West. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!

Clif. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and us? West. I cannot stay to hear these articles.

North. Nor I.

Clif. Come, cousin, let us tell the queen these

news.

West. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,

In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides. North. Be thou a prey unto the house of York, And die in bands for this unmanly deed! Clif. In dreadful war may'st thou be overcome! Or live in peace, abandon'd, and despis'd!

[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD, and WESTMORELAND.

War. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them

not.

Exe. They seek revenge11, and therefore will not yield.

K. Hen. Ah, Exeter!

War.

Why should you sigh, my lord? K. Hen. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my

son,

Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.

But, be it as it may:-I here entail

The crown to thee, and to thine heirs for ever; Conditionally, that here thou take an oath, To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live, To honour me as thy king and sovereign; * And neither12 by treason, nor hostility, To seek to put me down, and reign thyself. York. This oath I willingly take, and will perform. [Coming from the Throne.

11 They go away, not because they doubt the justice of this determination, but because they have been conquered, and seek to be revenged. They are not influenced by principle but passion.' JOHNSON.

12 Malone asserts that neither, either, brother, and many similar worde, were used by Shakspeare as monosyllables. Steevens doubts this, with seeming propriety, and observes that the versification of this and the preceding play has many lines as unmetrical and irregular as this.

War. Long live King Henry!-Plantagenet em. brace him.

K. Hen. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!

York. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd. Exe. Accurs'd be he, that seeks to make them foes! [Senet. The Lords come forward. York. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle13.

War. And I'll keep London, with my soldiers.
Norf. And I to Norfolk, with my followers.
Mont. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.
[Exeunt YORK, and his Sons, WARWICK,
NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, Soldiers, and
Attendants.

* K. Hen. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the

court.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the Prince of Wales. Exe. Here comes the queen, whose looks bewray14 her anger:

I'll steal away.

K. Hen.

Exeter, so will I.

[Going. 'Q. Mar. Nay, go not from me, I will follow

thee.

K. Hen. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay,
Q. Mar. Who can be patient in such extremes?
Ah, wretched man! 'would, I had died a maid,
And never seen thee, never borne thee son,
Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!
Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?
Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I;
Or felt that pain which I did for him once;
Or nourish'd him, as I did with my blood;
Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood
there,

13 Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire. 14 Betray, discover, So in King Lear:

he did bewray his practice.'

Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,

* And disinherited thine only son.

Prince. Father, you cannot disinherit me: *If you be king, why should not I succeed?

K. Hen. Pardon me, Margaret ;-pardon me, sweet son;—

* The earl of Warwick, and the duke, enforc'd me. Q. Mar. Enforc'd thee! art thou king, and wilt be forc'd?

I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch! Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me,

And given unto the house of York such head, *As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance. To entail him and his heirs unto the crown, * What is it, but to make thy sepulchre 15,

And creep into it far before thy time? Warwick is chancellor, and the lord of Calais; Stern Faulconbridge16 commands the narrow seas; The duke is made protector of the realm;

And yet shalt thou be safe? such safety finds The trembling lamb, environed with wolves.

15 The queen's reproach is founded on a position long received among politicians, that the loss of kingly power is soon followed by loss of life.

16 The person here meant was Thomas Nevil, bastard son to the Lord Faulconbridge, a man (says Hall) of no lesse corage than audacitie, who for his cruel condicions was such an apte person, that a more meter could not be chosen to set all the world in a broyle, and to put the estate of the realme on an ill hazard.' He had been appointed by Warwick vice admiral of the sea, and had in charge so to keep the passage between Dover and Calais, that none which either favoured King Henry or his friends should escape untaken or undrowned: such at least were his instructions with respect to the friends and favourers of King Edward after the rupture between him and Warwick. On Warwick's death he fell into poverty, and robbed, both by sca and land, as well friends as enemies. He once brought his ships up the Thames, and with a considerable body of the men of Kent and Essex, made a spirited assault on the city, with a view to plander and pillage, which was not repelled but after a sharp conflict, and the loss of many lives; and, had it happened at a more critical period, might have been attended with fatal consequences to Edward. After roving on the sea some little time longer, he ventured to land at Southampton, where he was taken and beheaded. See Hall and Holinshed. RITSON.

Had I been there, which am a silly woman, The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes, 'Before I would have granted to that act.

But thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour:
And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,
Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,
Until that act of parliament be repeal'd,
Whereby my son is disinherited.

The northern lords, that have forsworn thy colours,
Will follow mine, if once they see them spread:
And spread they shall be; to thy foul disgrace,
And utter ruin of the house of York.

Thus do I leave thee:- Come, son, let's away;
Our army's ready; Come, we'll after them.
K. Hen. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.
Q. Mar. Thou hast spoke too much already; get
thee gone.

K. Hen. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?

Q. Mar. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies. Prince. When I return with victory from the

field,

I'll see your grace: till then, I'll follow her. Q. Mar. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus. [Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET, and the Prince. K. Hen. Poor queen! how love to me, and to her son,

Hath made her break out into terms of rage! Reveng'd may she be on that hateful duke; Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,

Will coast my crown, and, like an empty eagle,

17 To coast is apparently to pursue, to hover about any thing. Thus in the Loyal Subject of Beaumont and Fletcher:

Take you those horse and coast them.'

So

And in The Maid of the Mill, by the same authors, two gentlemen entering, a lady asks:-Who are those that coast us? in Chapman's Version of the fifth Iliad:

Atrides yet coasts through the troops confirming men so stay'd.' And Holinshed, vol. iii. p 352:- William Douglas still coasted the Englishmen, doing them what damage he might.' See also p. 404, and other passages. Shakspeare uses it again in King

Tire 18 on the flesh of me, and of my son!
The loss of those three lords19 torments my

heart:

I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair ;—
Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.
Exe. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Room in Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire.

Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE. Rich. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.

Edw. No, I can better play the orator.

Mont. But I have reasons strong and forcible.

Enter YORK.

York. Why, how now, sons and brother1, at a strife?

What is your quarrel? how began it first?

Edw. No quarrel, but a slight contention.

Henry VIII. speaking of Wolsey's tortuous policy in the matter of the divorce, it is said :

the king perceives him how he coasts And hedges his own way

And in his Venus and Adonis:

all in haste she coasteth to the cry.'

The old form of the word appears to have been costoye, or costoie, from the French costoyer, to pursue a course alongside an object, to watch it.

18 To tire is to tear; to feed like a bird of prey, from the Anglo Saxon Tiran, Tyrian, &c. Thus in the poet's Venus and Adonis :

Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,

Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone.'

19 i. e. of Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Clifford, who had left him in disgust.

1 Shakspeare seems to have thought York and Montague brothers in law. But Montague was brother to Warwick; Warwick's daughter was married to a son of York, but not during the life of York. Steevens thought that as Shakspeare uses the expression brothers of the war in King Lear, something of the kind might be meant here.