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* Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.
*Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done,
*To send me packing with a host of men;

* I fear me, you but warm the starved snake,

* Who, cherished in your breasts, will sting your hearts. 'Twas men I lacked, and you will give them me; 'I take it kindly; yet, be well assured

You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands. Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band, *I will stir up in England some black storm, * Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven, or hell; * And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage * Until the golden circuit on my head, *Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams, *Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw. · And, for a minister of my intent,

I have seduced a headstrong Kentishman, 'John Cade of Ashford,

To make commotion, as full well he can,
Under the title of John Mortimer.

* In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade

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* Oppose himself against a troop of kernes;1
*And fought so long, till that his thighs with darts
* Were almost like a sharp-quilled porcupine;
And, in the end being rescued, I have seen him
* Caper upright like a wild Morisco,2

*

*

Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells. * Full often, like a shag-haired crafty kerne, * Hath he conversed with the enemy; * And undiscovered come to me again, * And given me notice of their villanies. *This devil here shall be my substitute; *For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,

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* In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble;

By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,

1 Kernes were Irish peasantry, who served as light-armed foot-soldiers. 2 A dancer in a morris-dance; originally, perhaps, meant to imitate a Moorish dance, and thence named. The bells sufficiently indicate that the English morris-dancer is intended. It appears from Blount's Glossography, and some of our old writers, that the dance itself was called a morisco.

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'How they affect the house and claim of York.

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Say, he be taken, racked, and tortured;

I know no pain they can inflict upon him,

• Will make him say-I moved him to those arms.
Say, that he thrive, (as 'tis great like he will,)

Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,
And reap the harvest which that rascal sowed;

For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be, 'And Henry put apart, the next for me.

[Exit.

SCENE II.1 Bury. A Room in the Palace.

Enter certain Murderers, hastily.

1 Mur. Run to my lord of Suffolk; let him know, * We have despatched the duke, as he commanded. *2 Mur. O, that it were to do!-What have we done?

* Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

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• 1 Mur.

Now, sirs, have you

Ay, my good lord; he's dead.

Suff. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my

house;

'I will reward you for this venturous deed.

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'The king and all the peers are here at hand.

• Have you laid fair the bed? Are all things well, According as I gave directions?

1 Mur. 'Tis, my good lord.

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[Exeunt Murderers.

1 The directions concerning this scene stand thus in the quarto copy:“Then the curtains being drawne, duke Humphrey is discovered in his bed, and two men lying on his breast, and smothering him in his bed. And then enter the duke of Suffolk to them."

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Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, CARDINAL BEAUFORT, SOMERSET, Lords, and others.

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K. Hen. Go, call our uncle to our presence straight.

Say, we intend to try his grace to-day,

If he be guilty, as 'tis published.

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Suff. I'll call him presently, my noble lord. [Exit. K. Hen. Lords, take your places;-and, I pray you all,

· Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloster, 'Than from true evidence, of good esteem, He be approved in practice culpable.

* Q. Mar. God forbid any malice should prevail,

* That faultless may condemn a nobleman!

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Pray God, he may acquit him of suspicion!

*K. Hen. I thank thee, Margaret; these words content me much.

Re-enter Suffolk.

'How now? why look'st thou pale? why tremblest thou?

'Where is our uncle? what is the matter, Suffolk? Suff. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloster is dead. Q. Mar. Marry, God forefend!

*

*Car. God's secret judgment;-I did dream to

night,

*The duke was dumb, and could not speak a word. [The King swoons. Q. Mar. How fares my lord ?-Help, lords! the

king is dead.

*Som. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose. Q. Mar. Run, go, help, help!—O Henry, ope thine

*

eyes!

* Suff. He doth revive again;-madam, be patient. * K. Hen. O heavenly God!

* Q. Mar. How fares my gracious lord?

Suff. Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry

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K. Hen. What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort

me?

Came he right now1 to sing a raven's note,

* Whose dismal tune bereft
my vital
powers;
And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
* Hide not thy poison with such sugared words ;
Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;

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* Their touch affrights me, as a serpent's sting. Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!

Upon thy eyeballs murderous tyranny

'Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.

'Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding; 'Yet do not go away.-Come, basilisk,

And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight; *For in the shade of death I shall find joy; *In life, but double death, now Gloster's dead!

Q. Mar. Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk thus ? *Although the duke was enemy to him,

* Yet he, most Christianlike, laments his death;

* And for myself,-foe as he was to me,

* Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,

* Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,

* I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
*Look pale as primrose, with blood-drinking sighs,
* And all to have the noble duke alive.

'What know I how the world may deem of me?
• For it is known we were but hollow friends.
It may be judged I made the duke away;

* So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
* And princes' courts be filled with my reproach.
*This get I by his death. Ah me, unhappy!

* To be a queen, and crowned with infamy!

K. Hen. Ah, woe is me for Gloster, wretched man! Q. Mar. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is. What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face? I am no loathsome leper; look on me.

1 Just now.

*What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf? * Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn queen. * Is all thy comfort shut in Gloster's tomb? *Why, then dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy; * Erect his statue then, and worship it, * And make my image but an alehouse sign. Was I, for this, nigh wrecked upon the sea; And twice by awkward wind from England's bank • Drove back again unto my native clime ? What boded this, but well forewarning wind Did seem to say,-Seek not a scorpion's nest, * Nor set no footing on this unkind shore? *What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts,

* And he that loosed them from their brazen caves; * And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore, * Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?

*Yet Æolus would not be a murderer,

*But left that hateful office unto thee.

*The pretty, vaulting sea refused to drown me; Knowing that thou wouldst have me drowned on shore,

* With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness. *The splitting rocks cowered in the sinking sands, * And would not dash me with their ragged sides; *Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they, Might in thy palace perish 1 Margaret.

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*As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,

* When from the shore the tempest beat us back, * I stood upon the hatches in the storm;

*And when the dusky sky began to rob

* My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view, *I took a costly jewel from my neck,

* A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,—

* And threw it towards thy land;-the sea received it;

* And so, I wished, thy body might my heart:

* And even with this, I lost fair England's view,

1 The verb perish is here used actively. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy :—

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