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At last both thoroughly cured, and set in safety; And yet, for all this glorious work of peace, Ourself is scarce secure.

Dur. The rage of malice

Conjures fresh spirits with the spells of York.
For ninety years ten English kings and princes,
Threescore great dukes and earls, a thousand lords
And valiant knights, two hundred fifty thousand
Of English subjects have, in civil wars,
Been sacrificed to an uncivil thirst

Of discord and ambition: this hot vengeance
Of the just Powers above, to utter ruin
And desolation, had reign'd on, but that
Mercy did gently sheath the sword of justice,
In lending to this blood-shrunk commonwealth
A new soul, new birth, in your sacred person.
Daw. Edward the Fourth, after a doubtful for-
tune,

Yielded to nature, leaving to his sons,

Edward and Richard, the inheritance

Of a most bloody purchase; these young princes,
Richard the tyrant, their unnatural uncle,
Forced to a violent grave; so just is Heaven!
Him hath your majesty, by your own arm
Divinely strengthen'd, pull'd from his Boar's sty,"
And struck the black usurper to a carcase.
Nor doth the house of York decay in honours,
Though Lancaster doth repossess his right;

6

pull'd from his Boar's sty.] This contemptuous allusion to the armorial bearings of Richard III. is very common in our old writers. Shakspeare has it frequently in his tragedy of this Usurper.

For Edward's daughter is king Henry's queen:
A blessed union, and a lasting blessing

For this poor panting island, if some shreds,
Some useless remnant of the house of York
Grudge not at this content.

Orf. Margaret of Burgundy
Blows fresh coals of division.

Sur. Painted fires,

Without or heat to scorch, or light to cherish.

Daw. York's headless trunk, her father; Ed

ward's fate,

Her brother, king; the smothering of her nephews
By tyrant Gloster, brother to her nature,

Nor Gloster's own confusion, (all decrees
Sacred in heaven) can move this woman-monster,
But that she still, from the unbottom'd mine
Of devilish policies, doth vent the ore

Of troubles and sedition.

Orf. In her age,—

Great sir, observe the wonder,7-she grows fruitful, Who, in her strength of youth, was always barren: Nor are her births as other mothers' are,

At nine or ten months' end; she has been with

child

7 Oxford's speech is principally taken from that of Henry's ambassador (Sir W. Warham) to the archduke. "It is the strangest thing in the world, that the Lady Margaret, excuse us if we name her, whose malice to the king is causeless and endless, should now, when she is old, at the time when other women give over childbearing, bring forth two such monsters, being not the births of nine or ten months, but of many years. And whereas other mothers bring forth children weak, and not able to help themselves, she bringeth forth tall striplings, able, soon after their coming into the world, to bid battle to mighty kings."

Eight, or seven years at least; whose twins being

born,

(A prodigy in nature,) even the youngest

Is fifteen years of age at his first entrance,

As soon as known i' th' world, tall striplings, strong

And able to give battle unto kings;
Idols of Yorkish malice.

[Dau.] And but idols;

A steely hammer crushes them to pieces.

K. Hen. Lambert, the eldest, lords, is in our service,

Preferr'd by an officious care of duty

From the scullery to a falconer; strange ex

ample!

Which shews the difference between noble na

tures

And the base-born: but for the upstart duke, The new-revived York, Edward's second son, Murder'd long since i' th' Tower; he lives again, And vows to be your king.

Stan. The throne is fill'd, sir.

K. Hen. True, Stanley; and the lawful heir sits on it:

A guard of angels, and the holy prayers
Of loyal subjects are a sure defence

Against all force and counsel of intrusion.--
But now, my lords, put case, some of our nobles,

8 [Daw.] And but idols, &c.] The 4to, by mistake, gives this short speech also to Oxford. It is much in Dawbeney's manner.

Our Great Ones, should give countenance and

courage

To trim duke Perkin; you will all confess
Our bounties have unthriftily been scatter'd
Amongst unthankful men.

Daw. Unthankful beasts,
Dogs, villains, traitors!

K. Hen. Dawbeney, let the guilty Keep silence; I accuse none, though I know Foreign attempts against a state and kingdom Are seldom without some great friends at home. Stan. Sir, if no other abler reasons else

Of duty or allegiance could divert

A headstrong resolution, yet the dangers
So lately past by men of blood and fortunes.
In Lambert Simnel's party,' must command
More than a fear, a terror to conspiracy.
The high-born Lincoln, son to De la Pole,
The earl of Kildare, ([the] lord Geraldine,)
Francis lord Lovell, and the German baron,
Bold Martin Swart, with Broughton and the rest,
(Most spectacles of ruin, some of mercy)

• Simnel's party,] Simnel's party (for he himself was a mere puppet in the hands of the Earl of Lincoln) was utterly defeated in the battle of Newark. "Bold Martin Swart," one of the most celebrated of those soldiers of fortune who, in that age, traversed Europe with a band of mercenaries, ready to fight for the first person that would pay them, fell in this action, after " performing bravely," as the noble historian says, "with his Germans." Lambert was taken prisoner. Henry saved his life, for which Bacon produces many good reasons, and advanced him first to the dignity of a turn-spit in his own kitchen, and subsequently to that of an under-falconer.

Are precedents sufficient to forewarn

The present times, or any that live in them,
What folly, nay, what madness 'twere to lift
A finger up in all defence but your's,
Which can be but impostorous in a title.

K. Hen. Stanley, we know thou lov'st us, and thy heart

Is figured on thy tongue; nor think we less

Of any's here. How closely we have hunted

This cub (since he unlodg'd) from hole to hole,
Your knowledge is our chronicle; first Ireland,
The common stage of novelty, presented
This gewgaw to oppose us; there the Geraldines
And Butlers once again stood in support

Of this colossic statue: Charles of France
Thence call'd him into his protection,
Dissembled him the lawful heir of England;
Yet this was all but French dissimulation,
Aiming at peace with us; which, being granted
On honourable terms on our part, suddenly
This smoke of straw was pack'd from France

again,

T' infect some grosser air:1 and now we learn (Maugre the malice of the bastard Nevill,

I Yet all this, &c.] "When Perkin was come to the court of France, the king received him with great honour.-At the same time there remained to him divers Englishmen of quality, Sir James Neville, Sir John Taylor, and about an hundred more.—But all this, on the French king's part, was but a trick, the better to bow king Henry to peace; and therefore upon the first grain of incense, that was sacrificed upon the altar of peace at Boloign, Perkin was smoked away." Sir Taylor is a very unusual mode of designating a knight; but perhaps the king does it in scorn.

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