Shakespeare's Henriad (Book 1-4). William Hazlitt
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
AUMERLE.
My liege, one word.
KING RICHARD.
He does me double wrong
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
From Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Wales.
Before Flint Castle.
[Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE and Forces; YORK,
NORTHUMBERLAND, and Others.]
BOLINGBROKE.
So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispers’d; and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
The news is very fair and good, my lord.
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
YORK.
It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say ‘King Richard’: alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,
Left I his title out.
YORK.
The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head’s length.
BOLINGBROKE.
Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
YORK.
Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
Lest you mistake. The heavens are o’er our heads.
BOLINGBROKE.
I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself
Against their will. But who comes here?
[Enter HENRY PERCY.]
Welcome, Harry: what, will not this castle yield?
PERCY.
The castle royally is mann’d, my lord,
Against thy entrance.
BOLINGBROKE.
Royally!
Why, it contains no king?
PERCY.
Yes, my good lord,
It doth contain a king; King Richard lies
Within the limits of yon lime and stone;
And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
O! belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
BOLINGBROKE.
[To NORTHUMBERLAND.] Noble lord,
Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
Into his ruin’d ears, and thus deliver:
Henry Bolingbroke
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand,
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
To his most royal person; hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
Provided that my banishment repeal’d
And lands restor’d again be freely granted;
If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power
And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood
Rain’d from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;
The which, how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
It is, such crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
Go, signify as much, while here we march
Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
That from this castle’s totter’d battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perus’d.
Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water, when their thund’ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;
The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
My waters; on the earth, and not on him.
March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.
[A Parley sounded, and answered by a Trumpet within.
Flourish. Enter on the Walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY.]
HENRY PERCY.
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east,
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
To dim his glory and to stain the track
Of his bright passage to the occident.
YORK.
Yet he looks like a king: behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty: alack, alack, for woe,
That any harm should stain so fair a show!
KING RICHARD.
[To NORTHUMBERLAND.] We are amaz’d; and thus long
have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king;
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismiss’d us from our stewardship;
For well we know no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends,
Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,