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But now the blood of twenty thousand men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled.

All souls that will be safe fly from my side;

For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

Immediately after, however, recollecting that 'cheap defence' of the divinity of kings which is to be found in opinion, he is for arming his name against his enemies.

Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleep'st;

Is not the King's name forty thousand names?

Arm, arm, my name: a puny subject strikes

At thy great glory.

King Henry does not make any such vapouring resistance to the loss of his crown, but lets it slip from off his head as a weight which he is neither able nor willing to bear; stands quietly by to see the issue of the contest for his kingdom, as if it were a game at push-pin, and is pleased when the odds prove against him.

When Richard first hears of the death of his favourites, Bushy, Bagot, and the rest, he indignantly rejects all idea of any further efforts, and only indulges in the extravagant impatience of his grief and his despair, in that fine speech which has been so often quoted:

Aumerle. Where is the duke my father, with his power?

K. Richard. No matter where: of comfort no man speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow in the bosom of the earth!

Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:

And yet not so—for what can we bequeath,

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own but death,

And that small model of the barren earth,

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground,

And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:

How some have been depos'd, some slain in war;

Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess'd;

Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kili'd;

All murder'd:—for within the hollow crown,

That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp!

Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;

Infusing him with self and vain conceit—

As if this flesh, which walls about our life,

Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,

Comes at the last, and, with a little pin,

Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell king!

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence; throw away respect,

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while:

I live on bread like you, feel want, taste grief,

Need friends, like you; subjected thus,

How can you say to me I am a king?

There is as little sincerity afterwards in his affected resignation to his fate, as there is fortitude in this exaggerated picture of his misfortunes before they have happened.

When Northumberland comes back with the message from Bolingbroke, he exclaims, anticipating the result,—

What must the king do now? Must he submit?

The king shall do it: must he be depos'd?

The king shall be contented: must he lose

The name of king? O' God's name let it go.

I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,

My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,

My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,

My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,

My subjects for a pair of carved saints,

And my large kingdom for a little grave—

A little, little grave, an obscure grave.

How differently is all this expressed in King Henry's soliloquy, during the battle with Edward's party:

This battle fares like to the morning's war,

When dying clouds contend with growing light,

What time the shepherd blowing of his nails,

Can neither call it perfect day or night.

Here on this mole-hill will I sit me down;

To whom God will, there be the victory!

For Margaret my Queen, and Clifford too,

Have chid me from the battle; swearing both

They prosper best of all when I am thence.

Would I were dead, if God's good will were so.

For what is in this world but