Tres.
My lord, your servant; pray what brought you to St. Paul's?

Stanley.
I came among the crowd, to see the corpse
Of poor king Henry; 'tis a dismal sight:
But yesterday I saw him in the Tower;
His talk is still so fresh within my memory,
That I could weep to think how fate has us'd him.
I wonder where's duke Richard's policy,

In suffering him to lie expos'd to view;
Can he believe that men will love him for't?

Tres.
O yes, sir, love him, as he loves his brothers.
When was you with king Edward, pray, my lord?
I hear he leaves his food, is melancholy;
And his physicians fear him mightily.

Stanley.
'Tis thought he'll scarce recover.
Shall we to court, and hear more news of him?

Tres.
I am oblig'd to pay attendance here:
The lady Anne has licence to remove
King Henry's corpse to be interr'd at Chertesy;
And I'm engag'd to follow her.

Stanley.
Mean you king Henry's daughter-in-law?

Tres.
The same, sir, widow to the late prince Edward,
Whom Glo'ster kill'd at Tewksbury.

Stanley.
Alas! poor lady, she's severely us'd;
And yet I hear Richard attempts her love:
Methinks the wrongs he's done her might discourage him.

Tres.
Neither those wrongs, nor his own shape, can fright him:
He sent for leave to visit her, this morning,
And she was forc'd to keep her bed to avoid him:
But see, she is arriv'd—Will you along
To see this doleful ceremony?

Stanley.
I'll wait on you. [Exeunt. Enter Glo'ster.

Glo'st.
'Twas her excuse to avoid me.—Alas!
She keeps no bed—
She has health enough to progress far as Chertsey,
Tho' not to bear the sight of me.
I cannot blame her—
Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb* ^note,
And, for I should not deal in his soft laws,
He did corrupt frail nature with a bribe,
To shrink my arm up like a wither'd shrub,
To make an envious mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size:
To disproportion me in every part.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?
Oh monstrous thought! more vain than my ambition. Enter Lieutenant hastily.

Lieut.
My lord, I beg your grace—

Glo'st.
Be gone, fellow! I'm not at leisure,

Lieut.
My lord, the king your brother's taken ill.

Glo'st.
I'll wait on him: leave me, friend.
Ha! Edward taken ill!
Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
That from his loins no more young brats may rise,
To cross me in the golden time I look for. SCENE draws, and discovers Lady Anne in mourning, Lord Stanley, Tressel, Guards and Bearers, with King Henry's body.
But see! my love appears—Look where she shines,
Darting pale lustre, like the silver moon,
Thro' her dark veil of rainy sorrow!
So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love;
And thus the soldier, arm'd with resolution,
Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer.
'Tis true, my form perhaps may little move her,
But I've a tongue shall wheedle with the devil:
Yet hold, she mourns the man that I have kill'd.
First let her sorrows take some vent—stand here,
I'll take her passion in its wain, and turn
This storm of grief to gentle drops of pity,
For his repentant murderer. [He retires.

La. Anne.
Hung be the heav'ns with black; yield day to night;
Comets importing change of times and states,
Brandish your fiery tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have consented to king Henry's death.
Oh be accurst the hand that shed his blood,

Accurst the head that had the heart to do it;
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the life of him,
Than I am now by Edward's death and thine.

Glo'st.
Poor girl, what pains she takes to curse herself! [Aside.

La. Anne.
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious and untimely brought to light;
Whose hideous form, whose most unnatural aspect,
May fright the hopeful mother at her view,
And that be heir to his unhappiness.
Now on to Chertsey, with your sacred load.

Glo'st.
Stay, you that bear the coarse, and set it down.

La. Anne.
What black magician conjures up this fiend,
To stop devoted charitable deeds?

Glo'st.
Villains, set down the coarse, or, by St. Paul,
I'll make a coarse of him that disobeys.

Guard.
My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.

Glo'st.
Unmanner'd slave! stand thou when I command.
Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,
Or, by St. Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

La. Anne.
Why dost thou haunt him thus, unsated fiend?
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body;
His soul thou canst not reach, therefore be gone.

Glo'st.
Sweet saint, be not so hard, for charity.

La. Anne.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
Why didst thou do this deed? could not the laws
Of man, of nature, nor of heaven, dissuade thee?
No beast so fierce, but knows some touch of pity.

Glo'st.
If want of pity be a crime so hateful,
Whence is it thou, fair excellence, art guilty?

La. Anne.
What means the slanderer?

Glo'st.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these my crimes suppos'd, to give me leave,
By circumstance, but to acquit myself.

La. Anne.
Then take that sword, whose bloody point still reeks

With Henry's life, with my lov'd lord's, young Edward's,
And here let out thy own, to appease their ghosts.

Glo'st.
By such despair I should accuse myself.

La. Anne.
Why by despairing only canst thou stand excus'd?
Didst thou not kill this king?

Glo'st.
I grant ye.

La. Anne.
Oh! he was gentle, loving, mild, and virtuous;
But he's in heav'n, where thou canst never come.

Glo'st.
Was I not kind to send him thither, then?
He was much fitter for that place than earth.

La. Anne.
And thou unfit for any place, but hell.

Glo'st.
Yes, one place else—if you will hear me name it.

La. Anne.
Some dungeon.

Glo'st.
Your bed-chamber.

La. Anne.
Ill rest betide the chamber where thou ly'st.

Glo'st.
So it will, madam, till I lie in yours.

La. Anne.
I hope so.

Glo'st.
I know so. But, gentle lady Anne,
To leave this keen encounter of our tongues,
And fall to something a more serious method;
Is not th' causer of the untimely deaths,
Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner?

