thee, fellow,
He that doth naught with her, excepting one,
Were best to do it secretly alone.
BRAKENBURY
What one, my lord?
GLOSTER
Her husband, knave:—wouldst thou betray me?
BRAKENBURY
I do beseech your grace to pardon me; and, withal,
Forbear your conference with the noble duke.
CLARENCE
We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.
GLOSTER
We are the queen’s abjects and must obey.—
Brother, farewell: I will unto the king;
And whatsoe’er you will employ me in,—
Were it to call King Edward’s widow sister,—
I will perform it to enfranchise you.
Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
CLARENCE
I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
GLOSTER
Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;
I will deliver or else lie for you:
Meantime, have patience.
CLARENCE
I must perforce: farewell.
[Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard.]
GLOSTER
Go tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.
Simple, plain Clarence!—I do love thee so
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.—
But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?
[Enter HASTINGS.]
HASTINGS
Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
GLOSTER
As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!
Well are you welcome to the open air.
How hath your lordship brook’d imprisonment?
HASTINGS
With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;
But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks
That were the cause of my imprisonment.
GLOSTER
No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;
For they that were your enemies are his,
And have prevail’d as much on him as you.
HASTINGS
More pity that the eagles should be mew’d
Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
GLOSTER
What news abroad?
HASTINGS
No news so bad abroad as this at home,—
The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.
GLOSTER
Now, by Saint Paul, that news is bad indeed.
O, he hath kept an evil diet long,
And overmuch consum’d his royal person:
‘Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
What, is he in his bed?
HASTINGS
He is.
GLOSTER
Go you before, and I will follow you.
[Exit HASTINGS.]
He cannot live, I hope; and must not die
Till George be pack’d with posthorse up to heaven.
I’ll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence
With lies well steel’d with weighty arguments;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live;
Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!
For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter:
What though I kill’d her husband and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends
Is to become her husband and her father:
The which will I; not all so much for love
As for another secret close intent,
By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market:
Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns:
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
[Exit.]
SCENE II. London. Another street
[Enter the corpse of King Henry the Sixth, borne in an open coffin, Gentlemen bearing halberds to guard it; and Lady Anne as mourner.]
ANNE
Set down, set down your honourable load,—
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,—
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
Th’ untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.—
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter’d son,
Stabb’d by the selfsame hand that made these wounds!
Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes:—
O, cursèd be the hand that made these holes!
Cursèd the heart that had the heart to do it!
Cursèd the blood that let this blood from hence!
More direful hap betide that hated wretch
That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom’d thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
And that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of him
Than I am made by my young lord and thee!—
Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul’s to be interrèd there;
And still, as you are weary of this weight,