Richard II by William Shakespeare (read the beginning after the end novel .TXT) 📕

of name and noble estimate. Enter Ross and Willoughby. Northumberland

Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,
Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.

Bolingbroke

Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues
A banish’d traitor: all my treasury
Is yet but unfelt thanks, which more enrich’d
Shall be your love and labour’s recompense.

Ross Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord. Willoughby And far surmounts our labour to attain it. Bolingbroke

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;
Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

Enter Berkeley. Northumberland It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess. Berkeley My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you. Bolingbroke

My lord, my answer is⁠—to Lancaster;
And I am come to seek that name in England;
And I must find that title in your tongue,
Before I make reply to aught you say.

Berkeley

Mistake me not, my lord; ’tis not my meaning
To raze one title of your honour out:
To you, my lord, I come, what lord you will,
From the most gracious regent of this land,
The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
To take advantage of the absent time
And fright our native peace with self-born arms.

Enter York attended. Bolingbroke

I shall not need transport my words by you;
Here comes his grace in person. My noble uncle! Kneels.

York

Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
Whose duty is deceiveable and false.

Bolingbroke My gracious uncle⁠— York

Tut, tut!
Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle:
I am no traitor’s uncle; and that word “grace.”
In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
Why have those banish’d and forbidden legs
Dared once to touch a dust of England’s ground?
But then more “why?” why have they dared to march
So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
Frighting her pale-faced villages with war
And ostentation of despised arms?
Comest thou because the anointed king is hence?
Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind,
And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
Were I but now the lord of such hot youth
As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself
Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,
Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise thee
And minister correction to thy fault!

Bolingbroke

My gracious uncle, let me know my fault:
On what condition stands it and wherein?

York

Even in condition of the worst degree,
In gross rebellion and detested treason:
Thou art a banish’d man, and here art come
Before the expiration of thy time,
In braving arms against thy sovereign.

Bolingbroke

As I was banish’d, I was banish’d Hereford;
But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
And, noble uncle, I beseech your grace
Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye:
You are my father, for methinks in you
I see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,
Will you permit that I shall stand condemn’d
A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties
Pluck’d from my arms perforce and given away
To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
If that my cousin king be King of England,
It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.
You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;
Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,
He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father,
To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
I am denied to sue my livery here,
And yet my letters-patents give me leave:
My father’s goods are all distrain’d and sold,
And these and all are all amiss employ’d.
What would you have me do? I am a subject,
And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;
And therefore, personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.

Northumberland The noble duke hath been too much abused. Ross It stands your grace upon to do him right. Willoughby Base men by his endowments are made great. York

My lords of England, let me tell you this:
I have had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs
And laboured all I could to do him right;
But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
Be his own carver and cut out his way,
To find out right with wrong, it may not be;
And you that do abet him in this kind
Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.

Northumberland

The noble duke hath sworn his coming is
But for his own; and for the right of that
We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;
And let him ne’er see joy that breaks that oath!

York

Well, well, I see the issue of these arms:
I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
Because my power is weak and all ill left:
But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
I would attach you all and make you stoop
Unto the sovereign mercy of the king;
But since I cannot, be it known to you
I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;
Unless you please to enter in the castle
And there repose you for this night.

Bolingbroke

An offer, uncle, that we will accept:
But we must win your grace to go with us
To Bristol castle, which they say is held
By Bushy, Bagot and their complices,
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.

York

It may be I will go with you: but yet I’ll pause;
For I am loath to break our country’s laws.
Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:
Things past redress are now with me past care. Exeunt.

Scene IV

A camp in Wales.

Enter Salisbury and a Welsh Captain. Captain

My lord of Salisbury, we have stay’d ten days,
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the king;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.

Salisbury

Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:
The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.

Captain

’Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
Farewell: our