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 wither'd flower..
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!—
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!—
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:

Love they to live, that love and honour have.

[Exit, borne out by his Attendants.

K. Rich. 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.

K. Rich. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love, so his : As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.Y

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

K. Rich. What says he now?

North.

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.

K. Rich. 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, hath privilege to live.

* Love they-] That is, let them love.

y

Z

a

Northumberland.] Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland.
kerns;] They were Irish foot soldiers, always represented as very

poor and wild.

a

where no venom else,] This alludes to a tradition that St. Patrick freed the kingdom of Ireland from venomous reptiles of every kind.STEEVENS.

And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance, we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

York. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?

Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Not Gaunt's rebuke, 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 rag'd more fierce,
In peace, was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman:
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But, when he frown'd, 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's 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.
K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York.

O, my liege,

Pardon me, if you please; if not, I pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to seize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?

b Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About his marriage,] When the duke of Hereford, after his banishment, went into France, he was honourably entertained at that court, and would have obtained in marriage the only daughter of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, had not Richard prevented the match.-STEEVENS.

c Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours ;] i. e. When he was of thy age. MALONE.

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 to-morrow then ensue to-day;
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 attornies-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd 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.

K. Rich. 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: What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell ; But by bad courses may be understood,

That their events can never fall out good.

[Exit.

K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wiltshire straight; Bid him repair to us to Ely-house,

To see this business: To-morrow next

We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow;

And we create, in absence of ourself,

Our uncle York lord governor of England.
For he is just, and always lov'd us well.-

Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part ;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.

[Flourish.

[Exeunt King, Queen, BUSHY, AUMERLE,
GREEN, and BAGOT.

North. Well, lords, the duke of Lancaster is dead.
Ross. And living too; for now his son is duke.
Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue.

North. Richly in both, if justice had her right.

a His livery,] Livery is a writ which lies for an heir to obtain possession of his land at the king's hand.

- deny his offer'd homage,] That is, refuse to admit the homage, by which he is to hold his lands.-JOHNSON.

Ross. My heart is great; but it must break with silence, Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

North. Nay speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak That speaks thy words again, to do thee harm! [more, Willo. Tends that thou'dst speak, to the duke of HereIf it be so, out with it boldly, man;

Quick is mine ear, to hear of good towards him.

Ross. No good at all, that I can do for him;

Unless you call it good, to pity him,

Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

[ford?

North. Now, afore heaven, 'tis shame, such wrongs are borne,

In him a royal prince, and many more
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The king is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,
That will the king severely prosecute

'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

Ross. The commons bath he pill'd' with grievous taxes, And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fin'd For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

Willo. And daily new exactions are devis'd; As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what ; But what, o'God's name, doth become of this?

North. Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not, But basely yielded upon compromise

That which his ancestors achiev'd with blows:
More hath he spent in peace, than they in wars.

Ross. The earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
Willo. The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.
North. Reproach, and dissolution, hangeth over him.
Ross. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,

But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

pill'd-] i. e. Fleec'd.

As blanks, benevolences, &c.] Stow records, that Richard the Second, "compelled all the religious, gentlemen, and commons to set their seales to blankes, to the end he might, if it pleased him, oppresse them severally, or all at once: some of the commons paid 1000 markes, some 1000 pounds." Chronicle, p. 319. fol. 1639.-HOLT WHITE.

North. His noble kinsman: most degenerate king! But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,

Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm:

We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,

h

And yet we strike not, but securely1 perish.

Ross. We see the very wreck that we must suffer; And unavoided is the danger now,

For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

North. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death, I spy life peering; but I dare not say

How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willo. Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours. Ross. Be confident to speak, Northumberland:

We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,

Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.
North. Then thus:-I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Britanny, receiv'd intelligence,

That Harry Hertford, Reignold lord Cobham,'

That late broke from the duke of Exeter,"
His brother, archbishop late of Canterbury,"

Sir Thomas Erpingham, sir John Ramston,

Sir John Norberry, sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint,-

All these, well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne,

With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,

h And yet we strike not,] To strike the sails, is, to contract them when there is too much wind.-JOHNSON.

k

1

securely-] i. e. Carelessly.

unavoided-] For unavoidable.

Reignold lord Cobham,] Because Mr. Ritson remarked that in Holinshed there was the following rough line,

"The son and heir of the late earl of Arundel,"

Malone manufactured a verse to the same purport:

"The son of Richard earl of Arundel,'

Which has in all the later editions been forced into the text.

m

[The son of Richard earl of Arundel,]

That late broke from the duke of Exeter,] I suspect that some of these lines are transposed, as well as that the poet has made a blunder in his enumeration of persons. No copy that I have seen, will authorize me to make an alteration, though, according to Holinshed, whom Shakspeare followed in great measure, more than one is necessary.-STEEVENS.

archbishop late of Canterbury,] Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, brother to the earl of Arundel who was beheaded in this reign, had been banished by the parliament, and afterwards deprived by the pope of his see, at the request of the king; whence he is here called late of Canterbury.

-STEEVENS.