Act 3, Scene 3
Pomfret Castle.
Enter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN to death.
Ratcliff
Come, bring forth the prisoners.
Rivers
Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:
to-day shalt thou behold a subject die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
Grey
God bless the prince from all the pack of you!
A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.
Vaughan
You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.
Ratcliff
Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.
Rivers
O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Richard the second here was hacked to death;
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
Grey
Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,
When she exclaimed on Hastings, you, and I,
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.
Rivers
Then cursed she Richard, then cursed she Buckingham,
Then cursed she Hastings. O, remember, God,
To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!
And for my sister and her princely sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.
Ratcliff
Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.
Rivers
Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us here embrace:
Farewell, until we meet again in heaven. Exeunt.