Count.

To me, blood-thirsty lord:

And for that cause I trained thee to my house.
Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,
For in my gallery thy picture hangs :

But now the substance shall endure the like;
And I will chain these legs and arms of thine,
That hast by tyranny, these many years,
Wasted our country, slain our citizens,
And sent our sons and husbands captivate.
Tal. Ha, ha, ha!

Count. Laughest thou, wretch? thy mirth shall turn to moan.

Tal. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond
To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow
Whereon to practise your severity.

Count. Why, art thou not the man?
I am, indeed.

Tal.

Tal. Be not dismayed, fair lady, nor misconstrue The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake The outward composition of his body. What you have done hath not offended me: No other satisfaction do I crave

But only (with your patience) that we may Taste of your wine, and see what cates you have: For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well. Count. With all my heart; and think me honouréd

To feast so great a warrior in my house. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-London. The Temple Garden. Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK; RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON and another Lawyer.

Plan. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this silence?

Dare no man answer in a case of truth?
Suf. Within the Temple-hall we were too loud:
The garden here is more convenient.

Plan. Then say at once, if I maintained the truth;

Or else was wrangling Somerset in the error?
Suf. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law,
And never yet could frame my will to it:
And therefore frame the law unto my will.
Som. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then,
between us.

War. Between two hawks, which flies the

higher pitch;

Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth; Between two blades, which bears the better

temper;

Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye;
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment:
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance!
The truth appears so naked on my side
That any purblind eye may find it out.

Som. And on my side it is so well-apparelled,
So clear, so shining, and so evident,
That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.
Plan. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath
to speak,

In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:
Let him that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
Som. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset? Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet? Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;

Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood. Som. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding

roses,

That shall maintain what I have said is true,
Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.
Plan. Now by this maiden blossom in my hand,
I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.

Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet. Plan. Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him and thee.

Suf. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. Som. Away, away, good William De-la-Poole : We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.

War. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him,

Somerset.

His grandfather was Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Third son to the third Edward, King of England: Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?

Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege, Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus. Som. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words

On any plot of ground in Christendom.

Was not thy father, Richard, Earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days?
And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,
Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
And till thou be restored thou art a yeoman.
Plan. My father was attachéd, not attainted;
Condemned to die for treason, but no traitor:
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripened to my will.
For your partaker Poole, and you yourself,
I'll note you
in my
book of memory,
To scourge you for this apprehension.
Look to it well, and say you are well warned.
Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee
still:

And know us by these colours for thy foes:
For these my friends, in spite of thee, shall

Plan. How I am braved, and must perforce endure it!

War. This blot that they object against your house

Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,
Called for the truce of Winchester and Gloster:
And if thou be not then created York,

I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Mean time, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset and William Poole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose:
And here I prophesy, this brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

Plan. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you That you on my behalf would pluck a flower. Ver. In your behalf still will I wear the same. Law. And so will I.

Plan. Thanks, gentle sir.

Come, let us four to dinner.-I dare say,
This quarrel will drink blood another day.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-The same. A Room in the Tower.

Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair by two Keepers.

Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age, Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.— Even like a man new haléd from the rack, So fare my limbs with long imprisonment : And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death, Nestor-like agéd, in an age of care, Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer. These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent: Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief; And pithless arms, like to a withered vine That droops his sapless branches to the ground: Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb, Unable to support this lump of clay, Swift-winged with desire to get a grave, As witting I no other comfort have.But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come? 1st Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will

come:

We sent unto the Temple, to his chamber;
And answer was returned that he will come.

Mor. Enough: my soul shall then be satisfied.-
Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.
Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign
(Before whose glory I was great in arms)
This loathsome sequestration have I had :
And even since then hath Richard been obscured,
Deprived of honour and inheritance.

But now the arbitrator of despairs,
Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries,
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence:
I would his troubles likewise were expired,
That so he might recover what was lost.

Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET.

1st Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now

is come.

Mor. Richard Plantagenet, my friend; is he come?

