3.1 Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, with BUSHY and GREENE, prisoners.

BOLINGBROKE     Bring forth these men.
Bushy and Greene, I will not vex your souls,
Since presently your souls must part your bodies,
With too much urging your pernicious lives,
For ’twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood	5
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 disfigured clean;	10
You have in manner, with your sinful hours,
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
Broke the possession of a royal bed,
And stain’d the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks
With tears, drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;	15
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,	20
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Dispark’d my parks and fell’d my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Rac’d out my imprese, leaving me no sign,	25
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 delivered over
To execution and the hand of death.	30
BUSHY     More welcome is the stroke of death to me
Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
GREENE     My comfort is, that heaven will take our souls,
And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
BOLINGBROKE
My lord Northumberland, see them dispatch’d.	35
Exeunt Northumberland and prisoners.
Uncle, you say the queen is at your house;
For God’s sake fairly let her be intreated,
Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
Take special care my greetings be delivered.
YORK     A gentleman of mine I have dispatch’d	40
With letters of your love to her at large.
BOLINGBROKE     Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
To fight with Glendor and his complices:
A while to work, and after holiday.     Exeunt.

3.2 Drums: flourish and colours. Enter KING RICHARD, AUMERLE, the Bishop of CARLISLE and soldiers.

RICHARD     Barkloughly castle call they this at hand?
AUMERLE     Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air,
After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
RICHARD     Needs must I like it well: I weep for joy
To stand upon my kingdom once again.	5
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs.
As a long-parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,	10
And do thee favours with my royal hands;
Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,	15
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee;
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,	20
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:
This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armed soldiers ere her native king	25
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
CARLISLE
Fear not, my lord. That Power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
The means that heaven yields must be imbrac’d
And not neglected; else, heaven would,	30
And we will not; heavens offer, we refuse
The proffered means of succour and redress.
AUMERLE     He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
Grows strong and great in substance and in power.	35
RICHARD     Discomfortable cousin! know’st thou not
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
In murthers and in outrage boldly here;	40
But when from under this terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murthers, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck’d from off their backs,	45
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath revell’d in the night,
Whilst we were wand’ring with the Antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne the east,	50
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;	55
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord;
For every man that Bolingbroke hath press’d
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay	60
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
Enter SALISBURY.
Welcome, my lord: how far off lies your power?
SALISBURY     Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm; discomfort guides my tongue,	65
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!	70
To-day, to-day, unhappy day too late,
O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers’d and fled.
AUMERLE
Comfort, my liege, why looks your grace so pale?	75
RICHARD     But now the blood of twenty thousand men
Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
And till so much blood thither come again,
Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
All souls that will be safe, fly from my side,	80
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
AUMERLE     Comfort, my liege, remember who you are.
RICHARD     I had forgot myself, am I not king?
Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
Is not the king’s name twenty thousand names?	85
Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes
At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
Ye favourites of a king, are we not high?
High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?	90
Enter SCROOPE.
SCROOPE     More health and happiness betide my liege
Than can my care-tun’d tongue deliver him.
RICHARD     Mine ear is open and my heart prepar’d.
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? why, ’twas my care,	95
And what loss is it to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be. If he serve God,
We’ll serve Him too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;	100
They break their faith to God as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay –
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOPE     Glad am I that your Highness is so arm’d
To bear the tidings of calamity.	105
Like an unseasonable stormy day,
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolv’d to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land	110
With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
White-beards have arm’d their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; boys, with women’s voices,
Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;	115
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.	120
RICHARD     Too well, too well thou tell’st tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Greene?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?	125
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it:
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOPE
Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
RICHARD
O villains, vipers, damn’d without redemption!
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!	130
Snakes, in my heart-blood warm’d, that sting my heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? Terrible hell,
Make war upon their spotted souls for this!
SCROOPE     Sweet love, I see, changing his property,	135
Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
With heads and not with hands; those whom you curse
Have felt the worst of death’s destroying wound,
And lie full low, grav’d in the hollow ground.	140
AUMERLE
Is Bushy, Greene, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
SCROOPE     Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.
AUMERLE
Where is the Duke my father with his power?
RICHARD     No matter where – of comfort no man speak.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,	145
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so – for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?	150
Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death;
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground	155
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,
All murthered – for within the hollow crown	160
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;	165
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores thorough his castle wall, and farewell king!	170
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
For you have but mistook me all this while.
I live with bread like you, feel want,	175
Taste grief, need friends – subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
CARLISLE
My lord, wise men ne’er sit and wail their woes,
But presently prevent the ways to wail.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,	180
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear and be slain – no worse can come to fight;
And fight and die is death destroying death,
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.	185
AUMERLE     My father hath a power; inquire of him,
And learn to make a body of a limb.
RICHARD
Thou chid’st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague fit of fear is overblown;	190
An easy task it is to win our own.
Say, Scroope, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
SCROOPE     Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day;	195
So may you by my dull and heavy eye:
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer by small and small
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
Your uncle York is join’d with Bolingbroke,	200
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his party.
RICHARD     Thou hast said enough.
Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
[to Aumerle] Of that sweet way I was in to despair!	205
What say you now? What comfort have we now?
By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly
That bids me be of comfort any more.
Go to Flint Castle, there I’ll pine away –
A king, woe’s slave, shall kingly woe obey.	210
That power I have, discharge, and let them go
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none. Let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
AUMERLE     My liege, one word.
RICHARD     He does me double wrong	215
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
From Richard’s night, to Bolingbroke’s fair day.
Exeunt.

