DUCHESS OF YORK

Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,

How many of you have mine eyes beheld?

My husband lost his life to get the crown,

And often up and down my sons were tossed,

For me to joy and weep their gain and loss.

And being seated, and domestic broils

Clean overblown, themselves the conquerors

Make war upon themselves, brother to brother,

Blood to blood, self against self. O preposterous

And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,

Or let me die, to look on death no more.

QUEEN ELIZABETH (to York)

Come, come, my boy, we will to sanctuary.—

Madam, farewell.

DUCHESS OF YORK Stay, I will go with you.

QUEEN ELIZABETH

You have no cause.

⌈CARDINAL⌉ (to Elizabeth) My gracious lady, go,

And thither bear your treasure and your goods.

For my part, I’ll resign unto your grace

The seal I keep, and so betide to me

As well I tender you and all of yours.

Go, I’ll conduct you to the sanctuary. Exeunt

3.1 The Trumpets sound. Enter young Prince Edward, the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham, Lord Cardinal, with others, including ⌈Lord Stanley Earl of Derby and⌉ Sir William Catesby

BUCKINGHAM

Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your chamber.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER (to Prince Edward)

Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts’ sovereign.

The weary way hath made you melancholy.

PRINCE EDWARD

No, uncle, but our crosses on the way

Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.

I want more uncles here to welcome me.

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your years

Hath not yet dived into the world’s deceit,

Nor more can you distinguish of a man

Than of his outward show, which God he knows

Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.

Those uncles which you want were dangerous.

Your grace attended to their sugared words,

But looked not on the poison of their hearts.

God keep you from them, and from such false friends.

PRINCE EDWARD

God keep me from false friends; but they were none.

Enter Lord Mayor ⌈and his train⌉

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet you.

MAYOR (kneeling to Prince Edward)

God bless your grace with health and happy days.

PRINCE EDWARD

I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.—

I thought my mother and my brother York

Would long ere this have met us on the way.

Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he hastes not

To tell us whether they will come or no.

Enter Lord Hastings

BUCKINGHAM

In happy time here comes the sweating lord.

PRINCE EDWARD (to Hastings)

Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?

LORD HASTINGS

On what occasion God he knows, not I,

The Queen your mother, and your brother York,

Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince

Would fain have come with me to meet your grace,

But by his mother was perforce withheld.

BUCKINGHAM

Fie, what an indirect and peevish course

Is this of hers !—Lord Cardinal, will your grace

Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York

Unto his princely brother presently?—

If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,

And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.

CARDINAL

My lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory

Can from his mother win the Duke of York,

Anon expect him. But if she’ be obdurate

To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid

We should infringe the sacred privilege

Of blessed sanctuary. Not for all this land

Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.

BUCKINGHAM

You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,

Too ceremonious and traditional.

Weigh it not with the grossness of this age.

You break not sanctuary in seizing him.

The benefit thereof is always granted

To those whose dealings have deserved the place,

And those who have the wit to claim the place.

This prince hath neither claimed it nor deserved it,

And therefore, in my mind, he cannot have it.

Then taking him from thence that ‘longs not there,

You break thereby no privilege nor charter.

Oft have I heard of ‘sanctuary men‘,

But ‘sanctuary children’ ne’er till now.

CARDINAL

My lord, you shall o’errule my mind for once.—

Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?

LORD HASTINGS I come, my lord.

PRINCE EDWARD

Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.—

Exeunt Cardinal and Hastings

Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,

Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?

RICHARD GLOUCESTER

Where it seems best unto your royal self.

If I may counsel you, some day or two

Your highness shall repose you at the Tower,

Then where you please and shall be thought most fit

For your best health and recreation.

PRINCE EDWARD

I do not like the Tower of any place.—

Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?

BUCKINGHAM

He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,

Which since succeeding ages have re-edified.

PRINCE EDWARD

Is it upon record, or else reported

Successively from age to age, he built it?

BUCKINGHAM

Upon record, my gracious liege.

PRINCE EDWARD

But say, my lord, it were not registered,

Methinks the truth should live from age to age,

As ‘twere retailed to all posterity