La. Anne.
Thou wert the cause, and most accurs'd effect.

Glo'st.
Your beauty was the cause of that effect,
Your beauty! that did haunt me in my sleep,
To undertake the death of all the world,
So I might live one hour in that soft bosom!

La. Anne.
If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These hands should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

Glo'st.
These eyes could not endure that beauty's wreck;
You should not blemish it, if I stood by:
As all the world is nourish'd by the sun,
So I by that—It is my day! my life!

La. Anne.
I would it were, to be reveng'd on thee.

Glo'st.
It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To wish revenge on him that loves thee.

La. Anne.
Say rather 'tis my duty,
To seek revenge on him that kill'd my husband.

Glo'st.
Fair creature, he that kill'd thy husband,
Did it to—help thee to a better husband.

La. Anne.
His better does not breathe upon the earth.

Glo'st.
He lives that loves thee better than he could.

La. Anne.
Name him.

Glo'st.
Plantagenet.

La. Anne.
Why that was he.

Glo'st.
The self-same name, but one of softer nature.

La. Anne.
Where is he?

Glo'st.
Ah; take more pity in thy eyes, and see him—here.

La. Anne.
Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead.

Glo'st.
I would they were, that I might die at once,
For now they kill me with a living death;
Darting, with cruel aim, despair and love;
I never sued to friend or enemy;
My tongue could never learn soft smoothing words;
But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,
My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

La. Anne.
Is there a tongue on earth can speak for thee?
Why dost thou court my hate* ^note?

Tres.
Where will this end? she frowns upon him yet.

Stanley.
But yet she hears him in her frowns—I fear him.

Glo'st.
Oh teach not thy soft lip such cold contempt—
If thy relentless heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which, if thou please to hide in this true breast,
And let the honest soul out, that adores thee;

I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
And humbly beg that death upon my knee.

La. Anne.
What shall I say or do! direct me, heav'n:
When stones weep, sure the tears are natural;
And heaven itself instructs us to forgive,
When they do flow from a sincere repentance.

Glo'st.
Nay, do not pause, for I did kill king Henry,
But 'twas thy wondrous beauty did provoke me;
Or, now dispatch—'twas I that stabb'd young Edward,
But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on:
And I might still persist (so stubborn is
My temper) to rejoice at what I've done;
But that thy powerful eyes (as roaring seas
Obey the changes of the moon) have turn'd
My heart, and made it flow with penitence. [She drops the sword.
Take up the sword again, or take up me.

La. Anne.
No, tho' I wish thy death,
I will not be thy executioner.

Glo'st.
Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

La. Anne.
I have already.

Glo'st.
That was in thy rage;
Say it again, and even with thy word
This guilty hand, that robb'd thee of thy love,
Shall, for thy love, revenge thee on thy lover.
To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.

Tres.
By heav'n she wants the heart to bid him do't.

Stanley.
What think you now, sir?

Tres.
I'm struck! I scarce can credit what I see.

Stanley.
Why, you see—a woman.

Tres.
When future chronicles shall speak of this,
They will be thought romance, not history.

Glo'st.
What, not a word to pardon, or condemn me?
But thou art wise—and canst with silence kill me:
Yet ev'n in death my fleeting soul pursues thee;
Dash not the tears of penitence away—

La. Anne.
Would'st thou not blame me, to forgive thy crimes?

Glo'st.
They're not to be forgiven; no, not even
Penitence can atone 'em—Oh misery

Of thought! that strikes me with at once repentance,
And despair—tho' unpardon'd, yield me pity.

La. Anne.
Would I knew thy heart.

Glo'st.
'Tis figur'd in my tongue.

La. Anne.
I fear me, both are false.

Glo'st.
Then never man was true.

La. Anne.
Put up thy sword.

Glo'st.
Say then, my peace is made.

La. Anne.
That shalt thou know, hereafter.

Glo'st.
But shall I live in hope?

La. Anne.
All men, I hope, live so.

Glo'st.
I swear, bright saint, I am not what I was.
Those eyes have turn'd my stubborn heart to woman;
Thy goodness makes me soft in penitence,
And my harsh thoughts are turn'd to peace and love.
Oh! if thy poor devoted servant might
But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
Thou would'st confirm his happiness, for ever.

La. Anne.
What is't?

Glo'st.
That it may please thee, leave these sad designs,
To him that has most cause to be a mourner,
And presently repair to Crosby house;
Where, after I have solemnly interr'd
At Chertsey monast'ry this injur'd king,
And wet his grave with my repentant tears,
I will with all expedient duty see you:
For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you
Grant me this favour.

La. Anne.
I do, my lord—and much it joys me too
To see you are become so penitent.
Tressel and Stanley, go along with me.

Glo'st.
Bid me farewel.

La. Anne.
'Tis more than you deserve.
But since you teach me how to flatter you,
Imagine I have said farewel, already. [Exit.

Guard.
Towards Chertsey, my lord?

Glo'st.
No, to White-Fryers; there attend my coming. [Exeunt Guards, with the body.
Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?

I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What! I that kill'd her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes.
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having heav'n, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain devil, and dissembling looks!
And yet to win her! all the world to nothing!
Can she abase her beauteous eyes on me,
Whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am mis-shapen thus!
My dukedom to a widow's chastity,
I do mistake my person, all this while:
Upon my life! she finds, altho' I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I'll have my chambers lin'd with looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of taylors,
To study fashions to adorn my body.
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost;
But first, I'll turn St. Harry to his grave,
And then return lamenting to my love.
  Shine out, fair sun, till I salute my glass,
  That I may see my shadow as I pass, Exit.

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