Thy state of law is bondslave to the law,

And—

KING RICHARD

And thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool,

Presuming on an ague’s privilege,

Dar’st with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood

With fury from his native residence.

Now by my seat’s right royal majesty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward’s son,

This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head

Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, spare me not, my brother Edward’s son,

For that I was his father Edward’s son.

That blood already, like the pelican,

Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly caroused.

My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul—

Whom fair befall in heaven ‘mongst happy souls—

May be a precedent and witness good

That thou respect’st not spilling Edward’s blood.

Join with the present sickness that I have,

And thy unkindness be like crooked age,

To crop at once a too-long withered flower.

Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee.

These words hereafter thy tormentors be.

(To attendants) Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.

Love they to live that love and honour have.

Exit, [carried in the chair]

KING RICHARD

And let them die that age and sullens have,

For both hast thou, and both become the grave.

YORK

I do beseech your majesty impute his words

To wayward sickliness and age in him.

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear

As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.

KING RICHARD

Right, you say true: as Hereford’s love, so his.

As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter the Earl of Northumberland

NORTHUMBERLAND

My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

KING RICHARD

What says he?

NORTHUMBERLAND Nay, nothing: all is said.

His tongue is now a stringless instrument.

Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

YORK

Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!

Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

KING RICHARD

The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he.

His time is spent; our pilgrimage must be.

So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.

We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,

Which live like venom where no venom else

But only they have privilege to live.

And for these great affairs do ask some charge,

Towards our assistance we do seize to us

The plate, coin, revenues, and movables

Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.

YORK

How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?

Not Gloucester’s death, nor Hereford’s banishment,

Nor Gaunt’s rebukes, nor England’s private wrongs,

Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,

Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,

Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign’s face.

I am the last of noble Edward’s sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.

In war was never lion raged more fierce,

In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,

Than was that young and princely gentleman.

His face thou hast, for even so looked he,

Accomplished with the number of thy hours.

But when he frowned it was against the French,

And not against his friends. His noble hand

Did win what he did spend, and spent not that

Which his triumphant father’s hand had won.

His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,

But bloody with the enemies of his kin.

O, Richard, York is too far gone with grief,

Or else he never would compare between.

KING RICHARD

Why uncle, what’s the matter?

YORK O my liege,

Pardon me if you please; if not, I, pleased

Not to be pardoned, am content withal.

Seek you to seize and grip into your hands

The royalties and rights of banished Hereford?

Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live?

Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry true?

Did not the one deserve to have an heir?

Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

Take Hereford’s rights away, and take from Time

His charters and his customary rights:

Let not tomorrow then ensue today;

Be not thyself, for how art thou a king

But by fair sequence and succession?

Now afore God—God forbid I say true!—

If you do wrongfully seize Hereford’s rights,

Call in the letters patents that he hath

By his attorneys general to sue

His livery, and deny his offered homage,

You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,

You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,

And prick my tender patience to those thoughts

Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

KING RICHARD

Think what you will, we seize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.

YORK

I’ll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.