Shakespeare's Henriad (Book 1-4). William Hazlitt
An offer, uncle, that we will accept:
But we must win your Grace to go with us
To Bristol Castle, which they say is held
By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
YORK.
It may be I will go with you; but yet I’ll pause,
For I am loath to break our country’s laws.
Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.
Things past redress are now with me past care.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV.
A camp in Wales.
[Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a CAPTAIN.]
CAPTAIN.
My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay’d ten days
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the King;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.
SALISBURY.
Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;
The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
CAPTAIN.
‘Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay trees in our country are all wither’d,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-fac’d moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
Farewell: our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assur’d Richard their king is dead.
[Exit.]
SALISBURY.
Ah, Richard! with the eyes of heavy mind,
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes,
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.
[Exit.]
ACT 3
SCENE I.
Bristol. Bolingbroke’s camp.
[Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, ROSS; Officers behind, with BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners.]
BOLINGBROKE.
Bring forth these men.
Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls—
Since presently your souls must part your bodies—
With too much urging your pernicious lives,
For ‘twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood
From off my hands, here in the view of men
I will unfold some causes of your deaths.
You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
By you unhappied and disfigur’d clean;
You have in manner with your sinful hours
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,
Broke the possession of a royal bed,
And stain’d the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the King in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me,
Have stoop’d my neck under your injuries,
And sigh’d my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment;
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Dispark’d my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Raz’d out my impress, leaving me no sign
Save men’s opinions and my living blood
To show the world I am a gentleman.
This and much more, much more than twice all this,
Condemns you to the death. See them deliver’d over
To execution and the hand of death.
BUSHY.
More welcome is the stroke of death to me
Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
GREEN.
My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
BOLINGBROKE.
My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch’d.
[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others, with BUSHY and GREEN.]
Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;
For God’s sake, fairly let her be entreated:
Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
Take special care my greetings be deliver’d.
YORK.
A gentleman of mine I have dispatch’d
With letters of your love to her at large.
BOLINGBROKE.
Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
To fight with Glendower and his complices.
Awhile to work, and after holiday.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II.
The coast of Wales. A castle in view.
[Flourish: drums and trumpets. Enter KING RICHARD, the BISHOP OF
CARLISLE, AUMERLE, and soldiers.]
KING RICHARD.
Barkloughly Castle call they this at hand?
AUMERLE.
Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air