• Unsheath your sword, and dub him presently.Edward, kneel down.

K. HEN. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight; And learn this lesson,-Draw thy sword in right. PRINCE. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,

I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,

And in that quarrel use it to the death.

CLIF. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.

Enter a Messenger.

MESS. Royal commanders, be in readiness: For, with a band of thirty thousand men, Comes Warwick, backing of the duke of York; And, in the towns as they do march along, Proclaims him king, and many fly to him: 'Darraign' your battle, for they are at hand.

CLIF. I would, your highness would depart the

field;

The queen' hath best success 1 hath best success when you are absent.

8 • — thirty thousand-] The quarto reads fifty thousand.

STEEVENS.

? Darraign-] That is, Range your host, put your host in order. JOHNSON.

Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser, use this word.

Thus also, in Guy Earl of Warwick, a Tragical History,

1661:

"Darraign our battles, and begin the fight." The quartos read-Prepare your battles, &c. STEEvens.

1 I would, your highness would depart the field;

The queen &c.] This superstitious belief, relative to the fortunes of our unhappy prince, is yet more circumstantially introduced by Drayton in The Miseries of Queen Margaret:

Q. MAR. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our

fortune.

K. HEN. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore
I'll stay.

NORTH. Be it with resolution then to fight.
PRINCE. My royal father, cheer these noble
lords,

And hearten those that fight in your defence: Unsheath your sword, good father; cry, Saint George!

March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and Soldiers.

EDW. Now, perjur'd Henry! wilt thou kneel for grace,

And set thy diadem upon my head;

*Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?

Q. MAR. Go, rate thy minions, proud insulting boy!

Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms,
Before thy sovereign, and thy lawful king?

"Some think that Warwick had not lost the day,
"But that the king into the field he brought;
"For with the worse that side went still away
"Which had king Henry with them when they fought:
"Upon his birth so sad a curse there lay,

"As that he never prospered in aught.

"The queen wan two, among the loss of many,
"Her husband absent; present, never any."

STEEVENS.

So, Hall: "Happy was the queene in her two battayls, but unfortunate was the king in al his enterprises; for where his person was present, the victorie fledde ever from him to the other parte." Henry VI. fol. C. Malone.

EDW. I am his king, and he should bow his

knee;

I was adopted heir by his consent:

2

Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,
You that are king, though he do wear the crown,-
Have caus'd him, by new act of parliament,
• To blot out me, and put his own son in.
CLIF. And reason too;

Who should succeed the father, but the son?

RICH. Are you there, butcher ?—O, I cannot

speak!

"CLIF. Ay, crook-back; here I stand, to answer thee,

'Or any he the proudest of thy sort.

RICH. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?

* I am his king, and he should bow his knee ; I was adopted heir by his consent : Since when, his oath is broke;] Edward's argument is founded on the following article in the compact entered into by Henry and the Duke of York, which the author found in Hall's Chronicle, but which I believe made no part of that agreement : "Provided alwaye, that if the king did closely or apertly studye or go about to breake or alter this agreement, or to compass or imagine the death or destruction of the sayde duke or his bloud, then he to forfet the crowne, and the duke of Yorke to take it.” If this had been one of the articles of the compact, the Duke having been killed at Wakefield, his eldest son would have now a title to the crown. MALONE.

Since when, &c.] The quartos give the remainder of this speech to Clarence, and read:

To blot our brother out, &c.

STEEVENS.

Here is another variation of the same kind with those which have been noticed in the preceding play, which could not have arisen from a transcriber or printer.-Though Shakspeare gave the whole of this speech to Edward by substituting me for brother, the same division which is found in the quarto, is inadvertently retained in the folio. MALONE.

CLIF. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied. RICH. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.

WAR. What say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?

'Q. MAR. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick? dare you speak?

When you and I met at Saint Alban's last,
Your legs did better service than your hands.3
WAR. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis
thine.

CLIF. You said so much before, and yet you fled.

WAR. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.

• NORTH. No, nor your manhood, that durst make you stay.

RICH. Northumberland, I hold thee rever

ently;

Break off the parle; for scarce I can refrain
The execution of my big-swoln heart
Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.

CLIF. I slew thy father: Call'st thou him a child? RICH. Ay, like a dastard, and a treacherous coward,

As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland; But, ere sun-set, I'll make thee curse the deed.

K. HEN. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.

3 Your legs did better service than your hands.] An allusion to the proverb: "One pair of heels is worth two pair of

hands." STEEVENS.

VOL. XIV.

F

Q. MAR. Defy them then, or else hold close thy

lips.

K. HEN. I pr'ythee, give no limits to my tongue; I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.

CLIF. My liege, the wound, that bred this meeting here,

Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.

RICH. Then, executioner, unsheath thy sword: By him that made us all, I am resolv'd,* That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.

EDW. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no? A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day, That ne'er shall dine, unless thou yield the crown. WAR. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head; For York in justice puts his armour on.

'PRINCE. If that be right, which Warwick says is right,

There is no wrong, but every thing is right. RICH. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;

For, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue. Q. MAR. But thou art neither like thy sire, nor dam;

But like a foul misshapen stigmatick,"

— I am resolv'd,] It is my firm persuasion; I am no longer in doubt. JOHNSON.

Rich. Whoever got thee, &c.] In the folio this speech is erroneously assigned to Warwick. The answer shows that it belongs to Richard, to whom it is attributed in the old play. MALONE.

6

-misshapen stigmatick,] "A stigmatic," says J. Bullokar in his English Expositor, 1616," is a notorious lewd fellow, which hath been burnt with a hot iron, or beareth other marks about him as a token of his punishment."