RIVERS
Have patience, madam. There’s no doubt his Majesty
Will soon recover his accustomed health.
GREY
In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse.
Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort,
And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
If he were dead, what would betide on me?
GREY
No other harm but loss of such a lord.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
The loss of such a lord includes all harms.
GREY
The heavens have blessed you with a goodly son
To be your comforter when he is gone.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Ah, he is young, and his minority
Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
RIVERS
Is it concluded he shall be Protector?
QUEEN ELIZABETH
It is determined, not concluded yet;
But so it must be, if the King miscarry.
GREY
Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.
BUCKINGHAM
Good time of day unto your royal Grace.
STANLEY
God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
The Countess Richmond, good my Lord of Derby,
To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
STANLEY
I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers,
Or if she be accused on true report,
Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Saw you the King today, my Lord of Derby?
STANLEY
But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
Are come from visiting his Majesty.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
BUCKINGHAM
Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks cheerfully.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
God grant him health! Did you confer with him?
BUCKINGHAM
Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement
Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;
And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Would all were well—but that will never be.
I fear our happiness is at the height.
RICHARD
They do me wrong, and I will not endure it!
Who is it that complains unto the King
That I, , am stern and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abused
With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
GREY
To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?
RICHARD
To , that nor honesty nor grace.
When have I injured ? When done wrong?
Or ? Or ? Or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all! His royal Grace,
Whom God preserve better than you would wish,
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while
But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.
The King, on his own royal disposition,
And not provoked by any suitor else,
Aiming, , at your interior hatred
That in your outward action shows itself
Against my children, brothers, and myself,
Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground
Of your ill will, and thereby to remove it.
RICHARD
I cannot tell. The world is grown so bad
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester.
You envy my advancement, and my friends’.
God grant we never may have need of you.
RICHARD
Meantime, God grants that we have need of you.
Our brother is imprisoned by your means,
Myself disgraced, and the nobility
Held in contempt, while great promotions
Are daily given to ennoble those
That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
By Him that raised me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoyed,
I never did incense his Majesty
Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
RICHARD
You may deny that you were not the mean
Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.
RIVERS
She may, my lord; for—
RICHARD
She may, Lord Rivers; why, who knows not so?
She may do more, sir, than denying that.
She may help you to many fair preferments,
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.
What may she not? She may, ay, marry, may she—
RIVERS
What, marry, may she?
RICHARD
What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.
Iwis your grandam had a worser match.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
My lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
Of those gross taunts that I have endured.
I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen with this condition,
To be so baited, scorned, and stormed at.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Small joy have I in being England’s queen.
QUEEN MARGARET
And lessened be that small, God, I beseech Him!
honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
RICHARD
What, threat you me with telling of the King?
Tell him, and spare not. Look what I have said
I will avouch ’t in presence of the King;
I dare adventure to be sent to th’ Tower.
time to speak. My pains are quite forgot.
QUEEN MARGARET
Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
killed’st my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
RICHARD
you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends.
To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET
Ay, and much better blood than his or .
RICHARD
In all which time, you and your husband Grey
Were factious for the house of Lancaster.
And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
In Margaret’s battle at Saint Albans slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been this, and what you are;
, what I have been, and what I am.
QUEEN MARGARET
A murd’rous villain, and so still art.
RICHARD
Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick,
Ay, and forswore himself—which Jesu pardon!—
QUEEN MARGARET
Which God revenge!
RICHARD
To fight on Edward’s party for the crown;
And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,
Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine.
I am too childish-foolish for this world.
QUEEN MARGARET
Hie to hell for shame, and leave this world,
cacodemon! There kingdom is.
RIVERS
My lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
We followed then our lord, our sovereign king.
So should we you, if you should be our king.
RICHARD
If I should be! I had rather be a pedler.
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country’s king,
As little joy you may suppose in me
That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.
QUEEN MARGARET
As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof,
For I am she, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient.
QUEEN MARGARET
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pilled from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not, that I am Queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels.
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away.
RICHARD
Foul wrinkled witch, what mak’st in my sight?
QUEEN MARGARET
But repetition of what marred.
That will I make before I let go.
RICHARD
Wert not banished on pain of death?
QUEEN MARGARET
I was, but I do find more pain in banishment
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a son ow’st to me;
And a kingdom; all of you, allegiance.
This sorrow that I have by right is yours;
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
RICHARD
The curse my noble father laid on
When crown his warlike brows with paper,
And with scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,
And then to dry them, gav’st the Duke a clout
Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland—
His curses then, from bitterness of soul
Denounced against , are all fall’n upon ,
And God, not we, plagued bloody deed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
So just is God, to right the innocent.