Plan. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly used, Your nephew, late-despised Richard, comes. Mor. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck, And in his bosom spend my latter gasp: O tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks, That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,

Why didst thou say, of late thou wert despised? Plan. First, lean thine agéd back against mine arm;

And in that ease I'll tell thee my disease.
This day, in argument upon a case,
Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me:
Among which terms he used his lavish tongue,
And did upbraid me with my father's death:
Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
Else with the like I had requited him.
Therefore, good uncle,—for my father's sake,
In honour of a true Plantagenet,
And for alliance' sake,-declare the cause
My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
Mor. That cause, fair nephew, that imprisoned

me,

And hath detained me all my flowering youth Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine, Was cursed instrument of his decease.

Plan. Discover more at large what cause that

was;

For I am ignorant, and cannot guess.

Mor. I will; if that my fading breath permit, And death approach not ere my tale be done. Henry the fourth, grandfather to this king, Deposed his nephew Richard (Edward's son, The first-begotten and the lawful heir

Of Edward, king, the third of that descent) :-
During whose reign, the Percies of the north,
Finding his usurpation most unjust, :
Endeavoured my advancement to the throne.
The reason moved these warlike lords to this
Was for that (young King Richard thus removed,
Leaving no heir begotten of his body)
I was the next by birth and parentage:
For by my mother I derivéd am

From Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son
To King Edward the third; whereas he

From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
Being but fourth of that heroic line.
But mark: as, in this haughty great attempt,
They laboured to plant the rightful heir,
I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
Long after this, when Henry the fifth
(Succeeding his father Bolingbroke) did reign,
Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then derived
From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,
Again, in pity of my hard distress,
Levied an army; weening to redeem,
And have installed me in the diadem:
But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
In whom the title rested, were suppressed.

Plan. Of which, my lord, your honour is the last. Mor. True: and thou seest that I no issue have, And that my fainting words do warrant death. Thou art my heir: the rest I wish thee gather: But yet be wary in thy studious care.

Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with

me:

But yet, methinks, my father's execution
Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

Mor. With silence, nephew, be thou politic:
Strong-fixéd is the house of Lancaster,
And, like a mountain, not to be removed.
But now thy uncle is removing hence;
As princes do their courts, when they are cloyed
With long continuance in a settled place.

Plan. O uncle, 'would some part of my young

years

Might but redeem the passage of your age!

Mor. Thou dost then wrong me; as the slaugh

terer doth

Which giveth many wounds when one will kill. Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good: Only give order for my funeral.

And so farewell; and fair be all thy hopes, And prosperous be thy life in peace and war! [Dies.

Plan. And peace, no war, befal thy parting soul! In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage, And like a hermit overpassed thy days.— Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast And what I do imagine let that rest.— Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself Will see his burial better than his life.

[Exeunt Keepers, bearing out MORTIMER.
Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
Choked with ambition of the meaner sort!
And, for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
Which Somerset hath offered to my house,

I doubt not but with honour to redress:
And therefore haste I to the parliament;
Either to be restored to my blood,

Or make my ill the advantage of my good. [Exit.

SCENE I.-London. The Parliament House.
Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, GLOS-
TER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and SUFFOLK; the
BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTA-
GENET, and others. GLOSTER offers to put up a
bill; WINCHESTER snatches it and tears it.
Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated
lines,

With written pamphlets studiously devised,
Humphrey of Gloster?-if thou canst accuse,
Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,
Do it without invention suddenly:
As I with sudden and extemporal speech
Purpose to answer what thou canst object.
Glo. Presumptuous priest! this place commands
my patience,

Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonoured me.
Think not, although in writing I preferred
The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
That therefore I have forged, or am not able
Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen:
No, prelate such is thy audacious wickedness,
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
As very infants prattle of thy pride.
Thou art a most pernicious usurer;
Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree:
And for thy treachery, what's more manifest:
In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
As well at London bridge as at the Tower?
Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
The king thy sovereign is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.
Win. Gloster, I do defy thee.-Lords, vouchsafe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.
If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, how am I so poor?
Or how haps it I seek not to advance

Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?

War. State holy or unhallowed, what of that? Is not his grace protector to the king?

Plan. Plantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue; Lest it be said, "Speak, sirrah, when you should: Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?" Else would I have a fling at Winchester. [Aside.

K. Hen. Uncles of Gloster and of Winchester, The special watchmen of our English weal, I would prevail, if prayers might prevail, To join your hearts in love and amity.