3.3 Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, attendants.

BOLINGBROKE     So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispers’d; and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The news is very fair and good, my lord;	5
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK     It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say ‘King Richard’. Alack the heavy day,
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND
Your grace mistakes; only to be brief,	10
Left I his title out.
YORK     The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head’s length
BOLINGBROKE
Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.	15
YORK     Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake: the heavens are o’er our heads.
BOLINGBROKE I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself
Against their will. But who comes here?
Enter PERCY.
Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?	20
PERCY     The castle royally is mann’d, my lord,
Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE     Royally!
Why, it contains no king?
PERCY     Yes, my good lord,
It doth contain a king; King Richard lies	25
Within the limits of yon lime and stone;
And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
Sir Stephen Scroope, besides a clergyman
Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.
NORTHUMBERLAND     O belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.	30
BOLINGBROKE     Noble lord,
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle,
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parle
Into his ruin’d ears, and thus deliver:
Henry Bolingbroke	35
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand,
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
To his most royal person; hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
Provided that my banishment repeal’d	40
And lands restor’d again be freely granted;
If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power
And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood
Rain’d from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen –
The which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke	45
It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
Go, signify as much, while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.	50
Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
That from this castle’s tottered battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perus’d.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements	55
Of fire and water, when their thund’ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters – on the earth, and not on him.	60
March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.
Parle without, and answer within: then a flourish. Enter on the walls RICHARD, CARLISLE, AUMERLE, SCROOPE, SALISBURY.
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the East,
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent	65
To dim his glory and to stain the track
Of his bright passage to the occident.
YORK     Yet looks he like a king. Behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty; alack, alack for woe	70
That any harm should stain so fair a show!
RICHARD [to Northumberland]
We are amaz’d, and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king;
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget	75
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismiss’d us from our stewardship;
For well we know no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,	80
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends,
Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,	85
Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf,
Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn, and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head,
And threat the glory of my precious crown.	90
Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason. He is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war.
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,	95
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mother’s sons
Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation and bedew
Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.	100
NORTHUMBERLAND
The King of Heaven forbid our lord the king
Should so with civil and uncivil arms
Be rush’d upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,
Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand,
And by the honourable tomb he swears,	105
That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones,
And by the royalties of both your bloods,
Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
And by the worth and honour of himself,	110
Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
His coming hither hath no further scope
Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
Infranchisement immediate on his knees,
Which on thy royal party granted once,	115
His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
To faithful service of your Majesty.
This, swears he as he is a prince and just;
And, as I am a gentleman, I credit him.	120
RICHARD
Northumberland, say thus the king returns:
His noble cousin is right welcome hither,
And all the number of his fair demands
Shall be accomplish’d without contradiction;
With all the gracious utterance that thou hast	125
Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
[to Aumerle] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
To look so poorly, and to speak so fair?
Shall we call back Northumberland and send
Defiance to the traitor, and so die?	130
AUMERLE
No, good my lord, let’s fight with gentle words.
Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
RICHARD
O God! O God! that e’er this tongue of mine,
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yon proud man, should take it off again	135
With words of sooth! O that I were as great
As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
Or that I could forget what I have been!
Or not remember what I must be now!
Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to beat,	140
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
AUMERLE
Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
RICHARD
What must the king do now? Must he submit?
The king shall do it. Must he be depos’d?
The king shall be contented. Must he lose	145
The name of king? a God’s name, let it go.
I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;
My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown;
My figur’d goblets for a dish of wood;	150
My sceptre for a palmer’s walking staff;
My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave,
Or I’ll be buried in the king’s highway,	155
Some way of common trade, where subjects’ feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live:
And buried once, why not upon my head?
Aumerle, thou weep’st (my tender-hearted cousin!),	160
We’ll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make some pretty match with shedding tears?	165
As thus to drop them still upon one place,
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
Within the earth, and therein laid – there lies
Two kinsmen digg’d their graves with weeping eyes!
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see	170
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ‘ay’.	175
NORTHUMBERLAND
My lord, in the base court he doth attend
To speak with you; may it please you to come down?
RICHARD     Down, down I come, like glist’ring Phaeton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,	180
To come at traitors’ calls, and do them grace!
In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.     Exeunt from above.
BOLINGBROKE     What says his Majesty?
NORTHUMBERLAND     Sorrow and grief of heart
Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man;	185
Yet he is come.
Enter KING RICHARD and his attendants below.
BOLINGBROKE     Stand all apart,
And show fair duty to his Majesty. [He kneels down.]
My gracious lord.
RICHARD     Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee	190
To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
Me rather had my heart might feel your love,
Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least, although your knee be low.	195
BOLINGBROKE
My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
RICHARD     Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
BOLINGBROKE     So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.
RICHARD     Well you deserve. They well deserve to have	200
That know the strong’st and surest way to get.
Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes –
Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir;	205
What you will have, I’ll give, and willing too,
For do we must what force will have us do.
Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?
BOLINGBROKE     Yea, my good lord.
RICHARD     Then I must not say no.
Flourish. Exeunt.

