Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,—

Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,—
The spacious world cannot again afford:

And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woeful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt and am misshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,

I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.-
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.

SCENE III.-LONDON.

A Room in the Palace.

[Exit.

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY. Riv. Have patience, madam: there's no doubt his

majesty

Will soon recover his accustom'd health.

Grey. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse:
Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,
And cheer his grace with quick and merry words.
Q. Eliz. If he were dead, what would betide on me?
Grey. No other harm but loss of such a lord.

Q. Eliz. The loss of such a lord includes all harms. Grey. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son, To be your comforter when he is gone.

Q. Eliz. Ah, he is young; and his minority

Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloster,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
Riv. Is it concluded he shall be protector?
Q. Eliz. It is determin'd, not concluded yet:
But so it must be, if the king miscarry.

Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY.

Grey. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Stanley.
Buck. Good time of day unto your royal grace!

Stan. God make your majesty joyful as you have been!
Q. Eliz. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of
Stanley,

To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
Yet, Stanley, notwithstanding she's your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stan. I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers;
Or, if she be accus'd on true report,

Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.

Q. Eliz. Saw you the king to-day, my Lord of Stanley?
Stan. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I

Are come from visiting his majesty.

Q. Eliz. What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
Buck. Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.
Q. Eliz. God grant him health! Did you confer with
him?

Buck. Ay, madam: he desires to make atonement
Between the Duke of Gloster and your brothers,
And between them and my lord chamberlain;
And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

Q. Eliz. Would all were well!-but that will never be: I fear our happiness is at the height.

Enter GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET.

-

Glo. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it :-
Who are they that complain unto the king
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter and speak fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.

Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abus'd

By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

Grey. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace? Glo. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.

When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong?

Or thee?-or thee?-or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all! His royal grace,-
Whom God preserve better than you would wish!—
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while,

But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.

Q. Eliz. Brother of Gloster, you mistake the matter.
The king, on his own royal disposition,
And not provok'd by any suitor else-
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself
Against my children, brothers, and myself-
Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.
Glo. I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,
That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman,

There's many a gentle person made a Jack.

Q. Eliz. Come, come, we know your meaning, brother You envy my advancement, and my friends':

God grant we never may have need of you!

[Gloster;

Glo. Meantime, God grants that we have need of you: Our brother is imprison'd by your means,

Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility

Held in contempt; while great promotions

Are daily given to ennoble those

That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.
Q. Eliz. By Him that rais'd me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,

I never did incense his majesty

Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been

An earnest advocate to plead for him.

My lord, you do me shameful injury,

Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.

Glo. You may deny that you were not the mean

Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.

Riv. She may, my lord; for,

Glo. She may, Lord Rivers!-why, who knows not so?

She may do more, sir, than denying that:

She may help you to many fair preferments;

And then deny her aiding hand therein,

And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not? She may,-ay, marry, may she,-

Riv. What, marry, may she?

Glo. What, marry, may she! marry with a king,

A bachelor, a handsome stripling too:

I wis your grandam had a worser match.

Q. Eliz. My Lord of Gloster, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty
Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen, with this condition,-
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind.
Small joy have I in being England's queen.

Q. Mar. And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech Him! Thy honour, state, and seat is due to me.

Glo. What! threat you me with telling of the king? Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said

I will avouch in presence of the king:

I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.

"Tis time to speak,-my pains are quite forgot.

Q. Mar. Out, devil! I remember them too well:
Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,

A liberal rewarder of his friends:

To royalize his blood I spilt mine own.

Q. Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his or thine. Glo. In all which time you and your husband Grey Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;

And, Rivers, so were you: was not your husband
In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

What you have been ere this, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Q. Mar. A murderous villain, and so still thou art.
Glo. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick;
Ay, and forswore himself,-which Jesu pardon!-
Q. Mar. Which God revenge!

Glo. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown;
And for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up.

I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's,

Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine:

I am too childish-foolish for this world.

Q. Mar. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,

Thou cacodemon! there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My Lord of Gloster, in those busy days

Which here you urge to prove us enemies,

We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king:
So should we you, if you should be our king.

Glo. If I should be!--I had rather be a pedler:
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!

Q. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose You should enjoy, were you this country's king,As little joy you may suppose in me,

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

Q. Mar. As little joy enjoys the queen thereof; For I am she, and altogether joyless.

[Advancing.

I can no longer hold me patient.-
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill'd from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?—
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight?
Q. Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,

That will I make before I let thee go.

Glo. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?

Q. Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in banishment Than death can yield me here by my abode.

A husband and a son thou ow'st to me,-
And thou a kingdom,-all of you allegiance:
This sorrow that I have, by right is yours;
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

Glo. The curse my noble father laid on thee,
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
And with thy scorus drew'st rivers from his eyes;
And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland;-
His curses, then from bitterness of soul
Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.
Q. Eliz. So just is God, to right the innocent.
Hast. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e'er was heard of.

Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
Dor. No man but prophesied revenge for it.

Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
Q. Mar. What, were you snarling all before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,

And turn you all your hatred now on me?

Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,