Grey. The Heavens have blessed you with a goodly

son,

To be your comforter when he is gone.

Q. Eliz. Ah, he is young; and his minority
Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloster,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
Riv. Is it concluded he shall be protector?
Q. Eliz. It is determined, not concluded yet;
But so it must be, if the king miscarry.

Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY.1

Grey. Here come the lords of Buckingham and Stanley.

Buck. Good time of day unto your royal grace! Stan. God make your majesty joyful as you have

been!

Q. Eliz. The countess Richmond, good my lord of
Stanley,

To your good prayer will scarcely say-Amen.
Yet, Stanley, notwithstanding she's your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured,
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stan. 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.
Q. Eliz. Saw you the king to-day, my lord of
Stanley?

Stan. But now, the duke of Buckingham, and I, Are come from visiting his majesty.

1 By inadvertence, in the old copies Derby is put for Stanley. The person meant was Thomas lord Stanley, lord steward of king Edward the Fourth's household. But he was not created earl of Derby, till after the accession of king Henry VII. In the fourth and fifth acts of this play, he is every where called lord Stanley.

2 Margaret, daughter to John Beaufort, first duke of Somerset. After the death of her first husband, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, halfbrother to king Henry VI., by whom she had only one son, afterwards king Henry VII., she married sir Henry Stafford, uncle to Humphrey, duke of Buckingham.

Q. Eliz. What likelihood of his amendment, lords? Buck. Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.

Q. Eliz. God grant him health! Did you confer

with him?

Buck. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement Between the duke of Gloster and your brothers, And between them and my lord chamberlain; And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

Q. Eliz. 'Would all were well!-But that will never be ;

I fear our happiness is at the height.

Enter GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET.

Glo. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.-
Who are they, that complain unto the king,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly,
That fill his ears with such dissensious rumors.
Because I cannot flatter, and speak 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
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

Grey. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

Glo. To thee, that hast nor honesty, nor grace.
When have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?
Or thee?—or thee?-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 lewd1 complaints.
Q. Eliz. Brother of Gloster, you mistake the matter.
The king, of his own royal disposition,

1 Lewd here signifies idle, ungracious.

And not provoked by any suitor else;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself,
Against my children, brothers, and myself,
Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill will, and so remove it.

Glo. I cannot tell ;-the world is grown so bad,
That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman,

There's many a gentle person made a Jack.

Q. Eliz. Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloster;

You envy my advancement, and my friends';
God grant we never may have need of you!

Glo. 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. Q. Eliz. 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.

Glo. You may deny that you were not the cause

Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment.

Riv. She may, my lord; for

Glo. 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,

1 This proverbial expression at once demonstrates the origin of the term Jack, so often used by Shakspeare. It means one of the very lowest class of people, among whom this name is most common and familiar.

And lay those honors on your high desert.

What may she not? She may,-ay, marry, may she,Riv. What, marry, may she?

Glo. What, marry, may she? marry with a king, A bachelor, a handsome stripling too;

I wis,' your grandam had a worser match.

Q. Eliz. My lord of Gloster, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs.
By Heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,

Of those gross taunts I often 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;
Small joy have I in being England's queen.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind.

Q. Mar. And lessened be that small, God, I beseech

thee!

Thy honor, state, and seat, is due to me.

Glo. What? threat you me with telling of the king?
Tell him, and spare not; look, what I have said
I will avouch, in presence of the king:

I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
'Tis time to speak, my pains are quite forgot.
Q. Mar. Out, devil! I remember them too well.
Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king, I was a packhorse 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.

Q. Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine.

Glo. 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 ?1
Let me put in your minds, if you forgot,
What you have been ere now, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Q. Mar. A murderous villain, and so still thou art. Glo. Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick, Ay, and forswore himself,-which Jesu pardon! Q. Mar. Which God revenge!

Glo. 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.

Q. Mar. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,

Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days,
Which here you urge, to prove us enemies,
We followed then our lord, our lawful king;
So should we you, if you should be our king.
Glo. If I should be?-I had rather be a pedler.
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!

Q. Eliz. 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.

Q. Mar. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;
For I am she, and altogether joyless.

I can no longer hold me patient.— [Advancing.
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 being queen, you bow like subjects;
Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels?—
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

Glo. Foul, wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight?

1 See note on King Henry VI., Part III., Act iii. Sc. 2. Margaret's battle

is Margaret's army.

2 To pill is to pillage.

VOL. V.

4

3 Gentle is here used ironically.