3.4 Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies.

QUEEN     What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
To drive away the heavy thought of care?
LADY     Madam, we’ll play at bowls.
QUEEN     ’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
And that my fortune runs against the bias.	5
LADY     Madam, we’ll dance.
QUEEN     My legs can keep no measure in delight,
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
Therefore no dancing, girl – some other sport.
LADY     Madam, we’ll tell tales.	10
QUEEN     Of sorrow or of joy?
LADY     Of either, madam.
QUEEN     Of neither, girl.
For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
Or if of grief, being altogether had,	15
It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;
For what I have I need not to repeat,
And what I want it boots not to complain.
LADY     Madam, I’ll sing.
QUEEN     ’Tis well that thou hast cause,
But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.	20
LADY     I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
QUEEN     And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.
Enter a Gardener and two Servants.
But stay, here come the gardeners.
Let’s step into the shadow of these trees.	25
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They’ll talk of state, for everyone doth so
Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.
GARDENER
Go, bind thou up young dangling apricocks,
Which like unruly children make their sire	30
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight,
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:	35
All must be even in our government.
You thus employed, I will go root away
The noisome weeds which without profit suck
The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
MAN     Why should we, in the compass of a pale,	40
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers chok’d up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun’d, her hedges ruin’d,	45
Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?
GARDENER     Hold thy peace –
He that hath suffered this disordered spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,	50
That seem’d in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck’d up root and all by Bolingbroke –
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Greene.
MAN     What, are they dead?
GARDENER     They are; and Bolingbroke
Hath seiz’d the wasteful king. O, what pity is it	55
That he had not so trimm’d and dress’d his land
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,
Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself;	60
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv’d to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,	65
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
MAN     What, think you the king shall be deposed?
GARDENER     Depress’d he is already, and depos’d
’Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
To a dear friend of the good Duke of York’s	70
That tell black tidings.
QUEEN
O, I am press’d to death through want of speaking!
Thou, old Adam’s likeness set to dress this garden,
How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee	75
To make a second fall of cursed man?
Why dost thou say King Richard is depos’d?
Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how
Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.	80
GARDENER     Pardon me, madam, little joy have I
To breathe this news, yet what I say is true.
King Richard he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh’d;
In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself,	85
And some few vanities that make him light.
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
Post you to London and you’ll find it so;	90
I speak no more than everyone doth know.
QUEEN     Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
To serve me last that I may longest keep	95
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
To meet at London London’s king in woe.
What, was I born to this, that my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
Gard’ner, for telling me these news of woe,	100
Pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow.
Exeunt Queen and Ladies.
GARDENER
Poor queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.	105
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.     Exeunt.

4.1 Enter as to the Parliament BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, FITZWATER, SURREY, the Bishop of CARLISLE, the Abbot of Westminster and another LORD, herald, officers and BAGOT.

