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And hath his highness in his infancy

• Been crown'd in Paris, in despite of foes? And shall these labours, and these honours, die? Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance, 'Your deeds of war, and all our counsel, die? O peers of England, shameful is this league! • Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame : Blotting your names from books of memory: Razing the characters of your renown:

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Defacing monuments of conquer'd France;
Undoing all, as all had never been!

* Car. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse?

* This peroration with such circumstance 6? * For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still. * Glo. Ay, uncle, we will keep it, if we can; * But now it is impossible we should: Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast, Hath given the duchies of Anjou and Maine * Unto the poor king Reignier, whose large style Agrees not with the leanness of his purse7.

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* Sal. Now, by the death of him that died for all, * These counties were the keys of Normandy :But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son? • War. For grief, that they are past recovery:

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For, were there hope to conquer them again,

My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no

tears.

Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both; • Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer: And are the cities, that I got with wounds,

6 This speech crowded with so many circumstances of aggravation.

7 King Reignier, her father, for all his long style, had too short a purse to send his daughter honourably to the king her spouse. Holinshed.

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⚫ Deliver'd up again with peaceful words 8? Mort Dieu !

*York. For Suffolk's duke-may he be suffocate, *That dims the honour of this warlike isle!

* France should have torn and rent my very heart, * Before I would have yielded to this league.

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I never read but England's kings have had

Large sums of gold, and dowries, with their wives: And our King Henry gives away his own,

To match with her that brings no vantages.

* Glo. A proper jest, and never heard before, *That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth, *For costs and charges in transporting her!

*She should have staid in France, and starv'd in France,

*Before

* Car. My lord of Gloster, now you grow too hot; * It was the pleasure of my lord the king.

*Glo. My lord of Winchester, I know your mind; ` "Tis not my speeches that you do mislike, But 'tis my presence that doth trouble you. Rancour will out: Proud prelate, in thy face I see thy fury: if I longer stay,

We shall begin our ancient bickerings. Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone, I prophesied-France will be lost ere long. [Exit. Car. So, there goes our protector in a rage. "Tis known to you he is mine enemy: * Nay, more, an enemy unto you all; * And no great friend, I fear me, to the king. * Consider, lords, he is the next of blood,

8 The indignation of Warwick is natural, but might have been better expressed: there is a kind of jingle intended in wounds and words. In the old play the jingle is different. 'And must that then which we won with our swords, be given away with words?'

* And heir apparent to the English crown; * Had Henry got an empire by his marriage, * And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west, * There's reason he should be displeas'd at it. * Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words * Bewitch your hearts; be wise, and circumspect. 'What though the common people favour him,

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Calling him-Humphrey the good duke of Gloster ; Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voiceJesu maintain your royal excellence!

With-God preserve the good duke Humphrey! I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,

He will be found a dangerous protector.

* Buck. Why should he then protect our sovereign,

* He being of age to govern of himself?

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Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,

And all together-with the duke of Suffolk,We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat. * Car. This weighty business will not brook delay; *I'll to the duke of Suffolk presently.

[Exit. • Som. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride,

And greatness of his place be grief to us, 'Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal; "His insolence is more intolerable

⚫ Than all the princes in the land beside; • If Gloster be displac'd, he'll be protector. Buck. Or thou, or I, Somerset, will be protector, * Despight Duke Humphrey, or the cardinal.

[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET. Sal. Pride went before, ambition follows him. • While these do labour for their own preferment, Behoves it us to labour for the realm.

I never saw but Humphrey duke of Gloster
Did bear him like a noble gentleman.

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Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal-
More like a soldier, than a man o' the church,
As stout, and proud, as he were lord of all,—
Swear like a ruffian, and demean himself
Unlike the ruler of a common-weal.-

Warwick, my son, the comfort of my age!
Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy house-keeping,
Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,
Excepting none but good duke Humphrey.-

And, brother York9, thy acts in Ireland,
In bringing them to civil discipline 10;

Thy late exploits, done in the heart of France,
When thou wert regent for our sovereign,

Have made thee fear'd, and honour'd, of the people :

Join we together, for the publick good;

In what we can to bridle and suppress

The pride of Suffolk, and the cardinal,

With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition; And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds, While they do tend the profit of the land.

*War. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land, * And common profit of his country!

* York. And so says York, for he hath greatest

cause.

9 Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, married Cicely, the daughter of Ralf Neville, earl of Westmoreland, by Joan, daughter to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, by his third wife, dame Catherine Swinford. Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, was son to the earl of Westmoreland by a second wife. He married Alice, only daughter of Thomas Montacute, earl of Salisbury, who was killed at the siege of Orleans (see Part I. of this play, Act. i. Sc. 3), and in consequence of that alliance obtained the title of Salisbury in 1428. His eldest son, Richard, having married the sister and heir of Henry Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, was created earl of Warwick, 1449.

10 This is an anachronism. The present scene is in 1445; but Richard, duke of York, was not viceroy of Ireland till 1449.

Sal. Then let's make haste away, and look unto

the main.

War. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost; That Maine, which by main force Warwick did win, * And would have kept, so long as breath did last : Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine; Which I will win from France, or else be slain. [Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY. York. Anjou and Maine are given to the French; * Paris is lost; the state of Normandy

* Stands on a tickle11 point, now they are gone: *Suffolk concluded on the articles;

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* The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd, * To change two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter. * I cannot blame them all; What is't to them? * 'Tis thine they give away, and not their own. * Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,

And purchase friends, and give to courtesans, * Still revelling, like lords, till all be gone: * While-as the silly owner of the goods

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* Weeps over them, and wrings his hapless hands, * And shakes his head, and trembling stands aloof, *While all is shar'd, and all is borne away; * Ready to starve, and dare not touch his own.

So York must sit, and fret, and bite his tongue, * While his own lands are bargain'd for, and sold.

11 Tickle is frequently used for ticklish by ancient writers:— 'Time is tickell: we may match time in this,

For be even as tickell as time is.'

Hewwood's Epigrams, 1562.

Now stands our fortune on a tickle point.'

Jeronymo, 1605.

the uncertainty of dignities, the flattering of feigned friends, and the tickle trust to worldly princes.'-Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, ad finem. Ed. 1825.

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