Where should be branded, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown,
And the dire death of my poor sons, and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?
Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother
And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?
Clarence?

Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,
Grey?

Duch. Where is kind Hastings?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets!-strike alarum,
drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed: Strike, I say.-
[Flourish. Alarums,
Either be patient and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
Duch. Art thou my son?

K. Rich. Ay; I thank God, my father, and your

Duch. Then patiently hear my impatience.
K. Rich. Madain, I have a touch of your con-
dition, 12

That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
Duch. O, let me speak.

K. Rich.
Do, then; but I'll not hear.
Duch. I will be mild and gentle in my words.
K. Rich. And brief, good mother; for I am in

Duch. Art thou so hasty? I have staid for thee,
God knows, in torment and in agony.

K. Rich. And came I not at last to comfort you?
Duch. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,

1 i. e. partaker of or participator in the grief of others. The word appears to have been used metapho-Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. rically for an equal, a companion, or old and intimate acquaintance.

Shakspeare employed the word for the sake of the an

3 Adulterate is stained with adultery. Adulterata, tithesis between better and loss.

9 Thus in Venus and Adonis :

6 So of concealed sorrow may be said:
Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;
But when the heart's attorney once is mute,
The client breaks as desperate of his suit.'
10 The meaning of this harsh metaphor is: The joys
already possessed being all consumed and passed away,
are supposed to have died intestate; that is, to have
made no will, having nothing to bequeath; and more
verbal complaints are their successors, but inherit no-
thing but misery.

11 Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak.
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.'
Macbeth
12 A spice or particle of your disposition.

A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy school-days, frightful, desperate, wild, and
furious;

Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous:
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:
What comfortable hour canst thou name,
That ever grac'd me in thy company?

K. Rich. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour,2
that call'd your grace

To breakfast once, forth of:

my company. If I be so disgracious in your sight,

Let me march on, and not offend you, madam.—
Strike up the drum.

As one being best acquainted with her humour.
Q. Eliz. And wilt thou learn of me?
K. Rich.
Madam, with all my heart.
Q. Eli. Send to her, by the man that slew her
brothers,

A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave,
Edward, and York; then, haply, will she weep:
Therefore present to her, as sometime Margaret
Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,-
A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain
The purple sap from her sweet brothers' body,
And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.
If this inducement move her not to love,
Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;
Tell her, thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,
Her uncle Rivers; ay, and, for her sake,
Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.
miring his supposed monument in old St. Paul's Cathe
dral.
3 i. e. accompanies.
4 Unavoidable.

5 This conceit seems to have been a favourite with Shakspeare.

7 i. e. the crown, the emblem of royalty. See note on King Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.

2 I know not what to make of this, unless we suppose with Steevens that it is an allusion to some affair of galantry of which the duchess had been suspected. There Do mention of any thing of the kind in the Chronicles. Malone conjectures that Humphrey Hour is merely sed as a ludicrous periphrasis for hour, like Tom Troth, for truth, in Gabriel Harvey's Letter to Spenser. 8 To demise is to grant, from demittere, Lat. But as There can hardly be any allusion to the phrase of no example of the use of the word, except in legal instru dining with Duke Humphrey,' used to express those ments, offers itself, I cannot help thinking we should who dined upon air, or passed their dinner hour in ad-read devise, with the second folio.

K. Rich. You mock me, madam; this is not the way

To win your daughter.

Q. Eliz.

There is no other way;
Unless thou could'st put on some other shape,
And not be Richard that hath done all this.
K. Rich. Say, that I did all this for love of her?
Q. Eliz. Nay, then indeed, she cannot choose
but hate thee,'

Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.

K. Rich. Look, what is done cannot be now
amended;

Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after hours give leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I'll give it to your daughter.
If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase, I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam's name is little less in love,
Than is the doting title of a mother;
They are as children, but one step below,
Even of your mettle, of your very blood;
Of all one pain,-save for a night of groans
Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.
Your children were vexation to your youth,
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss, you have, is but-a son being king,
And, by that loss, your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would,
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.
Dorset, your son, that with a fearful soul,
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity:

The king, that calls your beauteous daughter,-wife,
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset-brother;
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
Repair'd with double riches of content.
What! we have many goodly days to see:
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed,
Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl:
Advantaging their loan, with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.
Go then, my mother, to thy daughter go;
Make bold her bashful years with your experience,
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale ;
Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys;
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;
To whom I will retail' my conquest won,
And she shall be sole victress, Cæsar's Cæsar.