BOLINGBROKE     Call forth Bagot.
Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind –
What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death,
Who wrought it with the king, and who perform’d
The bloody office of his timeless end.	5
BAGOT     Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
BOLINGBROKE
Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
BAGOT     My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
Scorns to unsay what once it hath delivered.
In that dead time when Gloucester’s death was plotted,	10
I heard you say ‘Is not my arm of length,
That reacheth from the restful English court
As far as Callice, to mine uncle’s head?’
Amongst much other talk that very time
I heard you say that you had rather refuse	15
The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
Than Bolingbroke’s return to England –
Adding withal, how bless’d this would be,
In this your cousin’s death.
AUMERLE     Princes and noble lords,
What answer shall I make to this base man?	20
Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
Either I must, or have mine honour soil’d
With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
There is my gage, the manual seal of death,	25
That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,
And will maintain what thou hast said is false
In thy heart-blood, though being all too base
To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
BOLINGBROKE
Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it up.	30
AUMERLE     Excepting one, I would he were the best
In all this presence that hath mov’d me so.
FITZWATER     If that thy valour stand on sympathy,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine;
By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand’st,	35
I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death.
If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point.	40
AUMERLE     Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see that day.
FITZWATER     Now by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE     Fitzwater, thou art damn’d to hell for this.
PERCY     Aumerle, thou liest, his honour is as true
In this appeal as thou art all unjust;	45
And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
To prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar’st.
AUMERLE     And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
And never brandish more revengeful steel	50
Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
ANOTHER LORD
I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle,
And spur thee on with full as many lies
As may be hollowed in thy treacherous ear
From sun to sun. There is my honour’s pawn;	55
Ingage it to the trial if thou darest.
AUMERLE
Who sets me else? By heaven, I’ll throw at all!
I have a thousand spirits in one breast
To answer twenty thousand such as you.
SURREY     My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well	60
The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
FITZWATER ’Tis very true; you were in presence then,
And you can witness with me this is true.
SURREY     As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
FITZWATER     Surrey, thou liest.
SURREY     Dishonourable boy,	65
That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
That it shall render vengeance and revenge
Till thou, the lie-giver, and that lie do lie
In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull.
In proof whereof there is my honour’s pawn;	70
Ingage it to the trial if thou darest.
FITZWATER     How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,
And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,	75
And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith
To tie thee to my strong correction.
As I intend to thrive in this new world,
Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.
Besides, I heard the banished Norfolk say	80
That thou, Aumerle, did’st send two of thy men
To execute the noble Duke at Callice.
AUMERLE     Some honest Christian trust me with a gage,
That Norfolk lies – here do I throw down this,
If he may be repeal’d to try his honour.	85
BOLINGBROKE
These differences shall all rest under gage
Till Norfolk be repeal’d – repeal’d he shall be,
And, though mine enemy, restor’d again
To all his lands and signories. When he’s return’d,
Against Aumerle we will inforce his trial.	90
CARLISLE     That honourable day shall ne’er be seen.
Many a time hath banish’d Norfolk fought
For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens;	95
And, toil’d with works of war, retir’d himself
To Italy; and there at Venice gave
His body to that pleasant country’s earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.	100
BOLINGBROKE     Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
CARLISLE     As surely as I live, my lord.
BOLINGBROKE
Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
Your differences shall all rest under gage	105
Till we assign you to your days of trial.
Enter YORK.
YORK     Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-pluck’d Richard, who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
To the possession of thy royal hand.	110
Ascend his throne, descending now from him,
And long live Henry, fourth of that name!
BOLINGBROKE
In God’s name, I’ll ascend the regal throne.
CARLISLE     Marry, God forbid!
Worst in this royal presence may I speak,	115
Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
Would God that any in this noble presence
Were enough noble to be upright judge
Of noble Richard! then true noblesse would
Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.	120
What subject can give sentence on his king?
And who sits here that is not Richard’s subject?
Thieves are not judg’d but they are by to hear,
Although apparent guilt be seen in them,
And shall the figure of God’s majesty,	125
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judg’d by subject and inferior breath,
And he himself not present? O forfend it, God,
That in Christian climate souls refin’d	130
Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
Stirr’d up by God thus boldly for his king.
My Lord of Herford here, whom you call king,
Is a foul traitor to proud Herford’s king,	135
And if you crown him, let me prophesy –
The blood of English shall manure the ground,
And future ages groan for this foul act,
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And, in this seat of peace, tumultuous wars	140
Shall kin with kin, and kind with kind, confound.
Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,
Shall here inhabit, and this land be call’d
The field of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls –
O, if you raise this house against this house,	145
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Well have you argued, sir, and, for your pains,	150
Of capital treason we arrest you here.
My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge
To keep him safely till his day of trial.
May it please you, lords, to grant the commons’ suit?
BOLINGBROKE
Fetch hither Richard, that in common view	155
He may surrender; so we shall proceed
Without suspicion.
GAUNT     I will be his conduct.     Exit.
BOLINGBROKE
Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
Little are we beholding to your love,	160
And little look’d for at your helping hands.
Re-enter YORK, with RICHARD, and officers bearing the regalia.
RICHARD     Alack, why am I sent for to a king
Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
Wherewith I reign’d? I hardly yet have learn’d
To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.	165
Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
To this submission. Yet I well remember
The favours of these men. Were they not mine?
Did they not sometime cry ‘All hail!’ to me?
So Judas did to Christ. But he, in twelve,	170
Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.
God save the king! Will no man say amen?
Am I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.
God save the king! although I be not he;
And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.	175
To do what service am I sent for hither?
YORK     To do that office of thine own good will
Which tired majesty did make thee offer:
The resignation of thy state and crown
To Henry Bolingbroke.	180
RICHARD
Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
Here, cousin,
On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,	185
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water.
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
BOLINGBROKE
I thought you had been willing to resign.	190
RICHARD     My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
BOLINGBROKE
Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
RICHARD     Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.	195
My care is loss of care, by old care done;
Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
The cares I give, I have, though given away,
They ’tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
BOLINGBROKE
Are you contented to resign the crown?	200
RICHARD     Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be.
Therefore no ‘no’, for I resign to thee.
Now, mark me how I will undo myself.
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,	205
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;	210
All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;
My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny.
God pardon all oaths that are broke to me,
God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!	215
Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev’d,
And thou with all pleas’d, that hast all achiev’d.
Long may’st thou live in Richard’s seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit.
God save King Henry, unking’d Richard says,	220
And send him many years of sunshine days!
What more remains?
NORTHUMBERLAND     No more; but that you read
These accusations, and these grievous crimes
Committed by your person and your followers
Against the state and profit of this land;	225
That, by confessing them, the souls of men
May deem that you are worthily depos’d.
RICHARD     Must I do so? and must I ravel out
My weav’d-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
If thy offences were upon record,	230
Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop,
To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
There shouldst thou find one heinous article,
Containing the deposing of a king,
And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,	235
Mark’d with a blot, damn’d in the book of heaven.
Nay, all of you, that stand and look upon me
Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
Showing an outward pity – yet you Pilates	240
Have here deliver’d me to my sour cross,
And water cannot wash away your sin.
NORTHUMBERLAND
My lord, dispatch, read o’er these articles.
RICHARD     Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see.
And yet salt water blinds them not so much	245
But they can see a sort of traitors here.
Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,
I find myself a traitor with the rest.
For I have given here my soul’s consent
T’undeck the pompous body of a king;	250
Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave;
Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
NORTHUMBERLAND     My lord –
RICHARD     No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man;
Nor no man’s lord. I have no name, no title;	255
No, not that name was given me at the font,
But ’tis usurp’d. Alack the heavy day,
That I have worn so many winters out,
And know not now what name to call myself!
O that I were a mockery king of snow,	260
Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
To melt myself away in water-drops!
Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,
And if my word be sterling yet in England,
Let it command a mirror hither straight,	265
That it may show me what a face I have
Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
BOLINGBROKE
Go some of you, and fetch a looking-glass.
Exit an attendant.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.
RICHARD     Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.	270
BOLINGBROKE
Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The commons will not then be satisfi’d.
RICHARD     They shall be satisfi’d. I’ll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.	275
Enter one with a glass.
Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,	280
Thou dost beguile me. Was this face the face
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
That like the sun did make beholders wink?
Is this the face which fac’d so many follies,	285
That was at last out-fac’d by Bolingbroke?
A brittle glory shineth in this face;
As brittle as the glory is the face,
[Dashes the glass against the ground.]
For there it is, crack’d in an hundred shivers.
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport –	290
How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face.
BOLINGBROKE
The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d
The shadow of your face.
RICHARD     Say that again.
The shadow of my sorrow? ha! let’s see –
’Tis very true, my grief lies all within,	295
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul.
There lies the substance. And I thank thee, king,
For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st	300
Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
How to lament the cause. I’ll beg one boon,
And then be gone, and trouble you no more.
Shall I obtain it?
BOLINGBROKE     Name it, fair cousin.
RICHARD     Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;	305
For when I was a king, my flatterers
Were then but subjects; being now a subject,
I have a king here to my flatterer.
Being so great, I have no need to beg.
BOLINGBROKE     Yet ask.	310
RICHARD              And shall I have?
BOLINGBROKE     You shall.
RICHARD              Then give me leave to go.
BOLINGBROKE     Whither?
RICHARD
Whither you will, so I were from your sights.	315
BOLINGBROKE
Go some of you, convey him to the Tower.
RICHARD     O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,
That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.
Exeunt Richard and Guard.
BOLINGBROKE
On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.	320
Exeunt all except the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster and Aumerle.
ABBOT     A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
CARLISLE     The woe’s to come; the children yet unborn
Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
AUMERLE     You holy clergymen, is there no plot
To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?	325
ABBOT     My lord,
Before I freely speak my mind herein,
You shall not only take the sacrament
To bury mine intents, but also to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise.	330
I see your brows are full of discontent,
Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
Come home with me to supper; I will lay
A plot shall show us all a merry day.     Exeunt

