1 MURDERER
Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know
We have dispatched the Duke as he commanded.
2 MURDERER
O that it were to do! What have we done?
ever hear a man so penitent?
1 MURDERER
Here comes my lord.
SUFFOLK
Now, sirs, have you dispatched this thing?
1 MURDERER
Ay, my good lord, he’s dead.
SUFFOLK
Why, that’s well said. Go, get you to my house;
I will reward you for this venturous deed.
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?
1 MURDERER
, my good lord.
SUFFOLK
Away, be gone!
KING HENRY
Go, call our uncle to our presence straight;
Say we intend to try his grace today
If he be guilty, as published.
SUFFOLK
I’ll call him , my noble lord.
KING HENRY
Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,
Proceed no straiter ’gainst our uncle Gloucester
Than from true evidence of good esteem
He be approved in practice culpable.
QUEEN MARGARET
God forbid any malice should prevail
That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!
KING HENRY
I thank , Meg; these words content me much.
KING HENRY
How now? Why look’st pale? Why tremblest ?
Where is our uncle? What’s the matter, Suffolk?
SUFFOLK
Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.
QUEEN MARGARET
Marry, God forfend!
CARDINAL
God’s secret judgment! I did dream tonight
The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.
QUEEN MARGARET
How fares my lord? Help, lords! the King is dead.
SOMERSET
Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.
QUEEN MARGARET
Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope eyes!
SUFFOLK
He revive again. Madam, be patient.
KING HENRY
O heavenly God!
QUEEN MARGARET
How fares my gracious lord?
SUFFOLK
Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!
KING HENRY
What, my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
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?
Hide not poison with such sugared words;
Lay not hands on me. Forbear, I say!
Their touch affrights me as a serpent’s sting.
baleful messenger, out of my sight!
Upon eyeballs murderous tyranny
Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.
Look not upon me, for eyes are wounding.
Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,
And kill the innocent gazer with sight.
For in the shade of death I shall find joy,
In life but double death, now Gloucester’s dead.
QUEEN MARGARET
Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
Although the Duke was enemy to him,
Yet he most Christian-like laments his death.
And for myself, foe as he was to me,
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.
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 filled with my reproach.
This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!
To be a queen, and crowned with infamy!
KING HENRY
Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!
QUEEN MARGARET
Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, turn away and hide face?
I am no loathsome leper. Look on me.
What, art , like the adder, waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too and kill forlorn Queen.
Is all comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?
Why, then, Dame Margaret was joy.
Erect his statue and worship it,
And make my image but an alehouse sign.
Was I for this nigh wracked upon the sea
And twice by awkward wind from England’s bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
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
And bid them blow towards England’s blessed shore
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,
But left that hateful office unto .
The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,
Knowing that have me drowned on shore
With tears as salt as sea, through unkindness.
The splitting rocks cowered in the sinking sands
And would not dash me with their ragged sides,
Because flinty heart, more hard than they,
Might in palace perish Margaret.
As far as I could ken chalky cliffs,
When from shore the tempest beat us back,
I stood upon the hatches in the storm,
And when the dusky sky began to rob
My earnest-gaping sight of land’s view,
I took a costly jewel from my neck—
A heart it was, bound in with diamonds—
And threw it towards land. The sea received it,
And so I wished body might my heart.
And even with this I lost fair England’s view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And called them blind and dusky spectacles,
For losing ken of Albion’s wished coast.
How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue,
The agent of 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 witched like her? Or not false like him?
Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,
For Henry weeps that live so long.
WARWICK
It is reported, mighty sovereign,
That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murdered
By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort’s means.
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 calmed their spleenful mutiny,
Until they hear the order of his death.
KING HENRY
That he is dead, good Warwick, too true;
But how he died God knows, not Henry.
Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
And comment then upon his sudden death.
WARWICK
That shall I do, my liege.—Stay, Salisbury,
With the rude multitude till I return.
KING HENRY
O that judgest all things, stay my thoughts,
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,
For judgment only belong to .
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,
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?
WARWICK
Come , gracious sovereign, view this body.
KING HENRY
That is to see how deep my grave is made,
For with his soul fled all my worldly solace;
For seeing him, I see my life in death.
WARWICK
As surely as my soul intends to live
With that dread King that took our state upon Him
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.
SUFFOLK
A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
WARWICK
See how the blood is settled in his face.
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,
Attracts the same for aidance ’gainst the enemy,
Which with the heart there cools and returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.
But see, his face is black and full of blood,
His eyeballs further out than when he lived,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling,
His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
And tugged for life and was by strength subdued.
Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodged.
It cannot be but he was murdered here;
The least of all these signs were probable.
SUFFOLK
Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
Myself and Beaufort had him in protection,
And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.
WARWICK
But both of you were vowed Duke Humphrey’s foes,
And you, , had the good Duke to keep.
like you would not feast him like a friend,
And well seen he found an enemy.
QUEEN MARGARET
Then you, , suspect these noblemen
As guilty of Duke Humphrey’s timeless death.
WARWICK
Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh
And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
But will suspect 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.
QUEEN MARGARET
Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where’s your knife?
Is Beaufort termed a kite? Where are his talons?
SUFFOLK
I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men,
But here’s a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
That slanders me with murder’s crimson badge.
Say, if dar’st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey’s death.
WARWICK
What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
QUEEN MARGARET
He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
WARWICK
Madam, be still, with reverence may I say;
For every word you speak in his behalf
Is slander to your royal dignity.
