• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;

And are the cities that I got with wounds

Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?

Mort Dieu!

YORK.

For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,

That dims the honour of this warlike isle!

France should have torn and rent my very heart,

Before I would have yielded to this league.

I never read but England's kings have had

Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;

And our King Henry gives away his own,

To match with her that brings no vantages.

GLOUCESTER.

A proper jest, and never heard before,

That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth

For costs and charges in transporting her!

She should have staid in France, and starv'd in France,

Before—

CARDINAL.

My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot;

It was the pleasure of my lord the King.

GLOUCESTER.

My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;

'T is not my speeches that you do mislike,

But 't is my presence that doth trouble ye.

Rancour will out.

Proud prelate, in thy face

I see thy fury; if I longer stay,

We shall begin our ancient bickerings.—

Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,

I prophesied France will be lost ere long.

[Exit.]

CARDINAL.

So, there goes our protector in a rage.

'T is known to you he is mine enemy,

Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,

And no great friend, I fear me, to the king.

Consider, lords, he is the next of blood,

And heir apparent to the English crown.

Had Henry got an empire by his marriage,

And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,

There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.

Look to it, lords.

Let not his smoothing words

Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.

What though the common people favour him,

Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'

Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice,

'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'

With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'

I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,

He will be found a dangerous protector.

BUCKINGHAM.

Why should he, then, protect our sovereign,

He being of age to govern of himself?—

Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,

And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,

We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.

CARDINAL.

This weighty business will not brook delay;

I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.

[Exit.]

SOMERSET.

Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride

And greatness of his place be grief to us,

Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;

His insolence is more intolerable

Than all the princes in the land beside;

If Gloucester be displac'd, he 'll be protector.

BUCKINGHAM.

Or thou or I, Somerset, will be protector,

Despite Duke Humphrey or the cardinal.

[Exeunt Buckingham and Somerset.]

SALISBURY.

Pride went before, ambition follows him.

While these do labour for their own preferment,

Behoves it us to labour for the realm.

I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester

Did bear him like a noble gentleman.

Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal,

More like a soldier than a man o' the church,

As stout and proud as he were lord of all,

Swear like a ruffian and demean himself

Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.—

Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,

Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,

Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,

Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey;—

And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,

In bringing them to civil discipline,

Thy late exploits done in the heart of France,

When thou wert regent for our sovereign,

Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people.—

Join we together, for the public good,

In what we can, to bridle and suppress

The pride of Suffolk and the cardinal,

With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition,

And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds

While they do tend the profit of the land.

WARWICK.

So God help Warwick, as he loves the land

And common profit of his country!

YORK.

[Aside.] And so says York, for he hath greatest cause.

SALISBURY.

Then let's make haste away, and look unto the main.

WARWICK.

Unto the main!