5.1 Enter the QUEEN with her attendants.

QUEEN     This way the king will come; this is the way
To Julius Caesar’s ill-erected tower,
To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
Is doom’d a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth	5
Have any resting for her true king’s queen.
Enter RICHARD and guard.
But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither – yet look up, behold,
That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.	10
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand!
Thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb,
And not King Richard! Thou most beauteous inn,
Why should hard-favour’d grief be lodg’d in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse guest?	15
RICHARD     Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awak’d, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this. I am sworn brother, sweet,	20
To grim Necessity, and he and I
Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France
And cloister thee in some religious house.
Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown
Which our profane hours here have thrown down.	25
QUEEN     What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform’d and weak’ned? hath Bolingbroke depos’d
Thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage	30
To be o’erpow’r’d, and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
RICHARD     A king of beasts, indeed – if aught but beasts,	35
I had been still a happy king of men.
Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,
As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire	40
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages long ago betid;
And ere thou bid good night, to quite their griefs
Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
And send the hearers weeping to their beds;	45
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And in compassion weep the fire out,
And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.	50
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.
NORTHUMBERLAND
My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang’d;
You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
And, madam, there is order ta’en for you:
With all swift speed you must away to France.
RICHARD     Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal	55
The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
Shall break into corruption: thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm and give thee half,	60
It is too little, helping him to all;
He shall think that thou, which knowest the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne’er so little urg’d, another way
To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.	65
The love of wicked men converts to fear,
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
To worthy danger and deserved death.
NORTHUMBERLAND
My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
Take leave and part, for you must part forthwith.	70
RICHARD     Doubly divorc’d! Bad men, you violate
A two-fold marriage – ’twixt my crown and me,
And then betwixt me and my married wife.
Let me unkiss the oath ’twixt thee and me;
And yet not so, for with a kiss ’twas made.	75
Part us, Northumberland: I towards the north,
Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
She came adorned hither like sweet May,
Sent back like Hollowmas or short’st of day.	80
QUEEN     And must we be divided? must we part?
RICHARD
Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
QUEEN     Banish us both, and send the king with me.
NORTHUMBERLAND
That were some love, but little policy.
QUEEN     Then whither he goes, thither let me go.	85
RICHARD     So two, together weeping, make one woe.
Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
Better far off than, near, be ne’er the near.
Go count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.
QUEEN     So longest way shall have the longest moans.	90
RICHARD
Twice for one step I’ll groan, the way being short,
And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
Come, come, in wooing sorrow let’s be brief,
Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief:
One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;	95
Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
QUEEN     Give me mine own again; ’twere no good part
To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
So, now I have mine own again, be gone,
That I may strive to kill it with a groan.	100
RICHARD     We make woe wanton with this fond delay.
Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.     Exeunt.

