SCENE I.BOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol
Enter BOLINGBROKE,YORK,NORTHUMBERLAND,PERCY,
ROSS,WILLOUGHBY,BUSHY and GREEN,prisoners BOLINGBROKE.Bring forth these men.Bushy and Green,I will not vex your souls-Since presently your souls must part your bodies-With too much urging your pernicious lives,For 'twere no charity;yet,to wash your blood From off my hands,here in the view of men I will unfold some causes of your deaths:You have misled a prince,a royal king,A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,By you unhappied and disfigured clean;You have in manner with your sinful hours Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;Broke the possession of a royal bed,And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,Near to the King in blood,and near in love Till you did make him misinterpret me-Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,Eating the bitter bread of banishment,Whilst you have fed upon my signories,Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,From my own windows torn my household coat,Raz'd out my imprese,leaving me no sign Save men's opinions and my living blood To show the world I am a gentleman.This and much more,much more than twice all this,Condemns you to the death.See them delivered over To execution and the hand of death.BUSHY.More welcome is the stroke of death to me Than Bolingbroke to England.Lords,farewell.GREEN.My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,And plague injustice with the pains of hell.BOLINGBROKE.My Lord Northumberland,see them dispatch'd.Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND,and others,with the prisoners Uncle,you say the Queen is at your house;For God's sake,fairly let her be entreated.Tell her I send to her my kind commends;Take special care my greetings be delivered.YORK.A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd With letters of your love to her at large.BOLINGBROKE.Thanks,gentle uncle.Come,lords,away,To fight with Glendower and his complices.Awhile to work,and after holiday.Exeunt
SCENE 2.The coast of Wales.A castle in view
Drums.Flourish and colours.Enter the KING,the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,AUMERLE,and soldiers
KING RICHARD.Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?AUMERLE.Yea,my lord.How brooks your Grace the air After your late tossing on the breaking seas?KING RICHARD.Needs must I like it well.I weep for joy To stand upon my kingdom once again.Dear earth,I do salute thee with my hand,Though rebels wound thee with their horses'hoofs.As a long-parted mother with her child Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,So weeping-smiling greet I thee,my earth,And do thee favours with my royal hands.Feed not thy sovereign's foe,my gentle earth,Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;But let thy spiders,that suck up thy venom,And heavy-gaited toads,lie in their way,Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet Which with usurping steps do trample thee;Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,Guard it,I pray thee,with a lurking adder,Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.Mock not my senseless conjuration,lords.This earth shall have a feeling,and these stones Prove armed soldiers,ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.CARLISLE.Fear not,my lord;that Power that made you king Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd And not neglected;else,if heaven would,And we will not,heaven's offer we refuse,The proffered means of succour and redress.AUMERLE.He means,my lord,that we are too remiss;Whilst Bolingbroke,through our security,Grows strong and great in substance and in power.KING RICHARD.Discomfortable cousin!know'st thou not That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,Behind the globe,that lights the lower world,Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen In murders and in outrage boldly here;But when from under this terrestrial ball He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines And darts his light through every guilty hole,Then murders,treasons,and detested sins,The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,Stand bare and naked,trembling at themselves?So when this thief,this traitor,
Bolingbroke,Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,Shall see us rising in our throne,the east,His treasons will sit blushing in his face,Not able to endure the sight of day,But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord.For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel.Then,if angels fight,Weak men must fall;for heaven still guards the right.