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PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING RICHARD II.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 5.

EDMUND OF LANGLEY, Duke of York; uncle to the King.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; Act IV. sc. 1.

sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 6.

JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster; uncle to the King.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1.

HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son to John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1.

Act II. sc. 3.

Act V. sc. 3; sc. 6.

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BUSHY, a creature to King Richard. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1.

BAGOT, a creature to King Richard. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. GREEN, a creature to King Richard. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3.
Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 6.

HENRY PERCY, son to the Earl of Northumberland.

Appears, Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3.
Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 3; sc. 6.
LORD ROSS.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1.
LORD WILLOUGHBY.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1.
LORD FITZWATER.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 6.

BISHOP OF CARLISLE.

Appears, Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1.
Act V. sc. 6.

ABBOTT OF WESTMINSTER.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 1.

LORD MARSHAL; and another Lord.

Appear, Act I. sc. 3.

SIR PIERCE OF EXTON.
Appears, Act V. sc. 4; sc. 5; sc. 6.

SIR STEPHEN SCROOP. Appears, Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Captain of a band of Welchmen. Appears, Act II. sc. 4.

QUEEN to King Richard.

Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1.

DUCHESS OF GLOSTER.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2.

DUCHESS OF YORK.

Appears, Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3.

Lady attending on the Queen.

Appears, Act III. sc. 4.

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Two Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other attendants.

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Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT, and other Nobles, with him.

K. RICH. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster,

Hast thou, according to thy oath' and band",
Brought hither Henry Hereford', thy bold son;
Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,
Which then our leisure would not let us hear,

Band. Bund and bond are each the past participle passive of the verb to bind; and hence the band, that by which a thing is confined, and the bond, that by which one is constrained, are one and the same thing.

Hereford. In the old copies this title is invariably spelt and pronounced Herford. In Hardynge's Chronicle' the word is always written Herford or Harford. It is constantly Herford, as a dissyllable, in Daniel's Civile Warres.'

Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
GAUNT. I have, my liege.

K. RICH. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,
If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;

Or worthily, as a good subject should,

On some known ground of treachery in him?
GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,
On some apparent danger seen in him,

Aim'd at your highness,-no inveterate malice.
K. RICH. Then call them to our presence; face to face,
And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
The accuser, and the accused, freely speak:-
High stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,
In rage
deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

[Exeunt some Attendants.

Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and Norfolk.

BOLING. Many years of happy days befal

My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

NOR. Each day still better other's happiness;
Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
Add an immortal title to your crown!

K. RICH. We thank you both: yet one but flatters us,
As well appeareth by the cause you come a;
Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.-
Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ?
BOLING. First, (heaven be the record to my speech!)
In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live;
Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;

■ You come. On which you come: or you come on. position is not unusual.

The omission, in such a case, of the pre

And wish, (so please my sovereign,) ere I move,

What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may prove. NOR. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:

"T is not the trial of a woman's war,

The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain:
The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast,
As to be hush'd, and nought at all to say:
First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
Which else would post, until it had return'd

These terms of treason doubled a down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege,

I do defy him, and I spit at him;

Call him a slanderous coward, and a villain :
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds;
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable b
Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
Meantime, let this defend my loyalty,-
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
BOLING. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;

And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.
NOR. I take it up; and by that sword I swear,

Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:

And, when I mount, alive may I not light,

If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

K. RICH. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?

• Doubled. In folio of 1623, doubly; doubled is the reading of the quartos.

Inhabitable. Uninhabitable, unhabitable. Jonson, and Taylor the Water-poet, both use the word in this sense, strictly according to its Latin derivation.

So the quarto of 1597. The first folio reads,

"What I have spoken, or thou canst devise."

It must be great, that can inherit us a

So much as of a thought of ill in him.

BOLING. Look, what I said my life shall prove it true;—
That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles2,
In name of lendings, for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,

Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,—

That all the treasons, for these eighteen years

Complotted and contrived in this land,

Fetch'd from false Mowbray their first head and spring.

Further I say,-and further will maintain

Upon his bad life, to make all this good,

That he did plot the duke of Gloster's death;

Suggest his soon-believing adversaries;

And, consequently, like a traitor coward,

Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood:

Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,

Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

K. RICH. How high a pitch his resolution soars !—
Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
NOR. O, let my sovereign turn away his face,

And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood,
How God, and good men, hate so foul a liar.
K. RICH. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:
Were he my brother, nay, our kingdom's heir,
(As he is but my father's brother's son,)
Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialise

The unstooping firmness of my upright soul:

Inherit us. To inherit was not only used in the sense of to inherit as an heir, but in that of to receive generally. It is here used for to cause to receive, in the same way that to possess is either used for to have, or to cause to have.

Said. So the folio. In the first quarto, speak.

• Lewd, in its early signification, means misled, deluded; and thence it came to stand, as here, for wicked. The laity-" the body of the Christian people," as Gibbon calls them-were designated as lewede by the clergy. (See Tooke, vol. ii. p. 383.)

• Suggest-prompt.

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Our kingdom's heir. So the folio. The earlier copies, my kingdom's heir.

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