ARKCODEX
Act III, Scene 7
1Baynard’s Castle.
2Enter Gloucester and Buckingham, at several doors.
3GloucesterHow now, my lord, what say the citizens?
4BuckinghamNow, by the holy mother of our Lord,
The citizens are mum and speak not a word.
5GloucesterTouch’d you the bastardy of Edward’s children?
6BuckinghamI did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,
And his contract by deputy in France;
The insatiate greediness of his desires,
And his enforcement of the city wives;
His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,
As being got, your father then in France,
His resemblance, being not like the duke:
Withal I did infer your lineaments,
Being the right idea of your father,
Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
Your dicipline in war, wisdom in peace,
Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;
Indeed, left nothing fitting for the purpose
Untouch’d, or slightly handled, in discourse:
And when mine oratory grew to an end,
I bid them that did love their country’s good
Cry “God save Richard, England’s royal king!”
7GloucesterAh! and did they so?
8BuckinghamNo, so God help me, they spake not a word;
But, like dumb statuas or breathing stones,
Gazed each on other, and look’d deadly pale.
Which when I saw, I reprehended them;
And ask’d the mayor what meant this wilful silence:
His answer was, the people were not wont
To be spoke to but by the recorder.
Then he was urged to tell my tale again,
“Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr’d;”
But nothing spake in warrant from himself.
When he had done, some followers of mine own,
At the lower end of the hall, hurl’d up their caps,
And some ten voices cried “God save King Richard!”
And thus I took the vantage of those few,
“Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,” quoth I;
“This general applause and loving shout
Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:”
And even here brake off, and came away.
9GloucesterWhat tongueless blocks were they! would not they speak?
10BuckinghamNo, by my troth, my lord.
11GloucesterWill not the mayor then and his brethren come?
12BuckinghamThe mayor is here at hand: intend some fear;
Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit:
And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand betwixt two churchmen, good my lord;
For on that ground I’ll build a holy descant:
And be not easily won to our request:
Play the maid’s part, still answer nay, and take it.
13GloucesterI go; and if you plead as well for them
As I can say nay to thee for myself,
No doubt we’ll bring it to a happy issue.
14BuckinghamGo, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks. Exit Gloucester.
15Enter the Mayor and Citizens.
16Welcome my lord: I dance attendance here;
I think the duke will not be spoke withal.
17Enter Catesby.
18Here comes his servant: how now, Catesby,
What says he?
19CatesbyMy lord, he doth entreat your grace
To visit him to-morrow or next day:
He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
Divinely bent to meditation;
And no worldly suit would he be moved,
To draw him from his holy exercise.
20BuckinghamReturn, good Catesby, to thy lord again;
Tell him, myself, the mayor and citizens,
In deep designs and matters of great moment,
No less importing than our general good,
Are come to have some conference with his grace.
21CatesbyI’ll tell him what you say, my lord. Exit.
22BuckinghamAh, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,
But on his knees at meditation;
Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
But meditating with two deep divines;
Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
But praying, to enrich his watchful soul:
Happy were England, would this gracious prince
Take on himself the sovereignty thereof:
But, sure, I fear, we shall ne’er win him to it.
23MayorMarry, God forbid his grace should say us nay!
24BuckinghamI fear he will.
25Reenter Catesby.
26How now, Catesby, what says your lord?
27CatesbyMy lord,
He wonders to what end you have assembled
Such troops of citizens to speak with him,
His grace not being warn’d thereof before:
My lord, he fears you mean no good to him.
28BuckinghamSorry I am my noble cousin should
Suspect me, that I mean no good to him:
By heaven, I come in perfect love to him;
And so once more return and tell his grace. Exit Catesby.
When holy and devout religious men
Are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence,
So sweet is zealous contemplation.
29Enter Gloucester aloft, between two Bishops. Catesby returns.
30MayorSee, where he stands between two clergymen!
31BuckinghamTwo props of virtue for a Christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity:
And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
True ornaments to know a holy man.
Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
Lend favourable ears to our request;
And pardon us the interruption
Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
32GloucesterMy lord, there needs no such apology:
I rather do beseech you pardon me,
Who, earnest in the service of my God,
Neglect the visitation of my friends.
But, leaving this, what is your grace’s pleasure?
33BuckinghamEven that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
And all good men of this ungovern’d isle.
34GloucesterI do suspect I have done some offence
That seems disgracious in the city’s eyes,
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
35BuckinghamYou have, my lord: would it might please your grace,
At our entreaties, to amend that fault!
36GloucesterElse wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
37BuckinghamThen know, it is your fault that you resign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The scepter’d office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemished stock:
Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
Which here we waken to our country’s good,
This noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
Her face defaced with scars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
And almost shoulder’d in the swallowing gulf
Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.
Which to recure, we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land;
Not as protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another’s gain;
But as successively from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just suit come I to move your grace.
38GloucesterI know not whether to depart in silence,
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
Best fitteth my degree or your condition:
If not to answer, you might haply think
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
So season’d with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I check’d my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,
Definitively thus I answer you.
Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
Unmeritable shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown,
As my ripe revenue and due by birth;
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty and so many my defects,
As I had rather hide me from my greatness,
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother’d.
But, God be thank’d, there’s no need of me,
And much I need to help you, if need were;
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellow’d by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay what you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars;
Which God defend that I should wring from him!
39BuckinghamMy lord, this argues conscience in your grace;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.
You say that Edward is your brother’s son:
So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife;
For first he was contract to Lady Lucy—
Your mother lives a witness to that vow—
And afterward by substitute betroth’d
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,
A care-crazed mother of a many children,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his lustful eye,
Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loathed bigamy:
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
This Edward, whom our manners term the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that, for reverence to some alive,
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffer’d benefit of dignity;
If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing times,
Unto a lineal true-derived course.
40MayorDo, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.
41BuckinghamRefuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.
42CatesbyO, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!
43GloucesterAlas, why would you heap these cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty:
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
44BuckinghamIf you refuse it—as, in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son;
As well we know your tenderness of heart
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kin,
And egally indeed to all estates—
Yet whether you accept our suit or no,
Your brother’s son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
And in this resolution here we leave you.—
Come, citizens: ’zounds! I’ll entreat no more.
45GloucesterO, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham. Exit Buckingham with the Citizens.
46CatesbyCall them again, my lord, and accept their suit.
47AnotherDo, good my lord, lest all the land do rue it.
48GloucesterWould you enforce me to a world of care?
Well, call them again. I am not made of stones,
But penetrable to your kind entreats,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
49Reenter Buckingham and the rest.
50Cousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burthen, whether I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load:
But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire thereof.
51MayorGod bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.
52GloucesterIn saying so, you shall but say the truth.
53BuckinghamThen I salute you with this kingly title:
Long live Richard, England’s royal king!
54Mayor
Citizens Amen.
55BuckinghamTo-morrow will it please you to be crown’d?
56GloucesterEven when you please, since you will have it so.
57BuckinghamTo-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:
And so most joyfully we take our leave.
58GloucesterCome, let us to our holy task again.
Farewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends. Exeunt.