The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour’s good content!

HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.

[Throws him his purse]

PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour. Exit Enter a PRIEST

PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.

HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.

I am in your debt for your last exercise; Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.

[He whispers in his ear]

PRIEST. I’ll wait upon your lordship.

Enter BUCKINGHAM

BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord Chamberlain!

Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest: Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.

HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man, The men you talk of came into my mind.

What, go you toward the Tower?

BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there; I shall return before your lordship thence.

HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.

BUCKINGHAM. [Aside] And supper too, although thou knowest it not.-

Come, will you go?

HASTINGS. I’ll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt

SCENE 3.

Pomfret Castle

Enter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles, RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death

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 hack’d 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 exclaim’d on Hastings, you, and I, For standing by when Richard stabb’d her son.

RIVERS. Then curs’d she Richard, then curs’d she Buckingham,

Then curs’d 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

SCENE 4

London. The Tower

Enter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL, with others and seat themselves at a table HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met Is to determine of the coronation.

In God’s name speak-when is the royal day?

BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?

DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.

BISHOP OF ELY. Tomorrow then I judge a happy day.

BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector’s mind herein?

Who is most inward with the noble Duke?

BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.

BUCKINGHAM. We know each other’s faces; for our hearts, He knows no more of mine than I of yours; Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.

Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.

HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well; But for his purpose in the coronation I have not sounded him, nor he deliver’d His gracious pleasure any way therein.

But you, my honourable lords, may name the time; And in the Duke’s behalf I’ll give my voice, Which, I presume, he’ll take in gentle part.

Enter GLOUCESTER

BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.

GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.

I have been long a sleeper, but I trust My absence doth neglect no great design Which by my presence might have been concluded.

BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord, WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc’d your partI mean, your voice for crowning of the King.

GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;

His lordship knows me well and loves me well.

My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn I saw good strawberries in your garden there.

I do beseech you send for some of them.

BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.

Exit

GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.

[Takes him aside]

Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business, And finds the testy gentleman so hot

That he will lose his head ere give consent His master’s child, as worshipfully he terms it, Shall lose the royalty of England’s throne.

BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I’ll go with you.

Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM

DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.

Tomorrow, in my judgment, is too sudden; For I myself am not so well provided

As else I would be, were the day prolong’d.

Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY

BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?

I have sent for these strawberries.

HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning;

There’s some conceit or other likes him well When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.

I think there’s never a man in Christendom Can lesser hide his love or hate than he; For by his face straight shall you know his heart.

DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face By any livelihood he show’d to-day?

HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended; For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM

GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve That do conspire my death with devilish plots Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail’d Upon my body with their hellish charms?

HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord, Makes me most forward in this princely presence To doom th’ offenders, whosoe’er they be.

I say, my lord, they have deserved death.

GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.

Look how I am bewitch’d; behold, mine arm Is like a blasted sapling wither’d up.

And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore, That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.

HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet, Talk’st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.

Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear I will not dine until I see the same.

Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.

The rest that love me, rise and follow me.

Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF

HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me; For I, too fond, might have prevented this.

STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms, And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.

Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, And started when he look’d upon the Tower, As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.

O, now I need the priest that spake to me!

I now repent I told the pursuivant,

As too triumphing, how mine enemies

To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher’d, And I myself secure in grace and favour.

O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse Is lighted on poor Hastings’ wretched head!

RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at dinner.

Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.

HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!

Who builds his hope in air of your good looks Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, Ready with every nod to tumble down

Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; ‘tis bootless to exclaim.

HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!

I prophesy the fearfull’st time to thee That ever wretched age hath look’d upon.

Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.

They smile at me who shortly shall be dead. Exeunt

SCENE 5.

London. The Tower-walls

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change thy colour,

Murder thy breath in middle of a word, And then again begin, and stop again, As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?

BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian; Speak and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble and start at wagging of a straw, Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks Are at my service, like enforced smiles; And both are ready in their offices

At any time to grace my stratagems.

But what, is Catesby gone?

GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.

Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY

BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor—

GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!

BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.

GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o’erlook the walls.

BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.

BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!

Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS’ head GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.

LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor, The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.

GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov’d the man that I must weep.

I took him for the plainest harmless creature That breath’d upon the earth a Christian; Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded The history of all her secret thoughts.

So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue That, his apparent open guilt omitted, I mean his conversation with Shore’s wife-He liv’d from all attainder of suspects.

BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert’st shelt’red traitor

That ever liv’d.

Would you imagine, or almost believe—

Were’t not that by great preservation We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor This day had plotted, in the council-house, To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.

MAYOR. Had he done so?

GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?

Or that we would, against the form of law, Proceed thus rashly in the villain’s death But that the extreme peril of the case, The peace of England and our persons’ safety, Enforc’d us to this execution?

MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv’d his death; And your good Graces both have well proceeded To warn false traitors from the like attempts.

I never look’d for better at his hands After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.

BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin’d he should die Until your lordship came to see his end-Which now the loving haste of these our friends, Something against our meanings, have prevented-Because, my lord, I would have had you heard The traitor speak, and timorously confess The manner and the purpose of his treasons: That you might well have signified the same Unto the citizens, who haply may

Misconster us in him and wail his death.

MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace’s words shall serve As well as I had seen and heard him speak; And do not doubt, right noble Princes both, But I’ll acquaint our duteous citizens With all your just proceedings in this cause.

GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish’d your lordship here, T’ avoid the the the censures of the carping world.

BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent, Yet witness what you hear we did intend.

And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.

Exit LORD MAYOR

GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.

The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.

There, at your meet’st advantage of