First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
Which else would post until it had return'd

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These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
I do defy him, and I spit at him ;

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Call him a slanderous coward and a villain :

Which to maintain I would allow him odds,
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable,
Wherever Englishman durst set his foot.
Meantime, let this defend my loyalty,

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By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

BOLING. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,

Disclaiming here the kindred of the king,

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And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength

As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.

NOR. I take it up; and by that sword I swear,
Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:

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And when I mount, alive may I not light,

If I be a traitor or unjustly fight!

K. RICH. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?

It must be great that can inherit us

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So much as of a thought of ill in him.

BOLING. Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;

That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles

In name of lendings, for your highness' soldiers,

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The which he hath detained for lewd employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides, I say, and will in battle prove,
Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was surveyed by English eye,
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,

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Fetch'd from false Mowbray their first head and spring.

Further I say, and further will maintain

Upon his bad life to make all this good,

That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,

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And consequently, like a traitor coward,

Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood :

Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,

Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,

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To me for justice and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

K. RICH. How high a pitch his resolution soars!
Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?

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NOR. O, let my sovereign turn away his face,

And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
Till I have told this slander of his blood,

How God and good men hate so foul a liar.

K. RICH. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:

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Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,

As he is but my father's brother's son,

Now, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialise
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul:
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.

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NOR. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,

Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.

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Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais

Disbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers:

The other part reserved I by consent;

For that my sovereign liege was in my debt

Upon remainder of a dear account,

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Since last I went to France to fetch his queen :

Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death,

I slew him not; but, to my own disgrace,

Neglected my sworn duty in that case.

For you, my noble lord of Lancaster,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grievéd soul:
But ere I last received the sacrament
I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
Your grace's pardon, and I hope, I had it.

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This is my fault: as for the rest appealed,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
A recreant and most degenerate traitor:
Which in myself I boldly will defend ;
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,

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To prove myself a loyal gentleman

Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.

In haste whereof, most heartily I pray

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Your highness to assign our trial day.

K. RICH. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me; ~k-que

Let's purge this choler without letting blood:

This we prescribe, though no physician;

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Deep malice makes too deep incision :
Forget, forgive: conclude and be agreed;
Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you, your son.

GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age:
Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
K. RICH. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
GAUNT.

Obedience bids I should not bid again.

When, Harry? when?

K. RICH. Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.

NOR. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.

My life thou shalt command, but not my shame :
The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
Despite of death that lives upon my grave,
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
I am disgraced, impeached, and baffled here;
Pierced to the soul with slander's venomed spear,
The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breathed this poison.

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K. RICH.

Rage must be withstood:

Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame.

NOR. Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame,

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And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,

The purest treasure mortal times afford

Is spotless reputation; that away,

Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten times barred-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

My honour is my life: both grow in one:
Take honour from me, and my life is done :
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live, and for that will I die.

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K. RICH. Cousin, throw down your gage: do you begin.
BOLING. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin!
Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height.
Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue
Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong,
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
The slavish motive of recanting fear,
And spit it bleeding, in his high disgrace,

Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.

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[Exit GAUNT.

K. RICH. We were not born to sue, but to command:
Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day;
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
The swelling difference of your settled hate;
Since we cannot atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor's chivalry.

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Lord marshal, command our officers at arms

Be ready to direct these home-alarms.

[Exeunt.

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SCENE II. London. A room in the DUKE OF LANCASTER'S

Palace.

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER.

GAUNT. Alas! the part I had in Gloucester's blood
Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,

To stir against the butchers of his life!
But since correction lieth in those hands

Which made the fault that we cannot correct,

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Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;

Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,

Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

DUCH. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?

Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?

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Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,

Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the Destinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,

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One flourishing branch of his most royal root,

Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,

Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,

By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.
Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine!
And though thou liv'st and breath'st,

Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair.
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughtered,
Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we entitle patience
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to 'venge my Gloucester's death.
GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
His deputy anointed in His sight,

Hath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against His minister.

DUCH. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?

GAUNT. TO God, the widow's champion and defence.
DUCH. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
Or, if misfortune miss the first career,
Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courser's back,

And throw the rider headlong in the lists,

A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!

Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife

With her companion grief must end her life.

GAUNT. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry:

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As much good stay with thee as go with me!

DUCH. Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight;

I take my leave before I have begun,
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done,
Commend me to my brother, Edmund York,
Lo, this is all-nay, yet depart not so;

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