HASTINGS
O, the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e’er was heard of.
RIVERS
Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
DORSET
No man but prophesied revenge for it.
BUCKINGHAM
Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
QUEEN MARGARET
What, were you snarling all before I came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven
That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,
Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,
Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
Though not by war, by surfeit die your King,
As ours by murder, to make him a king.
Edward son, that now is Prince of Wales,
For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive glory, like my wretched self.
Long mayst live to wail children’s death,
And see another, as I see now,
Decked in rights, as art stalled in mine;
Long die happy days before death,
And, after many lengthened hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s Queen.
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
And so wast , Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God, I pray Him,
That none of you may live his natural age,
But by some unlooked accident cut off.
RICHARD
Have done charm, hateful withered hag.
QUEEN MARGARET
And leave out ? Stay, dog, for hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon ,
O, let them keep it till sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On , the troubler of the poor world’s peace.
The worm of conscience still begnaw soul;
friends suspect for traitors while liv’st,
And take deep traitors for dearest friends;
No sleep close up that deadly eye of ,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights with a hell of ugly devils.
elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,
that wast sealed in nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell;
slander of heavy mother’s womb,
loathed issue of father’s loins,
rag of honour, detested—
RICHARD
Margaret.
QUEEN MARGARET
Richard!
RICHARD
Ha?
QUEEN MARGARET
I call not.
RICHARD
I cry mercy then, for I did think
That hadst called me all these bitter names.
QUEEN MARGARET
Why, so I did, but looked for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse!
RICHARD
done by me, and ends in “Margaret”.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Thus have you breathed your curse against yourself.
QUEEN MARGARET
Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,
Why strew’st sugar on that bottled spider,
Whose deadly web ensnareth about?
Fool, fool; whet’st a knife to kill thyself.
The day will come that wish for me
To help curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.
HASTINGS
False-boding woman, end frantic curse,
Lest to harm move our patience.
QUEEN MARGARET
Foul shame upon you, you have all moved mine.
RIVERS
Were you well served, you would be taught your duty.
QUEEN MARGARET
To serve me well, you all should do me duty:
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects.
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
DORSET
Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
QUEEN MARGARET
Peace, Master Marquess, you are malapert.
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
O, that your young nobility could judge
What ’twere to lose it and be miserable!
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.
RICHARD
Good counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, Marquess.
DORSET
It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
RICHARD
Ay, and much more; but I was born so high.
Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
QUEEN MARGARET
And turns the sun to shade, alas, alas!
Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
Whose bright out-shining beams cloudy wrath
in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aery buildeth in our aery’s nest.
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it!
As it is won with blood, lost be it so.
BUCKINGHAM
Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
QUEEN MARGARET
Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,
And in that shame still live my sorrow’s rage.
BUCKINGHAM
Have done, have done.
QUEEN MARGARET
O princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss hand
In sign of league and amity with .
Now fair befall and noble house!
garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor within the compass of my curse.
BUCKINGHAM
Nor no one here, for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
QUEEN MARGARET
I will not think but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God’s gentle sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
Have not to do with him; beware of him;
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.
RICHARD
What she say, my lord of Buckingham?
BUCKINGHAM
Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
QUEEN MARGARET
What, scorn me for my gentle counsel,
And soothe the devil that I warn from?
O, but remember this another day,
When he shall split very heart with sorrow,
And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God’s!
BUCKINGHAM
My hair stand on end to hear her curses.
RIVERS
And so mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.
RICHARD
I cannot blame her. By God’s holy mother,
She had too much wrong; and I repent
My part thereof that I have done to her.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
I never did her any, to my knowledge.
RICHARD
Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do somebody good
That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
He is franked up to fatting for his pains.
God pardon them that are the cause thereof.
RIVERS
A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scathe to us.
RICHARD
So do I ever—(Speaks to himself) being well advised;
For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.
CATESBY
Madam, his Majesty call for you,
And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?
RIVERS
We wait upon your Grace.
RICHARD
I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I indeed have cast in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls,
Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;
And tell them the Queen and her allies
That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
Now they believe it, and whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With odd old ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
RICHARD
But soft, here come my executioners.
How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates;
Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
FIRST MURDERER
We are, my lord, and come to have the warrant,
That we may be admitted where he is.
RICHARD
Well thought upon; I have it here about me.
RICHARD
When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
obdurate, do not hear him plead;
For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
SECOND MURDERER
Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate.
Talkers are no good doers. Be assured
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
RICHARD
Your eyes drop millstones when fools’ eyes fall tears.
I like you, lads. About your business straight.
Go, go, dispatch.
BOTH MURDERERS
We will, my noble lord.