Your children yet unborn and unbegot,

That lift your vassal hands against my head

And threat the glory of my precious crown.

Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he is,

That every stride he makes upon my land

Is dangerous treason. He is come to open

The purple testament of bleeding war;

But ere the crown he looks for live in peace

Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons

Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,

Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace

To scarlet indignation, and bedew

Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.

NORTHUMBERLAND ⌈kneeling⌉

The King of heaven forbid our lord the King

Should so with civil and uncivil arms

Be rushed upon. Thy thrice-noble cousin

Harry Bolingbroke doth humbly kiss thy hand,

And by the honourable tomb he swears,

That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones,

And by the royalties of both your bloods,

Currents that spring from one most gracious head,

And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,

And by the worth and honour of himself,

Comprising all that may be sworn or said, no

His coming hither hath no further scope

Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg

Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;

Which on thy royal party granted once,

His glittering arms he will commend to rust,

His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart

To faithful service of your majesty.

This swears he as he is a prince and just,

And as I am a gentleman I credit him.

KING RICHARD

Northumberland, say thus the King returns:

His noble cousin is right welcome hither,

And all the number of his fair demands

Shall be accomplished without contradiction.

With all the gracious utterance thou hast,

Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.

Northumberland and the trumpeter return to Bolingbroke

(To Aumerle) We do debase ourself, cousin, do we not,

To look so poorly and to speak so fair?

Shall we call back Northumberland, and send

Defiance to the traitor, and so die?

AUMERLE

No, good my lord, let’s fight with gentle words

Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.

KING RICHARD

O God, O God, that e‘er this tongue of mine,

That laid the sentence of dread banishment

On yon proud man, should take it off again

With words of sooth! O, that I were as great

As is my grief, or lesser than my name,

Or that I could forget what I have been,

Or not remember what I must be now!

Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope to beat,

Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.

Northumberland advances to the walls

AUMERLE

Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.

KING RICHARD

What must the King do now? Must he submit?

The King shall do it. Must he be deposed?

The King shall be contented. Must he lose

The name of King? A God’s name, let it go.

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,

My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,

My figured goblets for a dish of wood,

My sceptre for a palmer’s walking staff,

My subjects for a pair of carved saints,

And my large kingdom for a little grave,

A little, little grave, an obscure grave;

Or I’ll be buried in the King’s highway,

Some way of common trade where subjects’ feet

May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head,

For on my heart they tread now, whilst I live,

And buried once, why not upon my head?

Aumerle, thou weep‘st, my tender-hearted cousin.

We’ll make foul weather with despised tears.

Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,

And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,

And make some pretty match with shedding tears;

As thus to drop them still upon one place

Till they have fretted us a pair of graves

Within the earth, and therein laid? ‘There lies

Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.’

Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see

I talk but idly and you mock at me.

Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,

What says King Bolingbroke? Will his majesty

Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?

You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ‘Ay’.

NORTHUMBERLAND

My lord, in the base court he doth attend

To speak with you. May it please you to come down?

KING RICHARD

Down, down I come like glist’ring Phaethon,

Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

In the base court: base court where kings grow base

To come at traitors’ calls, and do them grace.

In the base court, come down: down court, down

King,

For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.