turbed and unquieted, and therefore determined there to make his abode not having time to look and gaze on justes and tourneys, but to take heed how to keep and conserve his life and dignity, and in that place tarried till he knew what way his enemies would set forward; and shortly wrote to the Earl of Northumberland his High Constable, and to the Earl of Westmoreland his High Marshal, and to other his assured friends of all the doubtful danger and perilous jeopardy. The conjurators perceiving by the lack of the Duke of Aumerle's coming, and also seeing no preparation made there for the King's coming, imagined with themselves that their enterprise was intimate and published to the King. Wherefore that thing which they attempted privily to do, now openly with spear and shield they determined with all diligent celerity to set forth and advance. And so they adorned Magdalene, a man resembling much King Richard, in royal and princely vesture, calling him King Richard, affirming that he by favour of his keepers was delivered out of prison and set at liberty, and they followed in a quadrat array to the extent to destroy King Henry as the most pernicious and venomous enemy to them and his own natural country. While the confederates with this new published idol accompanied with a puissant army of men, took the direct way and passage towards Windsor, King Henry being admonished of their approaching, with a few horse in the night, came to the Tower of London about twelve of the clock, where he in the morning caused the Mayor of the city to apparel in armour the best and most courageous persons of the city, which brought to him three thousand archers and three thousand billmen, beside them that were deputed to defend the city.

The lords of the confederacy entered the Castle of Windsor, where they finding not their prey, determined with all speed to pass forth to London. But in the way, changing their purpose they returned to the town of Colbrook, and there tarried. These lords had much people following them, what for fear and what for entreaty, surely believing that king Richard was there present and in company. King Henry issued out of London with twenty thousand men, and came to Hounslow Heath, where he pitched his camp, abiding the coming of his enemies but when they were advertised of the king's puissance, or else amazed with fear, or forethinking and repenting their bygone baseness, or mistrusting their own company and fellows, departed from thence to Berkhamstead, and so to Chichester, and there the lords took their lodging: The duke of Surrey, earl of Kent, and the earl of Salisbury in one inn, and the duke of Exeter, and the earl of Gloucester in another, and all the host lay in the fields. The Bailey of the town, with four score archers, set on the house where the duke of Surrey and other lay: the house was manly assaulted and strongly defended a great space. The duke of Exeter being in another inn with the earl of Gloucester, set fire on divers houses in the town, thinking that the assailants would leave their assault and rescue their goods, which thing they nothing regarded. The host lying without hearing noise and seeing fire in the town, believing that the king was come thither with his puissance, fled without measure to save themselves. The duke of Exeter and his company seeing the force of the townsmen more and more encrease, fled out of the backside entending to repair to the army, which they found dispersed and retired. Then the duke seeing no hope of comfort, fled into Essex, and the earl of Gloucester going toward Wales was taken and beheaded at Bristow. Magdalene flying into Scotland, was apprehended and brought to the tower. The lords which fought still in the town of Chichester were wounded to death, and taken, and their heads stricken off and sent to London and there were taken Sir Bennet Shelley or Cell, and Sir Barnard Brokas, and twenty-nine other lords, knights, and esquires, and sent to Oxford, where the king then sojourned, where Sir Thomas Blount and all the other prisoners were executed. When the duke of Exeter heard that his complices were taken,

and his counsellors apprehended, and his friends and allies put in execution, he lamented his own chance, and bewept the misfortune of his friends, but most of all bewailed the fatal end of his brother king Richard, whose death he saw as in a mirror by his unhappy sedition and malicious attempt to approach, and so wandering, lurking and hiding himself in privy places, was attacked in Essex, and in the lordship of Plasshey, a town of the duchess of Gloucester, and there made shorter by the head, and in that place especially, because that he in the same lordship seduced and falsely betrayed Thomas duke of Gloucester, and was the very onward actor and open dissimulor of his death and destruction. So the common proverb was verified, as you have done so shall you feel.

123.-THE REVOLT OF THE PERCIES.

SHAKSPERE.

