1 Murd. No, we 'll reason with him.

[Exit Brakenbury.

Clar. Where art thou, keeper i give me a cup of wine.
1 Murd. You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.
Clar. In God's name, what art thou?

1 Murd. A man, as you are.

Clar. But not, as I am, royal.

1 Murd. Nor you, as we are, loyal.

Clar. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble. 1 Murd. My voice is now the king's, my looks mine own. Clar. How darkly, and how deadly dost thou speak! Your eyes do menace me: Why look you pale? Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come 2 Murd. To, to, to

Clar. To murther me ?

Both Murd. Ay, ay.

Clar. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,
And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.
Wherein, my friends, have I offended you ?

1 Murd. Offended us you have not, but the king.
Clar. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.

2 Murd. Never, my lord; therefore, prepare to die.
Clar. Are you drawn forth among a world of men,
To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounc'd
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?
Before I be convict by course of law,
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
I charge you, as you hope for any goodness,
That you depart, and lay no hands on me ;
The deed you undertake is damnable.

1 Murd. What we will do we do upon command.
2 Murd. And he that hath commanded is our king.

Clar. Erroneous vassal! the great King of kings

Hath in the table of his law commanded,

That thou shalt do no murther: Will you then

Spurn at his edict, and fulfil a man's?

Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand,

To hurl upon their heads that break his law.

2 Murd. And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,

For false forswearing, and for murther too:

Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight

In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.

1 Murd. And, like a traitor to the name of God,

Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade
Unrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.

2 Murd. Whom thou was sworn to cherish and defend.

1 Murd. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us, When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?

Clar. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?

For Edward, for my brother, for his sake:

He sends you not to murther me for this;

For in that sin he is as deep as I.

If God will be avenged for the deed,

O, know you, yet he doth it publicly;

Take not the quarrel from his powerful arın ;
He needs no indirect or lawless course,

To cut off those that have offended him.

1 Murd. Who made thee then a bloody minister, When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet,

That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?

Clar. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage,

1 Murd. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy faults, Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.

Clar. If you do love my brother, hate not me;

I am his brother, and I love him well.

If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloster;
Who shall reward you better for my life
Than Edward will for tidings of my death.

2 Murd. You are deceiv'd, your brother Gloster hates you.
Clar. O, no; he loves me, and he holds me dear;

Clar. Tell him, when that our princely father York

Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm,

And charg❜d us from his soul to love each other,

He little thought of this divided friendship:

Bid Gloster think on this, and he will weep.

1 Murd. Ay, mill-stones; as he lesson'd us to weep.

Clar. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.

1 Murd. Right, as snow in harvest.-Come, you deceive yourself

"T is he that sends us to destroy you here.

Clar. It cannot be, for he bewept my fortune.

And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,
That he would labour my delivery.

1 Murd. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.

2 Murd. Make peace with God, for you must die, my
Clar. Have you that holy feeling in your souls,

To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And are you yet to your own souls so blind,
That you will war with God, by murthering me?

Oh, sirs, consider, they that set you on

To do this deed will hate you for the deed. 2 Murd. What shall we do

lord.

Clar.

1 Murd. Relent!

Relent, and save your souls.

No. T is cowardly and womanish.
Clar. Not to relent, is beastly, savage, devilish.—

My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;

O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,

Come thou on my side, and entreat for me:
A begging prince, what beggar pities not?
Which of you, if you were a prince's son,
Being pent from liberty, as I am now,

If two such murtherers as yourselves came to you,
Would not entreat for life,—as you would beg

Were you in distress?

my

2 Murd. Look behind you, my lord.

1 Murd. Take that, and that; if all this will not do,

I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.

[Stabs him.

[Exit, with the body.

2 Murd. A bloody deed, and desperately despatch'd!
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous murder!

141.-THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

The lord protector caused a council to be set at the Tower on the Friday the thirteenth day of June, where was much communing for the honourable solemnity of the coronation, of the which the time appointed approached so near that the pageants were a making day and night at Westminster, and victual killed which afterward was cast away.

These lords thus sitting communing of this matter, the protector came in among them about nine of the clock, saluting them courteously, excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saying merely that he had been a sleeper that day; and after a little talking with them he said to the Bishop of Ely, My lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden at Holborn, I require you let us have a mess of them. Gladly, my lord, (qd he,) I would I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that: and with that in all haste he sent his servant for a dish of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon prayed them to spare him a little, and so he departed, and came again between ten and eleven of the clock into the chamber all changed, with a sour angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning, and fretting, and gnawing on his lips, and so set him down in his place. All the lords were dismayed, and sore marvelled of this manner and sudden change, and what thing should him ail. When he had sitten a while, thus he began: What were they worthy to have that compass and imagine the destruction of me, being so near of blood to the king, and protector of this his royal realm ? At which question all the lords sat sore astonished, musing much by whom the question should be meant, of which every man knew himself clear.

Then the Lord Hastings, as he that for the familiarity that was between them thought he might be boldest with him, answered and said, That they were worthy to be punished as heinous traitors, whatsoever they were: and all the other affirmed

the same.

That is (qd he) yonder sorceress my brother's wife, and other with her; meaning the queen. At these words many of the lords were sore abashed which favoured her; but the lord Hastings was better content in his mind that it was moved by her than by any other that he loved better, albeit his heart grudged that he was not afore made of counsel of this matter, as well as he was of the taking of her kindred, and of their putting to death, which were by his assent before devised to be beheaded at Pomfret this self-same day, in the which he was not ware that it was by other devised that he himself should the same day be beheaded at London. Then, said the protector, in what wise that sorceress and other of her counsel, as Shore's wife with her affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft thus wasted my body: and therewith plucked up his doublet-sleeve to his elbow on his left arm, where he showed a wearish withered arm, and small as it were never other. And thereupon every man's mind misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel, for well they wist that the queen was both too wise to go about any such folly, and also, if she would, yet would she of all folk make Shore's wife least of her counsel, whom of all women she most hated as that concubine whom the king her husband most loved.

