This blot that they object against your house
Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,
Called for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester.
An if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee.
Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose.
And here I prophesy: this brawl today,
Grown to this faction in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you,
That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
VERNON
In your behalf still will I wear the same.
LAWYER And so will I.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET Thanks, gentles.
Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say
This quarrel will drink blood another day.
Exeunt. The rose brier is removed
2.5 Enter Edmund Mortimer, brought in a chair ⌈by⌉ his Keepers
MORTIMER
Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
Even like a man new-haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer,
Nestor-like aged in an age of care.
These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;
Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
And pithless arms, like to a withered vine
That droops his sapless branches to the ground.
Yet are these feet—whose strengthless stay is numb,
Unable to support this lump of clay—
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
As witting I no other comfort have.
But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
KEEPER
Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber,
And answer was returned that he will come.
MORTIMER
Enough. My soul shall then be satisfied.
Poor gentleman, his wrong doth equal mine.
Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign—
Before whose glory I was great in arms—
This loathsome sequestration have I had;
And even since then hath Richard been obscured,
Deprived of honour and inheritance.
But now the arbitrator of despairs,
Just Death, kind umpire of men’s miseries,
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.
I would his troubles likewise were expired,
That so he might recover what was lost.
Enter Richard Plantagenet
KEEPER
My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
MORTIMER
Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly used:
Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.
MORTIMER (to Keepers)
Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck
And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.
O tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,
That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.
He embraces Richard
And now declare, sweet stem from York’s great stock,
Why didst thou say of late thou wert despised?
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
First lean thine aged back against mine arm,
And in that ease I’ll tell thee my dis-ease.
This day in argument upon a case
Some words there grew ’twixt Somerset and me;
Among which terms he used his lavish tongue
And did upbraid me with my father’s death;
Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
Else with the like I had requited him.
Therefore, good uncle, for my father’s sake,
In honour of a true Plantagenet,
And for alliance’ sake, declare the cause
My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
MORTIMER
That cause, fair nephew, that imprisoned me,
And hath detained me all my flow’ring youth
Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
Was cursed instrument of his decease.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
Discover more at large what cause that was,
For I am ignorant and cannot guess.
MORTIMER
I will, if that my fading breath permit
And death approach not ere my tale be done.
Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this King,
Deposed his nephew Richard, Edward’s son,
The first begotten and the lawful heir
Of Edward king, the third of that descent;
During whose reign the Percies of the north,
Finding his usurpation most unjust,
Endeavoured my advancement to the throne.
The reason moved these warlike lords to this
Was for that—young King Richard thus removed,
Leaving no heir begotten of his body—
I was the next by birth and parentage,
For by my mother I derived am
From Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son
To King Edward the Third—whereas the King
From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
Being but fourth of that heroic line.
But mark: as in this haughty great attempt
They laboured to plant the rightful heir,
I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,
Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,
Thy father, Earl of Cambridge then, derived
From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
Marrying my sister that thy mother was,
Again, in pity of my hard distress,
Levied an army, weening to redeem
And have installed me in the diadem;
But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
In whom the title rested, were suppressed.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
Of which, my lord, your honour is the last.
MORTIMER
True, and thou seest that I no issue have,
And that my fainting words do warrant death.
Thou art my heir. The rest I wish thee gather—
But yet be wary in thy studious care.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.
But yet methinks my father’s execution
Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.
MORTIMER
With silence, nephew, be thou politic.
Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
And like a mountain, not to be removed.
But now thy uncle is removing hence,
As princes do their courts, when they are cloyed
With long continuance in a settled place.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
O uncle, would some part of my young years
Might but redeem the passage of your age.
MORTIMER
Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer doth
Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good.
Only give order for my funeral.
And so farewell, and fair be all thy hopes,
And prosperous be thy life in peace and war. Dies
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul.
In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
And like a hermit overpassed thy days.
Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast,
And what I do imagine, let that rest.
Keepers, convey him hence, and I myself
Will see his burial better than his life.
Exeunt Keepers with Mortimer’s body
Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
Choked with ambition of the meaner sort.
And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
Which Somerset hath offered to my house,
I doubt not but with honour to redress.
And therefore haste I to the Parliament,
Either to be restored to my blood,
Or make mine ill th’advantage of my good. Exit
3.1 Flourish. Enter young King Henry, the Dukes of Exeter and Gloucester, the Bishop of Winchester; the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Suffolk ⌈with⌉ red roses⌉; the Earl of Warwick and Richard Plantagenet ⌈with white roses⌉. Gloucester offers to put up a bill; Winchester snatches it, tears it
WINCHESTER
Com‘st thou with deep premeditated lines?
With written pamphlets studiously devised?
Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse,
Or aught intend’st to lay unto my charge,
Do it without invention, suddenly,
As I with sudden and extemporal speech
Purpose to answer what thou canst object.
GLOUCESTER
Presumptuous priest, this place commands my
patience,
Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonoured me.
Think not, although in writing I preferred
The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
That therefore I have forged, or am not able
Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.
No, prelate, such is thy audacious wickedness,
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
As very infants prattle of thy pride.
Thou art a most pernicious usurer,
Froward by nature, enemy to peace,
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree.
And for thy treachery, what’s more manifest?—
In that thou laid’st a trap to take my life,
As well at London Bridge as at the Tower.
Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
The King thy sovereign is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.
WINCHESTER
Gloucester, I do defy thee.—Lords, vouchsafe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.
If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, how am I so poor?
Or how haps it I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
And for dissension, who preferreth peace
More than I do ?—except I be provoked.
No, my good lords, it is not that offends;
It is not that that hath incensed the Duke.
It is because no one should sway but he,
No one but he should be about the King—
And that engenders thunder in his breast
And makes him roar these accusations forth.
But he shall know I am as good—
GLOUCESTER As good?—
Thou bastard of my grandfather.
WINCHESTER
Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,
But one imperious in another’s throne?
GLOUCESTER
Am I not Protector, saucy priest?
WINCHESTER
And am not I a prelate of the Church?
GLOUCESTER
Yes—as an outlaw in a castle keeps
And useth it to patronage his theft.
WINCHESTER
Unreverent Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER Thou art reverend
Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.
WINCHESTER
Rome shall remedy this.
⌈GLOUCESTER⌉ Roam thither then.
⌈WARWICK⌉ (to Winchester)
My lord, it were your duty to forbear.
SOMERSET
Ay, so the bishop be not overborne:
Methinks my lord should be religious,
And know the office that belongs to such.
WARWICK
Methinks his lordship should be humbler.
It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.
SOMERSET
Yes, when his holy state is touched so near.
WARWICK
State holy or unhallowed, what of that?
Is not his grace Protector to the King?
RICHARD PLANTAGENET (aside)
Plantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue,
Lest it be said, ‘Speak, sirrah, when you should;
Must your bold verdict intertalk with lords?’
Else would I have a fling at Winchester.
KING HENRY
Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,
The special watchmen of our English weal,
I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,
To join your hearts in love and amity.
O what a scandal is it to our crown
That two such noble peers as ye should jar!
Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell
Civil dissension is a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.
A noise within
⌈SERVINGMEN⌉ (within) Down with the tawny coats!
KING HENRY
What tumult’s this?
WARWICK An uproar, I dare warrant,
Begun through malice of the Bishop’s men.
A noise again
⌈SERVINGMEN⌉ (within) Stones, stones!
Enter the Mayor of London
MAYOR
O my good lords, and virtuous Henry,
Pity the city of London, pity us! so
The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester’s men,
Have filled their pockets full of pebble stones
And, banding themselves in contrary parts,
Do pelt so fast at one another’s pate
That many have their giddy brains knocked out.
Our windows are broke down in every street,
And we for fear compelled to shut our shops.
Enter in skirmish, with bloody pates, Winchester’s Servingmen in tawny coats and Gloucester’s in blue coats
KING HENRY
We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
To hold your slaught’ring hands and keep the peace.
⌈The skirmish ceases⌉
Pray, Uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.
FIRST SERVINGMAN Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we’ll fall to it with our teeth.
SECOND SERVINGMAN
Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.
Skirmish again
GLOUCESTER
You of my household, leave this peevish broil,
And set this unaccustomed fight aside.
THIRD SERVINGMAN
My lord, we know your grace to be a man
Just and upright and, for your royal birth,
Inferior to none but to his majesty;
And ere that we will suffer such a prince,
So kind a father of the commonweal,
To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
We and our wives and children all will fight
And have our bodies slaughtered by thy foes.
FIRST SERVINGMAN
Ay, and the very parings of our nails
Shall pitch a field when we are dead.
They begin to skirmish again
GLOUCESTER Stay, stay, I say!
An if you love me as you say
you do,
Let me persuade you to forbear a while.
KING HENRY
O how this discord doth afflict my soul!
Can you, my lord of Winchester, behold o
My sighs and tears, and will not once relent?
Who should be pitiful if you be not?
Or who should study to prefer a peace,
If holy churchmen take delight in broils?
WARWICK
Yield, my lord Protector; yield, Winchester—
Except you mean with obstinate repulse
To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.
You see what mischief-and what murder, too—
Hath been enacted through your enmity.
Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.
WINCHESTER
He shall submit, or I will never yield.
GLOUCESTER
Compassion on the King commands me stoop,
Or I would see his heart out ere the priest
Should ever get that privilege of me.
WARWICK
Behold, my lord of Winchester, the Duke
Hath banished moody discontented fury,
As by his smoothed brows it doth appear.
Why look you still so stern and tragical?
GLOUCESTER
Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.
KING HENRY (to Winchester)
Fie, Uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach
That malice was a great and grievous sin;
And will not you maintain the thing you teach,
But prove a chief offender in the same?
WARWICK
Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.
For shame, my lord of Winchester, relent.
What, shall a child instruct you what to do?
WINCHESTER
Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee
Love for thy love, and hand for hand I give.
GLOUCESTER (aside)
Ay, but I fear me with a hollow heart.
(To the others) See here, my friends and loving
countrymen,
This token serveth for a flag of truce
Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.
So help me God, as I dissemble not.
WINCHESTER
So help me God (aside) as I intend it not.
KING HENRY
O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,
How joyful am I made by this contract!
(To Servingmen) Away, my masters, trouble us no
more,
But join in friendship as your lords have done.
first SERVINGMAN Content. I’ll to the surgeon’s.
SECOND SERVINGMAN And so will I.