BOLINGBROKE
Welcome, my lords; I wot your love pursues
A banish’d traitor. All my treasury
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Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more inrich’d,
Shall be your love and labour’s recompense.
ROSS Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
WILLOUGHBY And far surmounts our labour to attain it.
BOLINGBROKE
Evermore thank’s the exchequer of the poor,
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Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?
Enter BERKELEY.
NORTHUMBERLAND
It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
BERKELEY My Lord of Herford, my message is to you.
BOLINGBROKE My lord, my answer is – to Lancaster,
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And I am come to seek that name in England,
And I must find that title in your tongue,
Before I make reply to aught you say.
BERKELEY
Mistake me not, my lord, ’tis not my meaning
To race one title of your honour out.
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To you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,
From the most gracious regent of this land,
The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
To take advantage of the absent time,
And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.
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Enter YORK.
BOLINGBROKE
I shall not need transport my words by you;
Here comes his grace in person. My noble uncle!
[Kneels.]
YORK Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
Whose duty is deceivable and false.
BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle –
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YORK
Tut, tut! grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle,
I am no traitor’s uncle, and that word ‘grace’
In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
Why have those banish’d and forbidden legs
Dar’d once to touch a dust of England’s ground?
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But then more ‘why?’ – why have they dar’d to march
So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
Frighting her pale-fac’d villages with war
And ostentation of despised arms?
Com’st thou because the anointed king is hence?
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Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind,
And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
Were I but now the lord of such hot youth,
As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself,
Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
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From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
O then how quickly should this arm of mine,
Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee,
And minister correction to thy fault!
BOLINGBROKE
My gracious uncle, let me know my fault:
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On what condition stands it and wherein?
YORK Even in condition of the worst degree –
In gross rebellion and detested treason;
Thou art a banish’d man, and here art come,
Before the expiration of thy time,
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In braving arms against thy sovereign.
BOLINGBROKE
As I was banish’d, I was banish’d Herford;
But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace
Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.
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You are my father, for methinks in you
I see old Gaunt alive. O then my father,
Will you permit that I shall stand condemn’d
A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties
Pluck’d from my arms perforce, and given away
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To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
If that my cousin king be King in England,
It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.
You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;
Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,
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He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father
To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
I am denied to sue my livery here,
And yet my letters patents give me leave.
My father’s goods are all distrain’d and sold,
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And these, and all, are all amiss employ’d.
What would you have me do? I am a subject,
And I challenge law; attorneys are denied me,
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.
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NORTHUMBERLAND
The noble Duke hath been too much abused.
ROSS It stands your grace upon to do him right.
WILLOUGHBY
Base men by his endowments are made great.
YORK My lords of England, let me tell you this:
I have had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs,
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And labour’d all I could to do him right.
But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
Be his own carver, and cut out his way,
To find out right with wrong – it may not be.
And you that do abet him in this kind
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Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.
NORTHUMBERLAND
The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is
But for his own; and for the right of that
We all have strongly sworn to give him aid.
And let him ne’er see joy that breaks that oath!
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YORK Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.
I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
Because my power is weak and all ill left.
But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
I would attach you all, and make you stoop
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Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;
But since I cannot, be it known unto you,
I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well,
Unless you please to enter in the castle,
And there repose you for this night.
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BOLINGBROKE An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
But we must win your grace to go with us
To Bristow castle, which they say is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
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Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
YORK It may be I will go with you; but yet I’ll pause
For I am loath to break our country’s laws.
Nor friends, nor foes, to me welcome you are.
Things past redress are now with me past care.
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Exeunt.
2.4 Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a Welsh Captain.
CAPTAIN
My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay’d ten days,
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the king;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
SALISBURY Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:
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The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.
CAPTAIN ’Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven,
The pale-fac’d moon looks bloody on the earth,
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And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change,
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap –
The one in fe
ar to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
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Farewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assured Richard their king is dead. Exit.
SALISBURY Ah, Richard! with the eyes of heavy mind
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
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Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Thy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes. Exit.
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
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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;
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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;
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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,
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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,
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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,
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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,
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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,
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Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 297
