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When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse, that thou so often hast bestrid;
That horse, that I so carefully have dress'd!

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary ? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground.
K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,
(Since pride must have a fall) and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,

Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.7
Enter Keeper, with a Dish.

Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.
[To the Groom.
K. Rich. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart

shall say.

Keep. My lord, will 't please you to fall to?

[Exit.

K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do. Keep. My lord, I dare not; sir Pierce of Exton, who Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. [Beats the Keep. Keep. Help, help, help!

6 Rode he on Barbary?] This story of Roan Barbary might have been of Shakspeare's own invention. Froissart, however, relates a yet more silly tale concerning a favourite greyhound of King Richard's, "who was wont to lepe upon the King, but left the King and came to the erle of Derby duke of Lancastre, and made to hym the same friendly countinaunce and chere as he was wonte to do to the King," &c. Froissart, Vol. II, fo. CCC.xxx. Steevens.

7

by jauncing Bolingbroke.] Faunce and jaunt were synony. mous words. Ben Jonson uses geances in his Tale of a Tub: "I would I had a few more geances of it:

"And you say the word, send me to Jericho." Steevens.

Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed.

K. Rich. How now? what means death in this rude

assault?

Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument. [Snatching a weapon, and killing one.

Go thou, and fill another room in hell.

[He kills another; then EXTON strikes him down. That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire,

That staggers thus my person.-Exton, thy fierce hand Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land. Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high; Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die."

[Dies.9

8 here to die.] Shakspeare in this scene has followed Holinshed, who took his account of Richard's death from Hall, as Hall did from Fabian, in whose Chronicle, I believe, this story of Sir Piers of Exton first appeared. Froissart, who had been in England in 1396, and who appears to have finished his Chronicle soon after the death of the King, says, "how he died, and by what meanes, I could not tell whanne I wrote this cronicle." Had he been murdered by eight armed men, (for such is Fabian's story) "four of whom he slew with his own hand," and from whom he must have received many wounds, surely such an event must have reached the ears of Froissart, who had a great regard for the King, having received from him at his departure from England "a goblet of silver and gilt, waying two marke of silver, and within it a C. nobles; by the whych (he adds) I am as yet the better and shal be as longe as I live; wherefore I am bounde to praye to God for his soule, and wyth muche sorrowe I wryte of his deathe."

Nor is this story of his murder consistent with the account (which is not controverted) of his body being brought to London and exposed in Cheapside for two hours, (" his heade on a blacke quishen, and his vysage open,") where it was viewed, says Froissart, by twenty thousand persons. The account given by Stowe, who seems to have had before him a Manuscript History of the latter part of Richard's life, written by a person who was with him in Wales, appears much more probable. He says, "he was imprisoned in Pomfrait Castle, where xv dayes and nightes they vexed him with continuall hunger, thirst, and cold, and finally bereft him of his life, with such a kind of death as never before that time was knowen in England, saith Sir John Fortiscute," probably in his Declaration touching the Title of the House of Yorke, a work yet, I believe, somewhere existing in MS. Sir John Fortescue was called to the bar a few years after the death of Richard: living therefore so near the time, his testimony is of the highest weight.

Exton. As full of valour, as of royal blood:
Both have I spilt; O, would the deed were good!
For now the devil, that told me—I did well,
Says, that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear ;-
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.

[Exeunt.

And with him Harding, who is supposed to have been at the battle of Shrewsbury, in 1403, concurs: "Men sayd for-hungered he Chron. 1543, fol. 199. So also, Walsingham, who wrote in the time of Henry V, and Polydore Virgil.

was."

The Percies in the Manifesto which they published against King Henry IV, in the third year of his reign, the day before the battle of Shrewsbury, expressly charge him with having "carried his sovereign lord traiterously within the castell of Pomfret, without the consent or the judgment of the lordes of the realm, by the space of fiftene daies and so many nightes, (which is horrible among Christian people to be heard) with hunger, thirst, and cold, to perishe" Had the story of Sir Pierce of Exton been true, it undoubtedly must have reached them. Their not mentioning it is decisive.

If, however, we are to give credit to Sir John Hayward, this controverted point will not admit of dispute; for in The First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry IV, 4to. 1599, after relating the story of King Richard's assassination, he very gravely tells us, that "after being felled to the ground, he with a faint and feeble voice groaned forth these words: "My great grandfather Edward II," &c. Mr. Hume, in his entertaining, but often superficial, History of England, has not been weak enough to insert this fictitious dying speech. He might, however, have inserted it with as much propriety as an abridgment of the oration of the Bishop of Carlisle, on the deposition of the King being propounded in parliament, which Hayward feigned in imitation of Livy, grounding himself on a few sentences preserved in our old Chro nicles, which he has expanded into thirteen quarto pages. The writers of The Parliamentary History have in this matter been as careless as Mr. Hume. Malone.

9 Dies.] The representation here given of the King's death is perfectly agreeable to Hall and Holinshed. But the fact was otherwise. He refused food for several days, and died of abstinence and a broken heart. See Walsingham, Otterbourne, the Monk of Evesham, the continuator of the History of Croyland, and the anonymous Godstow Chronicle. Ritson.

SCENE VI.

Windsor. A Room in the Castle.

Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, and YORK, with Lords and Attendants.

Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear, Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire

Our town of Cicester in Glostershire;

But whether they be ta'en, or slain, we hear not.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Welcome, my lord: What is the news?

North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness. The next news is, I have to London sent

The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent:1 The manner of their taking may appear

At large discoursed in this paper here.

[Presenting a paper. Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains; And to thy worth will add right worthy gains. Enter FITZWATER.

Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London The heads of Brocas, and Sir Bennet Seely; Two of the dangerous consorted traitors, That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.

Boling. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot; Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

Enter PERCY, with the Bishop of Carlisle. Percy. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster, With clog of conscience, and sour melancholy, Hath yielded up his body to the grave;2

1

of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent:] So the folio. The quarto reads-of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent. It appears from the histories of this reign that the reading of the folio is right. Malone.

2 The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster,

Hath yielded up his body to the grave;] This abbot of Westminster was William de Colchester. The relation here given of his death, after Holinshed's Chronicle, is untrue, as he survived the King many years; and though called "the grand conspirator," it is very doubtful whether he had any concern in the conspiracy; at least nothing was proved against him. Ritson.

But here is Carlisle living, to abide

Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom: 3.

-

Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
So, as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife:
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.*

Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a Coffin.
Exton. Great king, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand,

Upon my head, and all this famous land.

Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

Boling. They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word, nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through the shade of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,

That blood should sprinkle me, to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent;

3 Carlisle, this is your doom:] This prelate was committed to the Tower, but on the intercession of his friends, obtained leave to change his prison for Westminster-Abbey. In order to deprive him of his see, the Pope, at the King's instance, translated him to a bishoprick in partibus infidelium, and the only preferment he could ever after obtain, was a rectory in Gloucestershire. He died in 1409. Ritson.

4 High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.] Thus, in the old Play of The History of King Leir, &c.

"I see such sparks of honour in your face."

Hence, perhaps, as Mr. Todd observes, Milton, in his Arcades, V. 26:

"I see bright honour sparkle in your eyes." Steevens.

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