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we here dismiss ye from the council table

and will that you remain not in our court.

deliver up your staves. and hear ye, Arundel,

we do discharge ye of the admiralty.

Scroope, take his office and his place in council.

Scroope

I thank your highness.

York

here, take my staff, good cousin. York thus leaves

thee. thou leanest on staves that will at length

deceive thee.

Lancaster

there lie the burthen of old Lancaster;

and may he perish that succeeds my place!

King

so, sir, we will observe your humour.

sir henry Greene, succeed our uncle York,

and Bushy take the staff of Lancaster.

Bushy

I thank your grace: his curses fright not me.

I will keep it to defend your majesty.

Woodstock

what transformation do mine eyes behold

as if the world were topsy-turvy turned!

hear me, King Richard.

King

plain Thomas, I will not hear ye.

Green

ye do not well to move his majesty.

Woodstock

hence, flatterer, or by my soul I will kill thee!

(shall England, that so long was governed

by grave experience, of white-headed age,

be subject now to rash unskilful boys?)

then force the sun run backward to the east,

lay atlas' burthen on a pigmy's back,

appoint the sea his times to ebb and flow;

and that as easily may be done as this.

King

give up your council staff, we will hear no more.

Woodstock

my staff, King Richard? see, coz, here it is:

full ten years' space within a prince's hand,

a soldier and a faithful councillor,

this staff hath always been discreetly kept;

nor shall the world report an upstart groom

did glory in the honours Woodstock lost;

and therefore, Richard, thus I sever it.

there, let him take it, shivered, cracked and broke

as will the state of England be ere long

by this rejecting true nobility.

farewell, King Richard. I will to plashey, brothers,

if ye ride through essex, call and see me.

if once the pillars and supporters quail

how can the strongest castle choose but fail?

Lords

and so will he ere long. come, come, let us leave

them.

Bushy

ay, ay, your places are supplied sufficiently.

Exeunt the Lords [with Arundel]

Scroope

old doting graybeard!

before god, my lord, had they not been your uncles

I had broke my council staff about their heads.

Green

we will have an act for this: it shall be henceforth

counted high treason for any fellow with a gray beard

to come within forty foot of the court gates.

Bagot

ay, or a great-bellied doublet. we will alter

the Kingdom presently.

Green

pox on it, we will not have a beard amongst us, we will

shave the country and the city too, shall we not,

Richard?

King

do what ye will, we will shield and buckler ye.

we will have a guard of archers to attend us;

and they shall daily wait on us and you.

send proclamations straight in Richard's name

to abridge the laws our late protector made.

let some be sent to seek Tresilian forth.

Bagot

seek him! hang him, he lurks not far off I warrant.

and this news come abroad once, ye shall have him

here presently.

King

would he were come. his counsel would direct you

well.

Green

troth, I think I shall trouble myself but with a

few counsellors. what cheer shall we have to dinner,

King Richard?

King

no matter what today. we will mend it shortly.

the hall at Westminster shall be enlarged

and only serve us for a dining room,

wherein I will daily feast ten thousand men.

Green

an excellent device! the commons have murmured

against us a great while, and there is no such means as

meat to stop their mouths.

Scroope

sfoot, make their gate wider. let us first

fetch their money and bid them to dinner afterwards.

Green

'sblood, and I were not a councillor, I could find

in myself to dine at a tavern today, sweet King.

shall us be merry?

Scroope

we must have money to buy new suits, my lord.

the fashion that we wear are gross and stale.

we will go sit in council to devise some new.

All

a special purpose to be thought upon!

it shall be the first thing we will do.

King

come, wantons, come. if Gloucester