Act 3, Scene 1

WINCHESTER

Com’st 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,
Froward 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 are sifted,
The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.

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!

WINCHESTER

Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,
But one imperious in another’s throne?

GLOUCESTER

Am I not Protector, saucy priest?

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.

WINCHESTER

Unreverent Gloucester!

GLOUCESTER

Thou art reverend
Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.

WINCHESTER

Rome shall remedy this.

GLOUCESTER

Roam thither, then.

WARWICK

My lord, it were your duty to forbear.

SOMERSET

Ay, so the bishop be not overborne.
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 that?
Is not his Grace Protector to the King?

PLANTAGENET

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

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.

KING HENRY

What tumult’s this?

WARWICK

An uproar, I dare warrant,
Begun through malice of the Bishop’s men.

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.

KING HENRY

We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
To hold your slaughtering hands and keep the peace.
Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.

FIRST SERVINGMAN

Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we’ll fall to it with our teeth.

SECOND SERVINGMAN

Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.

GLOUCESTER

You of my household, leave this peevish broil,
And set this unaccustom’d fight aside.

THIRD SERVINGMAN

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 slaughter’d by thy foes.

FIRST SERVINGMAN

Ay, and the very parings of our nails
Shall pitch a field when we are dead.

GLOUCESTER

Stay, stay, I say!
And if you love me, as you say you do,
Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.

KING HENRY

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.

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

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?

WINCHESTER

Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;
Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.

GLOUCESTER

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!

WINCHESTER

So help me God, as I intend it not!

KING HENRY

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 SERVINGMAN

Content. I’ll to the surgeon’s.

SECOND SERVINGMAN

And so will I.

THIRD SERVINGMAN

And I will see what physic the tavern affords.

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. For, sweet prince,
An 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

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.

WINCHESTER

As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.

KING HENRY

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.

PLANTAGENET

Thy humble servant vows obedience
And humble service till the point of death.

KING HENRY

Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;
And in reguerdon of that duty done
I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.
Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,
And rise created princely Duke of York.

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

Perish, base prince, ignoble Duke of York!

GLOUCESTER

Now will it best avail your Majesty
To cross the seas 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

When Gloucester says the word, King Henry goes;
For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.

GLOUCESTER

Your ships already are in readiness.

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 festered 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.