5.2 Enter DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS.

DUCHESS OF YORK
My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
When weeping made you break the story off,
Of our two cousins’ coming into London.
YORK     Where did I leave?
DUCHESSOF YORK      At that sad stop, my lord,
Where rude misgoverned hands from windows’ tops	5
Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard’s head.
YORK     Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know,
With slow but stately pace kept on his course,	10
Whilst all tongues cried ‘God save thee, Bolingbroke!’
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls	15
With painted imagery had said at once
‘Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!’
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,
Bespake them thus, ‘I thank you, countrymen’.	20
And thus still doing, thus he pass’d along.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?
YORK     As in a theatre the eyes of men,
After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,	25
Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes
Did scowl on Richard. No man cried ‘God save him!’
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home,
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;	30
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,
That had not God for some strong purpose steel’d
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,	35
And barbarism itself have pitied him.
But heaven hath a hand in these events,
To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
Whose state and honour I for aye allow.	40
Enter AUMERLE.
DUCHESS OF YORK     Here comes my son Aumerle.
YORK     Aumerle that was,
But that is lost for being Richard’s friend,
And, madam, you must call him Rutland now.
I am in parliament pledge for his truth
And lasting fealty to the new-made king.	45
DUCHESS OF YORK
Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now
That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?
AUMERLE     Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not;
God knows I had as lief be none as one.
YORK     Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,	50
Lest you be cropp’d before you come to prime.
What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?
AUMERLE     For aught I know, my lord, they do.
YORK     You will be there, I know.
AUMERLE     If God prevent it not, I purpose so.	55
YORK     What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom?
Yea, look’st thou pale? Let me see the writing.
AUMERLE     My lord, ’tis nothing.
YORK     No matter, then, who see it.
I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.
AUMERLE     I do beseech your grace to pardon me;	60
It is a matter of small consequence,
Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
YORK     Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.
I fear, I fear –
DUCHESS OF YORK     What should you fear?
’Tis nothing but some band that he is ent’red into	65
For gay apparel ’gainst the triumph day.
YORK     Bound to himself? What doth he with a bond
That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.
Boy, let me see the writing.
AUMERLE
I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.	70
GAUNT     I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.
[He plucks it out of his bosom and reads it.]
Treason, foul treason! Villain! Traitor! Slave!
DUCHESS OF YORK What is the matter, my lord?
YORK     Ho, who is within there? Saddle my horse!
God for his mercy! What treachery is here!	75
DUCHESS OF YORK     Why, what is it, my lord?
YORK     Give me my boots, I say! Saddle my horse!
Now by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,
I will appeach the villain.
DUCHESS OF YORK     What is the matter?
YORK     Peace, foolish woman.	80
DUCHESS OF YORK
I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?
AUMERLE     Good mother, be content – it is no more
Than my poor life must answer.
DUCHESS OF YORK     Thy life answer!
YORK     Bring me my boots: I will unto the king.
His man enters with his boots.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz’d.	85
Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.
YORK     Give me my boots, I say.
DUCHESS OF YORK     Why, York, what wilt thou do?
Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?
Have we more sons? Or are we like to have?	90
Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?
And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age
And rob me of a happy mother’s name?
Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
YORK     Thou fond mad woman,	95
Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?
A dozen of them here have ta’en the sacrament,
And interchangeably set down their hands
To kill the king at Oxford.
DUCHESS OF YORK     He shall be none;
We’ll keep him here, then what is that to him?	100
YORK     Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son
I would appeach him.
DUCHESS OF YORK     Had’st thou groan’d for him
As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.
But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect
That I have been disloyal to thy bed,	105
And that he is a bastard, not thy son.
Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind;
He is as like thee as a man may be,
Not like to me, or any of my kin,
And yet I love him.
YORK     Make way, unruly woman!      Exit.	110
DUCHESS OF YORK
After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse,
Spur post, and get before him to the king,
And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.
I’ll not be long behind – though I be old,
I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;	115
And never will I rise up from the ground
Till Bolingbroke have pardoned thee. Away, be gone.
Exeunt.

