The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

Bristol.BOLINGBROKE’S Camp.

Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, HENRY PERCY, WILLOUGHBY, ROSS; Officers behind, with BUSHY and GREEN prisoners.

Boling.Bring forth these men.

Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls—

Since presently your souls must part your bodies—

With too much urging your pernicious lives,

For ’twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood

From off my hands, here in the view of men

I will unfold some causes of your deaths.

You have misled a prince, a royal king,

A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,

By you unhappied and disfigur’d clean:

You have in manner with your sinful hours

Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him,

Broke the possession of a royal bed,

And stain’d the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks

With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.

Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,

Near to the king in blood, and near in love

Till you did make him misinterpret me,

Have stoop’d my neck under your injuries,

And sigh’d my English breath in foreign clouds,

Eating the bitter bread of banishment;

Whilst you have fed upon my signories,

Dispark’d my parks, and felled my forest woods,

From mine own windows torn my household coat,

Raz’d out my impress, leaving me no sign,

Save men’s opinions and my living blood,

To show the world I am a gentleman.

This and much more, much more than twice all this,

Condemns you to the death. See them deliver’d over

To execution and the hand of death.

Bushy.More welcome is the stroke of death to me

Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.

Green.My comfort is, that heaven will take our souls

And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

Boling.My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch’d.[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND and Others, with BUSHY and GREEN.

Uncle, you say the queen is at your house;

For God’s sake, fairly let her be entreated:

Tell her I send to her my kind commends;

Take special care my greetings be deliver’d.

York.A gentleman of mine I have dispatch’d

With letters of your love to her at large.

Boling.Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,

To fight with Glendower and his complices:

Awhile to work, and after holiday.[Exeunt.