SCENE I. Westminster Hall. The Life and Death of Richard the Second  Shakespeare homepage  |  Richard II  | Act 4, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. Westminster Hall. 

 Enter, as to the Parliament, HENRY BOLINGBROKE,  DUKE OF AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, LORD  FITZWATER, DUKE OF SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,  the Abbot Of Westminster, and another Lord, Herald, Officers, and BAGOT  HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Call forth Bagot. 

 Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind; 

 What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death, 

 Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd 

 The bloody office of his timeless end. 

 BAGOT  Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man. 

 BAGOT  My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue 

 Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd. 

 In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted, 

 I heard you say, 'Is not my arm of length, 

 That reacheth from the restful English court 

 As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?' 

 Amongst much other talk, that very time, 

 I heard you say that you had rather refuse 

 The offer of an hundred thousand crowns 

 Than Bolingbroke's return to England; 

 Adding withal how blest this land would be 

 In this your cousin's death. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  Princes and noble lords, 

 What answer shall I make to this base man? 

 Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars, 

 On equal terms to give him chastisement? 

 Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd 

 With the attainder of his slanderous lips. 

 There is my gage, the manual seal of death, 

 That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest, 

 And will maintain what thou hast said is false 

 In thy heart-blood, though being all too base 

 To stain the temper of my knightly sword. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  Excepting one, I would he were the best 

 In all this presence that hath moved me so. 

 LORD FITZWATER  If that thy valour stand on sympathy, 

 There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine: 

 By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st, 

 I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spakest it 

 That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death. 

 If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest; 

 And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart, 

 Where it was forged, with my rapier's point. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  Thou darest not, coward, live to see that day. 

 LORD FITZWATER  Now by my soul, I would it were this hour. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this. 

 HENRY PERCY  Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true 

 In this appeal as thou art all unjust; 

 And that thou art so, there I throw my gage, 

 To prove it on thee to the extremest point 

 Of mortal breathing: seize it, if thou darest. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  An if I do not, may my hands rot off 

 And never brandish more revengeful steel 

 Over the glittering helmet of my foe! 

 Lord  I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle; 

 And spur thee on with full as many lies 

 As may be holloa'd in thy treacherous ear 

 From sun to sun: there is my honour's pawn; 

 Engage it to the trial, if thou darest. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all: 

 I have a thousand spirits in one breast, 

 To answer twenty thousand such as you. 

 DUKE OF SURREY  My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well 

 The very time Aumerle and you did talk. 

 LORD FITZWATER  'Tis very true: you were in presence then; 

 And you can witness with me this is true. 

 DUKE OF SURREY  As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true. 

 LORD FITZWATER  Surrey, thou liest. 

 DUKE OF SURREY  Dishonourable boy! 

 That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword, 

 That it shall render vengeance and revenge 

 Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie 

 In earth as quiet as thy father's skull: 

 In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn; 

 Engage it to the trial, if thou darest. 

 LORD FITZWATER  How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse! 

 If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live, 

 I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness, 

 And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, 

 And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith, 

 To tie thee to my strong correction. 

 As I intend to thrive in this new world, 

 Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal: 

 Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say 

 That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men 

 To execute the noble duke at Calais. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  Some honest Christian trust me with a gage 

 That Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this, 

 If he may be repeal'd, to try his honour. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  These differences shall all rest under gage 

 Till Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be, 

 And, though mine enemy, restored again 

 To all his lands and signories: when he's return'd, 

 Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial. 

 BISHOP OF CARLISLE  That honourable day shall ne'er be seen. 

 Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought 

 For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field, 

 Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross 

 Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens: 

 And toil'd with works of war, retired himself 

 To Italy; and there at Venice gave 

 His body to that pleasant country's earth, 

 And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, 

 Under whose colours he had fought so long. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead? 

 BISHOP OF CARLISLE  As surely as I live, my lord. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom 

 Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants, 

 Your differences shall all rest under gage 

 Till we assign you to your days of trial. 



 Enter DUKE OF YORK, attended  DUKE OF 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, fourth of that name! 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne. 

 BISHOP OF CARLISLE  Marry. God 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 noblesse 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 judged 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 judged by subject and inferior breath, 

 And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God, 

 That in a Christian climate souls refined 

 Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed! 

 I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks, 

 Stirr'd up by God, 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 raise this house against this house, 

 It will the woefullest division prove 

 That ever fell upon this cursed earth. 

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

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

 NORTHUMBERLAND  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 it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Fetch hither Richard, that in common view 

 He may surrender; so we shall proceed 

 Without suspicion. 

 DUKE OF YORK  I will be his conduct. 



 Exit  HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Lords, you that here are under our arrest, 

 Procure your sureties for your days of answer. 

 Little are we beholding to your love, 

 And little look'd for at your helping hands. 



 Re-enter DUKE OF YORK, with KING RICHARD II, and Officers bearing the regalia  KING RICHARD II  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 limbs: 

 Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me 

 To this submission. Yet I well remember 

 The favours of these men: were they not mine? 

 Did they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me? 

 So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve, 

 Found truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none. 

 God save the king! Will no man say amen? 

 Am I both priest and clerk? well then, amen. 

 God save the king! although I be not he; 

 And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me. 

 To do what service am I sent for hither? 

 DUKE OF YORK  To do that office of thine own good will 

 Which tired majesty did make thee offer, 

 The resignation of thy state and crown 

 To Henry Bolingbroke. 

 KING RICHARD II  Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown; 

 Here cousin: 

 On this side my hand, and on that side yours. 

 Now is this golden crown like a deep well 

 That owes two buckets, filling one another, 

 The emptier ever dancing in the air, 

 The other down, unseen and full of water: 

 That bucket down and full of tears am I, 

 Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  I thought you had been willing to resign. 

