Bolingbroke

Call forth Bagot.

Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;

What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death,

Who wrought it with the king, and who performed

The bloody office of his timeless end.

Bagot

Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.

Bolingbroke

Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.

Bagot

My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue

Scorns to unsay what once it hath delivered.

In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted,

I heard you say, “Is not my arm of length,

That reacheth from the restful English court

As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?”

Amongst much other talk, that very time,

I heard you say that you had rather refuse

The offer of an hundred thousand crowns

Than Bolingbroke's return to England;

Adding withal, how blest this land would be

In this your cousin's death.

Aumerle

Princes and noble lords,

What answer shall I make to this base man?

Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars,

On equal terms to give him chastisement?

Either I must, or have mine honour soiled

With the attainder of his slanderous lips.

There is my gage, the manual seal of death,

That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest,

And will maintain what thou hast said is false

In thy heartblood, though being all too base

To stain the temper of my knightly sword.

Bolingbroke

Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.

Aumerle

Excepting one, I would he were the best

In all this presence that hath moved me so.

Fitzwater

If that thy valour stand on sympathy,

There is my gage, Aumerle. in gage to thine:

By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,

I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it,

That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.

If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;

And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,

Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.

Aumerle

Thou darest not, coward, live to see that day.

Fitzwater

Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

Aumerle

Fitzwater, thou art damned to hell for this.

Percy

Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true

In this appeal as thou art all unjust;

And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,

To prove it on thee to the extremest point

Of mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest.

Aumerle

An if I do not, may my hands rot off

And never brandish more revengeful steel

Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

Another Lord

I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;

And spur thee on with full as many lies

As may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear

From sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn;

Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.

Aumerle

Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all:

I have a thousand spirits in one breast,

To answer twenty thousand such as you.

Another Lord

My lord Fitzwater, I do remember well

The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

Fitzwater

'Tis very true: you were in presence then;

And you can witness with me this is true.

Another Lord

As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.

Fitzwater

Surrey. thou liest.

Another Lord

Dishonourable boy!

That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,

That it shall render vengeance and revenge

Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie

In earth as quiet as thy father's skull:

In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;

Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.

Fitzwater

How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!

If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,

I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,

And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,

And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,

To tie thee to my strong correction.

As I intend to thrive in this new world,

Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal:

Besides, I heard the banished Norfolk say

That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men

To execute the noble duke at Calais.

Aumerle

Some honest Christian trust me with a gage,

That Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this,

If he may be repealed, to try his honour.

Bolingbroke

These differences shall all rest under gage

Till Norfolk be repealed: repealed he shall be,

And, though mine enemy, restored again

To all his lands and signories: when he is returned,

Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.

Carlisle

That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.

Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought

For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,

Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross

Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens:

And toiled with works of war, retired himself

To Italy; and there at Venice gave

His body to that pleasant country's earth,

And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,

Under whose colours he had fought so long.

Bolingbroke

Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?

Carlisle

As surely as I live, my lord.

Bolingbroke

Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom

Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,

Your differences shall all rest under gage

Till we assign you to your days of trial. Enter YORK. attended.

York

Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee

From plume-plucked Richard; who with willing soul

Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields

To the possession of thy royal hand:

Ascend his throne, descending now from him;

And long live Henry, fourth of that name!

Bolingbroke

In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.

Carlisle

Marry, God forbid!

Worst in this royal presence may I speak,

Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.

Would God that any in this noble presence

Were enough noble to be upright judge

Of noble Richard! then true noblesse would

Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.

What subject can give sentence on his king?

And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?

Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear,

Although apparent guilt be seen in them;

And shall the figure of God's majesty,

His captain, steward, deputy, elect,

Anointed, crowned, planted many years,

Be judged by subject and inferior breath,

And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,

That in a Christian climate souls refined

Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!

I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,

Stirred up by God, thus boldly for his king.

My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,

Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:

And if you crown him, let me prophesy:

The blood of English shall manure the ground,

And future ages groan for this foul act;

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,

And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars

Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;

Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny

Shall here inhabit, and this land be called

The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.

O, if you raise this house against this house,

It will the woefullest division prove

That ever fell upon this cursed earth.

Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,

Lest child, child's children, cry against you “woe!”

Northumberland

Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,

Of capital treason we arrest you here.

My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge

To keep him safely till his day of trial.

May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit.

Bolingbroke

Fetch hither Richard, that in common view

He may surrender; so we shall proceed

Without suspicion.

York

I will be his conduct. Exit.

Bolingbroke

Lords, you that here are under our arrest,

Procure your sureties for your days of answer.

Little are we beholding to your love,

And little looked for at your helping hands. Re-enter YORK, with RICHARD, and Officers bearing the regalia.

