ACT I.

SCENE 1.-London. A room in the palace. Enter King Richard, attended; John of Gaunt, and other nobles, with him.

King Richard.

OLD John of Guant, time-honour'd Lancaster,
Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,!
Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son;
Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,
Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
Gaunt. I have, my liege.

K. Rich. Tell me moreover, hast thou sounded
him,

If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;
Or worthily as a good subject should,
On some known ground of treachery in him?
Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that ar-
gument,-

On some apparent danger seen in him,
Aim'd at your highness; no inveterate malice.
K. Rich. Then call them to our presence; face
to face,

And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
The accuser, and the accused, freely speak :-
[Exeunt some attendants.
High-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire,
rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
Re-enter attendants, with Bolingbroke and Norfolk.
Boling. May many years of happy days befall
My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

In

Nor. Each day still better other's happiness; Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown!

K. Rich. We thank you both: yet one but

ters us,

Against the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ?
Boling. First (heaven be the record of my
speech!)

In the devotion of a subject's love,
Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.-
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak,
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live;
Since, the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
And wish (so please my sovereign,) ere I move,
What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword

may prove.

Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:
'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain:
The blood is hot, that must be cool'd for this,
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast,
As to be hush'd, and nought at all to say:
First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
Which else would post, until it had return'd
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege.
I do defy him, and I spit at him;

Call him-a slanderous coward, and a villain :
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds;
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
flat-Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable3
Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
Mean time, let this defend my loyalty,-
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
Boling. Pale trembling coward, there I throw
my gage,

As well appeareth by the cause you come;
Namely, to appeal? each other of high treason.
Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object

(1) Bond. (2) Charge. (3) Uninhabitable.

KING RICHARD II.

Disclaiming here the kindred of a king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.
Nor. I take it up; and, by that sword I swear,
Which gently lay'd my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
And, when I mount, alive may I not light,
If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to
bray's charge?

Neglected my sworn duty in that case.--
For you, my noble lord of Lancaster,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul:
But, ere I last receiv'd the sacrament,
I did confess it; and exactly begg'd
Your grace's pardon, and, I hope, I had it.
This is my fault: As for the rest appeal'd,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor:
Which in myself I boldly will defend;
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Mow-To prove myself a loyal gentleman
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,

It must be great, that can inherit! us
So much as of a thought of ill in him.
Boling. Look, what I speak my life shall prove
it true;-

That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath detain'd for lewd2 employments,
Like a false traitor, and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,-
Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,—
That all the treasons, for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and
spring.

Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life, to make all this good,-
That he did plot the duke of Gloster's death;
Suggests his soon-believing adversaries;
And, consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of
blood:

Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice, and rough chastisement;
And by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

K. Rich. How high a pitch his resolution
soars !--

Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
Nor. O, let my sovereign turn away his face,
And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood,4
How God, and good men, hate so foul a liar.
K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes, and

ears:

Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
(As he is but my father's brother's son,)
Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul;
He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou;
Free speech, and fearless, I to thee allow.

Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest!
Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais,
Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers .
The other part reserv'd I by consent;
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt,
Upon remainder of a dear account,
Since last I went to France to fetch his queen :
Now swallow down that lie.- -For Gloster's

death,

I slew him not; but to my own disgrace,

(1) Possess. (2) Wicked.

(3) Prompt.

(1) Reproach to his ancestry.

(5) Charged.

Act L

Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom :
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.

K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by

me;

Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
Deep malice makes too deep incision:
This we prescribe though no physician;
Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed;
Our doctors say, this is no time to bleed.-
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the duke of Norfolk, you your son.
Gaunt. To be a make-peace shall become my

age;

Throw down, my son, the duke of Norfolk's gage.
K. Rich. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
Gaunt.
When, Harry? when?
Obedience bids, I should not bid again.

K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down; we bid; there
is no boot.7

Nor. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy

foot:

My life thou shalt command, but not my shame :
The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
(Despite of death, that lives upon my grave,)
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here;
Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;
The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breath'd this poison.

K. Rich.
Rage must be withstood:
Give me his gage :-Lions make leopards tame.
Nor. Yea, but not change their spots: take but
my shame,

And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is-spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest
Is-a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done:
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live, and for that will I die.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage; do

you begin.

Boling. O, God defend my soul from such foul
sin!

Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
Before this outdar'd dastard! Ere my tongue
Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
The slavish motive of recanting fear;
And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,
Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's
face.
(Exit Gaunt
(6) Arrogant.

(7) No advantage in delay.