5.3 Enter BOLINGBROKE, PERCY and other lords.

BOLINGBROKE     Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?
’Tis full three months since I did see him last.
If any plague hang over us, ’tis he.
I would to God, my lords, he might be found.
Inquire at London, ’mongst the taverns there,	5
For there, they say, he daily doth frequent
With unrestrained loose companions,
Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes
And beat our watch and rob our passengers,
While he, young wanton, and effeminate boy,	10
Takes on the point of honour to support
So dissolute a crew.
PERCY     My lord, some two days since I saw the prince,
And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
BOLINGBROKE     And what said the gallant?	15
PERCY     His answer was, he would unto the stews,
And from the common’st creature pluck a glove,
And wear it as a favour; and with that
He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
BOLINGBROKE     As dissolute as desperate! But yet	20
Through both I see some sparks of better hope,
Which elder years may happily bring forth.
But who comes here?
Enter AUMERLE, amazed.
AUMERLE     Where is the king?
BOLINGBROKE     What means
Our cousin, that he stares and looks so wildly?
AUMERLE
God save your grace! I do beseech your Majesty	25
To have some conference with your grace alone.
BOLINGBROKE
Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
Exeunt Percy and lords.
What is the matter with our cousin now?
AUMERLE     For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,	30
Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
BOLINGBROKE     Intended, or committed, was this fault?
If on the first, how heinous e’er it be,
To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
AUMERLE     Then give me leave that I may turn the key,	35
That no man enter till my tale be done.
BOLINGBROKE     Have thy desire.
[The Duke of York knocks at the door and crieth.]
YORK     My liege, beware; look to thyself;
Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
BOLINGBROKE I’ll make thee safe. [Draws his sword.]
AUMERLE     Stay thy revengeful hand,	40
Thou hast no cause to fear.
YORK     Open the door,
Secure, foolhardy king. Shall I, for love,
Speak treason to thy face? Open the door,
Or I will break it open.
Enter YORK.
BOLINGBROKE     Uncle, speak,
Recover breath, tell us how near is danger	45
That we may arm us to encounter it.
YORK     Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
The treason that my haste forbids me show.
AUMERLE
Remember, as thou read’st, thy promise pass’d;
I do repent me, read not my name there,	50
My heart is not confederate with my hand.
YORK     It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
I tore it from the traitor’s bosom, king;
Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove	55
A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
BOLINGBROKE O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!
O loyal father of a treacherous son!
Thou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain,
From whence this stream, through muddy passages,	60
Hath held his current and defil’d himself,
Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
YORK     So shall my virtue be his vice’s bawd,	65
And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
As thriftless sons their scraping fathers’ gold.
Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
Or my sham’d life in his dishonour lies;
Thou kill’st me in his life – giving him breath,	70
The traitor lives, the true man’s put to death.
DUCHESS OF YORK     [within]
What ho, my liege, for God’s sake, let me in!
BOLINGBROKE
What shrill-voic’d suppliant makes this eager cry?
DUCHESS OF YORK
A woman, and thine aunt, great king, – ’tis I.
Speak with me, pity me, open the door,	75
A beggar begs that never begg’d before.
BOLINGBROKE
Our scene is alt’red from a serious thing,
And now chang’d to ‘The Beggar and the King’.
My dangerous cousin, let your mother in;
I know she’s come to pray for your foul sin.	80
YORK     If thou do pardon, whosoever pray,
More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
This fest’red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
This, let alone, will all the rest confound.
Enter DUCHESS.
DUCHESS OF YORK
O king, believe not this hard-hearted man!	85
Love loving not itself none other can.
YORK     Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?
Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
DUCHESS OF YORK
Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.
BOLINGBROKE     Rise up, good aunt.
DUCHESS OF YORK     Not yet, I thee beseech:	90
For ever will I walk upon my knees,
And never see day that the happy sees
Till thou give joy – until thou bid me joy,
By pardoning Rutland my transgressing boy.
AUMERLE     Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee.	95
YORK     Against them both my true joints bended be.
Ill may’st thou thrive if thou grant any grace!
DUCHESS OF YORK
Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face.
His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest,
His words come from his mouth, ours from our
breast;	100
He prays but faintly and would be denied,
We pray with heart and soul, and all beside;
His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow;
His prayers are full of false hypocrisy,	105
Ours of true zeal and deep integrity;
Our prayers do outpray his – then let them have
That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
BOLINGBROKE     Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK     Nay, do not say ‘stand up’;
Say ‘pardon’ first, and afterwards ‘stand up’.	110
And if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
‘Pardon’ should be the first word of thy speech.
I never long’d to hear a word till now;
Say ‘pardon’, king, let pity teach thee how;
The word is short, but not so short as sweet;	115
No word like ‘pardon’ for kings’ mouths so meet.
YORK     Speak it in French, king, say ‘pardonne moy’.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That sets the word itself against the word!	120
Speak ‘pardon’ as ’tis current in our land,
The chopping French we do not understand.
Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;
Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,	125
Pity may move thee ‘pardon’ to rehearse.
BOLINGBROKE     Good aunt, stand up.
DUCHESS OF YORK     I do not sue to stand.
Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
BOLINGBROKE I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
DUCHESS OF YORK
O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!	130
Yet am I sick for fear – speak it again:
Twice saying ‘pardon’ doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon strong.
BOLINGBROKE     With all my heart
I pardon him.
DUCHESS OF YORK     A god on earth thou art.
BOLINGBROKE
But for our trusty brother-in-law and the abbot,	135
With all the rest of that consorted crew,
Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
Good uncle, help to order several powers
To Oxford, or where’er these traitors are.
They shall not live within this world, I swear,	140
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell; and cousin too, adieu:
Your mother well hath pray’d, and prove you true.
DUCHESS OF YORK
Come, my old son, I pray God make thee new.
Exeunt.

