Unless you please to enter in the castle

And there repose you for this night.

BOLINGBROKE

An offer, uncle, that we will accept.

But we must win your grace to go with us

To Bristol Castle, which they say is held

By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,

The caterpillars of the commonwealth,

Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.

YORK

It may be I will go with you—but yet I’ll pause,

For I am loath to break our country’s laws.

Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.

Things past redress are now with me past care.

Exeunt

2.4 Enter the Earl of Salisbury and a Welsh Captain

WELSH CAPTAIN

My lord of Salisbury, we have stayed ten days,

And hardly kept our countrymen together,

And yet we hear no tidings from the King.

Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.

SALISBURY

Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman.

The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.

WELSH CAPTAIN

’Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay.

The bay trees in our country are all withered,

And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven.

The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,

And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.

Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap;

The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,

The other to enjoy by rage and war.

These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.

Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,

As well assured Richard their king is dead.

Exit

SALISBURY

Ah, Richard! With the eyes of heavy mind

I see thy glory, like a shooting star,

Fall to the base earth from the firmament.

Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,

Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.

Thy friends are fled to wait upon thy foes,

And crossly to thy good all fortune goes. Exit

3.1 Enter Bolingbroke Duke of Lancaster and Hereford, the Duke of York, the Earl of Northumberland, ⌈Lord Ross, Harry Percy, and Lord Willoughby⌉

BOLINGBROKE Bring forth these men.

Enter Bushy and Green, guarded as prisoners

Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls,

Since presently your souls must part your bodies,

With too much urging your pernicious lives,

For ’twere no charity. Yet to wash your blood

From off my hands, here in the view of men

I will unfold some causes of your deaths.

You have misled a prince, a royal king,

A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,

By you unhappied and disfigured clean.

You have, in manner, with your sinful hours

Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,

Broke the possession of a royal bed,

And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks

With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.

Myself—a prince by fortune of my birth,

Near to the King in blood, and near in love

Till you did make him misinterpret me—

Have stooped my neck under your injuries,

And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,

Eating the bitter bread of banishment,

Whilst you have fed upon my signories,

Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,

From my own windows torn my household coat,

Razed out my imprese, leaving me no sign,

Save men’s opinions and my living blood,

To show the world I am a gentleman.

This and much more, much more than twice all this,

Condemns you to the death.—See them delivered over

To execution and the hand of death.

BUSHY

More welcome is the stroke of death to me

Than Bolingbroke to England.

GREEN

My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,

And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

BOLINGBROKE

My lord Northumberland, see them dispatched.

Exit Northumberland, with Bushy and Green, guarded

Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house.

For God’s sake, fairly let her be intreated.

Tell her I send to her my kind commends.

Take special care my greetings be delivered.

YORK

A gentleman of mine I have dispatched

With letters of your love to her at large.

BOLINGBROKE

Thanks, gentle uncle.—Come, lords, away,

To fight with Glyndwr and his complices.

A while to work, and after, holiday.

Exeunt

3.2 ⌈Flourish.⌉ Enter King Richard, the Duke of Aumerle, the Bishop of Carlisle, and ⌈soldiers, with drum and colours⌉

KING RICHARD

Harlechly Castle call they this at hand?

AUMERLE

Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air

After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

KING RICHARD

Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy

To stand upon my kingdom once again.

He touches the ground

Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,

Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs.

As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting,

So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee my earth,

And do thee favours with my royal hands.

Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,

Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;