For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

Aum. Comfort, my liege, remember who you are.
K. Rich. I had forgot myself: Am I not king?
Awake thou sluggard majesty! thou sleepest.
Is not the king's name forty thousand names?
Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes
At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground,
Ye favourites of a king. Are we not high?

High be our thoughts: I know, my uncle York

Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here? Enter Scroop.

Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege,

Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.

K. Rich. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepar'd; The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.

Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 't was my care;

And what loss is it to be rid of care?

Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we ?
Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,

We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so-
Revolt our subjects that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God, as well as us:
Cry, woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay;
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
Scroop. Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd
To bear the tidings of calamity.

Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolv'd tc tears;

So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land

With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
White beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices,
Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills

Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,

And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill.
Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?

If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.

I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.

Scroop. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my lord. K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption ! Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war
Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Scroop. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate:
Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
With heads, and not with hands: those whom you curse
Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound,
And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.

Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire dead?
Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
Aum. Where is the duke my father with his power?
K. Rich. No matter where. Of comfort no man speak;

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd:
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd ;
All murther'd.-For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp,-
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable,—and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle walls, and-farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while :

I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,

Need friends :-Subjected thus,

How can you say to me-I am a king?

Car. My lord, wise men ne'er wail their present woes,

But presently prevent the ways to wail.

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,

Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,

[And so your follies fight against yourself.]

Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight:
And fight and die, is death destroying death;
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

Aum. My father hath a power, inquire of him;
And learn to make a body of a limb.

K. Rich. Thou chid'st me well :-Proud Bolingbroke, I come
To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
This ague-fit of fear is over-blown

An easy task it is to win our own.

Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day:

So may you by my dull and heavy eye;
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.

I play the torturer, by small and small,

To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken :-
Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;
And all your northern castles yielded up,
And all your southern gentlemen in arms
Upon his faction.

K. Rich.

Thou hast said enough.—

Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
Of that sweet way I was in to despair!

What say you now? What comfort have we now?
By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly
That bids me be of comfort any more.
Go to Flint castle; there I'll pine away;
A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey
That power I have, discharge; and let them go
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none :-Let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

Aum. My liege, one word.
K. Rich.

He does me double wrong That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. Discharge my followers, let them hence.-Away, From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.

[To Aum.

[Exit.

116. THE DEPOSITION OF RICHARD.

SHAKSPERE.

The scene of fiery contention in Westminster Hall, which we are about to give, follows the chroniclers very literally. Shakspere has, however, placed this remarkable exhibition of vindictive charges and recriminations before the deposition of Richard. It took place after Henry's coronation. The protest of the Bishop of Carlisle, whom Holinshed calls "a bold bishop and a faithful," also, according to most authorities, followed the deposition. It is stated to have been made on a request from the Commons that Richard might have "judgment decreed against him, so as the realm were not troubled by him." There is considerable doubt whether this speech was delivered at all. It does not appear that Richard made his resignation in Parliament, but that Northumberland and other peers, prelates, and knights, with justices and notaries, attended the captive on the 29th September, 1399, in the chief chamber of the king's lodging in the Tower, where he read aloud and subscribed the scroll of resignation, saying that, if it were in his power, he would that the Duke of Lancaster there present should be his successor. These instruments were read to the Parliament the day following. So Holinshed relates the story. Froissart, however, details the ceremonies of the surrender with more minuteness: "On a day the Duke of Lancaster, accompanied with lords, dukes, prelates, earls, barons, and knights, and of the notablest men of London, and of other good towns, rode to the Tower, and there alighted. Then King Richard was brought into the hall, appareled like a king in his robes of state, his sceptre in his hand, and his crown on his head; then he stood up alone, not holden nor stayed by no man, and said aloud: 'I have been King of England, Duke of Aquitaine, and lord of Ireland, about twenty-two years, which signiory, royalty, sceptre, crown, and heritage I clearly resign here to my cousin Henry of Lancaster; and I desire him here, in this open presence, in entering of the same possession, to take this sceptre:' and so delivered it to the duke, who took it." There can be no doubt that this apparently willing resignation, which his enemies said was made even with a merry countenance, was extorted from Richard by the fear of death. Northumberland openly proclaimed this when he rebelled against Henry. In a very curious manuscript in the library of the king of France, from which copious extracts are given in Mr. Webb's notes to the Metrical History,' there is a detailed account of a meeting between Richard and Bolingbroke in the Tower, at which York and Aumerle were present,-where the king, in a most violent rage, says, 'I am king, and will still continue king, in spite of all my enemies." Shakspere has most skilfully portrayed this natural struggle of the will of the unhappy man, against the necessity by which he was overwhelmed. The deposition scene shows us,-as faithfully as the glass which the poet introduces exhibits the person of the king,-the vacillations of a nature irresolute and yielding, but clinging to the phantom of power when the substance had passed away. There can be no doubt that Shakspere's portrait of Richard II. is as historically true as it is poetically just.

Bolingbroke, Aumerle, Surrey, Northumberland, Percy, Fitzwater, another Lord, Bishop of Carlisle, Abbot of Westminster, and Attendants.

Enter York, attended.

York. Great duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-pluck'd Richard; who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields

To the possession of thy royal hand :

Ascend his throne, descending now from him,-
And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!
Boling. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.
Car. Marry, heaven forbid !—

Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.

Would God, that any in this noble presence
Were enough noble to be upright judge
Of noble Richard; then true nobleness would
Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
What subject can give sentence on his king?
And who sits here that is not Richard's subject ?
Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,
Although apparent guilt be seen in them:
And shall the figure of God's majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,

And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,
That, in a Christian climate, souls refin'd
Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
Stirr'd up by heaven thus boldly for his king.
My lord of Hereford, here, whom you call king,
Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:
And if you crown him, let me prophesy, -
The blood of English shall manure the ground,
And future ages groan for this foul act;
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And, in this seat of peace, tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,

Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
The field of Golgotha, and dead men's skulls.
O, if you rear this house against this house,

It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth :

Prevent it, resist it, and let it not be so,

Lest child, child's children, cry against you-woe!

North. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,

Of capital treason we arrest you

here:

My lord of Westminster, be it your charge

To keep him safely till his day of trial.

May't please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?

Boling. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view

He may surrender; so we shall proceed

Re-enter York, with King Richard, and Officers bearing the crown, &c.

K. Rich. Alack, why am I sent for to a king, Before I have shook off the regal thoughts Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee :