O my liege,

York.
Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to seize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
His charters and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day;
Be not thyself,-for how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters-patents that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,

And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

K. Rich. Think what you will, we seize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.

York. I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:

What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;

But by bad courses may be understood

That their events can never fall out good.

[Exit.

K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:

Bid him repair to us to Ely House

To see this business. To-morrow next

We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:
And we create, in absence of ourself,

Our uncle York lord governor of England;
For he is just, and always lov'd us well.—
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.

[Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, AUMERLE,
BUSHY, GREEN, and BAGOT.

North. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
Ross. And living too; for now his son is duke.
Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue.

North. Richly in both, if justice had her right.

Ross. My heart is great; but it must break with silence, Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

North. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak

more

That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

Willo. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?

If it be so, out with it boldly, man;

Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

Ross. No good at all, that can do for him; Unless you call it good to pity him,

Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

North. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne In him, a royal prince, and many more

Of noble blood in this declining land.

The king is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,

That will the king severely prosecute

'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

Ross. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fin'd
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
Willo. And daily new exactions are devis'd,—

As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

North. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not, But basely yielded upon compromise

That which his ancestors achiev'd with blows:
More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

Ross. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
Willo. The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.
North. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
Ross. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,

But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

North. His noble kinsman :-most degenerate king!

But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,

Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;

We see the wind set sore upon our sails,

And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

Ross. We see the very wreck that we must suffer; And unavoided is the danger now,

For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

North. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death

I spy life peering; but I dare not say

How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willo. Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

Ross. Be confident to speak, Northumberland: We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,

Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.
North. Then thus:-I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence

That Harry Duke of Hereford, Renald Lord Cobham,
That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,

His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,

Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,

Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis
Quoint,-

All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne,
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience,
And shortly mean to touch our northern shore:
Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
The first departing of the king for Ireland.
If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurg;
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,

Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

Ross. To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear. Willo. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room in the Palace.

Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and Bagot.

Bushy. Madam, your majesty is too much sad: You promis'd, when you parted with the king, To lay aside life-harming heaviness,

And entertain a cheerful disposition.

Queen. To please the king, I did; to please myself,

I cannot do it; yet I know no cause

Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
As my sweet Richard: yet, again, methinks
Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
Is coming towards me; and my inward soul
With nothing trembles: at some thing it grieves,
More than with parting from my lord the king.

Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,

Which show like grief itself, but are not so;
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects;
Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon,
Show nothing but confusion,-ey'd awry,
Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty,
Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
Finds shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail;
Which, look'd on as it is, is naught but shadows
Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,
More than your lord's departure weep not,-
Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,
Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
Queen. It may be so; but yet my inward soul
Persuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,
I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad,

-more's not seen;

As, though, on thinking, on no thought I think,-
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.

Bushy. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
Queen. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd
From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
For nothing hath begot my something grief;
Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:
"Tis in reversion that I do possess ;

But what it is, that is not yet known; what
I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

Enter GREEN.

Green. God save your majesty!—and well met, gentle

men:

I hope the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.

Queen. Why hop'st thou so? 'tis better hope he is;

For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope:

Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?

Green. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power, And driven into despair an enemy's hope,

Who strongly hath set footing in this land:
The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd

At Ravenspurg.

Queen.

Now God in heaven forbid !

Green. O madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse, The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy, The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,

With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

Bushy. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland,

And all the rest of the revolted faction,

Traitors?

Green. We have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester Hath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship,

And all the household servants fled with him

To Bolingbroke.

Queen. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe, And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:

Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;

And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.
Bushy. Despair not, madam.
Queen.

Who shall hinder me?

I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope, -he is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity.

Green. Here comes the Duke of York.
Queen. With signs of war about his aged neck:
O, full of careful business are his looks!

Enter YORK.

Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.
York. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts:
Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,
Where nothing lives but crosses, care, and grief.
Your husband, he is gone to save far off,
Whilst others come to make him lose at home:
Here am I left to underprop his land,

Who, weak with age, cannot support myself:
Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. My lord, your son was gone before I came. York. He was?-Why, so!-go all which way it will!— The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,

And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.

Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloster;
Bid her send me presently a thousand pound:-
Hold, take my ring.

Serv. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,
To-day, as I came by, I called there ;-
But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
York. What is 't, knave?