K. Rich. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of] wine: I have not that alacrity of spirit, Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have. Rat. It is, my lord. [KING RICHARD retires into his Tent. Exeunt RATCLIFF and CATESBY RICHMOND'S Tent opens, and discovers him, and Officers, &c. Enter STANLEY. Stan. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm! Richm. All comfort that the dark night can afford, Be to thy person, noble father-in-law! Tell me, how fares our loving mother? Stan. I, by attorney,' bless thee from thy mother, Of bloody strokes, and mortal-staring war, Richm. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment: Sixth, rises between the two Tents. Sleeps. Ghost. Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow! [TO KING RICHARD. Think, how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth At Tewksbury; Despair therefore, and die !Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wrong'd souls Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf: King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee. them to pass through were called cock-roads. Hence cock-shui time and cock-shut light were used to express the evening twilight. 1 i. e. by deputation. 2 This is from Holinshed. The young nobleman, whom the poet calls George Stanley, was created Lord Strange in right of his wife by Edward IV. in 1492. 3 We have still a phrase equivalent to this, however harsh it may seem. 'I would do this if leisure would permit,' where leisure stands for want of leisure. 4 Weigh. 6 Thus in Romeo and Juliet : thy eyes' windows fall Like death." 6 The hint for this scene is furnished by Holinshed, who copies from Polydore Virgil. It seemed to him being asleepe, that he saw diverse ymages like terrible devilles which pulled and haled him, not sufferynge him to take any quiet or reste. The which strange vision The Ghost of King Henry the Sixth risés. By thee was punch'd' full of deadly holes: And fall thy edgeless sword; Despair, and die !- Lot fall thy lance! Despair, and die! bosom [TO KING RICHARD. All. Awake! and think, our wrongs in Richard's [To RICHMOND. Will conquer him ;-awake, and win the day! The Ghost of Hastings rises. Ghost. Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake; [To KING RICHARD. And in a bloody battle end thy days! Think on Lord Hastings; and despair, and die !→ Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake! [To RICHMOND. Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake! The Ghosts of the two young Princes rise. Ghosts. Dream on thy cousins smother'd in the Tower; Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard, Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in joy; The Ghost of Queen Anne rises. That never slept a quiet hour with thee, And fall thy edgeless sword; Despair, and die !not so sodaynely strake his heart with a sodayne feare, but it stuffed his head with many busy and dreadful imaginations. And least that it might be suspected that he was abashed for fear of his enemies, and for that cause looked so piteously, he recited and declared to his familiar friends of the morning his wonderfull vysion and feareful dreame.' The Legend of King Richard III. in the Mirror for Magistrates, and Drayton in the twenty-second Song of his Polyolbion, have passages found. ed upon Shakspeare's description. 7 The verb to punch, according to its etymology, was formerly used to prick or pierce with a sharp point. 8 See the prophecy in King Henry VI. Part III. Act iv. Sc. 6. 9i. e. teeming or superabundant wine. Shakspeare seems to have forgot that Clarence was killed before he was thrown into the Malmsey butt, and consequently could not be washed to death. 10 Fall is here a verb active, signifying to drop or let fall. 121 RICHMOND wakes. Enter OXFORD and others. Thou, quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep; That The Ghost of Buckingham rises. Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death; [The Ghosts vanish. KING RICHARD Have mercy, Jesu!-Soft; I did but dream.- Is there a murderer here? No;-Yes; I am: Lest I revenge. What? Myself on myself? Fool, of thyself speak well:-Fool, do not flatter. Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd Rat. My lord, Enter RATCLIff. K. Rich. Who's there? Richm. 'Cry mercy, lords, and watchful gentle men, you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here. Lords. How have you slept, my lord? Richm. The sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams, That ever enter'd in a drowsy head, Have I since your departure had, my lords. 4 A base foul stone, made precious by the foil [Exeunt. Rat. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, Attendants, cock Hath twice done salutation to the morn: What thinkest thou? will our friends prove all true? [Exeunt KING RICHARD and RATCLIFF. 1 Buckingham's hope of aiding Richmond induced him to take up arms; he lost his life in consequence, and therefore may be said to have died for hope; hope being the cause which led to that event. and Forces. used such disingenuous measures. the practice of setting gems of little worth, with a bright 6 i. e. the fine paid by me in atonement for my rash. 2 There is in this, as in many of the poet's speeches of passion, something very trifling, and something very striking. Richard's debate, whether he should quarrelness. with himself, is 100 long continued; but the subsequent oxaggeration of bis crimes is truly tragical-Johnson, Isoldiers when they charged the enemy, 7 Saint George was the common cry of the English ૨ He should have brav'd' the east an hour ago: Rat. My lord? Nor. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field. K. Rich. Come, bustle, bustle;-Caparison my horse ; If we be conquer'd, let men conquer us, Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power:-Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain, And thus my battle shall be ordered. My foreward shall be drawn out all in length, In the main battle; whose puissance on either side Nor. A good direction, warlike sovereign.- Giving a scroll. K. Rich. Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold, [Reads. For Dickon thy master is bought and sold. A thing devised by the enemy.Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge: Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe; Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell; If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell. What shall I say more than I have inferr'd? Remember whom you are to cope withal ;A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, A seum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants, Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth To desperate ventures and assur'd destruction. You sleeping safe, they bring you to unrest; You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives, They would restrain' the one, distain the other. And who doth lead them, but a paltry fellow, Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost? 1 Steevens's notion is a strange one, that brav'd here means made it splendid or fine. The common signifi. cation of the old verb to brave was not what he states it to be to challenge or set at defiance;' but to look aloft, and go gaily, desiring to have the preeminence." This is old Baret's definition, which explains the text better than Mr. Steevens has done. 2 i. e. this, and superadd to this, Saint George on our side. The phrase, like Saint George to borrow, which Holinshed puts into the mouth of Richard before the battle, is a kind of invocation to the saint to act as protector: Saint George to borrow meaning Saint George be our pledge or security. 3 Dickon is the ancient familiarization of Richard. 4 Company. 5 To restrain is to abridge, to diminish, to withhold from. Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! What says Lord Stanley? will he bring his power? K. Rich. Off instantly with his son George's head. Nor. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh;" After the battle let George Stanley die. K. Rich. A thousand hearts are great within my bosom: Advance our standards, set upon our foes; Cale. Rescue, my lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue! His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, Alarum. Enter KING RICHARD. K. Rich. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! Cate. Withdraw, my lord, I'll help you to a horse. K. Rich. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die: I think, there be six Richmonds in the field; [Exeunt. position of his forces that it served to protect his righ. wing. By this movement he gained also another point, that his men should engage with the sun behind them, and in the faces of his enemies; a matter of great consequence when bows and arrows were in use. 9 i. e. daringly opposing himself, or offering himself as an opponent to every danger. 10 Shakspeare had employed this incident with histo rical propriety in the First Part of King Henry IV. He had here also good ground for his poetical exaggeration. Richard, according to Polydore Virgil, was determined if possible to engage with Richmond in single combat. For this purpose he rode furiously to that quarter of the field where the earl was; attacked his standard bearer, Sir William Brandon, and killed him; then assaulted Sir John Cheny, whom he overthrew. Having thus at in single combat with him, and probably would have been victorious, but at that instant Sir William Stanley with three thousand men joined Richmond's army, and the royal forces fled with great precipitation. Richard was soon afterwards overpowered by numbers, and fell, fighting bravely to the last moment." II In the old interlude on the subject of Richard III. which Mr. Boswell printed at the end of this play, this line stands : 6 Thus Holinshed:-'You see further, how a com-length cleared his way to his antagonist, he engaged pany of traitors, thieves, outlaws, and runagates, be aiders and partakers of this feate and enterprise. And to begin with the earl of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milksop, brought up by my moother's means and mine, like a captive in a close cage in the court of Francis duke of Britaine,' p. 756. Holinshed copied this verbatim from Hall, edit. 1548, fol. 54; but his printer has given us by accident the word moother instead of brother; as it is in the original, and ought to be in Shakspeare. In the first edition of HolinA horse! a horse! a fresh horse!" shed the word is rightly printed brother. So that this Burbage, the alter Roscius of Camden, appears to have circumstance not only shows that the poet follows Ho-been the original Richard. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter linshed, but points out the edition used by him. Boreale, introduces his host at Bosworth describing the battle, and 7 Fright the skies with the shivers of your lances. 