[Exeunt Keepers, bearing out the body of MORTIMER. Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer, Choked with ambition of the meaner sort : 11 And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries, Which Somerset hath offer'd to my House, I doubt not but with honour to redress; And therefore haste I to the Parliament, Either to be restored to my blood,

Or make my ill th' advantage 12 of my good.

[Exit.

ACT III.

SCENE I. - London. The Parliament-House.

Flourish. Enter King HENRY, EXETER, GLOSTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and SUFFOLK; The Bishop of WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others. GLOSTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and tears it.

Win. Comest thou with deep-premeditated lines, With written pamphlets studiously devised, Humphrey of Gloster? If thou canst accuse,

Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,

11 That is, oppressed by those who were of lower rank, or whose right to the crown was not so good as his.

12 My ill is here the wrong done to me. Advantage in the sense of occasion or vantage-ground.

1 Bill is the articles of accusation. This Parliament was held in 1426 at Leicester, though here represented to have been held in London. King Henry was now in the fifth year of his age. In the first Parliament, which was held at London shortly after his father's death, his mother, Queen Catharine, brought the young King from Windsor to the metropolis, and sat on the throne with the infant in her lap.

Do it without invention, suddenly;

As I with sudden and extemporal speech

Purpose to answer what thou canst object.

Glo. Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience,

Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.
Think not, although in writing I preferr'd
The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
That therefore I have forged, or am not able
Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen :
No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
As 2 very infants prattle of thy pride.
Thou art a most pernicious usurer ;
Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree;

And, for thy treachery, what's more manifest,
In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
As well at London-bridge as at the Tower?
Besides, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.

Win. Gloster, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.

If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, how am I so poor?
Or how haps it I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
And, for dissension, who preferreth peace
More than I do, except I be provoked?
No, my good lords, it is not that offends;

2 As and that, both pronoun and conjunction, were used indiscriminately by all the writers of Shakespeare's time.

It is not that that hath incensed the duke:

but he;

It is, because 3 no one should sway
No one but he should be about the King;
And that engenders thunder in his breast,
And makes him roar these accusations forth.
But he shall know I am as good -

Glo.

Thou bastard of my grandfather!

As good!

Win. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray, But one imperious in another's throne?

Glo. Am I not Lord Protector, saucy priest? Win. And am not I a prelate of the Church? Glo. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,4 And useth it to patronage his theft.

Win. Unreverent Gloster !

Glo.

Thou art reverend

Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.

Win. This Rome shall remedy.
War.

Roam 5 thither, then.

Som. My lord, it were your duty to forbear. War. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne. Som. Methinks my lord should be religious, And know the office that belongs to such.

War. Methinks his lordship should be humbler; It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.

Som. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.

8 Because is here equivalent to in order that. So in St. Matthew, xx. 31: "And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace." Also in Bacon's Henry the Seventh: “The King began then to pare a little the privilege of the clergy, ordaining that clerks convict should be burned in the hand, both because they might taste some corporal punishment and that they might carry a brand of infamy.”

4 Keeps for dwells. Often so. See vol. iii. page 182, note 2.

5 So Nash, in his Lenten Stuff, 1599: “Three hundred thousand people roamed to Rome for purgatorie pills."

War. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?

Is not his Grace protector to the King?

Plan. [Aside.] Plantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue,
Lest it be said, Speak, sirrah, when you should;
Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?
Else would I have a fling at Winchester.

King. Uncles of Gloster and of Winchester,
The special watchmen of our English weal,
I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,
To join your hearts in love and amity.
O, what a scandal is it to our crown,
That two such noble peers as ye should jar!
Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell
Civil dissension is a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth. -

[A noise within, Down with the tawny-coats!

What tumult's this?

War.

An uproar, I dare warrant,

Begun through malice of the bishop's men.

[A noise again within, Stones! stones!

Enter the Mayor of London, attended.

May. O, my good lords,

and virtuous Henry,—

Pity the city of London, pity us!

The bishop's and the Duke of Gloster's men,
Forbidden late to carry any weapon,

Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble-stones,
And, banding themselves in contráry parts,
Do pelt so fast at one another's pate,
That many have their giddy brains knock'd out :
Our windows are broke down in every street,
And we, for fear, compell'd to shut our shops.

Enter, skirmishing, the Serving-men of GLOSTER and WIN-
CHESTER with bloody pates.

King. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
To hold your slaughtering hands and keep the peace. —
Pray, uncle Gloster, mitigate this strife.

1 Serv. Nay, if we be

Forbidden stones, we'll fall to't with our teeth.

2 Serv. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.

[Skirmish again. Glo. You of my household, leave this peevish broil, And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.

3 Serv. My lord, we know your Grace to be a man
Just and upright; and, for your royal birth,
Inferior to none but to his Majesty :

And, ere that we will suffer such a prince,
So kind a father of the commonweal,
To be disgraced by an inkhorn 6 mate,
We, and our wives, and children, all will fight,
And leave our bodies slaughter'd by thy foes.
I Serv. Ay, and the very parings of our nails
Shall pitch a field when we are dead.

Glo.

[Skirmish again. Stay, stay, I say!

An if you love me, as you say you do,
Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.
King. O, how this discord doth afflict my
Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold
My sighs and tears, and will not once relent?
Who should be pitiful, if you be not?
Or who should study to prefer a peace,

If holy churchmen take delight in broils?

soul !

War. My Lord Protector, yield; - yield, Winchester ; —

6 That is, a bookish person, a pedant, applied in contempt to a scholar. Inkhornisms and inkhorn-terms were common expressions.