Arth.
The wall is high, and yet will I leap down,
Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!
There's few or none do know me: if they did,
This ship boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.
I am afraid, and yet I'll venture it.
If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
As good to die, and go; as die, and stay. [Leaps down.
Oh me! my Uncle's spirit is in these stones:
Heav'n take my soul, and England keep my bones! [Dies. Enter Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot.

Sal.
Lords, I will meet him at St. Edmondsbury;
It is our safety; and we must embrace
This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pemb.
Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?

Sal.
The Count Melun, a noble Lord of France,
Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love^{6 note}
Is much more gen'ral than these lines import.

Bigot.
To-morrow morning let us meet him then.

Sal.
Or rather then set forward, for 'twill be
Two long day's journey, Lords, or ere we meet.

Enter Faulconbridge.

Faulc.
Once more to day well met, distemper'd Lords;
The King by me requests your presence strait.

Sal.
The King hath dispossest himself of us;
We will not line his thin, bestained cloak
With our pure honours: nor attend the foot,
That leaves the print of blood where-e'er it walks.
Return, and tell him so; we know the worst.

Faulc.
What e'er you think, good words, I think, were best.

Sal.
Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.^{7 note}

Faulc.
But there is little reason in your grief,
Therefore 'twere reason, you had manners now.

Pemb.
Sir, Sir, impatience hath its privilege.

Faulc.
'Tis true, to hurt its master, no man else.

Sal.
This is the prison: what is he lies here? [Seeing Arthur.

Pemb.
O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!—
The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

Sal.
Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

Bigot.
Or when he doom'd this beauty to the grave,
Found it too precious, princely, for a grave.

Sal.
Sir Richard, what think you? have you beheld,
Or have you read, or heard, or could you think,
Or do you almost think, altho' you see,
What you do see? could thought, without this object,
Form such another? 'tis the very top,
The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest
Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,
The wildest savag'ry, the vilest stroke,
That ever wall-ey'd wrath, or staring rage,

Presented to the tears of soft remorse.

Pemb.
All murders past do stand excus'd in this;
And this so sole, and so unmatchable,
Shall give a holiness, a purity,
To the yet-unbegotten sins of time;
And prove a deadly blood-shed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle.

Faulc.
It is a damned and a bloody work,
The graceless action of a heavy hand:
If that it be the work of any hand.

Sal.
If that it be the work of any hand?
We had a kind of light, what would ensue.
It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand,
The practice and the purpose of the King:
From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
And breathing to this breathless excellence
The incense of a vow, a holy vow!^{8 note}

Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight,
Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
Till I have set a glory to this hand,
By giving it the worship of revenge.^{9 note}

Pemb. Bigot.
Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

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