unhappy son! Son. Why do you look on us, and shake your head, And call us-orphans, wretches, cast-aways, If that our noble father be alive? Duch. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both; I do lament the sickness of the king, As loath to lose him, not your father's death: It were lost sorrow, to wail one that's lost. Son. Then grandam, you conclude that he is The king my uncle is to blame for this: Duch. Peace, children, peace! the king doth love Incapable and shallow innocents, You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death. Or, like obedient subjects, follow him I have bewept a worthy husband's death, Son. Ah, aunt! you wept not for our father's death; How can we aid you with our kindred tears? Daugh. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd, Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept! Q. Eliz. Give me no help in lamentation, I am not barren to bring forth laments: All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, That I, being govern'd by the wat'ry moon, May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world! Ah, for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward! Chil. Ah, for our father, for our dear Lord Cla rence! Duch. Alas, for both, both miné, Edward and Clarence! Q. Eliz. What stay had I, but Edward? and he's gone. Chil, What stay had we, but Clarence? and he's gone. Duch. What stays had I, but they? and they are gone. Q. Eliz. Was never widow, had so dear a loss. Duch. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd, shapes, And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice! He is my son, ay, and therein my shame, Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit. Son. Think you, my uncle did dissemble, dam? Duch. Ay, boy. Pour all your tears, I am your sorrow's nurse, Dor. Comfort, dear mother; God is much dis gran- That you take with unthankfulness his doing; Son. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this? Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, distractedly; RIVERS, and DORSET, following her. Q. Eliz. Ah! who shall hinder me to wail and weep? To chide my fortune, and torment myself? Duch. What means this scene of rude impatience? That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's; Riv. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother, Of the young prince your son: send straight for him, Let him be crown'd. in him your comfort lives: Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave, And plant your joys in living Edward's throne. Enter GLOSTER, BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, RATCLIFF, and others. Glo. Sister, have comfort: all of us have cause To wail the dimming of our shining star; But none can cure their harms by wailing them.Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy, I did not see your grace:-Humbly on my knee I crave your blessing. stance will show that it was used even in the most re. fined poetry : And on thy dugs the queen of love doth tell Her godhead's power in scrowles of my desire.' Constable's Sonnets, 1594, Dec. vi. Son. 4 6 In the language of our elder writers, to dissemble. signified to feign or simulate, as well as to cloak or conceal feelings or dispositions. Milton uses dissembler in this sense in the extract in a note on a former page. 7 The children by whom he was represented. 8 Divided. Duck. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy | breast, Love, charity, obedience, and true duty! Glo. Amen; and make me die a good old man!That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing; [Aside. I marvel, that her grace did leave it out. Buck. You cloudy princes, and heart-sorrowing peers, That bear this mutual heavy load of moan, Riv. Why with some little train, my lord of Buck. Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude, 3 Cit. Doth the news hold of good King Ed ward's death? 2 Cit. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while. 3 Cit. Then, masters, look to see a troublous world. 1 Cit. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall reign. 3 Cit. Woe to that land, that's govern'd by a child! 2 Cit. In him there is a hope of government; 1 Cit. So stood the state, when Henry the Sixth For then this land was famously enrich'd 1 Cit. Why, so hath this, both by his father and By how much the estate is green, and yet ungo-Or, by his father, there were none at all: 3 Cit. Better it were they all came by his father; vern'd: Where every horse bears his commanding rein, Glo. I hope, the king made peace with all of us; Riv. And so in me; and so, I think, in all: 2 Glo. Then be it so; and go we to determine As index to the story we late talk'd of, [Exeunt. SCENE III. The same. A Street. Enter two Citizens, meeting. 1 Cit. Good morrow, neighbour: Whither so fast? away 2 Cit. I promise you, I scarcely know myself: Hear you the news abroad? 1 Cit. Yes; the king's dead. 2 Cit. Il news, by'r lady; seldom comes the better: I fear, I fear, 'twill prove a giddy world. Enter another Citizen. S Cit. Neighbours, God speed. 1 Cit. sir. Give you good morrow, 1 Edward, the young prince, in his father's lifetime, and at his demise, kept his household at Ludlow, as prince of Wales; under the governance of Anthony Woodville, earl of Rivers, his uncle by the mother's side. The intention of his being sent thither was to see justice done in the Marches; and, by the authority of his presence, to restrain the Welchmen, who were wild, disso. lute, and ill-disposed. from their accustomed murders and outrages.-Vide Holinshed. 2 This speech seems rather to belong to Hastings, who was of the duke of Gloster's party. The next peech might be given to Stanley. 3 i. e. your judgments, your opinions. 6 An ancient proverbial saying, noticed in The English Courtier and Country Gentlemen, 4to. blk 1. 1386, For emulation now, who shall be nearest, And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule, 1 Cit. Čome, come, we fear the worst: all will 3 Cit. When clouds are seen, wise men put on When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand; 2 Cit. Truly, the hearts of men are full of fear: 3 Cit. Before the days of change, still is it so: Arch. Last night, I heard, they lay at Stony. And at Northampton they do rest to-night .10 Duch. I long with all my heart to see the prince; sign. B: as the proverbe sayth seldome come the 6 Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.' Shakspeare found it cited in the duke of Buckingham's Ecclesiast, C. X. speech to the citizens in More's Richard III. cumstances; we may hope this of his council while he 9 Before such great things, men's hearts of a secret instinct of nature misgive them; as the sea without wind More's Richard III. copied by Holinshed, III. 721. swelleth of himself some time before a tempest.'-From 10 This is the reading of the folio. The quarto of 1597, reads: Last night I hear they lay at Northampton: York. Ay, mother, but I would not have it so. My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow Duch. 'Good faith, 'good faith, the saying did not In him that did object the same to thee: I could have given my uncle's grace a flout, York. Marry, they say, my uncle grew so fast, Duch. His nurse? why, she was dead ere thou York. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me. Arch. Good madam, be not angry with the child. Q. Eliz. The mighty dukes, For what offence? Mess. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd; Q. Eliz. Ah me, I see the ruin of my house! Upon the innocent and awless throne:- Duch. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days! How many of you have mine eyes beheld? Q. Eliz. Come, come, my boy, we will to sanc- Madam, farewell. Stay, I will go with you. Q. Eliz. You have no cause. My gracious lady, go. ACT III. SCENE I. London. A Street. The Trumpets sound. Enter the Prince of Wales, GLOSTER, BUCKINGHAM, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others. Buck. Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber." Glo. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sove- The weary way hath made you melancholy. Glo. Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit : Prince. God keep me from false friends! but they were none. Glo. My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you. Enter the Lord Mayor, and his Train. May. God bless your grace with health and happy days! you all. Prince. I thank you, good my lord;—and thank 1 Parlous is a popular corruption of perilous; joeularly used for alarming, amazing. Cooper's Dictionary, 1584, in voce incurso. Awless is not producing awe, not reverenced. 3 Afterwards, however, this obsequious archbishop [Rotheram] to ingratiate himself with Richard III. put his majesty's badge, the Hog, upon the gate of the Public Library at Cambridge. be on the day on which the king was journeying from 2 The quarto reads to jet, which Mr. Boswell thought Northampton to Stratford; and of course the messen- preferable; but the folio is right. To jut upon the ger's account of the peers being seized, &c. which hap-throne,' is to make inroads or invasions upon it. See pened on the next day after the king had lain at Stratford, is inaccurate. If the folio reading be adopted the scene is indeed placed on the day on which the king was seized; but the archbishop is supposed to be apprized o a fact which, before the entry of the messenger, he manifestly does not know; namely, the duke of Gloster's coming to Stratford the morning after the king had lain there, taking him forcibly back to Northampton, and seizing the Lords Rivers, Grey, &c. The truth is, that the queen herself, the person most materially interested in the welfare of her son, did not hear of the king's being carried back from Stony-Stratford to Northampton till about midnight of the day on which this violence was offered to him by his uncle. See Hall, Edward V. fol. 6. Malone thinks this an unanswerable argument in favour of the reading of the quarto; while Steevens thinks it a matter of indifference, but prefers the text of he 'olio copy on account of the versification. 