 KING RICHARD II  My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine: 

 You may my glories and my state depose, 

 But not my griefs; still am I king of those. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Part of your cares you give me with your crown. 

 KING RICHARD II  Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down. 

 My care is loss of care, by old care done; 

 Your care is gain of care, by new care won: 

 The cares I give I have, though given away; 

 They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Are you contented to resign the crown? 

 KING RICHARD II  Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be; 

 Therefore no no, for I resign to thee. 

 Now mark me, how I will undo myself; 

 I give this heavy weight from off my head 

 And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, 

 The pride of kingly sway from out my heart; 

 With mine own tears I wash away my balm, 

 With mine own hands I give away my crown, 

 With mine own tongue deny my sacred state, 

 With mine own breath release all duty's rites: 

 All pomp and majesty I do forswear; 

 My manors, rents, revenues I forego; 

 My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny: 

 God pardon all oaths that are broke to me! 

 God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee! 

 Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved, 

 And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved! 

 Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit, 

 And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit! 

 God save King Harry, unking'd Richard says, 

 And send him many years of sunshine days! 

 What more remains? 

 NORTHUMBERLAND  No more, but that you read 

 These accusations and these grievous crimes 

 Committed by your person and your followers 

 Against the state and profit of this land; 

 That, by confessing them, the souls of men 

 May deem that you are worthily deposed. 

 KING RICHARD II  Must I do so? and must I ravel out 

 My weaved-up folly? Gentle Northumberland, 

 If thy offences were upon record, 

 Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop 

 To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst, 

 There shouldst thou find one heinous article, 

 Containing the deposing of a king 

 And cracking the strong warrant of an oath, 

 Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven: 

 Nay, all of you that stand and look upon, 

 Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself, 

 Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands 

 Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates 

 Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross, 

 And water cannot wash away your sin. 

 NORTHUMBERLAND  My lord, dispatch; read o'er these articles. 

 KING RICHARD II  Mine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see: 

 And yet salt water blinds them not so much 

 But they can see a sort of traitors here. 

 Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself, 

 I find myself a traitor with the rest; 

 For I have given here my soul's consent 

 To undeck the pompous body of a king; 

 Made glory base and sovereignty a slave, 

 Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant. 

 NORTHUMBERLAND  My lord,-- 

 KING RICHARD II  No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man, 

 Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no title, 

 No, not that name was given me at the font, 

 But 'tis usurp'd: alack the heavy day, 

 That I have worn so many winters out, 

 And know not now what name to call myself! 

 O that I were a mockery king of snow, 

 Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, 

 To melt myself away in water-drops! 

 Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good, 

 An if my word be sterling yet in England, 

 Let it command a mirror hither straight, 

 That it may show me what a face I have, 

 Since it is bankrupt of his majesty. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass. 



 Exit an attendant  NORTHUMBERLAND  Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come. 

 KING RICHARD II  Fiend, thou torment'st me ere I come to hell! 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland. 

 NORTHUMBERLAND  The commons will not then be satisfied. 

 KING RICHARD II  They shall be satisfied: I'll read enough, 

 When I do see the very book indeed 

 Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself. 



 Re-enter Attendant, with a glass  Give me the glass, and therein will I read. 

 No deeper wrinkles yet? hath sorrow struck 

 So many blows upon this face of mine, 

 And made no deeper wounds? O flattering glass, 

 Like to my followers in prosperity, 

 Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face 

 That every day under his household roof 

 Did keep ten thousand men? was this the face 

 That, like the sun, did make beholders wink? 

 Was this the face that faced so many follies, 

 And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke? 

 A brittle glory shineth in this face: 

 As brittle as the glory is the face; 



 Dashes the glass against the ground  For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers. 

 Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport, 

 How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd 

 The shadow or your face. 

 KING RICHARD II  Say that again. 

 The shadow of my sorrow! ha! let's see: 

 'Tis very true, my grief lies all within; 

 And these external manners of laments 

 Are merely shadows to the unseen grief 

 That swells with silence in the tortured soul; 

 There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king, 

 For thy great bounty, that not only givest 

 Me cause to wail but teachest me the way 

 How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon, 

 And then be gone and trouble you no more. 

 Shall I obtain it? 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Name it, fair cousin. 

 KING RICHARD II  'Fair cousin'? I am greater than a king: 

 For when I was a king, my flatterers 

 Were then but subjects; being now a subject, 

 I have a king here to my flatterer. 

 Being so great, I have no need to beg. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Yet ask. 

 KING RICHARD II  And shall I have? 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  You shall. 

 KING RICHARD II  Then give me leave to go. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Whither? 

 KING RICHARD II  Whither you will, so I were from your sights. 

 HENRY BOLINGBROKE  Go, some of you convey him to the Tower. 

 KING RICHARD II  O, good! convey? conveyers are you all, 

 That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall. 



 Exeunt KING RICHARD II, some Lords, and a Guard  HENRY BOLINGBROKE  On Wednesday next we solemnly set down 

 Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves. 



 Exeunt all except the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the Abbot of Westminster, and DUKE OF AUMERLE  Abbot  A woeful pageant have we here beheld. 

 BISHOP OF CARLISLE  The woe's to come; the children yet unborn. 

 Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn. 

 DUKE OF AUMERLE  You holy clergymen, is there no plot 

 To rid the realm of this pernicious blot? 

 Abbot  My lord, 

 Before I freely speak my mind herein, 

 You shall not only take the sacrament 

 To bury mine intents, but also to effect 

 Whatever I shall happen to devise. 

 I see your brows are full of discontent, 

 Your hearts of sorrow and your eyes of tears: 

 Come home with me to supper; and I'll lay 

 A plot shall show us all a merry day. 



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