K. Hen. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king; I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is. Bates. Then, would he were here alone; so should he be rure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

K. Hen. I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone; howsoever, you speak this, to feel other men's minds. Methinks, I could not die anywhere so contented, as in the king's company; his cause being just, and his quarrel honorable. Will. That's more than we know.

Bates. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the king's subjects; if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

-

Will. But, if the cause be not good, the king himself bath a heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs, and arms, and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, We died at such a place; some, swearing; some, crying for a surgeon; some, upon their wives left poor behind them; some, upon the debts they owe; some, upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well, that die in battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey, were against all proportion of subjection.

K. Hen. So, if a son, that is by his father sent about merchandise, do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him or if a servant, under his master's command, transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers, and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation.

Will. 'T is certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his own head, the king is not to answer for it.

Bates. I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

K. Hen. I myself heard the king say, he would not be ransomed.

Will. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but, when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne'er the

wiser.

K. Hen. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after. Will. 'Mass, you'll pay him, then! That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and private displeasure cau do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'l never trust his word after come, 't is a foolish saying.

K. Hen. Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient.

Will. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

K. Hen. I embrace it.

Will. How shall I know thee again?

K. Hen. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

Will. Here's my glove; give me another of thine.

K. Hen. There.

Will. This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come to me and say, after to-morrow, "This is my glove," by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.

K. Hen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

Will. Thou darest as well be hanged.

K. Hen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the king's company.

Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well.

SHAKSPEARE

THE FEUD OF THE ROSES.

RICHARD PLANTAGENET

WARWICK -SUFFOLK SOMERSET VERNON-LAWYER.

Plan. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this silence? Dare no man answer in a case of truth?

Suff. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud ;

The garden here is more convenient.

Plan. Then say at once, if I maintained the truth ; Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in the error?

Suff. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law;

And never yet could frame my will to it:

And, therefore, frame the law unto my will.

Som. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then between us. War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch; Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth : Between two blades, which bears the better temper; Between two horses, which doth bear him best; Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye; I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment: But in these nice, sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:

The truth appears so naked on my side,
That any purblind eye may find it out.

Som. And on my side it is so well appareled,
So clear, so shining, and so evident,

That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.

Plan. Since you are tongue-tied, and so loth to speak,
In dumb significance proclaim your thoughts:
Let him that is a true-born gentleman,

And stands upon the honor of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

Sum. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,

But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
War. I love no colors; and, without all color
Of base, insinuating flattery,

Somerset ;

I pluck this white rose, with Plantagenet.
Suff. I pluck this red rose, with young
And say, withal, I think he held the right.
Ver. Stay, lords and gentlemen; and pluck no more,
you conclude, that he, upon whose side

Till

The fewest roses are cropped from the tree, snall yield the other in the right opinion.

Som. Good master Vernon, it is well objected;

If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plan. And I.

Ver. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,

Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

Som. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off;
Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
And fall on my side so against your will.

Ver. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt,
And keep me on the side where still I am.

Som. Well, well, come on: who else?

Law. Unless my study and my books be false, The argument you held was wrong in you;

In sign whereof, I pluck a white rose too.

(To Somerset.)

Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
Som. Here, in my scabbard; meditating that

Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

Plan. Meantime, your cheeks do counterfeit our roses; For pale they look with fear, as witnessing

The truth on our side.

No, Plantagenet,

Som.
'Tis not for fear, but anger, that thy cheeks
Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses;
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth,
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

Som. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,
That shall maintain what I have said is true,
Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.

Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,

I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.

Suff. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.

Plan. Proud Poole, I will; and scorn both him and thee Suff. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. Som. Away, away, good William de-la-Poole ! We grace the yeoman, by conversing with him.

War. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence, Third son to the third Edward king of England; Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root? Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege, Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus.

Som. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words, On any plot of ground in Christendom :

Was not thy father, Richard, earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days?
And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted,
Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman.
Plan. My father was attached, not attainted;
Condemned to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripened to my will.
For your partaker, Poole, and you yourself,
I'll note you in my book of memory,
To scourge you for this apprehension:
Look to it well; and say you are well warned.

Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still:

And know us, by these colors, for thy foes;
For these my friends, in spite of thee shall wear.
Plan. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,

As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,

Will I forever, and my faction, wear;
Until it wither with me to my grave,
Or flourish to the hight of my degree.

Suff. Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition!
And so farewell, until I meet thee next.

(Exit.)

Som. Have with thee, Poole. Farewell, ambitious Richard.

(Exit.)

Plan. How I am braved, and must perforce endure it!
War. This blot, that they object against your house,

Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,

Called for the truce of Winchester and Gloster:
And, if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset, and William Poole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose:
And here I prophesy, - This brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction, in the Temple Garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

Plan. Good master Vernon, I am bound to you,
That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
Ver. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
Law. And so will I.

Plan.
Thanks, gentle sir.
Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say,
This quarrel will drink blood another day.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE QUARREL OF GLOSTER AND WINCHESTER

GLOSTER BISHOP OF WINCHESTER - LORDS.

Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,
With written pamphlets studiously devised,
Humphrey of Gloster? If thou canst accuse,
Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,
Do it without invention suddenly;

As I with sudden and extemporal speech

Purpose to answer what thou canst object.

Glo. Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience, Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonored me.

Think not, although in writing I preferred