King Richard

Alack, why am I sent for to a king,

Before I have shook off the regal thoughts

Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned

To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee:

Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me

To this submission. Yet I well remember

The favours of these men: were they not mine?

Did they not sometime cry, “all hail!” to me?

So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve,

Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.

God save the king! Will no man say amen?

Am I both priest and clerk? well then, amen.

God save the king! although I be not he;

And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.

To do what service am I sent for hither?

York

To do that office of thine own good will

Which tired majesty did make thee offer,

The resignation of thy state and crown

To Henry Bolingbroke.

King Richard

Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;

Here, cousin;

On this side my hand, and on that side thine.

Now is this golden crown like a deep well

That owes two buckets, filling one another,

The emptier ever dancing in the air,

The other down, unseen and full of water:

That bucket down and full of tears am I,

Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

Bolingbroke

I thought you had been willing to resign.

King Richard

My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:

You may my glories and my state depose,

But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

Bolingbroke

Part of your cares you give me with your crown.

King Richard

Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.

My care is loss of care, by old care done;

Your care is gain of care, by new care won:

The cares I give I have, though given away;

They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.

Bolingbroke

Are you contented to resign the crown?

King Richard

Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;

Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.

Now mark me, how I will undo myself:

I give this heavy weight from off my head

And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,

The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;

With mine own tears I wash away my balm,

With mine own hands I give away my crown,

With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,

With mine own breath release all duteous oaths:

All pomp and majesty I do forswear;

My manors, rents, revenues I forgo;

My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:

God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!

God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!

Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,

And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved!

Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,

And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!

God save King Harry, unkinged Richard says,

And send him many years of sunshine days!

What more remains?

Northumberland

No more, but that you read

These accusations and these grievous crimes

Committed by your person and your followers

Against the state and profit of this land;

That, by confessing them, the souls of men

May deem that you are worthily deposed.

King Richard

Must I do so? and must I ravel out

My weaved-up follies? Gentle Northumberland

If thy offences were upon record,

Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop

To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,

There shouldst thou find one heinous article,

Containing the deposing of a king

And cracking the strong warrant of an oath

Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven:

Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me,

Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,

Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands

Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates

Have here delivered me to my sour cross,

And water cannot wash away your sin.

Northumberland

My lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles.

King Richard

Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see:

And yet salt water blinds them not so much

But they can see a sort of traitors here.

Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,

I find myself a traitor with the rest;

For I have given here my soul's consent

To undeck the pompous body of a king;

Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,

Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

Northumberland

My lord, —

King Richard

No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,

Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title,

No, not that name was given me at the font.

But 'tis usurped: alack the heavy day,

That I have worn so many winters out,

And know not now what name to call myself!

O that I were a mockery king of snow,

Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,

To melt myself away in waterdrops!

Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,

An if my word be sterling yet in England,

Let it command a mirror hither straight,

That it may show me what a face I have,

Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.

Bolingbroke

Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass. Exit an attendant.

Northumberland

Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.

King Richard

Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!

Bolingbroke

Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.

Northumberland

The commons will not then be satisfied.

King Richard

They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough,

When I do see the very book indeed

Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself. Re-enter Attendant, with a glass.

Give me that glass, and therein will I read.

No deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck

So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass,

Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face

That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men? was this the face

That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?

Is this the face which faced so many follies,

That was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke?

A brittle glory shineth in this face:

As brittle as the glory is the face; Dashes the glass against the ground.

For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.

Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,

How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

Bolingbroke

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed

The shadow of your face.

King Richard

Say that again.

The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see:

'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;

And these external manners of laments

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief

That swells with silence in the tortured soul;

There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,

For thy great bounty, that not only givest

Me cause to wail but teachest me the way

How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,

And then be gone and trouble you no more.

Shall I obtain it?

Bolingbroke

Name it, fair cousin.

King Richard

“Fair cousin”? I am greater than a king:

For when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

I have a king here to my flatterer.

Being so great, I have no need to beg.

Bolingbroke

Yet ask.

King Richard

And shall I have?

Bolingbroke

You shall.

King Richard

Then give me leave to go.

Bolingbroke

Whither?

King Richard

Whither you will, so I were from your sights.

Bolingbroke

Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.

King Richard

Bolingbroke

On Wednesday next we solemnly proclaim

Our coronation: lords, be ready all. Exeunt all except the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminsler and Aumerle.

Westminster

A woeful pageant have we here beheld.

Carlisle

The woe's to come; the children yet unborn.

Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

Aumerle

Westminster

My lord,

Before I freely speak my mind herein,

You shall not only take the sacrament

To bury mine intents, but also to effect

What ever I shall happen to devise.

I see your brows are full of discontent,

Your hearts of sorrow and your eyes of tears: