1.
Run to my lord of Suffolk; let him know
We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.

2.
Oh that it were to do! what have we done?
Didst ever hear a man so penitent? Enter Suffolk.

1.
Here comes my lord.

Suf.
Now, Sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?

1.
Ay, my good lord, he's dead.

Suf.
Why, that's well said. Go get you to my house,
I will reward you for this vent'rous deed:
The King and all the Peers are here at hand.
Have you laid fair the bed? are all things well,
According as I gave directions?

1.
Yes, my good lord.

Suf.
Away, be gone. [Exeunt. Enter King Henry, the Queen, Cardinal, Suffolk, Somerset, with attendants.

K. Henry.
Go call our uncle to our presence strait:
Say we intend to try his grace to-day,
If he be guilty, as 'tis published.

Suf.
I'll call him presently, my noble lord. [Exit.

K. Henry.
Lords take your places; and I pray you all
Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Glo'ster,
Than from true evidence of good esteem
He be approv'd in practice culpable.

Q. Mar.
God forbid any malice should prevail,
That faultless may condemn a nobleman:
Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion.

K. Henry.
I thank thee Nell, these words content me much. Enter Suffolk.
How now? why look'st thou pale? why tremblest thou?
Where is our uncle? what's the matter, Suffolk?

Suf.
Dead in his bed, my lord, Glo'ster is dead.

Q. Mar.
Marry God forfend!

Car.
God's secret judgment: I did dream to-night,
The Duke was dumb, and could not speak a word. [K. swoons.

Q. Mar.
How fares my lord? help lords, the King is dead.

Som.
Rear up his body, wring him by the nose.‡ ^note

Q. Mar.
Run, go, help, help: oh Henry, ope thine eyes.

Suf.
He doth revive again; madam be patient.

K. Henry.
O heav'nly God!

Q. Mar.
How fares my gracious lord?

Suf.
Comfort my Soveraign, gracious Henry comfort.

K. Henry.
What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort me?
Came he right now to sing a raven's note,
Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs:
And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words,
Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,
Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight:
Upon thy eye-balls murd'rous tyranny
Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.
Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;
Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,

And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight:
For in the shade of death I shall find joy;
In life, but double death, now Glo'ster's dead.

Q. Mar.
Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk thus?
Although the Duke was enemy to him,
Yet he most christian-like laments his death.
As for my self, foe as he was to me,
Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
Or blood-consuming sighs recal his life;
I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
And all to have the noble Duke alive.
What know I how the world may deem of me?
For it is known we were but hollow friends:
It may be judg'd I made the Duke away,
So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
And Princes courts be filled with reproach:
This get I by his death: ah me unhappy!
To be a Queen, and crown'd with infamy.

K. Henry.
Ah woe is me for Glo'ster, wretched man!

Q. Mar.
Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper, look on me.
What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
Be poys'nous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.
Is all thy comfort shut in Glo'ster's tomb?
Why then dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
Erect his statue, and do worship to it,
And make my image but an ale-house sign.
Was I for this nigh wreckt upon the sea,
And twice by ^{b note}adverse winds from England's bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boaded this? but well fore-warning winds

Did seem to say, seek not a scorpion's nest,
Nor set thy footing on this unkind shoar.
What did I then? but curst the gentle gusts,
And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves;
And bid them blow towards England's blessed shoar,
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock:
Yet Æolus would not be a murtherer,
He left that hateful office unto thee.* ^note





The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands,
And would not dash me with their ragged sides;
Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
As far as I could ken the chalky cliffs,
When from thy shoar the tempest beat us back,
I stood upon the hatches in the storm;
And when the dusky sky began to rob
My earnest-gaping sight of the land's view,
I took a costly jewel from my neck,
(A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,)
And threw it tow'rds thy land; the sea receiv'd it,
And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.
And ev'n with this I lost fair England's view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,
For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.
How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue
(The agent of thy foul inconstancy)
To sit and watch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold

His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy?
Am I not witcht like her? or thou not false like him?
Ah me, I can no more: dye Margaret,
For Henry weeps that thou didst live so long. Noise within. Enter Warwick, and many Commons.

War.
It is reported, mighty soveraign,
That good Duke Humphry traiterously is murther'd
By Suffolk, and the Cardinal Beauford's means:
The Commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, scatter up and down,
And care not who they sting in their revenge.
My self have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,
Until they hear the order of his death.

K. Henry.
That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
But how he died, God knows, not Henry:
Enter his chamber, view his breathless corps,
And comment then upon his sudden death.

War.
That I shall do, my liege: stay, Salisbury,
With the rude multitude, 'till I return.

K. Henry.
O thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts;
My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul
Some violent hands were laid on Humphry's life:
If my suspect be false, forgive me God,
For judgment only doth belong to thee.
Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain
Upon his face an ocean of salt tears.
To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,
And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling:
But all in vain are these mean obsequies. [Bed with Glo'ster's body put forth.
And to survey his dead and earthly image,

What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

War.
Come hither, gracious soveraign, view this body.

K. Henry.
That is to see how deep my grave is made:
For with his soul fled all my worldly solace;
For seeing him, I see my life is death.

War.
As surely as my soul intends to live
With that dread King that took our state upon him,
To free us from his father's wrathful curse,
I do believe that violent hands were laid
Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.

Suf.
A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives lord Warwick for his vow?

War.
See how the blood is settled in his face.
Oft have I seen a timely parted ghost
Of ashy semblance, meager, pale, and bloodless,
Being all descended to the lab'ring heart,
Who in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.
But see, his face is black and full of blood,
His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
Staring full gastly, like a strangled man;
His hair up-rear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling,
His hands abroad display'd, as one that graspt
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
Look on the sheets; his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd:
It cannot be but he was murther'd here:
The least of all these signs were probable.

Suf.
Why Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
My self and Beauford had him in protection,

And we, I hope, Sirs, are no murtherers.

War.
But both of you have vow'd Duke Humphry's death,
And you forsooth had the good Duke to keep:
'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend,
And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.

Q. Mar.
Then you belike suspect these noblemen,
As guilty of Duke Humphry's timeless death.

War.
Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,
And sees fast by a butcher with an ax,
But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?
Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest,
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
Even so suspicious is this tragedy.

Q. Mar.
Are you the butcher, Suffolk? where's the knife?
Is Beauford term'd a kite? where are his tallons?

Suf.
I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men,
But here's a 'vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
That shall be scoured in his ranc'rous heart,
That slanders me with murther's crimson badge.
Say if thou dar'st, proud lord of Warwickshire,
That I am faulty in Duke Humphry's death.

War.
What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him.

Q. Mar.
He dare not calm his contumelious spirit,
Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

War.
Madam be still; with rev'rence may I say;
For ev'ry word you speak in his behalf,
Is slander to your royal dignity.

Suf.
Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,
If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor'd churl; and noble stock

Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevil's noble race.

War.
But that the guilt of murther bucklers thee,
And I should rob the death's-man of his fee,
Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
And that my Soveraign's presence makes me mild,
I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee
Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech,
And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st;
That thou thy self wast born in bastardy:
And after all this fearful homage done,
Give thee thy hire, and send thy soul to hell,
Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.

Suf.
Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,
If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.

War.
Away ev'n now, or I will drag thee hence:
Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,
And do some service to Duke Humphry's ghost. [Exeunt.

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