SUFFOLK
Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour!
If ever lady wronged her lord so much,
mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutored churl, and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit art,
And never of the Nevilles’ noble race.
WARWICK
But that the guilt of murder bucklers
And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
Quitting thereby of ten thousand shames,
And that my sovereign’s presence makes me mild,
I would, false murderous coward, on knee
Make beg pardon for passed speech
And say it was mother that meant’st,
That thyself wast born in bastardy;
And after all this fearful homage done,
Give hire and send soul to hell,
Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men!
SUFFOLK
be waking while I shed blood,
If from this presence dar’st go with me.
WARWICK
Away even now, or I will drag .
Unworthy though art, I’ll cope with
And do some service to Duke Humphrey’s ghost.
KING HENRY
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
QUEEN MARGARET
What noise is this?
KING HENRY
Why, how now, lords? Your wrathful weapons drawn
Here in our presence? Dare you be so bold?
Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?
SUFFOLK
The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury
Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.
SALISBURY
Sirs, stand apart; the King shall know your mind.—
Dread lord, the commons send you word by me,
Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
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;
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,
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,
That slyly glided towards your majesty,
It were but necessary you were waked,
Lest, being suffered in that harmful slumber,
The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
That they will guard you, whe’er 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.
COMMONS
An answer from the King, my Lord of Salisbury!
SUFFOLK
like the commons, rude unpolished hinds,
Could send such message to their sovereign.
But you, my lord, were glad to be employed,
To show how quaint an orator you are.
But all the honour Salisbury won
Is that he was the lord ambassador
Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.
COMMONS
An answer from the King, or we will all break in!
KING HENRY
Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me,
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.
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.
QUEEN MARGARET
O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!
KING HENRY
Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!
No more, I say; if plead for him,
wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
If, after three days’ space, here be’st found
On any ground that I am ruler of,
The world shall not be ransom for life.
Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;
I have great matters to impart to .
QUEEN MARGARET
Mischance and sorrow go along with you!
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!
SUFFOLK
Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,
And let Suffolk take his heavy leave.
QUEEN MARGARET
Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch!
Has not spirit to curse enemies?
SUFFOLK
A plague upon them! should I curse them?
Could curses kill, as the mandrake’s groan,
I would invent as bitter searching terms,
As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
Delivered strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
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 fixed on end, as one distract;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;
And even now my burdened heart would break
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress-trees!
Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks;
Their softest touch as smart as lizards’ stings!
Their music frightful as the serpent’s hiss,
And boding screech-owls make the consort full!
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell—
QUEEN MARGARET
Enough, sweet Suffolk; torment’st thyself,
And these dread curses, like the sun ’gainst glass,
Or like an overcharged gun, recoil
And turns the force of them upon thyself.
SUFFOLK
You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
Now, by the ground that I am banished from,
Well could I curse away a winter’s night,
Though standing naked on a mountain top
Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
And think it but a minute spent in sport.
QUEEN MARGARET
O, let me entreat cease. Give me hand,
That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place
To wash away my woeful monuments.
O, could this kiss be printed in hand,
That mightst think upon these by the seal,
Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for !
So, get gone, that I may know my grief;
but surmised whiles art standing by,
As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
I will repeal , or, be well assured,
Adventure to be banished myself;
And banished I am, if but from .
Go; speak not to me, even now be gone!
O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemned
Embrace and kiss and take ten thousand leaves,
Loather a hundred times to part than die.
Yet now farewell, and farewell life with .
SUFFOLK
Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,
Once by the King, and three times thrice by .
not the land I care for, wert .
A wilderness is populous enough,
So Suffolk had heavenly company;
For where art, there is the world itself,
With every several pleasure in the world;
And where art not, desolation.
I can no more. Live to joy life,
Myself no joy in nought but that liv’st.
QUEEN MARGARET
goes Vaux so fast? What news, I ?
VAUX
To signify unto his majesty
That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;
For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,
That makes him gasp and stare and catch the air,
Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth.
Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey’s ghost
Were by his side; sometime he calls the King
And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
The secrets of his overcharged soul.
And I am sent to tell his majesty
That even now he cries aloud for him.
QUEEN MARGARET
Go tell this heavy message to the King.
QUEEN MARGARET
Ay me! What is this world? What news are these!
But grieve I at an hour’s poor loss,
Omitting Suffolk’s exile, my soul’s treasure?
Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for ,
And with the southern clouds contend in tears,
Theirs for the earth’s increase, mine for my sorrows’?
Now get . The King, know’st, is coming;
If be found by me art but dead.
SUFFOLK
If I depart from , I cannot live;
And in sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in lap?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
Dying with mother’s dug between its lips;
Where, from sight, I should be raging mad
And cry out for to close up mine eyes,
To have with lips to stop my mouth.
So either turn my flying soul,
Or I should breathe it so into body,
And then it lived in sweet Elysium.
To die by were but to die in jest;
From to die were torture more than death.
O, let me stay, befall what may befall!
QUEEN MARGARET
Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,
It is applied to a deathful wound.
To France, sweet Suffolk! Let me hear from ,
For whereso’er art in this world’s globe
I’ll have an Iris that shall find out.
SUFFOLK
I go.
QUEEN MARGARET
And take my heart with .
SUFFOLK
A jewel, locked into the woefull’st cask
That ever did contain a thing of worth.
Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we.
This way fall I to death.
QUEEN MARGARET
This way for me.