* Clif. 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 2 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. • Clif. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true. 'War. You were best to go to bed, and dream again, To keep thee from the tempest of the field. 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. *K. Hen. Why, Wawick, hath thy knee forgot SCENE II. Saint Albans. Alarums: Excur to bow? * Old Salisbury,-shame to thy silver hair, * What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian, * The title of this most renowned duke; *K. Hen. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me? *Sal. I have. sions. Enter WARWICK. War. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls' And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear, Now,-when the angry trumpet sounds alarm, 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 sy 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 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. '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. See Bullokar's York and Rutland. At the beginning of the third part of this drama the poet has forgot this circumstance, and 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 * Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds *Nor is it manhood, wisdom, and defence, * Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,* If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottoms * Whom angry heavens do make their minister, *Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part * Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly: * And the premised' flames of the last day * To cease !2-Wast thou ordain'd, dear father, 5 * And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus As did Æneas old Anchises bear, Rich. So, lie thou there ; • For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign, there represents Clifford's death as it really *Of all our fortunes: but if we haply scape Enter Young CLIFFORD. * Y. Cliff. But that my heart's on future mischiet set, *I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly; * But fly you must; uncurable discomfit * your * To see their day, and them our fortune give: * Away, my lord, away! [Exeunt. Alarum: SCENE III. Fields near Saint Albans. York. Of Salisbury, who can report of him; • Rich. My noble father 'Three times to-day I holp him to his horse, 'Three times bestrid him,13 thrice I led him off, 'Persuaded him from any further act: But still, where danger was, still there I met him * But, noble as he is, look where he comes. 'Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fough 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. 15 For, as I hear, the king is fled to London, 'York. I know, our safety is to follow them, 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 everence. 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 act : 'Let him shun castles : Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains Such equivocal predictions were much in vogue in early 8 This line, Steevens observes, may serve to coun tenance 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 ao 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 HE action of this play opens just after the first battle | of St. Albans [May 23, 1455,] wherein the York faction carried the day; and closes with the murder of King Henry VI. and the birth of Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward V. [November 4, 1471.] So that this history takes in the space of full sixteen years. 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 Millington, and are to be solde at his Shoppe under St Peter's Church in Cornewal, 1595.' There was another edition in 1600 by the same publisher: and it was repro Rich. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I aid. [Throwing down the DUKE of SOMERSET'S * York. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons. What, is your grace dead, my lord of Somerset ? Rich. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's War. And so do I.--Victorious prince of York, And this the regal seat: possess it, York: • For hither we have broken in by force. And, soldiers, stay, and lodge by me this night. 'Unless he seek to thrust you out by force. [They retire. *York. The queen, this day, here holds her par- *But little thinks we shall be of her council: ' York. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute; 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 revenge On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends. North. If I be not, heavens, be reveng'd on me! Clif. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel. West. What, shall we suffer this? let's pluck him | down: 'My heart for anger burns, I cannot brook it. K. Hen. Be patient, gentle earl of Westmoreland. Clif. Patience is for poltroons, and such as he; He durst not sit there had your father liv'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 s, 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 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 To make a shambles of the parliament-house! [They advance to the Duke. York. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was 3 Clif. Whom should he follow, but his natural king? 'K. Hen. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my '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, Clif. Urge it no more; lest that, instead of words, ' War. Poor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless York. Will you, we show our title to the crown? K. Hen. What title hast thou, traitor, to the K. Hen. The lord protector lost it, and not I; Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head. and honour'st arms, Let's fight it out, and not stand caviling thus. 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 tne Fifth dispersed the followers of Cade. 6 Since. A contraction of sithence York. Sons, peace! K. Hen. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak. War. Plantagenet shall speak first :-hear him, lords; And be you silent and attentive too, For he, that interrupts him, shall not live. 'K. Hen. Think'st thou, that I will leave my kingly throne, Wherein my grandsire, and my father, sat? Ay, and their colours-often borne in France; And now in England, to our heart's great sorrow, Shall be my winding-sheet.'-Why faint you, lords? 'My title's good, and better far than his. War. But prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king. K. Hen. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown. York. 'Twas by rebellion against his king. K. Hen. I know not what to say; my title's weak. title's weak. Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir? York. What then? son, Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit. The crown to thee, and to thine heirs forever ; 'K. Hen. An if he may, then am I lawful king: To honour me as thy king and sovereign; • For Richard in the view of many lords, York. He rose against him, being his sovereign, Exe. No; for he could not so resign his crown, But that the next heir should succeed and reign. K. Hen. Art thou against us, duke of Exeter? Exe. His is the right, and therefore pardon me. York. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not? Exe. My conscience tells me he is lawful king. K. Hen. All will revolt from me, and turn to him. North. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st, Think not, that Henry shall be so depos'd. 'War. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all. North. Thou art deceiv'd: 'tis not thy southern power, 'Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,— Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud, Can set the duke up, in despite of me. Clif. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong, Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence: May that ground gape, and swallow me alive, 'Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father! 'K. Hen. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart! York. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown:What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords? War. Do right unto this princely duke of York; Or I will fill the house with armed men, [He stamps, and the Soldiers show themselves. 'K. Hen. My lord of Warwick, hear me but one word; 'Let me, for this my life time, reign as king. my Clif. What wrong is this unto the prince your son? Clif. Come, cousin, let us tell the queen these * And neither by treason, nor hostility, *To seek to put me down, and reign thyself. York. This oath I willingly take, and will perform. [Coming from the Throne. War. Long live King Henry !-Plantagenet, embrace him. 'K. Hen. And long live thou, and these thy for ward sons! York. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd. Exe. Accurs'd be he, that seeks to make them foes! [Senet. The Lords come forward. • York. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.5 soldiers. War. And I'll keep London, with my Norf. And I to Norfolk, with my followers. Mont. And I unto the sea, from whence I came. [Exeunt YORK, and his Sons, WARWICK, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, Soldiers, and Attendants. * K. Hen. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court. Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the Prince of Wales. Exe. Here comes the queen, whose looks bewray her anger: I'll steal away. K. Hen. [Going. Exeter, so will I. 'Q. Mar. Nay, go not from me, I will follow thee. K. Hen. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay. 'Q. Mar. Who can be patient in such extremes? * Ah, wretched man! 'would, I had died a maid, Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father! And never seen thee, never borne thee son, * Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus? *Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I; Or felt that pain which I did for him once; * * Or nourish'd him, as I did with my blood; * Thou would'st have left thy dearest heart-blood there, *Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir, * And disinherited thine only son. *Prince. Father, you cannot disinherit me: *If you be king, why should not I succeed? *K. Hen. Pardon me, Margaret ;-pardon me, sweet son; *The earl of Warwick, and the duke, enforc'd me. * Q. Mar. Enforc'd thee! art thou king, and wilt be forc❜d? I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch! quered, and seek to be revenged. They are not influenced by principle but passion.'-Johnson. 4 Malone asserts that neither, either, brother, and many similar words, were used by Shakspeare as monosyllables. Steevens doubts this, with seeming propriety, and observes that the versification of this and the preceding play, has many lines as unmetrical and irregular as this. 5 Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire. 6 Betray, discover |