Volume Vii Part 75 (1/2)

FAU. My lieges both, old Fauconbridge is proud Of your right honour'd charge. He that worst may Will strain his old eyes: G.o.d send peace this day!

A bill for the releas.e.m.e.nt of the queen preferr'd, By Henry the young King, Richard the Prince, John, Earl Of Morton, Bohmine, Earl of Leicester, and the Commons.

OLD K. Did you prefer this bill?

ALL. We did.

CHES. and LAN. Ye did not well.

GLO. Why, this is good; now shall we have the h.e.l.l.

THREE BRO. Chester and Lancaster, you wrong the king.

CHES. and LAN. Our king we do not.

YOUNG K. Do not you see me crown'd?

LAN. But whilst he lives, we to none else are bound.

LEI. Is it not wrong, think you, when all the world['s]

Troubled with rumour of a captive queen, Imprisoned by her husband in a realm, Where her own son doth wear a diadem?

Is like an head of people mutinous, Still murmuring at the shame done her and us?

Is it not more wrong, when her mother zeal, Sounded through Europe, Afric, Asia, Tells in the hollow of news-thirsting ears, Queen Elinor lives in a dungeon, For pity and affection to her son?

But when the true cause, Clifford's daughter's death, Shall be exposed to stranger nations, What volumes will be writ, what libels spread, And in each line our state dishonoured!

FAU. My lord speaks to the purpose; marry, It may be so; pray G.o.d it prove not so.

LEI. Hear me conclude, and therewithal conclude; It is an heinous and unheard-of sin: Queen Elinor, daughter to kingly France, King Henry's wife, and royal Henry's mother, Is kept close prisoner for an act of justice, Committed on an odious concubine.

KING. Thou wrong'st her, Leicester.

LEI. Lechers ever praise The cause of their confusion; she was vile.

FAU. She was ill-spoken of, it's true, [too] true.

GLO. Yonder sits one would do as much for you, Old fool; young Richard hath a gift, I know it, And on your wife my sister would bestow it.

Here's a good world! men hate adulterous sin, Count it a gulf, and yet they needs will in. [_Aside_.

LEI. What answer for the queen?

LAN. The king replies, Your words are foul slanderous forgeries.

JOHN. His highness says not so.

LAN. His highness doth, Tells you it is a shame for such wild youth To smother any impiety, With shew to chastise loose adultery, Say Rosamond was Henry's concubine.

Had never king a concubine but he?

Did Rosamond begin the fires in France?

Made she the northern borders reek with flames?

Unpeopled she the towns of Picardy?

Left she the wives of England husbandless?

O, no. She sinn'd, I grant; so do we all; She fell herself, desiring none should fall.