"Also, there was no man there but knew that his arm was ever sueh sith the day of his birth. Nevertheless the Lord Hastings, which from the death of King Edward kept Shore's wife, whom he somewhat doted in the king's life, saying, it is said, that he forbare her for reverence toward his king, or else of a certain kind of fidelity toward his friend; yet now his heart somewhat grudged to have her whom he loved so highly accused, and that as he knew well untruly; therefore he answered and said, Certainly, my lord, if they have so done they be worthy of heinous punishment. What! (qd the protector,) thou servest me, I ween, with if and with and I tell thee they have done it, and that will I make good on thy body, traitor : and therewith (as in a great anger) he clapped his fist on the board a great rap; at which token given, one cried treason without the chamber, and therewith a door clapped, and in came rushing men in harness, as many as the chamber could hold; and anon the protector said to the Lord Hastings, I arrest thee, traitor! What, me, my lord? qd he. Yea, thee, traitor, qd the protector: and one let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth, for as shortly as he shrank yet ran the blood about his ears. Then was the Archbishop of York, and Doctor Morton Bishop of Ely, and the Lord Stanley, taken, and divers other, which were bestowed in divers chambers, save the Lord Hastings (whom the protector commanded to speed and shrive him apace), For by Saint Paul (q' he) I will not dine till I see thy head off. It booted him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at a venture and made a short shrift, for a longer would not be suffered, the protector made so much haste to his dinner, which might not go to it till this murther were done for saving of his ungracious oath. So was he brought forth into the green beside the chapel within the Tower, and his head laid down on a log of timber that lay there for building of the chapel, and there tyrannously stricken off, and after his body and head were interred at Windsor, by his master, King Edward the Fourth, whose souls Jesu pardon. Amen.

"Now flew the fame of this lord's death through the city and farther about, like a wind in every man's ear; but the protector immediately after dinner, intending to set some colour upon the matter, sent in all the haste for many substantial men out of the city into the Tower, and at their coming himself with the Duke of Buckingham, stood harnessed in old evil-favoured briganders, such as no man would ween that they would have vouchsafed to have put on their backs, except some sudden necessity had constrained them. Then the lord protector showed them

that the Lord Hastings and other of his conspiracy had contrived to have suddenly destroyed him and the Duke of Buckingham there the same day in council, and what they intended farther was yet not well known; of which their treason he had never knowledge before x of the clock the same forenoon, which sudden fear drave them to put on such harness as came next to their hands for their defence, and so God help them that the mischief turned upon them that would have done it, and thus he required them to report. Every man answered fair, as though no man

mistrusted the matter, which of truth no man believed."

142. THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER.

HEYWOOD.

[The tragic story of the murder of Richard's nephews is thus recorded by the Chronicler, on the authority of Sir Thomas More :

"And forasmuch as his mind gave him that, his nephews living, men would not reckon that he could have right to the realm, he thought therefore without delay to rid them, as though the killing of his kinsmen might end his cause and make him kindly king. Whereupon he sent John Green, whom he specially trusted, unto Sir Robert Brakenbury, constable of the Tower, with a letter and credence also, that the same Sir Robert in any wise should put the two children to death. This John Green did his errand to Brakenbury, kneeling before Our Lady in the Tower; who plainly answered that he would never put them to death to die therefore. With the which answer Green returned, recounting the same to king Richard at Warwick, yet on his journey; wherewith he took such displeasure and thought, that the same night he said to a secret page of his, Ah, whom shall a man trust? they that I have brought up myself, they that I woened would have most surely served me, even those fail me, and at my commandment will do nothing for me. Sir, quoth the page, there lieth one in the pallet chamber without, that I dare well say, to do your grace pleasure, the thing were right hard that he would refuse: meaning by this James Tyrrel.

"James Tyrrel devised that they should be murthered in their beds, and no blood shed: to the execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four that before kept them, a fellow flesh bred in murther beforetime; and to him he joined one John Dighton, his own horsekeeper, a big, broad, square, and strong knave. Then, all the other being removed from them, this Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight, the sely children lying in their beds, came into the chamber, and suddenly lapped them up amongst the clothes, and so bewrapped them and entangled them, keeping down by force the feather-bed and pillows hard unto their mouths, that within a while they smothered and stifled them; and their breaths failing, they gave up to God their innocent souls into the joys of heaver, ieaving to the tormentors their bodies dead in the bed; which after the wretches perceived, first by the struggling with the pangs of death, and after long lying still, to be thoroughly dead, they laid the bodies out upon the bed, and fetched James Tyrrel to see them; which when he saw them perfectly dead, he caused the murtherers to bury them at the stair foot, meetly deep in the ground, under a great heap of stones.

"Then rode James Tyrrel in great haste to king Richard, and showed him all the manner of the murther; who gave him great thanks, and, as men say, there made him knight."]

SCENE I.

Enter the two young princes, Edward and Richard, with Gloster, Catesby, Lovell,

and Tyrrel.

P. Ed. Uncle, what gentleman is that?

Glos. It is, sweet prince, lieutenant of the Tower.

P. Ed. Sir, we are come to be your guests to-night.

I pray you, tell me, did you ever know

Our father Edward lodge within this place?

Bra. Never to lodge, my liege; but oftentimes,