Q. Eliz. What were I best to say? her father's
brother

Would be her lord? Or shall I say, her uncle?
Or, he that slew her brothers, and her uncles?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,
That God, the law, my honour, and her love,
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?
K. Rich. Infer fair England's peace by this
liance.

Q. Eliz. Which she shall purchase with
lasting war.

al

still

K. Rich. Tell her, the king, that may command,

entreats.

Q. Eliz. That at her hands, which the king's King
forbids.4

K. Rich. Say, she shall be a high and mighty queen.
Q. Eliz. To wail the title, as her mother doth.

K. Rich. As long as heaven, and nature, length-
ens it.

Q. Eliz. As long as hell, and Richard, likes of it.
K. Rich. Say, I, her sovereign, am her subject low
Q. Eliz. But she, your subject, loathes such
sov'reignty.

K. Rich. Be cloquent in my behalf to her.
Q. Eliz. An honest tale speeds best, being plainly
told.

K. Rich. Then in plain terms tell her my loving
tale.

Q. Eliz. Plain, and not honest, is too harsh a style. K. Rich. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

Q. Eliz. O, no, my reasons are too deep and dead;

Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves. K. Rich. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.

1 Tyrwhitt suggested that the sense seemed to require we should read but love thee,' ironically. Mason proposed but have thee,' which Steevens admitted into the text. It is by no means evident that this is spoken ironically (says Mr. Boswell,) and, if not, the old reading affords a perfectly clear meaning. A virtuous woman would hate the man who thought to purchase her love by the commission of crimes.'

Q. Eliz. Harp on it still shall I, till heartstrings break.

K. Rich. Now, by my George, my garter, and

my crown,

Q. Eliz. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third
usurp'd

K. Rich. I swear.
Q. Eliz.
By nothing; for this is no oath.
Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his holy honour;
Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;
Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory:
If something thou would'st swear to be believ'd,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.
K. Rich. Now by the world,.-

Q. Eliz.

"Tis full of thy foul wrongs.

K. Rich. My father's death,-
Q. Eliz.

Thy life hath that dishonour'd.

K. Rich. Then, by myself,-
Q. Eliz.

Thyself is self misus'd.

K. Rich. Why then, by God,-
Q. Eliz.
God's wrong is most of all.
If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by him,
The unity, the king thy brother made,
Had not been broken, nor my brother slain.
If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by him,
The imperial metal, circling now thy head,
Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,
Thy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.
What canst thou swear by now?

K. Rich.
By the time to come.
Q. Eliz. That thou hast wronged in the time o'er-

Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age:
The parents live, whose children thou hast butcher'd!
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast
Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill us'd o'er past.

K. Rich. As I intend to prosper, and repent!
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt
Of hostile arms! myself myself confound!
Heaven, and fortune, bar me happy hours!
Day, yield m ot thy light; nor, night, thy rest!
Be opposite all planets of good luck

To my proceeding, if with pure heart's love,

2 Endur'd of her for whom you bid like sorrow.' Of is used for by; bid is the past tense from bide. 3 i. e. recount.

4 She means that his crimes would render such a marriage offensive to heaven.

6 Young has borrowed this thought :

But say, my all, my mistress, and my friend, What day next week the eternity shall end."

Rat. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?

K. Rich. Why, what would'st thou do there, be-
fore I go?

Rat. Your highness told me, I should post before.
Enter STANLEY.

K. Rich. Heyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad'
What need'st thou run so many miles about,
When thou may'st tell thy tale the nearest way?
Once more, what news?
Richmond is on the seas.
K. Rich. There let him sink, and be the seas on
him!

4 Richard's precipitation and confusion is in this scene very happily represented by inconsistent orders and sudden variation of opinion.

5 Richard asks this question in the plenitude of power, and no one dares to answer him. But they whom he addresses, had they not been intimidated, might have

Is,-that, by sudden floods and fall of waters,
Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd';
And he himself wander'd away alone,

No man knows whither.

K. Rich.

O, I cry you mercy : There is my purse to cure that blow of thine. Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd Reward to him that brings the traitor in?

3 Mess. Such proclamation hath been made, my liege.

Enter another Messenger.

4 Mess. Sir Thomas Lovel, and lord marquis
Dorset,

'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.
But this good comfort bring I to your highness,-
The Bretagne navy is dispers'd by tempest:
Richmond, in Dorsetshire, sent out a boat
Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks,
If they were his assistants, yea, or no;
Who answer'd him, they came from Buckingham
Upon his party: he, mistrusting them,

Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Bretagne.
K. Rich. March on, march on, since we are up
in arms;

If not to fight with foreign enemies,

Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.

