Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to Richmond.
BUCKINGHAM I hear the news, my lord.
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KING RICHARD
Stanley, he is your wife’s son. Well, look unto it.
BUCKINGHAM
My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,
For which your honour and your faith is pawn’d:
Th’earldom of Hereford, and the moveables
Which you have promised I shall possess.
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KING RICHARD Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey
Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.
BUCKINGHAM
What says your Highness to my just demand?
KING RICHARD I do remember me, Henry the Sixth
Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,
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When Richmond was a little peevish boy.
A king … perhaps … perhaps –
BUCKINGHAM My lord!
KING RICHARD
How chance the prophet could not, at that time,
Have told me – I being by – that I should kill him?
BUCKINGHAM
My lord, your promise for the earldom –
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KING RICHARD Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,
The Mayor in courtesy show’d me the castle,
And call’d it Rougemont, at which name I started,
Because a bard of Ireland told me once
I should not live long after I saw ‘Richmond’.
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BUCKINGHAM My lord –
KING RICHARD Ay – what’s o’clock?
BUCKINGHAM
I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind
Of what you promis’d me.
KING RICHARD Well, but what’s o’clock?
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BUCKINGHAM Upon the stroke of ten.
KING RICHARD Well, let it strike.
BUCKINGHAM Why let it strike?
KING RICHARD
Because that like a jack thou keep’st the stroke
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
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I am not in the giving vein today.
BUCKINGHAM
May it please you to resolve me in my suit?
KING RICHARD Thou troublest me; I am not in vein.
Exit followed by all save Buckingham.
BUCKINGHAM
And is it thus? Repays he my deep service
With such contempt? Made I him King for this?
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O let me think on Hastings, and be gone
To Brecknock while my fearful head is on. Exit.
4.3 Enter TYRREL.
TYRREL The tyrannous and bloody act is done;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery –
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Albeit they were flesh’d villains, bloody dogs –
Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,
Wept like two children, in their deaths’ sad story.
‘O thus’, quoth Dighton, ‘lay the gentle babes’;
‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest, ‘girdling one another
10
Within their alabaster innocent arms;
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
And in their summer beauty kiss’d each other.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay,
Which once’, quoth Forrest, ‘almost chang’d my mind.
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But O, the Devil – ’There the villain stopp’d,
When Dighton thus told on: ‘We smothered
The most replenished sweet work of Nature,
That from the prime creation e’er she fram’d.’
Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse
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They could not speak, and so I left them both
To bear this tidings to the bloody King;
Enter KING RICHARD.
And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord.
KING RICHARD Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?
TYRREL If to have done the thing you gave in charge
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Beget your happiness, be happy then,
For it is done.
KING RICHARD But did’st thou see them dead?
TYRREL I did, my lord.
KING RICHARD And buried, gentle Tyrrel?
TYRREL The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them,
But where, to say the truth, I do not know.
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KING RICHARD
Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after-supper,
When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,
And be inheritor of thy desire.
Farewell till then.
TYRREL I humbly take my leave. Exit.
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KING RICHARD
The son of Clarence have I pent up close;
His daughter meanly have I match’d in marriage;
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom,
And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.
Now, for I know the Breton Richmond aims
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At young Elizabeth, my brother’s daughter,
And by that knot looks proudly on the crown –
To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.
Enter RATCLIFFE.
RATCLIFFE My lord!
KING RICHARD
Good or bad news, that thou com’st in so bluntly?
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RATCLIFFE
Bad news, my lord. Morton is fled to Richmond,
And Buckingham, back’d with the hardy Welshmen,
Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.
KING RICHARD
Ely with Richmond troubles me more near
Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.
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Come: I have learn’d that fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor to dull delay;
Delay leads impotent and snail-pac’d beggary:
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove’s Mercury, and herald for a king.
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Go muster men. My counsel is my shield.
We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.
Exeunt.
4.4 Enter old QUEEN MARGARET.
MARGARET So now prosperity begins to mellow,
And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
Here in these confines slily have I lurk’d
To watch the waning of mine enemies.
A dire induction am I witness to,
5
And will to France, hoping the consequence
Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
Enter DUCHESS OF YORK and QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret: who comes here?
ELIZABETH Ah, my poor Princes! Ah, my tender babes,
My unblow’d flowers, new-appearing sweets!
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If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,
And be not fix’d in doom perpetual,
Hover about me with your airy wings,
And hear your mother’s lamentation.
MARGARET [aside]
Hover about her; say that right for right
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Hath dimm’d your infant morn to aged night.
DUCHESS So many miseries have craz’d my voice
That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.
Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?
MARGARET [aside] Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet:
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Edward, for Edward, pays a dying debt.
ELIZABETH
Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,
And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?
When didst Thou sleep when such a deed was done?
MARGARET [aside]
When holy Harry died, and my sweet son.
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DUCHESS
Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost;
Woe’s scene, world’s shame, grave’s due by life usurp’d;
Brief abstract and record of tedious days,
[sitting] Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth,
Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.
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ELIZABETH
Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a grave
As thou canst yield a melancholy seat,
Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.
[sitting] Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?
MARGARET If ancient sorrow be most reverend
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Give mine the benefit of seigniory,
And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.
If sorrow can admit society,
Tell o’er your woes again by viewing mine.
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him;
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I had a husband, till a Richard kill’d him:
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill’d him.
DUCHESS I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;
I had a Rutland too: thou holp’st to kill him.
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MARGARET
Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard kill’d him.
From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood;
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That excellent grand tyrant of the earth,
That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls;
That foul defacer of God’s handiwork
Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.
O upright, just, and true-disposing God!
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How do I thank thee, that this carnal cur
Preys on the issue of his mother’s body,
And makes her pew-fellow with others’ moan.
DUCHESS O, Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes.
God witness with me, I have wept for thine.
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MARGARET Bear with me: I am hungry for revenge,
And now I cloy me with beholding it.
Thy Edward he is dead, that kill’d my Edward;
Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;
Young York, he is but boot, because both they
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Match’d not the high perfection of my loss.
Thy Clarence he is dead, that stabb’d my Edward;
And the beholders of this frantic play,
Th’adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
Untimely smother’d in their dusky graves.
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Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer,
Only reserv’d their factor to buy souls
And send them thither. But at hand, at hand
Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.
Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,
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To have him suddenly convey’d from hence.
Cancel his bond of life, dear God I pray,
That I may live and say ‘The dog is dead.’
ELIZABETH
O, thou didst prophesy the time would come
That I should wish for thee to help me curse
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That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back’d toad.
MARGARET
I call’d thee then vain flourish of my fortune;
I call’d thee, then, poor shadow, painted queen,
The presentation of but what I was;
The flattering index of a direful pageant;
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One heav’d a-high, to be hurl’d down below;
A mother only mock’d with two fair babes;
A dream of what thou wast; a garish flag
To be the aim of every dangerous shot;
A sign of dignity; a breath, a bubble;
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A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?
Where are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
Who sues, and kneels, and says ‘God save the Queen’?
Where be the bending peers that flatter’d thee?
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Where be the thronging troops that follow’d thee?
Decline all this, and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 318
