RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Even so. An’t please your worship, Brackenbury,
You may partake of anything we say.
We speak no treason, man. We say the King
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble Queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous.
We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip,
A bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue,
And that the Queen’s kin are made gentlefolks.
How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
BRACKENBURY
With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Naught to do with Mrs Shore? I tell thee, fellow:
He that doth naught with her—excepting one—
Were best to do it secretly alone.
BRACKENBURY What one, my lord?
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Her husband, knave. Wouldst thou betray me?
BRACKENBURY
I beseech your grace to pardon me, and do withal
Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.
CLARENCE
We know thy charge, Brackenbury, and will obey.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
We are the Queen’s abjects, and must obey.
Brother, farewell. I will unto the King,
And whatsoe‘er you will employ me in—
Were it to call King Edward’s widow ‘sister’—
I will perform it to enfranchise you.
Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
Touches me dearer than you can imagine.
CLARENCE
I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Well, your imprisonment shall not be long.
I will deliver you or lie for you.
Meantime, have patience.
CLARENCE
I must perforce. Farewell.
Exeunt Clarence, Brackenbury, and guard, to the Tower
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Go tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.
Simple plain Clarence, I do love thee so
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.
But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?
Enter Lord Hastings from the Tower
LORD HASTINGS
Good time of day unto my gracious lord.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain.
Well are you welcome to the open air.
How hath your lordship brooked imprisonment?
LORD HASTINGS
With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must.
But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks
That were the cause of my imprisonment.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
No doubt, no doubt—and so shall Clarence too,
For they that were your enemies are his,
And have prevailed as much on him as you.
LORD HASTINGS
More pity that the eagles should be mewed
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER What news abroad? 135
LORD HASTINGS
No news so bad abroad as this at home:
The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Now by Saint Paul, that news is bad indeed.
O he hath kept an evil diet long,
And overmuch consumed his royal person.
’Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
Where is he ? In his bed ?
LORD HASTINGS He is.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Go you before and I will follow you. Exit Hastings
He cannot live, I hope, and must not die
Till George be packed with post-haste up to heaven.
I’ll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steeled with weighty arguments.
And if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live—
Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy
And leave the world for me to bustle in.
For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.
What though I killed her husband and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends
Is to become her husband and her father,
The which will I: not all so much for love,
As for another secret close intent,
By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market.
Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
Exit
1.2 Enter gentlemen, bearing the corpse of King Henry the Sixth in an open coffin, with halberdiers to guard it, Lady Anne being the mourner
LADY ANNE
Set down, set down your honourable load,
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,
Whilst I a while obsequiously lament
Th’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
They set the coffin down
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood:
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,
Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds.
Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
O cursed be the hand that made these holes,
Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence,
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it.
More direful hap betide that hated wretch
That makes us wretched by the death of thee
Than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venomed thing that lives.
If ever he have child, abortive be it,