Again in pity of my hard distress. Levied an army, weening to redeem And have install'd me in the diadem: But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers, In whom the title rested, were suppress'd. Plan. Of which, my lord, your honor is the last. Mor. True; and thou seest that I no issue have, 90 100 And that my fainting words do warrant death: Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather: But yet be wary in thy studious care. Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me: But yet, methinks, my father's execution Was nothing less than bloody tyranny. Mor. With silence, nephew, be thou politic: Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster, And like a mountain not to be removed. But now thy uncle is removing hence; As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd With long continuance in a settled place. Plan. O, uncle, would some part of my young years Might but redeem the passage of your age! Mor. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughter doth Which giveth many wounds when one will kill. 110 88. "weening," that is, thinking. This is another departure from history. Cambridge levied no army, but was apprehended at Southampton, the night before Henry sailed from that town for France, on the information of this very earl of March.-H. N. H. 96. That is, I acknowledge thee to be my heir; the consequences growing from thence I wish you to follow out for yourself.-H. N. H. Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good; And so farewell, and fair be all thy hopes, And prosperous be thy life in peace and war! [Dies. Plan. And peace, nor war, befall thy parting soul! In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage, And like a hermit overpass'd thy days. Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast; And what I do imagine let that rest. Keepers, convey him hence, and I myself 120 Will see his burial better than his life. [Exeunt Jailors, bearing out the body of Mortimer. Or make my ill the advantage of my good. [Exit. 113. “fair be all"; Theobald; “fair befal.”—I. G. 123. "choked with ambition of the meaner sort," i. e. "shifted by the ambition of those whose right to the crown was inferior to his own."-Clarke. 129. "ill the advantage"; "ill," Theobald's emendation of "will" of the Ff. Collier MS., "will the advancer."-I. G. II-5 Flourish. ACT THIRD SCENE I London. The Parliament-house. Enter King, Exeter, Gloucester, Warwick, Somerset, and Suffolk; the Bishop of Winchester, Richard Plantagenet, and others. Gloucester offers to put up a bill; Winchester snatches it, tears it. Win. Comest thou with deep premeditated lines, With written pamphlets studiously devised, Humphrey of Gloucester? If thou canst ac cuse, Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge. As I with sudden and extemporal speech Purpose to answer what thou canst object. Glou. Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience, 10 Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonor'd me. Sc. 1. London. The Parliament-house. The writer in this scene combines three events separated by considerable intervals in Holinshed, and still further in reality: the riot between the followers of Gloucester and Winchester; their formal reconciliation; and the restitution of Plantagenet. The second took place not in London, but at the parliament of Leicester, 1426.-H. N. H. 20 Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen: No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness, Thy lewd, pestiferous and dissentious pranks, As 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. Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts are sifted The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt From envious malice of thy swelling heart. Win. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe To give me hearing what I shall reply. If I were covetous, ambitious or perverse, 13. "Verbatim," orally.-C. H. H. 30 23. This of course refers to the affair explained in the note to Act i. sc. 3, 1. 91. Holinshed relates that upon the occasion of that furious riot "the archbishop of Canterburie and the duke of Quimbre, called the prince of Portingale, rode eight times in one daie betweene the two parties, and so the matter was staied for a time. But the bishop of Winchester, to cleere himselfe of blame so far as he might, and to charge his nephue the lord protectour with all the fault, wrote a letter to the regent of France." The regent, learning how things stood at home, made Warwick his lieutenant in France, hastened over to England, and called the parliament, which began at Leicester March 25, 1426; "where the duke of Bedford openlie rebuked the lords in generall, bicause that they in time of warre, thorough their privie malice and inward grudge, had almost mooved the people to warre and commotion, in which time all men should be of one mind, hart, and consent. In this parlement the duke of Glocester laid certeine articles to the bishop of Winchester his charge."-H. N. H. Or how haps it I seek not to advance Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling? Glou. As good! Thou bastard of my grandfather! pray, But one imperious in another's throne? And useth it to patronage his theft. Win. Unreverent Gloster! Glou. Thou art reverent Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life. 50 Win. Rome shall remedy this. War. 33. "preferreth," promotes.-C. H. H. 42. Winchester was a natural son of John of Gaunt.-C. H. H. 49. "reverent," reverend, worthy of reverence. The two forms "reverent" and "reverend" were used indiscriminately in the two senses. -C. H. H. 51, 52. The jingle between roam and Rome is common to other writThus Nash, in his Lenten Stuff, 1599: “Three hundred thousand people roamed to Rome for purgatorie pills."-H. N. H. ers. |