4 Thomas Bourchier was made a cardinal, and elected Archbishop of Canterbury in 1464. He died in 1486. 5 London was anciently called Camera Regis. See Coke's Institutes, 4. 243; Camden's Britannia, 374; and Ben Jonson's Entertainment to King James, passing to his Coronation. London is called the king's specia! chamber in the duke of Buckingham's oration to the citizens (apud More,) which Shakspeare has taken other phrases from. 6 To jump with, is to agree with, to suit, or correapond with. Enter HASTINGS. Buck. Ana in good time, here comes the swea:ing lord Prince. Welcome, my lord: What, will our mc- Hast. On what occasion, God he knows, not I, tory Can from his mother win the duke of York, Of blessed sanctuary! not for all this land, age, Buck. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord, Card. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once. Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me? Say, uncle Gloster, if our brother come, Gle. Where it seems best unto your royal self. Prince. I do not like the Tower, of any place:- Glo. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place; Buck. Upon record, my gracious lord. 1 Ceremonious for superstitious; traditional for adherent to old customs. As 'twere retail'd' to alt posterity, Glo. So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live Prince. What say you, uncle? Glo. I say, without characters, fame lives long. I moralize two meanings in one word. Glo. Short summers lightly have a forward [Aside. Enter YORK, HASTINGS, and the Cardinal. Buck. Now, in good time, here comes the duke of York. Prince. Richard of York! how fares our loving brother? York. Well, my dread lord; so I must call you now. Glo. How fares our cousin, noble lord of York? York. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give; Glo. It is too weighty for your grace to wear. York. Little. of the ancient, having after a sorte attained that by disease which other have by course of yeares; whereon I take it the proverbe ariseth, that they be of shorte life who are of wit so pregnant.—Bright's Treatise of Me 2 Grossness here means plainness, simplicity. Warburton, not understanding the word, would have changed it. Johnson has misinterpreted it; and Malone, though he defends the reading, leaves it unex-lancholy, 1586, p. 52. plained. 3 This argument is from More's History, as printed in the Chronicles, where it is very much enlarged upon. • Verelye I have often heard of saintuarye men, but I never heard erste of saintuarye chyldren ***. But he can be no saintuarye manne, that neither hath wisedome to desire it, nor malice to deserve it, whose lyfe or libertye can by no lawfull processe stand in jeopardie. And he that taketh one oute of saintuary to dooe hym good, I saye plainely that he breaketh no saintuary. More's History of Kinge Richard the Thirde. Edit. 1921. recounted. Minsheu, in his Dictionary, 1617, p. 48. besides the verb retail, in the mercantile sense, has the verb to retaile or retell. 6 For an account of the vice in old plays, see note on Twelfth Night, Act iv. Sc. 2. He appears (says Mr. Gifford) to have been a perfect counterpart of the harlequin of the modern stage, and had a two-fold office, to instigate the hero of the piece to wickedness, and, at the same time, to protect him from the devil, whom he was permitted to buffet and baffle with his wooden sword, till the process of the story required that both the protector and the protected should be carried off by the fiend, or the latter driven roaring from the stage by some miraculous interposition in favour of the repen. tant offender.' 7'Short summers commonly have a forward spring. So in an old proverb preserved by Ray :"There's lightning lightly before thunder.' 8 Lately. 5 I have knowne children languishing of the splene, obstructed and altered in temper, talke with gravity and 9 This taunting answer of the prince has been misinwisdome surpassing those tender years, and their judg.terpreted: he means to say, I hold it cheap, or care ments carrying a marvellous imitation of the wisdome but liule for it, even were it heavier than it is." |