I must be held a rancorous enemy.Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abus’d
With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
GREY
To who in all this presence speaks your grace?
GLOSTER
To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
When have I injur’d thee? when done thee wrong?—
Or thee?—or thee?—or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all! His royal grace,—
Whom God preserve better than you would wish!—
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while,
But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Brother of Gloster, you mistake the matter.
The king, on his own royal disposition,
And not provok’d by any suitor else—
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred
That in your outward action shows itself
Against my children, brothers, and myself—
Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.
GLOSTER
I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There’s many a gentle person made a Jack.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloster;
You envy my advancement, and my friends’;
God grant we never may have need of you!
GLOSTER
Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:
Our brother is imprison’d by your means,
Myself disgrac’d, and the nobility
Held in contempt; while great promotions
Are daily given to ennoble those
That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
By Him that rais’d me to this careful height
From that contented hap which I enjoy’d,
I never did incense his majesty
Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
GLOSTER
You may deny that you were not the mean
Of my Lord Hastings’ late imprisonment.
RIVERS
She may, my lord; for,—
GLOSTER
She may, Lord Rivers?—why, who knows not so?
She may do more, sir, than denying that:
She may help you to many fair preferments;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.
What may she not? She may,—ay, marry, may she,—
RIVERS
What, marry, may she?
GLOSTER.
What, marry, may she! marry with a king,
A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too:
I wis your grandam had a worser match.
QUEEN ELIZABETH
My Lord of Gloster, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty
Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur’d.
I had rather be a country servant-maid
Than a great queen with this condition,—
To be so baited, scorn’d, and stormed at.
[Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind.]
Small joy have I in being England’s queen.
QUEEN MARGARET
And lessen’d be that small, God, I beseech Him!
Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
GLOSTER
What! Threat you me with telling of the king?
Tell him, and spare not: look what I have said
I will avouch in presence of the king:
I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
‘Tis time to speak,—my pains are quite forgot.
QUEEN MARGARET
Out, devil! I do remember them too well:
Thou kill’dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
GLOSTER
Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a packhorse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends;
To royalize his blood I spilt mine own.
QUEEN MARGARET
