Bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste.

BOLINGBROKE

Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues

A banished traitor. All my treasury

Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enriched,

Shall be your love and labour’s recompense.

ROSS

Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.

WILLOUGHBY

And far surmounts our labour to attain it.

BOLINGBROKE

Evermore thank’s the exchequer of the poor,

Which till my infant fortune comes to years

Stands for my bounty.

Enter Berkeley

But who comes here?

NORTHUMBERLAND

It is my lord of Berkeley, as I guess.

BERKELEY

My lord of Hereford, my message is to you.

BOLINGBROKE

My lord, my answer is to ‘Lancaster’,

And I am come to seek that name in England,

And I must find that title in your tongue

Before I make reply to aught you say.

BERKELEY

Mistake me not, my lord, ’tis not my meaning

To raze one title of your honour out.

To you, my lord, I come—what lord you will—

From the most gracious regent of this land,

The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on

To take advantage of the absent time

And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.

Enter the Duke of York

BOLINGBROKE

I shall not need transport my words by you.

Here comes his grace in person.—My noble uncle!

He kneels

YORK

Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,

Whose duty is deceivable and false.

BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle—

YORK

Tut, tut, grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.

I am no traitor’s uncle, and that word ‘grace’

In an ungracious mouth is but profane.

Why have those banished and forbidden legs

Dared once to touch a dust of England’s ground?

But then more ‘why’: why have they dared to march

So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,

Frighting her pale-faced villages with war

And ostentation of despised arms?

Com’st thou because the anointed King is hence?

Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,

And in my loyal bosom lies his power.

Were I but now the lord of such hot youth

As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself

Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,

From forth the ranks of many thousand French,

O then how quickly should this arm of mine,

Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee

And minister correction to thy fault!

BOLINGBROKE

My gracious uncle, let me know my fault.

On what condition stands it and wherein?

YORK

Even in condition of the worst degree:

In gross rebellion and detested treason.

Thou art a banished man, and here art come

Before the expiration of thy time

In braving arms against thy sovereign.

BOLINGBROKE ⌈standing⌉

As I was banished, I was banished Hereford;

But as I come, I come for Lancaster.

And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace,

Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.

You are my father, for methinks in you

I see old Gaunt alive. O then, my father,

Will you permit that I shall stand condemned

A wandering vagabond, my rights and royalties

Plucked from my arms perforce and given away

To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?

If that my cousin King be King in England,

It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.

You have a son, Aumerle my noble kinsman.

Had you first died and he been thus trod down,

He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father

To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.

I am denied to sue my livery here,

And yet my letters patents give me leave.

My father’s goods are all distrained and sold,

And these and all are all amiss employed.

What would you have me do? I am a subject,

And I challenge law; attorneys are denied me;

And therefore personally I lay my claim

To my inheritance of free descent.

NORTHUMBERLAND

The noble Duke hath been too much abused.

ROSS

It stands your grace upon to do him right.

WILLOUGHBY

Base men by his endowments are made great.

YORK

My lords of England, let me tell you this.

I have had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs,

And laboured all I could to do him right.

But in this kind to come, in braving arms,

Be his own carver, and cut out his way

To find out right with wrong—it may not be.

And you that do abet him in this kind

Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.

NORTHUMBERLAND

The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is

But for his own, and for the right of that

We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;

And let him never see joy that breaks that oath.

YORK

Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.

I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,

Because my power is weak and all ill-left.

But if I could, by Him that gave me life,

I would attach you all, and make you stoop

Unto the sovereign mercy of the King.

But since I cannot, be it known to you

I do remain as neuter. So fare you well—