8 There was a large marsh in Bosworth plain between the two armies. Henry passed it, and made such a dis when he would have say'd King Richard died, And call'd A horse' a horse!—he Burbage cried.' Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD and RICHMOND ; and exeunt fighting. Retreat and flourish. Then enter RICHMOND, STANLEY, bearing the Crown, with divers other Lords, and Forces. Richm. God, and your arms, be prais'd, victorious friends; The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead. Stan. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou ac- Lo, here, this long usurped royalty, THIS is one of the most celebrated of our author's performances; yet I know not whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised most when praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes noble in themselves, and very well contrived to strike in the exRichm. Great God of heaven, say, amen, to all!-hibition, cannot be denied. But some parts are trifling, But, tell me first, is young George Stanley living? others shocking, and some improbable.-JOHNSON. Stan. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town; Malone says, he agrees with Dr. Johnson in think. Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw using that this play, from its first exhibition to the present Richm. What men of name are slain on either side ? Stan. John duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers, peace, hour, has been estimated greatly beyond its merits." He attributes (but I think erroneously) its popularity to the detestation in which Richard's character was held at the time that Shakspeare wrote, and to the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, who was pleased at seeing King Henry VII. placed in the only favourable light in which he could be placed on the scene.' Steevens, in the fol lowing note, has stated the true grounds of the perpetual popularity of the play, which can only be attributed to one cause the wonderful dramatic effect produced by the character of Richard.-S. W. S. I most cordially join with Dr. Johnson and Mr. Malone in their opinions; and yet, perhaps, they have overlooked one cause of the success of this tragedy. The part of Richard is, perhaps beyond all others, variegated, and consequently favourable to a judicious per former. It comprehends, indeed, a trait of almost every species of character on the stage: the hero, the lover, the statesman, the buffoon, the hypocrite, the hardened and repenting sinner, &c. are to be found within its com pass. No wonder, therefore, that the discriminating powers of a Burbage, a Garrick, and a Henderson, should at different periods have given it a popularity be yond other dramas of the same author.-STEEVENS. 1 i. e. diminish, or take away. 2 To reduce is to bring back; an obsolete sense of the word, derived from its Latin original, reduco, KING HENRY THE EIGHT H. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. this revival took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on which the Globe Theatre was burnt down. The fire was occasioned, as it is said, by the discharge of some small pieces of ordnance called chambers in the scene where King Henry is represented as arriving at Cardiinjudiciously managed, set fire to the thatched roof of the theatre. Dr. Johnson first suggested that Ben Jonson might have supplied the Prologue and Epilogue to the play upon the occasion of its revival. Dr. Farmer, Steevens, and Malone, support his opinion; and even attribute to him some of the passages of the play. IT is the opinion of Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, that this play was written a short time before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March, 1602-3. The eulogium on King James, which is blended with the panegyric of Elizabeth in the last scene, was evidently a subsequent insertion, afternal Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of which, being the succession of the Scottish monarch to the throne: for Shakspeare was too well acquainted with courts to compliment, in the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth, her presumptive successor; of whom, history informs us, she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning King James was added after the death of the queen, is still more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, by the awkward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and subsequent lines. Mr. Gifford has controverted this opinion of Jonson having been the author of the Prologue and Epilogue of this play, and thinks the play which was performed under the title of All is True was a distinct perform. After having lain by some years, unacted, probably on account of the costliness of its exhibition, it was re-ance, and not Shakspeare's Henry the Eighth. To vived in 1613, under the title of ‘All is True,' with new decorations, and a new Prologue and Epilogue: and this it has been answered, That the Prologue, which has always accompanied Shakspeare's drama from its sion were to be used in the play), the tampin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch that covered the house, burn'd it to the ground in less than two hours, with a dwelling-house adjoining; and it was a great marvaile and faire grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out at.'— Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 469. The event is also recorded by Sir Henry Wotton, in his letter of the 2d of July, 1613, where he says, it was at a new play, acted by the king's players at the Bank's Side, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth.”—Reliquia So in a letter from John Chamberlaine to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated London, Sth July, 1613:- But the burning of the Globe, or Playhouse, on the Bankside, on St. Peter's day, cannot escape you; which fell out by a peale of chambers (that I know not upon what occa-Wotton. p. 425. Ed. 2d. first publication in 1623, manifestly and repeatedly alludes to the title of the play which was represented on the 29th of June, 1613, and which we know to have been founded on the history of King Henry the Eighth, affords a strong proof of their identity, as appears by the following passages: Such, as give Their money out of hope they may believe, Gentle readers know To rank our chosen truth with such a show 'To make that only true we now intend.' That he get good allowance for the Enterlude of King Henry VIII. before he begin to print it; and with the warden's hand to yt, he is to have the same for his copy.' Stowe has observed that Robert Greene had written somewhat on the same story; but there is no evidence that it was in a dramatic form: it may have been something historical, and not by the dramatic poet of that name; as Stowe cites the authority of Robert Greene, with Robert Brun, Fabian, &c. in other places of his Chronicle. This historical drama comprises a period of twelve years, commencing in the twelfth year of King Henry VIII. (1521), and ending with the christening of Elizabeth in 1533. The poet has deviated from history in placing the death of Queen Katharine before the birth of Elizabeth, for in fact Katharine did not die till 1536. In constructing his scenes he has availed himself largely That the Prologue and Epilogue were not written by of the eloquent narrative of Wolsey's faithful servant Shakspeare is, I think, clear from internal evidence,' and biographer, George Cavendish, as copied by the says Mr. Boswell; to whose opinion I have no hesitation Chronicles; and indeed the pathos of the Cardinal's dyin subscribing: but it does not follow that they were the ing scene is almost as effective in the simple narrative production of Ben Jonson's pen. That gentleman has of Cavendish as in the play. The fine picture which the clearly shown that there was no intention of covertly poet has drawn of the suffering and defenceless virtue of sneering at Shakspeare's other works in this prologue; Queen Katharine, and the just and spirited, though sofbut that this play is opposed to a rude kind of farcical tened, portrait he has exhibited of the impetuous and sen representation on the same subject by Samuel Rowley sual character of Henry, are above all praise. It has been (see the first note on the Prologue). This play, or justly said that this play contains little action or viointerlude, which was printed in 1605, is probably refer-lence of passion, yet it has considerable interest of a more red to in the following entry on the books of the Sta- mild and thoughtful cast, and some of the most striking tioners' Company:-Nathaniel Butter, Feb. 12, 1604, passages that are to be found in the poet's works.' PERSONS REPRESENTED. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. LORD ABERGAVENNY. LORD SANDS. SIR HENRY GUILDFORD. SIR THOMAS LOVELL. CROMWELL, Servant to Wolsey. GRIFFITH, Gentleman Usher to Queen Katharine. ⚫ DOCTOR BUTTS, Physician to the King. Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham. Page to Gardiner. A Crier. QUEEN KATHARINE, Wife to King Henry, after- ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honour; afterwards An old Lady, Friend to Anne Bullen. Several Lords and Ladies in the Dumb Shows; SCENE-chiefly in London and Westminster : once, at Kimbolton. PROLOGUE. I COME no more to make you laugh; things now, The play may pass; if they be still, and willing, That come to hear a merry, bawdy play, In a long motley coat, guarded' with yellow, 1 i. e. faced or trimmed. This long motley coat was the usual dress of a fool. The Prologue and Epilogue to this play are appa. rently not by the hand of Shakspeare. They have been attributed to Ben Jonson; but this opinion is controverted by Mr. Gifford. The intention of the writer (says Mr. Boswell) was to contrast the historical truth and taste displayed in the present play with the performance of a contemporary dramatist, When you see me you know me, or the famous Chronicle of King Henry the Eighth, &c. by Samuel Rowley,' in which Will Summers, the jester, is a principal character. There are other incidents in this ' merry bawdy play,' Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know, As they were living; think, you see them great, 2 Opinion seems here to mean character; as in King Henry IV. Part 1. Act v. Sc. 4:—' Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion. To realize that opinion of character is our present object, not to forfeit it by introducing absurdities. 3 Happiest being here used in a Latin sense for propitious or favourable. Sis bonus o fælixque tuis! has been thought a reason for attributing this Prologue to Jonson; but we have shown that Shakspeare often uses words in a Latin sense. 1 |