We have dispatch’d the duke, as he commanded.

♦ Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

I will reward you for this venturous deed.

10 The king and all the peers are here at hand.

♦ Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,

According as I gave directions?

Say we intend to try his grace to-day,

If he be guilty, as ’tis published.

20 Proceed no straiter ’gainst our uncle Gloucester

Than from true evidence of good esteem

He be approved in practice culpable.

That faultless may condemn a nobleman!

25 Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!

How now! why look’st thou pale? why tremblest thou?

Where is our uncle? what’s the matter, Suffolk?

♦ The duke was dumb and could not speak a word. [The King swoons.

40 Came he right now to sing a raven’s note,

♦ Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;

And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,

By crying comfort from a hollow breast,

Can chase away the first-conceived sound?

45 Hide not thy poison with such sugar’d words;

Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;

Their touch affrights me as a serpent’s sting.

Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!

Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny

50 Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.

Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:

Yet do not go away: come, basilisk,

And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;

For in the shade of death I shall find joy;

55 In life but double death, now Gloucester’s dead.

Although the duke was enemy to him,

Yet he most Christian-like laments his death:

And for myself, foe as he was to me,

60 Might liquid tears or heart-offending groans

Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,

I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,

♦ Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,

And all to have the noble duke alive.

65 What know I how the world may deem of me?

For it is known we were but hollow friends:

It may be judged I made the duke away;

So shall my name with slander’s tongue be wounded,

♦ And princes’ courts be fill’d with my reproach.

70 This get I by his death: ay me, unhappy!

To be a queen, and crown’d with infamy!

What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?

75 I am no loathsome leper; look on me.

♦ What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?

Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.

♦ Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?

♦ Why, then, dame Eleanor was ne’er thy joy.

80 Erect his statua and worship it,

And make my image but an alehouse sign.

Was I for this nigh wreck’d upon the sea

♦ And twice by awkward wind from England’s bank

Drove back again unto my native clime?

85 What boded this, but well forewarning wind

Did seem to say ‘Seek not a scorpion’s nest,

♦ Nor set no footing on this unkind shore?’

♦ What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts

♦ And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves;

90 And bid them blow towards England’s blessed shore,

Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?

Yet Æolus would not be a murderer,

♦ But left that hateful office unto thee:

♦ The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,

95 Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown’d on shore,

With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:

♦ The splitting rocks cower’d in the sinking sands

And would not dash me with their ragged sides,

Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,

100 Might in thy palace perish Eleanor.

♦ As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,

I stood upon the hatches in the storm,

And when the dusky sky began to rob

105 My earnest-gaping sight of thy land’s view,

I took a costly jewel from my neck—

A heart it was, bound in with diamonds—

And threw it towards thy land: the sea received it,

And so I wish’d thy body might my heart:

110 And even with this I lost fair England’s view

And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart

And call’d them blind and dusky spectacles,

For losing ken of Albion’s wished coast.

How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue,

115 The agent of thy foul inconstancy,

♦ To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did

When he to madding Dido would unfold

His father’s acts commenced in burning Troy!

♦ Am I not witch’d like her? or thou not false like him?

120 Ay me, I can no more! die, Eleanor!

♦ For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murder’d

♦ By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort’s means.

125 The commons, like an angry hive of bees

That want their leader, scatter up and down

♦ And care not who they sting in his revenge.

Myself have calm’d their spleenful mutiny,

Until they hear the order of his death.

But how he died God knows, not Henry:

Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,

And comment then upon his sudden death.

135 With the rude multitude till I return. [Exit.

My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul

Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey’s life!

If my suspect be false, forgive me, God,

140 For judgement only doth belong to thee.

Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips

♦ With twenty thousand kisses and to drain

Upon his face an ocean of salt tears,

To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk

145 And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling:

But all in vain are these mean obsequies;

♦ And to survey his dead and earthy image,

♦ What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,

♦ For seeing him I see my life in death.

With that dread King that took our state upon him

155 To free us from his father’s wrathful curse,

I do believe that violent hands were laid

Upon the life of this thrice-famed duke.

♦ What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?

♦ Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,

♦ Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless,

Being all descended to the labouring heart;

Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,

165 Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy;

Which with the heart there cools and ne’er returneth

To blush and beautify the cheek again.

