But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

Grey. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

Rich. To thee, that hast nor honesty, nor grace.
When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong?
Or thee? or thee?
or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all! His royal grace,—
Whom God preserve better than you would wish!
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,

But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
Eliz. Brother of Gloster, you mistake the matter:
The king, on his own royal disposition,
And not provok'd by any suitor else;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself
Against my children, brothers, and myself,
Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.o

8

Rich. I cannot tell : The world is grown so bad, That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch: Since every Jack became a gentleman,

There's many a gentle person made a Jack.

Eliz. Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloster :

You envy my advancement, and my friends':
God grant we never may have need of you!
Rich. Meantime, God grants that I have need of
you:

Lewd here signifies knavish, wicked.

6 The reading of this line and the preceding is from the quartos. The folio has only, - -"Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground."

H.

7 That is, I cannot tell what to say or think of it. See 2 Henry IV., Act i. sc. 2, note 18.

8 So the first two quartos and the folio; the other quartos, "may prey."

H.

Our brother is imprison'd by your means;
Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility

Held in contempt; while many fair promotions 9
Are daily given, to ennoble those

That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.
Eliz. By Him that rais'd me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
I never did incense his majesty

Against the duke of Clarence; but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury,
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.

Rich. You may deny that you were not the cause
Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment."
Riv. She may, my lord; for

Rich. She may, lord Rivers?-why, who knows

She

not so?

may do more, sir, than denying that:

She may help you to many fair preferments;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not? She may,-ay, marry, may she,

-

Riv. What, marry, may she?

Rich. What, marry, may she? marry with a king, A bachelor, a handsome stripling too :

I wis, your grandam had a worser match.

Eliz. My lord of Gloster, I have too long borne

9 This is the reading of the quartos; the folio has, -"While great promotions." Mr. Collier jumbles the two together into a third reading, taking many from the quartos, and great from the folio. Of two or more readings put forth by the Poet, we may feel at liberty to prefer any one; but not to make up a reading which he never authorized. In the first line of this speech the quartos have we instead of I.

H.

10 So the quartos; the folio has mean instead of cause. H.

Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs:
By Heaven, I will acquaint his majesty
Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.
I had rather be a country serving-maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition,-
To be thus taunted, scorn'd, and baited at:
Small joy have I in being England's queen.

Enter Queen MARGARET, behind.

11

Mar. And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech Him!

Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.

Rich. What! threat you me with telling of the king?

Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said,12
I will avouch in presence of the king:

I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
"Tis time to speak; my pains are quite forgot.
Mar. Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Rich. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,

I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends:

To royalize his blood, I spent mine own.

Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine.

Rich. In all which time, you and your husband

Grey

So in all the quartos; in the folio,-"To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at."

H.

12 This line is wanting in the folio, but is plainly needful to the The second line after is not in the quartos.

sense.

H.

Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
Was not your

And, Rivers, so were you:-
In Margaret's battle at St. Albans slain?

Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

husband

What you have been ere this, and what you are; Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Mar. A murderous villain, and so still thou art. Rich. Poor Clarence did forsake his father War

wick,

Ay, and forswore himself,—which Jesu pardon!Mar. Which God revenge!

Rich. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown; And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up. I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's, Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine:

I am too childish-foolish for this world.

Mar. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,

Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days,
Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king;'
So should we you, if you should be our king.

13

Rich. If I should be?—I had rather be a pedlar: Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!

Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country's king,
As little joy you may suppose in me,
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

Mar. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;
For I am she, and altogether joyless.

13 So the folio; the quartos, "lawful king." The change seems needful; for, as Knight remarks, "Rivers would scarcely have ventured to use the epithet lawful in the presence of Gloster." However, modern editions generally retain lawful.

H.

I can no longer hold me patient.

[Advancing. Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out In sharing that which you have pill'd11 from me! Which of you trembles not, that looks on me?

If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects, Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels? — Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

15

Rich. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou

in my sight?

Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd: That will I make, before I let thee go.

Rich. Wert thou not banished on pain of death? 1o Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in banish

ment,

Than death can yield me here by my
abode.
A husband and a son thou ow'st to me,—
And thou, a kingdom;—all of you, allegiance:
This sorrow that I have, by right is yours,
And all the pleasures you usurp, are mine.

Rich. The curse my noble father laid on thee, When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper, And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes; And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout,

14 To pill is to pillage. It is often used with to poll or strip. "Kildare did use to pill and poll his friendes, tenants, and reteyners." Holinshed.

15 That is, what dost thou? See As You Like It, Act i. sc. 1, note 3.

16 This and the two following lines are not in the quartos. Margaret fled into France after the battle of Hexham, in 1464, and Edward issued a proclamation prohibiting any of his subjects from aiding her return, or harbouring her, should she attempt to revisit England. She remained abroad till April, 1471, when she landed at Weymouth. After the battle of Tewksbury, in May, 1471, she was confined in the Tower, where she continued a prisoner till 1475, when she was ransomed by her father Reignier, and removed to France, where she died in 1482. So that her introduction in the present scene is a dramatic fiction.