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.