But see, his face is black and full of blood,

His eye-balls further out than when he lived,

170 Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;

♦ His hair uprear’d, his nostrils stretch’d with struggling;

His hands abroad display’d, as one that grasp’d

And tugg’d for life and was by strength subdued:

♦ Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;

175 His well-proportion’d beard made rough and rugged,

Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodged.

♦ It cannot be but he was murder’d here;

The least of all these signs were probable.

180 Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;

♦ And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.

And you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep:

’Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;

185 And ’tis well seen he found an enemy.

As guilty of Duke Humphrey’s timeless death.

And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,

190 But will suspect ’twas he that made the slaughter?

Who finds the partridge in the puttock’s nest,

But may imagine how the bird was dead,

Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?

Even so suspicious is this tragedy.

Is Beaufort term’d a kite? Where are his talons?

But here’s a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,

That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart

200 That slanders me with murder’s crimson badge.

Say, if thou darest, proud Lord of Warwickshire,

♦ That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey’s death. [Exeunt Cardinal, Somerset, and others.

205 Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,

Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

For every word you speak in his behalf

Is slander to your royal dignity.

If ever lady wrong’d her lord so much,

Thy mother took into her blameful bed

Some stern untutor’d churl, and noble stock

Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art

215 And never of the Nevils’ noble race.

And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,

Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,

And that my sovereign’s presence makes me mild,

220 I would, false murderous coward, on thy knee

Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech

And say it was thy mother that thou meant’st,

That thou thyself wast born in bastardy;

And after all this fearful homage done,

225 Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,

Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men!

If from this presence thou darest go with me.

230 Unworthy though thou art, I’ll cope with thee

♦ And do some service to Duke Humphrey’s ghost. [Exeunt Suffolk and Warwick.

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,

And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel,

235 Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. [A noise within.

Here in our presence! dare you be so bold?

Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?

♦ Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

Dread Lord, the commons send you word by me,

♦ Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,

245 Or banished fair England’s territories,

They will by violence tear him from your palace

And torture him with grievous lingering death.

They say, by him the good duke Humphrey died;

They say, in him they fear your highness’ death;

250 And mere instinct of love and loyalty,

Free from a stubborn opposite intent,

As being thought to contradict your liking,

Makes them thus forward in his banishment.

They say, in care of your most royal person,

255 That if your highness should intend to sleep

And charge that no man should disturb your rest

♦ In pain of your dislike or pain of death,

♦ Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,

Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue,

260 That slily glided towards your majesty,

It were but necessary you were waked,

♦ Lest, being suffer’d in that harmful slumber,

The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal;

And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,

265 That they will guard you, whether you will or no,

From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is,

With whose envenomed and fatal sting,

Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,

They say, is shamefully bereft of life.

Could send such message to their sovereign:

But you, my lord, were glad to be employ’d,

To show how quaint an orator you are:

275 But all the honour Salisbury hath won

Is, that he was the lord ambassador

Sent from a sort of tinkers to the king.

280 I thank them for their tender loving care;

And had I not been cited so by them,

Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;

For, sure, my thoughts do hourly prophesy

Mischance unto my state by Suffolk’s means:

285 And therefore, by His majesty I swear,

Whose far unworthy deputy I am,

He shall not breathe infection in this air

♦ But three days longer, on the pain of death. [Exit Salisbury.

No more, I say: if thou dost plead for him,

Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.

Had I but said, I would have kept my word,

But when I swear, it is irrevocable.

295 If, after three days’ space, thou here be’st found

On any ground that I am ruler of,

The world shall not be ransom for thy life.

Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;

♦ I have great matters to impart to thee. [Exeunt all but Queen and Suffolk.

Heart’s discontent and sour affliction

Be playfellows to keep you company!

♦ There’s two of you; the devil make a third!

And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!

And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.

♦ Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?

310 Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan,

♦ I would invent as bitter-searching terms,

As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,

Deliver’d strongly through my fixed teeth,

With full as many signs of deadly hate,

315 As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave:

My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;

Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;

♦ Mine hair be fix’d on end, as one distract;

Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban:

320 And even now my burthen’d heart would break,

Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!

♦ Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!