Richard III by William Shakespeare (good novels to read txt) 📕
Description
After the bloody battle at Tewksbury and the second dethroning of Henry VI, England and its citizens are finally able to enjoy peace under the reign of Edward IV. The remaining Lancastrian leaders are either killed or scattered to the four winds. Within the kingdom, not everyone is happy with their new king—and when Edward falls ill, his power-hungry brother Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, sees his chance and prepares to kill anyone who stands between him and the throne.
Richard puts into play numerous schemes to eradicate the line of succession and control the court. The first victim is King Edward’s other brother, Clarence. Rumors lead to Clarence’s imprisonment in the Tower of London, and Richard sends two murderers to stab him to death. This causes Edward’s health to worsen, and the title of Protector falls to the remaining brother. Next on Richard’s hit list is Lord Hastings, the loudest voice to object to Richard’s accession, and who is promptly arrested and executed for treason. As Richard orchestrates murder after murder, the deaths start coming back to haunt him.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
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I am unfit for state and majesty:
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot nor I will not yield to you. Buckingham
If you refuse it—as, in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son;
As well we know your tenderness of heart
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kin,
And egally indeed to all estates—
Yet whether you accept our suit or no,
Your brother’s son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
And in this resolution here we leave you.—
Come, citizens: ’zounds! I’ll entreat no more.
Would you enforce me to a world of care?
Well, call them again. I am not made of stones,
But penetrable to your kind entreats,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
Cousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burthen, whether I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load:
But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire thereof.
Then I salute you with this kingly title:
Long live Richard, England’s royal king!
Citizens Amen. Buckingham To-morrow will it please you to be crown’d? Gloucester Even when you please, since you will have it so. Buckingham
To-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:
And so most joyfully we take our leave.
Come, let us to our holy task again.
Farewell, good cousin; farewell, gentle friends. Exeunt.
Before the Tower.
Enter, on one side, Queen Elizabeth, Duchess of York, and Marquess of Dorset; on the other, Anne, Duchess of Gloucester, leading Lady Margaret Plantagenet, Clarence’s young Daughter. DuchessWho meets us here? my niece Plantagenet
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?
Now, for my life, she’s wandering to the Tower,
On pure heart’s love to greet the tender princes.
Daughter, well met.
God give your graces both
A happy and a joyful time of day!
No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,
Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
To gratulate the gentle princes there.
And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.
Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
How doth the prince, and my young son of York?
Right well, dear madam. By your patience,
I may not suffer you to visit them;
The king hath straitly charged the contrary.
The Lord protect him from that kingly title!
Hath he set bounds betwixt their love and me?
I am their mother; who should keep me from them?
Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother:
Then bring me to their sights; I’ll bear thy blame
And take thy office from thee, on my peril.
No, madam, no; I may not leave it so:
I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me. Exit.
Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,
And I’ll salute your grace of York as mother,
And reverend looker on, of two fair queens.
To Anne. Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,
There to be crowned Richard’s royal queen.
O, cut my lace in sunder, that my pent heart
May have some scope to beat, or else I swoon
With this dead-killing news!
O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee hence!
Death and destruction dog thee at the heels;
Thy mother’s name is ominous to children.
If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell:
Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,
Lest thou increase the number of the dead;
And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curse,
Nor mother, wife, nor England’s counted queen.
Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.
Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
You shall have letters from me to my son
To meet you on the way, and welcome you.
Be not ta’en tardy by unwise delay.
O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice hast thou hatch’d to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
And I in all unwillingness will go.
I would to God that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal that must round my brow
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!
Anointed let me be with deadly venom,
And die, ere men can say, God save the queen!
Go, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory;
To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.
No! why? When he that is my husband now
Came to me, as I follow’d Henry’s corse,
When scarce the blood was well wash’d from his hands
Which issued from my other angel husband
And that dead saint which then I weeping follow’d;
O, when, I say, I look’d on Richard’s face,
This was my wish: “Be thou,” quoth I, “accursed,
For making me, so young, so old a widow!
And, when thou wed’st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
And be thy wife—if any be so mad—
As miserable by the life of thee
As thou hast made me by my dear lord’s death!”
Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,
Even in so
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