5.4 Enter EXTON and Servants.

EXTON
Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake?
‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’
Was it not so?
SERVANT     These were his very words.
EXTON
‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he. He spake it twice,
And urg’d it twice together, did he not?	5
SERVANT     He did.
EXTON     And, speaking it, he wishtly look’d on me,
As who should say ‘I would thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart’,
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let’s go.	10
I am the king’s friend, and will rid his foe.     Exeunt.

5.5 Enter RICHARD alone.

RICHARD     I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world;
And, for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer it out.	5
My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father, and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world;	10
For no thought is contented. The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix’d
With scruples, and do set the word itself
Against the word,
As thus: ‘Come, little ones’; and then again,	15
‘It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye’.
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage thorough the flinty ribs	20
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,
Nor shall not be the last – like silly beggars	25
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,
That many have and others must sit there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before indur’d the like.	30
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am I king,
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am. Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;	35
Then am I king’d again, and by and by
Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing. But whate’er I be,
Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas’d, till he be eas’d	40
With being nothing.     [The music plays.]
Music do I hear?
Ha, ha! keep time – how sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men’s lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear	45
To check time broke in a disordered string;
But for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke:
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock;	50
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is	55
Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell – so sighs, and tears, and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours. But my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.	60
This music mads me. Let it sound no more;
For though it have holp mad men to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me,
For ’tis a sign of love; and love to Richard	65
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
Enter a Groom of the stable.
GROOM     Hail, royal prince!
RICHARD     Thanks, noble peer;
The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
What art thou? and how comest thou hither,
Where no man never comes, but that sad dog	70
That brings me food to make misfortune live?
GROOM     I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
With much ado at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometimes royal master’s face.	75
O, how it ern’d my heart when I beheld
In London streets that coronation day
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary –
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dress’d!	80
RICHARD     Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
GROOM     So proudly as if he disdain’d the ground.
RICHARD     So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;	85
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,
Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,	90
Since thou, created to be aw’d by man,
Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse,
And yet I bear a burthen like an ass,
Spurr’d, gall’d, and tir’d by jauncing Bolingbroke.
Enter One to Richard with meat.
KEEPER     Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.	95
RICHARD     If thou love me, ’tis time thou wert away.
GROOM
What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
Exit Groom.
KEEPER     My lord, will’t please you to fall to?
RICHARD     Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.
KEEPER     My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton, who	100
lately came from the king, commands the contrary.
RICHARD     The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
[Strikes the Keeper.]
KEEPER     Help, help, help!
The Murderers rush in.
RICHARD
How now! what means death in this rude assault?	105
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument.
Go thou and fill another room in hell.
[Here Exton strikes him down.]
That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
Hath with the king’s blood stain’d the king’s own land.	110
Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high,
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
[Dies.]
EXTON     As full of valour as of royal blood.
Both have I spill’d; O would the deed were good!
For now the devil that told me I did well	115
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I’ll bear.
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
Exeunt.

5.6 Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, with other lords and attendants.

BOLINGBROKE
Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear,
Is that the rebels have consum’d with fire
Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire,
But whether they be ta’en or slain we hear not.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.
Welcome, my lord; what is the news?	5
NORTHUMBERLAND
First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
The next news is, I have to London sent
The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt and Kent:
The manner of their taking may appear
At large discoursed in this paper here.	10
BOLINGBROKE
We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains,
And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
Enter FITZWATER.
FITZWATER
My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
The heads of Broccas and Sir Bennet Seely,
Two of the dangerous consorted traitors	15
That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
BOLINGBROKE     Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
Enter PERCY and the Bishop of CARLISLE.
PERCY     The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
With clog of conscience and sour melancholy	20
Hath yielded up his body to the grave.
But here is Carlisle living, to abide
Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.
BOLINGBROKE     Carlisle, this is your doom:
Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,	25
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life.
So as thou liv’st in peace, die free from strife;
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
Enter EXTON with the coffin.
EXTON     Great king, within this coffin I present	30
Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Burdeaux, by me hither brought.
BOLINGBROKE
Exton, I thank thee not, for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander with thy fatal hand	35
Upon my head and all this famous land.
EXTON
From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed
BOLINGBROKE
They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murtherer, love him murthered.	40
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour;
With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe	45
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
Come mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent.
I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.	50
March sadly after; grace my mournings here
In weeping after this untimely bier.     Exeunt.