[Holinshed thus describes the origin of the quarrel between the Percies and the king:"Henry, Earl of Northumberland, with his brother Thomas, Earl of Worcester, and his son, the Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, which were to King Henry, in the beginning of his reign, both faithful friends, and earnest aiders, began now to envy his wealth and felicity; and especially they were grieved, because the king demanded of the earl and his son such Scottish prisoners as were taken at Homeldon and Nesbit: for of all the captives which were taken in the conflicts fought in those two places, there was delivered to the king's possession only Mordake, Earl of Fife, the Duke of Albany's son, though the king did divers and sundry times require the deliverance of the residue, and that with great threatenings: wherewith the Percies being sore offended, for that they claimed them as their own proper prisoners, and their peculiar prizes, by the council of the Lord Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, whose study was ever (as some write) to procure malice, and set things in a broil, came to the king unto Windsor (upon a purpose to prove him), and there required of him, that either by ransom or otherwise, he would cause to be delivered out of prison Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, their cousin german, whom (as they reported) Owen Glendower kept in filthy prison, shackled with irons, only for that he took his part, and was to him faithful and true.

"The king, when he had studied on the matter, made answer, that the Earl of March was not taken prisoner for his cause, nor in his service, but willingly suffered himself to be taken, because he would not withstand the attempts of Owen Glendower and his complices, therefore he would neither ransom him nor release him.

"The Percies with this answer and fraudulent excuse were not a little fumed, insomuch that Henry Hotspur said openly: Behold, the heir of the realm is robbed of his right, and yet the robber with his own will not redeem him. So in this fury the Percies departed, minding nothing more than to depose King Henry from the high type of his royalty, and to place in his seat their cousin Edmund, Earl of March, whom they did not only deliver out of captivity, but also (to the high displeasure of King Henry) entered in league with the foresaid Owen Glendower."

The refusal of Henry IV. to ransom Mortimer, or to allow him to be ransomed, proceeded from a not unnatural jealousy; but the prisoner of Glendower was not "the heir of the realm," as Holinshed represents, but Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the young Earl of March, whom Henry kept in close custody, because he had a prior claim to the crown by succession. Sir Edmund Mortimer was the "brother-in-law" to Hotspur, who had married his sister. Shakspere has, of course, followed Holinshed in confounding Sir Edmund Mortimer with the Earl of March;-but those from whom accuracy is required, have fallen into the same error as the old Chronicler,-amongst others Rapin and Hume. A despatch of the king to his council states, "The rebels have taken my beloved cousin, Esmon Mortymer." Edmund, Earl of March, was at this period only ten years old, and a state prisoner.

The Earl of Westmoreland, who appears throughout this play as one of the most faithful adherents of the king, was a partisan of Bolingbroke from his first landing. He was subsequently actively engaged in suppressing the insurrection in Yorkshire.]

SCENE-King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt,

and others.

K. Hen. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

Unapt to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me; for, accordingly,

You tread upon my patience: but, be sure,

I will from henceforth rather be myself
Mighty, and to be fear'd, than my condition;
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.

Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves

The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that saine greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

Were, as he says, not with such strength denied

As was deliver'd to your majesty:

Either envy, therefore, or misprision,

Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

Hot.. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But, I remember when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;

He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose, and took 't away again;

Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff: and still he smil'd and talked ;

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by

He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

[Exit Wor. To North.

I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience

Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what ;

He should, or should not ;-for he made me mad,

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark)

And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villainous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow hath destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
And, I beseech you, let not this report
Come current for an accusation,

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

Blunt. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,

Whatever Harry Percy then had said

To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

K. Hen. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners;
But with proviso, and exception,

That we, at our own charge, shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;

Who, in my soul, hath wilfully betray'd
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against the great magician, damn'd Glendower;
Whose daughter, as we hear, the earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers then
Be emptied, to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with feres,
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

Hot. Revolted Mortimer!

He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,

But by the chance of war ;-To prove that true

Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,
When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,

In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour

G G

In changing hardiment with great Glendower:

Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;

Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy

Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer

Receive so many, and all willingly :

Then let him not be slander'd with revolt.

K. Hen. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;

He never did encounter with Glendower.

[Exeunt King Henry, Blunt and T.ain.

Hot. And if the devil come and roar for them,

I will not send them :-I will after straight,
And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,
Although it be with hazard of my head.

North. What, drunk with choler? stay, and pause
Here comes your uncle.

awhile;

Hot.

Re-enter Worcester.

Speak of Mortimer ?

'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul

Want mercy, if I do not join with him :

In his behalf I'll empty all these veins,

And shed my dear blood drop by drop i' the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer

As high i' the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.

North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.

Wor. Who struck this heat up, after I was gone?
Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;

And when I urg'd the ransom once again

Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd fale;
And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,

Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

Wor. I cannot blame him: Was he not proclaim'd,

By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?

North. He was I heard the proclamation :

To Worcester.