Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  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,

  Endeavor’d 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 derived 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 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 install’d me in the diadem:

  But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl

  And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,

  In whom the tide rested, were suppress’d.

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  Of which, my lord, your honour is the last.

  Mortimer

  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.

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  Thy grave admonishments prevail with me:

  But yet, methinks, my father’s execution

  Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

  Mortimer

  With silence, nephew, be thou politic:

  Strong-fixed 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 cloy’d

  With long continuance in a settled place.

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  O, uncle, would some part of my young years

  Might but redeem the passage of your age!

  Mortimer

  Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer 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

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!

  In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage

  And like a hermit overpass’d 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 Gaolers, bearing out the body of 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 offer’d 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

  ACT III

  SCENE I. LONDON. THE PARLIAMENT-HOUSE.

  Flourish. Enter King Henry VI, Exeter, Gloucester, Warwick, Somerset, and Suffolk; the Bishop Of Winchester, Richard Plantagenet, and others. Gloucester offers to put up a bill; Bishop Of Winchester snatches it, and tears it

  Bishop of Winchester

  Comest thou with deep premeditated lines,

  With written pamphlets studiously devised,

  Humphrey of Gloucester? 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.

  Gloucester

  Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience,

  Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour’d me.

  Think not, although in writing I preferr’d

  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,

  Forward 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.

  Bishop of Winchester

  Gloucester, 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?

  And for dissension, who preferreth peace

  More than I do?— except I be provoked.

  No, my good lords, it is not that offends;

  It is not that that hath incensed the duke:

  It is, because no one should sway but he;

  No one but he should be about the king;

  And that engenders thunder in his breast

  And makes him roar these accusations forth.

  But he shall know I am as good —

  Gloucester

  As good!

  Thou bastard of my grandfather!

  Bishop of Winchester

  Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,

  But one imperious in another’s throne?

  Gloucester

  Am I not protector, saucy priest?

  Bishop of Winchester

  And am not I a prelate of the church?

  Gloucester

  Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps

  And useth it to patronage his theft.

  Bishop of Winchester

  Unreverent Gloster!

  Gloucester

  Thou art reverent

  Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.

  Bishop of Winchester

  Rome shall remedy this.

  Warwick

  Roam thither, then.

  Somerset

  My lord, it were your duty to forbear.

  Warwick

  Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.

  Somerset

  Methinks my lord should be religious

  And know the office that belongs to such.

  Warwick

  Methinks his lordship should be humbler; it fitteth not a prelate so to plead.

  Somerset

  Yes, when his holy state is touch’d so near.

  Warwick

  State holy or unhallow’d, what of t
hat?

  Is not his grace protector to the king?

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  [Aside] 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.

  King Henry VI

  Uncles of Gloucester 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.

  O, what a scandal is it to our crown,

  That two such noble peers as ye should jar!

  Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell

  Civil dissension is a viperous worm

  That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.

  A noise within, ‘Down with the tawny-coats!’

  What tumult’s this?

  Warwick

  An uproar, I dare warrant,

  Begun through malice of the bishop’s men.

  A noise again, ‘stones! stones!’ Enter Mayor

  Mayor

  O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,

  Pity the city of London, pity us!

  The bishop and the Duke of Gloucester’s men,

  Forbidden late to carry any weapon,

  Have fill’d their pockets full of pebble stones

  And banding themselves in contrary parts

  Do pelt so fast at one another’s pate

  That many have their giddy brains knock’d out:

  Our windows are broke down in every street

  And we for fear compell’d to shut our shops.

  Enter Serving-men, in skirmish, with bloody pates

  King Henry VI

  We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,

  To hold your slaughtering hands and keep the peace.

  Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.

  First Serving-man

  Nay, if we be forbidden stones,

  We’ll fall to it with our teeth.

  Second Serving-man

  Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.

  Skirmish again

  Gloucester

  You of my household, leave this peevish broil

  And set this unaccustom’d fight aside.

  Third Serving-man

  My lord, we know your grace to be a man

  Just and upright; and, for your royal birth,

  Inferior to none but to his majesty:

  And ere that we will suffer such a prince,

  So kind a father of the commonweal,

  To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,

  We and our wives and children all will fight

  And have our bodies slaughtered by thy foes.

  First Serving-man

  Ay, and the very parings of our nails

  Shall pitch a field when we are dead.

  Begin again

  Gloucester

  Stay, stay, I say!

  And if you love me, as you say you do,

  Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.

  King Henry VI

  O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!

  Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold

  My sighs and tears and will not once relent?

  Who should be pitiful, if you be not?

  Or who should study to prefer a peace.

  If holy churchmen take delight in broils?

  Warwick

  Yield, my lord protector; yield, Winchester;

  Except you mean with obstinate repulse

  To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.

