My lords, Saint Alban here hath done a miracle; Glo. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not May. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight. [Exit an Attendant Glo. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A Stool brought out.] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from whipping, leap me over this stool, and run away. Simp. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone: You go about to torture me in vain. Re-enter Attendant, with the Beadle. Glo. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs. Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool. Bead. I will, my lord.-Come on, sirrah: off with your doublet quickly. Simp. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand. [After the Beadle hath hit him once, he leaps over the Stool, and runs away; and the People follow, and cry, A miracle! * K. Hen. O God, seest thou this, and bear'st so long? * Q. Mar. It made me laugh, to see the villain run. *Glo. Follow the knave; and take this drab away. * Wife. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need. Glo. Let them be whipped through every market town, till they come to Berwick, whence they came. [Exeunt Mayor, Beadle, Wife, &c. • Car. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day. 6 Suf. True; made the lame to leap, and fly away. 'Glo. But you have done more miracles than I; 'You made, in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly. Enter BUCKINGHAM. 'K. Hen. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham? 'Buck. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold. A sort9 of naughty persons, lewdly 10 bent,— • Under the countenance and confederacy, • Of Lady Eleanor, the protector's wife, The ringleader and head of all this rout, • Have practis'd dangerously against your state, Dealing with witches; and with conjurers: Whom we have apprehended in the fact; Raising up wicked spirits from under ground, Demanding of King Henry's life and death, And other of your highness' privy council, 'As more at large your grace shall understand. Car. And so, my lord protector, by this means Your lady is forthcoming 11 yet at London. This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge; • "Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour. [Aside to GLOster. 'Glo. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart! * Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers: * And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to thee, *Or to the meanest groom. * K. Hen. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones; Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby! 9 A sort is a company. So in King Richard III. :— 'A sort of vagabonds, rascals, runaways!' 10 i. e. wickedly, knavishly. Nothing, Act v. Sc. 1, p. 206. 11 i. e. your lady is in custody. See note on Much Ado About * Q. Mar. Gloster, see here the tainture of thy nest; * And, look, thyself be faultless, thou wert best. 'Glo. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal, 'How I have lov'd my king, and commonweal: And, for my wife, I know not how it stands; Sorry I am to hear what I have heard: • Noble she is; but if she have forgot 'Honour, and virtue, and convers'd with such As, like to pitch, defile nobility, • I banish her my bed, and company; And give her, as a prey, to law, and shame, That hath dishonour'd Gloster's honest name. · K. Hen. Well, for this night, we will here: To-morrow, toward London, back again, • To look into this business thoroughly, repose us And call these foul offenders to their answers; And poise the cause in justice' equal scales, Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails. [Flourish. Exeunt. SCENE II. London. The Duke of York's Garden. Enter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK. York. Now, my good lords of Salisbury and Warwick, Our simple supper ended, give me leave In this close walk, to satisfy myself, In craving your opinion of my title, Which is infallible to England's crown. *Sal. My lord, I long to hear it at full. War. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good, The Nevils are thy subjects to command. York. Then thus: Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons: The first, Edward the Black Prince, prince of Wales; The second, William of Hatfield; and the third, Was John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster; • William of Windsor was the seventh, and last. Edward, the Black Prince, died before his father; And left behind him Richard, his only son, Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king; Till Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt, • Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth, Seiz'd on the realm; depos'd the rightful king; Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came, And him to Pomfret; where, as all you know1, Harmless Richard was murder'd traitorously. * War. Father, the duke hath told the truth; * Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown. * York. Which now they hold by force, and not by right; * For Richard, the first son's heir being dead, * The issue of the next son should have reign'd. *Sal. But William of Hatfield died without an heir. *York. The third son, duke of Clarence (from whose line * I claim the crown), had issue-Philippe,a daughter, * Who married Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, 1 In the original play the words are, as you both know.' The phraseology of the text is peculiar to Shakspeare: in King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1, the king, addressing Warwick and Surrey, says: Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.' * Edmund had issue-Roger, earl of March: * Roger had issue-Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor. "Sal. This Edmund 2, in the reign of Bolingbroke, As I have read, laid claim unto the crown; And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king, * But, to the rest. 2 In Act ii. Sc. 5, of the last play, York, to whom this is spoken, is present at the death of Edmund Mortimer in prison; and the reader will recollect him to have been married to Owen Glendower's daughter in the First Part of King Henry IV. 3 Some of the mistakes of the historians and the drama concerning Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, are noticed in a note to the former play. Where he is introduced an aged and gray haired prisoner in the Tower, and represented as having been confined since Harry Monmouth first began to reign.' Yet here we are told he was kept in captivity by Owen Glendower till he died. The fact is, that Hall having said Owen Glendower kept his son in law, Lord Grey of Ruthvin, in captivity till he died, and this Lord March having been said by some historians to have married Owen's daughter, the author of this play has confounded them with each other. This Edmund being only six years of age at the death of his father, in 1398, he was delivered by King Henry IV. in ward to his son Henry prince of Wales, and during the whole of that reign, being a minor, and related to the family on the throne, he was under the particular care of the king. At the age of ten years, in 1402, he headed a body of Herefordshire men against Owen Glendower, and was taken prisoner by him. The Percies, in the manifesto they published before the battle of Shrewsbury, speak of him as rightful heir to the crown, whom Owen had confined, and whom, finding for political reasons that the king would not ransom him, they at their own charges had ransomed. If he was at the battle of Shrewsbury, he was probably brought there against his will, to grace their cause, and was under the care of the king soon after. Great trust was reposed in this earl of March during the whole reign of King Henry V. In the sixth year of that king he was at the siege of Fresnes, with the earl of Salisbury; and soon afterwards with the king himself at the siege of Melun. In the same year he was made lieutenant of Normandy; was at Melun with Henry to treat of his marriage with Catherine; and accompanied that queen when she returned from France with the corpse of her husband, in 1422, and died two years afterwards at his castle of Trim, in Ireland. VOL. VI. |