Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.
What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.
LORD HASTINGS
Come, come, have with you! Wot you what, my lord?
Today the lords you talked of are beheaded.
STANLEY
They for their truth might better wear their heads
Than some that have accused them wear their hats.
But come, my lord, let us away.
Enter a Pursuivant named ⌈hastings⌉
LORD HASTINGS
Go on before; I’ll follow presently.
Exeunt Stanley and Catesby
Well met, Hastings. How goes the world with thee?
PURSUIVANT
The better that your lordship please to ask.
LORD HASTINGS
I tell thee, man, ‘tis better with me now
Than when I met thee last, where now we meet.
Then was I going prisoner to the Tower,
By the suggestion of the Queen’s allies;
But now, I tell thee—keep it to thyself—
This day those enemies are put to death,
And I in better state than e’er I was.
PURSUIVANT
God hold it to your honour’s good content.
LORD HASTINGS
Gramercy, Hastings. There, drink that for me.
He throws him his purse
PURSUIVANT God save your lordship.
Exit
Enter a Priest
PRIEST
Well met, my lord. I am glad to see your honour.
LORD HASTINGS
I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.
I am in your debt for your last exercise.
Come the next sabbath, and I will content you.
⌈He whispers in his ear.⌉
Enter Buckingham
BUCKINGHAM
What, talking with a priest, Lord Chamberlain?
Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;
Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.
LORD HASTINGS
Good faith, and when I met this holy man
The men you talk of came into my mind.
What, go you toward the Tower?
BUCKINGHAM
I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;
I shall return before your lordship thence.
LORD HASTINGS
Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.
BUCKINGHAM (aside)
And supper too, although thou know’st it not.
Come, will you go?
LORD HASTINGS
I’ll wait upon your lordship.
Exeunt
3.3 Enter Sir Richard Ratcliffe with Halberdiers taking Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and Sir Thomas Vaughan to death at Pomfret
RIVERS
Sir Richard Ratcliffe, let me tell thee this:
Today shalt thou behold a subject die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
GRAY (to Ratcliffe)
God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!
A knot you are of damned bloodsuckers.
VAUGHAN (to Ratcliffe)
You live, that shall cry woe for this hereafter.
RATCLIFFE
Dispatch. The limit of your lives is out.
RIVERS
O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls,
Richard the Second here was hacked to death,
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
GRAY
Now Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.
RIVERS
Then cursed she Hastings; then cursed she Buckingham;
Then cursed she Richard. O remember, God,
To hear her prayer for them as now for us.
And for my sister and her princely sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.
RATCLIFFE
Make haste: the hour of death is expiate.
RIVERS
Come, Gray; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.
Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.
Exeunt
3.4 Enter the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Stanley Earl of Derby, Lord Hastings, Bishop of Ely, the Duke of Norfolk, ⌈Sir William Catesby⌉, with others at a table
LORD HASTINGS
Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met
Is to determine of the coronation.
In God’s name, speak: when is the royal day?
BUCKINGHAM
Is all things ready for that solemn time?
STANLEY
It is, and wants but nomination.
BISHOP OF ELY
Tomorrow, then, I judge a happy day.
BUCKINGHAM
Who knows the Lord Protector’s mind herein?
Who is most inward with the noble Duke?
BISHOP OF ELY
Your grace, methinks, should soonest know his mind.
BUCKINGHAM
We know each other’s faces. For our hearts,
He knows no more of mine than I of yours,
Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.—
Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
LORD HASTINGS
I thank his grace; I know he loves me well.
But for his purpose in the coronation,
I have not sounded him, nor he delivered
His gracious pleasure any way therein.
But you, my honourable lords, may name the time,
And in the Duke’s behalf I’ll give my voice,
Which I presume he’ll take in gentle part.
Enter Richard Duke of Gloucester
BISHOP OF ELY
In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
My noble lords, and cousins all, good morrow.
I have been long a sleeper, but I trust
My absence doth neglect no great design
Which by my presence might have been concluded.
BUCKINGHAM
Had not you come upon your cue, my lord,
William Lord Hastings had pronounced your part—
I mean, your voice, for crowning of the King.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Than my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder.
His lordship knows me well, and loves me well.—
My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn
I saw good strawberries in your garden there.
I do beseech you send for some of them.
BISHOP OF ELY
Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart. Exit
RICHARD GLOUCESTER
Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.