  You see what mischief and what murder too

  Hath been enacted through your enmity;

  Then be at peace except ye thirst for blood.

  Bishop of Winchester

  He shall submit, or I will never yield.

  Gloucester

  Compassion on the king commands me stoop;

  Or I would see his heart out, ere the priest

  Should ever get that privilege of me.

  Warwick

  Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the duke

  Hath banish’d moody discontented fury,

  As by his smoothed brows it doth appear:

  Why look you still so stern and tragical?

  Gloucester

  Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.

  King Henry VI

  Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach

  That malice was a great and grievous sin;

  And will not you maintain the thing you teach,

  But prove a chief offender in the same?

  Warwick

  Sweet king! the bishop hath a kindly gird.

  For shame, my lord of Winchester, relent!

  What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

  Bishop of Winchester

  Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;

  Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.

  Gloucester

  [Aside] Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow heart.—

  See here, my friends and loving countrymen,

  This token serveth for a flag of truce

  Betwixt ourselves and all our followers:

  So help me God, as I dissemble not!

  Bishop of Winchester

  [Aside] So help me God, as I intend it not!

  King Henry VI

  O, loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,

  How joyful am I made by this contract!

  Away, my masters! trouble us no more;

  But join in friendship, as your lords have done.

  First Serving-man

  Content: I’ll to the surgeon’s.

  Second Serving-man

  And so will I.

  Third Serving-man

  And I will see what physic the tavern affords.

  Exeunt Serving-men, Mayor, &c

  Warwick

  Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign,

  Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet

  We do exhibit to your majesty.

  Gloucester

  Well urged, my Lord of Warwick: or sweet prince,

  And if your grace mark every circumstance,

  You have great reason to do Richard right;

  Especially for those occasions

  At Eltham Place I told your majesty.

  King Henry VI

  And those occasions, uncle, were of force:

  Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is

  That Richard be restored to his blood.

  Warwick

  Let Richard be restored to his blood;

  So shall his father’s wrongs be recompensed.

  Bishop of Winchester

  As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.

  King Henry VI

  If Richard will be true, not that alone

  But all the whole inheritance I give

  That doth belong unto the house of York,

  From whence you spring by lineal descent.

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  Thy humble servant vows obedience

  And humble service till the point of death.

  King Henry VI

  Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;

  And, in reguerdon of that duty done,

  I gird thee with the valiant sword of York:

  Rise Richard, like a true Plantagenet,

  And rise created princely Duke of York.

  Richard

  Plantagenet

  And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!

  And as my duty springs, so perish they

  That grudge one thought against your majesty!

  All

  Welcome, high prince, the mighty Duke of York!

  Somerset

  [Aside] Perish, base prince, ignoble Duke of York!

  Gloucester

  Now will it best avail your majesty

  To cross the sea
s and to be crown’d in France:

  The presence of a king engenders love

  Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,

  As it disanimates his enemies.

  King Henry VI

  When Gloucester says the word, King Henry goes;

  For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.

  Gloucester

  Your ships already are in readiness.

  Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but Exeter

  Exeter

  Ay, we may march in England or in France,

  Not seeing what is likely to ensue.

  This late dissension grown betwixt the peers

  Burns under feigned ashes of forged love

  And will at last break out into a flame:

  As fester’d members rot but by degree,

  Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,

  So will this base and envious discord breed.

  And now I fear that fatal prophecy

  Which in the time of Henry named the Fifth

  Was in the mouth of every sucking babe;

  That Henry born at Monmouth should win all

  And Henry born at Windsor lose all:

  Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish

  His days may finish ere that hapless time.

  Exit

  SCENE II. FRANCE. BEFORE ROUEN.

  Enter Joan La Pucelle disguised, with four Soldiers with sacks upon their backs

  Joan La Pucelle

  These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,

  Through which our policy must make a breach:

  Take heed, be wary how you place your words;

  Talk like the vulgar sort of market men

  That come to gather money for their corn.

  If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,

  And that we find the slothful watch but weak,

  I’ll by a sign give notice to our friends,

  That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.

  First Soldier

  Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,

  And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;

  Therefore we’ll knock.

  Knocks

  Watch

  [Within] Qui est la?

  Joan La Pucelle

  Paysans, pauvres gens de France;

  Poor market folks that come to sell their corn.

  Watch

  Enter, go in; the market bell is rung.

  Joan La Pucelle

  Now, Rouen, I’ll shake thy bulwarks to the ground.

  Exeunt

  Enter Charles, the Bastard Of Orleans, Alencon, Reignier, and forces

  Charles

  Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!

  And once again we’ll sleep secure in Rouen.

  Bastard Of Orleans

  Here enter’d Pucelle and her practisants;

  Now she is there, how will she specify

  Where is the best and safest passage in?

  Reignier

  By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;

  Which, once discern’d, shows that her meaning is,