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Enter a Beadle with whips.

GLOU. 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. with your doublet quickly.

Come on, sirrah; off

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 they follow and cry, A miracle!

KING. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?

QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run. GLOU. Follow the knave; and take this drab away. WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need.

they came.

GLOU. Let them be whipped through every market-town, till they come to Berwick, from whence [Exeunt Wife, Beadle, Mayor, etc. CAR. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day. SUF. True; made the lame to leap and fly away. GLOU. But you have done more miracles than I; You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly. Enter BUCKINGHAM.

KING. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?

BUCK. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold. A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent, Under the countenance and confederacy Of Lady Eleanor, the protector's wife,

The ringleader and head of all this rout,
Have practised 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. [Aside to GLOU.] And so, my lord protector,
by this means

Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.

This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge; 'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.

GLOU. 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.

KING. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked

ones,

Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby ! QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest,

And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.

GLOU. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal, How I have loved 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 conversed 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 Gloucester's honest name.
KING. Well, for this night we will repose us

here:

To-morrow toward London back again,

To look into this business thoroughly

And call these foul offenders to their answers
And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,
Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause

prevails.

London.

SCENE II.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

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,

Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom
Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster ;
The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;
The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of
Gloucester;

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,
Seized on the realm, deposed the rightful king,
Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she

came,

And him to Pomfret; where, as all you know,
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:
Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;
Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne and Eleanor.

SAL. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke, As I have read, laid claim unto the crown; And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king, Who kept him in captivity till he died.

But to the rest.

YORK.

His eldest sister, Anne,

My mother, being heir unto the crown,

Married Richard Earl of Cambridge; who was son
To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son.
By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir
To Roger Earl of March, who was the son
Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,
Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence:
So, if the issue of the elder son

Succeed before the younger, I am king.

WAR. What plain proceeding is more plain than this?

Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
The fourth son; York claims it from the third.
Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign:
It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee
And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.
Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together;
And in this private plot be we the first
That shall salute our rightful sovereign
With honour of his birthright to the crown.

BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard. England's king!

YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your

king

Till I be crown'd and that my sword be stain'd

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