Hast. 'Good faith, and when I met this holy man, Buck. I do, my lord; but long I cannot stay there; I shall return before your lordship thence. Hast. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there. Buck. And supper too,altho' thou know'st it not. [Asi. -Come, will you go? Hast. I'll wait upon your lordship. SCENE III. [Exeunt. Pomfret. Before the Castle. Enter RATCLIFF, with a Guard, conducting RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to Execution. Rat. Come, bring forth the prisoners. Riv. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this,- Grey. God keep the prince from all the pack of you! A knot you are of damned blood-suckers. Vaugh. You live, that shall cry woe for this hereafter. Rat. Despatch; the limit of your lives is out. Riv. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison, Fatal and ominous to noble peers! Within the guilty closure of thy walls, Richard the Second here was hack'd to death; And, for more slander to thy dismal seat, We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink. Grey. Now Margaret's curse is fallen upon our heads, Then curs'd she Richard :-O, remember, God, Farewel, until we meet again in heaven. [Exeunt. [4] Expiate is used for expiated; It seems to mean, fully completed, and ended. MAL. 30 VOL. V. SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower. BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, the Bishop of ELY, CATESBY, LOVEL, and others, sitting at a Table: Officers of the Council attending. Hast. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met Is-to determine of the coronation : In God's name speak, when is the royal day? Buck. Who knows the lord protector's mind herein ? Who is most inward with the noble duke? Ely. Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind. Buck. We know each other's faces: for our hearts,He knows no more of mine, than I of yours; Nor I, of his, my lord, than you of mine :Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love. Hast. I thank his grace, I know he loves me well; But, for his purpose in the coronation, I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd Enter GLOSTER. Ely. In happy time, here comes the duke himself. Glo. My noble lords and cousins, all, good-morrow: I have been long a sleeper; but, I trust, My absence doth neglect no great design, Which by my presence might have been concluded. Glo. Than my lord Hastings, no man might be bolder; [5] i. e. the only thing wanting, is appointment of a particular day for the ceremony. STEEV. [6] This expression is borrowed from the theatre. The cue, queue, or tail of a speech consists of the last words, which are the token for an entrance or answer. To come on the cue, therefore, is to come at the proper time. JOHNS. Ely. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart. [Exit ELY. Glo. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you. [Takes him aside. Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business ; And finds the testy gentleman so hot, That he will lose his head, ere give consent, His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it, Shall lose the royalty of England's throne. Buck. Withdraw yourself awhile, I'll go with you. [Exeunt GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM. Stan. We have not yet set down this day of triumph To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden; For I myself am not so well provided, As else I would be, were the day prolong'd. Ely. Where is my lord protector? I have sent For these strawberries. Hast. His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning; There's some conceit or other likes him well, Can lessér hide his love, or hate, than he ; For by his face straight shall you know his heart. Hast. Marry, that with no man here he is offended; For, were he, he had shown it in his looks. Re-enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM. Glo. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve, That do conspire my death with devilish plots Of damned witchcraft; and that have prevail'd Upon my body with their hellish charms? Hast. The tender love I bear your grace, my lord, Makes me most forward in this noble presence 'To doom the offenders: Whosoe'er they be, I say, my lord, they have deserved death. Glo. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil, And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, That by their witchcraft thus have marked me. Hast. If they have done this deed, my noble lord,— Lovel, and Catesby, look, that it be done; [Exe. Council, with GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM. Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,* Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head. Cate. Despatch, my lord, the duke would be at dinner; Make a short shrift, he longs to see your head. Hast. O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God ! Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks," Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast; Ready, with every nod, to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep. Lov. Come, come, despatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim. Hast. Oh, bloody Richard !-miserable England! I prophesy the fearful'st time to thee, That ever wretched age hath look'd upon. Come, lead me to the block, bear him my head; They smile at me, who shortly shall be dead. [Exeunt. [8] So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, M. D. 1463. [Master Dolman.] "My palfrey, in the playnest paved streete, Thryse bow'd his boanes, thryse kneled on the flower, The housings of a horse, and sometimes the horse himself, were anciently denominated a foot-cloth. STEEV. [9] So, Horace : Nescius auræ fallacis, JOHNS. SCENE V. The same. The Tower Walls. Enter GLOSTER and BUCK INGHAM, in rusty armour, marvellous ill-favoured.1 Glo. Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and change thy colour? Murder thy breath in middle of a word, And then again begin, and stop again, As if thou wert distraught, and mad with terror? Glo. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along. Glo. Catesby, o'erlook the walls. Buck.Lord mayor, the reason we have sent for you,- Glo. So dear I lov'd the man, that I must weep. So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue, I mean, his conversation with Shore's wife, [] Thus Holinshed: "The protector immediately after dinner, intend ing to set some colour upon the matter, sent in all haste for many substan tial men out of the citie into the tower; and at their coming, himselfe with the duke of Buckingham, stood harnessed in old ill-faring briganders, such as no man should weene they would vouchsafe to have put upon their backes except that some sudden necessitie had constreined them." STEEV. [2] That is, pretending. STEEV. 30* VOL. V. |