Enter CATESBY.

Cate. My liege, the duke of Buckingham is taken,
That is the best news; That the earl of Richmond
Is with a mighty power1 landed at Milford,
Is colder news, but yet they must be told.

He shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.
These letters will resolve him of my mind.
Farewell. [Gives papers to SIR CHRISTOPHER.
[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. Salisbury. An open Place. Enter the Sheriff, and Guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led

to execution.

Buck. Will not King Richard let me speak with
him ?6

Sher. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.
Buck. Hastings, and Edward's children, Rivers,
Grey,

Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,
Vaughan, and all that have miscarried
By underhand corrupted foul injustice;
If that your moody discontented souls
Do through the clouds behold this present hour,
This is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?
Even for revenge mock my destruction!

Sher. It is, my lord.

Buck. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's
doomsday.

This is the day, which, in King Edward's time,
I wish'd might fall on me, when I was found
False to his children, or his wife's allies:
This is the day, wherein I wish'd to fall
By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;
This, this, All-Souls' day to my fearful soul,
Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs."

K. Rich. Away towards Salisbury; while we That high All-seer which I dallied with,

reason here,

A royal battle might be won and lost :-
Some one take order, Buckingham be brought
To Salisbury;-the rest march on with me.

[Exeunt.
SCENE V. A Room in Lord Stanley's House.
Enter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URS-
WICK.3

Stan. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from

me:

That in the sty of this most bloody boar,
My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold
If I revolt, off goes young George's head,
The fear of that withholds my present aid.
But, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?
Chris. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford-west, in
Wales.

Stan. What men of name resort to him?
Chris. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;
Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley;
Oxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,
And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;
And many other of great fame and worth:
And towards London do they bend their course,
If by the way they be not fought withal.
Stan. Well, hie thee to thy lord; commend me
to him;

Tell him, the queen hath heartily consented

1 The earl of Richmond embarked with about two thousand men at Harfleur, in Normandy, August 1, 1495, and landed at Milford Haven on the 7th. He directed his course to Wales, hoping the Welsh would receive him cordially as their countryman, he having been born at Pembroke, and his grandfather being Owen Tudor, who married Katharine of France, the widow of King Henry V.

2 News was considered as plural by our ancient

writers.

Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head,
And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:
Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck,-
When he, quoth she, shall split thy heart with sorrow,
Remember Margaret was a prophetess.-
Come, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.
[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, &c.
SCENE II. Plain near Tamworth. Enter, with
drum and colours, RICHMOND, OXFORD," SIR
JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and
others, with Forces, marching.

10

Richm. Fellows in arms, and my most loving

friends,

Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we march'd on without impediment;
And here receive we from our father Stanley
Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
That spoil'd your summer fields, and fruitful vines,
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his
trough

In your embowell'd bosoms, this foul swine
Lies now even in the centre of this isle,
Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn:
From Tamworth thither, is but one day's march.

5 There is reason to think that Buckingham's execution took place at Shrewsbury, but this is not the place to discuss the question.

6 The reason why the duke of Buckingham solicited an interview with Richard is explained in King Henry VIII. Act i.

7 The time to which the punishment of his injurious practices or the wrongs done by him was respited.

8 Johnson thinks this scene should be added to the 3 Sir Christopher Urswick, a priest, chaplain to the fourth act, which would give it a more full and striking Countess of Richmond, who was married to the Lord conciusion. In the original quarto copy, 1597, this play Stanley. This priest, the chronicles tell us, frequently is not divided into acts and scenes: Malone suggests went backwards and forwards, unsuspected, on mes-that the short scene between Stanley and Sir Christosages between the countess of Richmond and her hus-pher may have been the opening of the fifth act. band, and the young earl of Richmond, whilst he was 9 John de Vere, earl of Oxford, a zealous Lancas preparing to make his descent on England. He was trian, who, after a long confinement in Hammes Castle, afterwards almoner to King Henry VII. and refused the in Picardy, escaped in 1484, and joined Richmond at bishopric of Norwich. He retired to Hackney, where Paris. He commanded the archers at the battle of Boshe died in 1527, and his tomb is, I believe, still to be seen worth. in the church there.

4 Vide note on p. 96, ante.

10 Sir James Blunt had been captain of the Castle of Hammes, and assisted Oxford in his escape.