[Enter RATCLIFF, with Guard, conducting RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN to execution.]RIVERS
Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this,—
To-day shalt thou behold a subject die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
GREY
God bless the prince from all the pack of you!
A knot you are of damnèd blood-suckers.
VAUGHAN
You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter
.
RATCLIFF
Despatch; the limit of your lives is out.
RIVERS
O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Richard the Second here was hack’d to death:
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
GREY
Now Margaret’s curse is fallen upon our heads,
When she exclaim’d on Hastings, you, and I,
For standing by when Richard stabb’d her son.
RIVERS
Then curs’d she Richard, then curs’d she Buckingham,
Then curs’d she Hastings:—O, remember, God,
To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!
And for my sister, and her princely sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
Which, as Thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.
RATCLIFF
Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.
RIVERS
Come, Grey;—come, Vaughan;—let us here embrace.
Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower
[BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL, and others sitting at a table: Officers of the Council attending.]
HASTINGS
Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met
Is to determine of the coronation.
In God’s name speak,—when is the royal day?
BUCKINGHAM
Are all things ready for that royal time?
STANLEY
Thery are, and wants but nomination.
ELY
Tomorrow, then, I judge a happy day.
BUCKINGHAM
Who knows the lord protector’s mind herein?
Who is most inward with the noble duke?
ELY
Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.
BUCKINGHAM
We know each other’s faces: for our hearts,
He knows no more of mine than I of yours;
Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.—
Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
HASTINGS
I thank his grace, I know he loves me well;
But for his purpose in the coronation
I have not sounded him, nor he deliver’d
His gracious pleasure any way therein:
But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;
And in the duke’s behalf I’ll give my voice,
Which, I presume, he’ll take in gentle part.
ELY
In happy time, here comes the duke himself.
[Enter GLOSTER.]
GLOSTER
My noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.
I have been long a sleeper; but I trust
My absence doth neglect no great design
Which by my presence might have been concluded.
BUCKINGHAM
Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,
William Lord Hastings had pronounc’d your part,—
I mean, your voice,—for crowning of the king.
GLOSTER
Than my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;
His lordship knows me well and loves me well.—
My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn
I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
I do beseech you send for some of them.
ELY
Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.
[Exit.]
GLOSTER
Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.
[Takes him aside.]
Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,
And finds the testy gentleman so hot
That he will lose his head ere give consent
His master’s child, as worshipfully he terms it,
Shall lose the royalty of England’s throne.
