Enter Green GREEN            God save your majesty, and well met, gentlemen. I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland. QUEEN           Why hop’st thou so? ’Tis better hope he is, For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope. Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped? GREEN            That he, our hope, might […]

QUEEN           It may be so, but yet my inward soul Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be I cannot but be sad: so heavy sad, As, though on thinking on no thought I think, Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink. BUSHY            ’Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady. QUEEN           ’Tis nothing less. […]

BUSHY            Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows Which shows like grief itself but is not so. For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects, Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon Show nothing but confusion—gazed awry, Distinguish form. So your sweet majesty, Looking awry upon your lord’s departure, […]

Enter the Queen, Bushy and Bagot BUSHY            Madam, your majesty is too much sad. You promised when you parted with the King To lay aside life-harming heaviness And entertain a cheerful disposition. QUEEN           To please the King I did, to please myself I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause Why I should welcome […]

NORTHUMBERLAND If then we shall throw off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country’s broken wing, Redeem from broking pawn the blemished crown, Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt And make high majesty look like itself, Away with me in post to Ravenspur. But if you faint, as fearing to do […]

NORTHUMBERLAND            Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, A bay in Brittany, received intelligence That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham, Thomas, son and heir to the Earl of Arundel, That late broke from the Duke of Exeter, His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury, Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir Thomas Ramston, Sir John Norbery, […]

ROSS                                       He hath not money for these Irish wars, His burdenous taxation notwithstanding, But by the robbing of the banished Duke. NORTHUMBERLAND            His noble kinsman—most degenerate King! But lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm. We see the wind sit sore upon our sails And yet we […]

ROSS                                       The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts. WILLOUGHBY                        And daily, new exactions are devised, As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what. But what in God’s name doth become of this? NORTHUMBERLAND            Wars […]

NORTHUMBERLAND            Now, afore God, ’tis shame such wrongs are borne In him, a royal prince, and many more Of royal blood in this declining land. The King is not himself, but basely led By flatterers; and what they will inform Merely in hate ’gainst any of us all, That will the King severely prosecute ’Gainst […]

NORTHUMBERLAND            Well lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead. ROSS                                       And living too, for now his son is Duke. WILLOUGHBY                        Barely in title, not in revenues. NORTHUMBERLAND            Richly in both if justice had her right. ROSS                                       My heart is great, but it must break with silence Ere’t be disburdened with a liberal tongue. NORTHUMBERLAND            Nay, […]