K. Rich. We were not born to sue, but to com- || And throw the rider headlong in the lists,

mand:

Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day;
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
The swelling difference of your settled hate;
Since we cannot atonel you, we shall see
Justice design2 the victor's chivalry.-
Marshal, command our officers at arms
Be ready to direct these home alarms.
SCENE II.-The same. A room in the Duke

[Exeunt.

A caitiff's recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometime brother's wife,
With her companion grief must end her life.
Gaunt. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry :
As much good stay with thee, as go with me!
Duch. Yet one word more;-Grief boundeth
where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun;
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.
of Lancaster's palace. Enter Gaunt, and Duch-Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
Lo, this is all :-Nay, yet depart not so;
ess of Gloster.

Gaunt. Alas! the part3 I had in Gloster's blood
Doth more solicit me, than your exclaims,
To stir against the butchers of his life.
But since correction lieth in those hands,
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
Who, when he sees the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper
spur?

Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven phials of his sacred blood,
Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the destinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster,-
One phial full of Edward's sacred blood,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,—
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.
Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine; that bed, that

womb,

That mettle, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee,
Made him a man; and though thou liv'st, and
breath'st,

Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair:
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we entitle-patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to 'venge my Gloster's death.
Gaunt. Heaven's is the quarrel; for heaven's
substitute,

His deputy anointed in his sight,

Hath caus'd his death: the which if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against his minister.

Duch. Where then, alas! may I complain myself?
Gaunt. To heaven, the widow's champion and

defence.

Duch. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
Or, it misfortune miss the first career,
Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courser's back,

(1) Reconcile. (2) Show. (3) Relationship.
(4) Assent.
(5) A base villain.

I shall remember more. Bid him-O, what?-
With all good speed at Plashy? visit me.
Alack, and what shall good old York there see,
But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
And what cheer there for welcome, but my
groans?

Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
To seek out sorrow that dwells every where :
Desolate, desolate, will I hence, and die;
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III-Gosford Green, near Coventry.
Lists set out, and a throne. Heralds, &c. al.
tending. Enter the Lord Marshal, and Aumerle.
Mar. My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?
Aum. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
Mar. The duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,
Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.
Aum. Why then, the champions are prepar'd,
and stay

For nothing but his majesty's approach.
Flourish of trumpets. Enter King Richard, who

takes his seat on his throne; Gaunt, and several
noblemen, who take their places. A trumpet is
sounded, and answered by another trumpet with-
in. Then enter Norfolk in armour, preceded by
a herald.

K. Rich. Marshal, demand of yonder champion
The cause of his arrival here in arms:
Ask him his name; and orderly proceed
To swear him in the justice of his cause.

Mar. In God's name, and the king's, say who
thou art,

And why thou com'st, thus knightly clad in arms:
Against what man thou com'st, and what thy
quarrel :

Speak truly, on thy knighthood, and thy oath;
And so defend thee heaven, and thy valour!

Nor. My name is Thomas Mowbray, duke of
Norfolk;

Who hither come engaged by my oath
(Which, heaven defend, a knight should violate!)
Both to defend my loyalty and truth,
To God, my king, and my succeeding issue,
Against the duke of Hereford that appeals me;
And, by the grace of God, and this mine arm,
To prove him, in defending of my self,
A traitor to my God, my king, and me:
And, as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

[He takes his seat. Trumpet sounds. Enter Bolingbroke, in armour; preceded by a herald.

Both who he is, and why he cometh hither
K. Rich. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,

KING RICHARD II.

Mar. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st This feast of battle with mine adversary.

Before king Richard, in his royal lists?
Against whom comest thou; and what's thy quarrel?
Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
Boling Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and
Derby,

Am I; who ready here do stand in arms,
To prove, by heaven's grace, and my body's valour,
In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk,
That he's a traitor, foul and dangerous,
To God of heaven, king Richard, and to me;
And, as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

Mar. On pain of death, no person be so bold,
Or daring-hardy, as to touch the lists;
Except the marshal, and such officers
Appointed to direct these fair designs.
Boling. Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's
hand,

And bow my knee before his majesty :
For Mowbray, and myself, are like two men
That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;
Then let us take a ceremonious leave,
And loving farewell, of our several friends.
Mar. The appellant in all duty greets your
highness,

And craves to kiss your hand, and take his leave.
K. Rich. We will descend, and fold him in our

Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

Boling. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear;
As confident, as is the falcon's flight
Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.-
My loving lord, [To Lord Marshal.] I. take my
leave of you

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours'
swords;

And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set you on

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harsh resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;—
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
Therefore, we banish you our territories:-
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Boling. Your will be done: This must my com-

And those his golden beams, to you here lent,
That sun, that warms you here, shall shine on me ;
fort be,-
Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier
doom,

Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The fly-slow hours shall not determinate