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Richard III: Act III, Scene 7

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Richard III
Act III, Scene 7

Baynard’s castle.

Come, let us to our holy work again.

1901

  1. Enter Richard of Gloucester and Buckingham at
  2. several doors.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

1
  1. How now, how now, what say the citizens?

Duke of Buckingham

2 - 3
  1. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,
  2. The citizens are mum, say not a word.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

4
  1. Touch’d you the bastardy of Edward’s children?

Duke of Buckingham

5 - 22
  1. I did, with his contract with Lady Lucy,
  2. And his contract by deputy in France,
  3. Th’ unsatiate greediness of his desire,
  4. And his enforcement of the city wives,
  5. His tyranny for trifles, his own bastardy,
  6. As being got, your father then in France,
  7. And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.
  8. Withal I did infer your lineaments,
  9. Being the right idea of your father,
  10. Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
  11. Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
  12. Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,
  13. Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;
  14. Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose
  15. Untouch’d or slightly handled in discourse.
  16. And when mine oratory drew to an end,
  17. I bid them that did love their country’s good
  18. Cry, “God save Richard, England’s royal king!”

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

23
  1. And did they so?

Duke of Buckingham

24 - 41
  1. No, so God help me, they spake not a word,
  2. But like dumb statues, or breathing stones,
  3. Star’d each on other, and look’d deadly pale;
  4. Which when I saw, I reprehended them,
  5. And ask’d the Mayor what meant this willful silence.
  6. His answer was, the people were not used
  7. To be spoke to but by the Recorder.
  8. Then he was urg’d to tell my tale again:
  9. “Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr’d”—
  10. But nothing spake in warrant from himself.
  11. When he had done, some followers of mine own,
  12. At lower end of the hall, hurl’d up their caps,
  13. And some ten voices cried, “God save King Richard!”
  14. And thus I took the vantage of those few:
  15. “Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,” quoth I,
  16. “This general applause and cheerful shout
  17. Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard”—
  18. And even here brake off, and came away.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

42
  1. What tongueless blocks were they! Would they not speak?

Duke of Buckingham

43
  1. No, by my troth, my lord.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

44
  1. Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?

Duke of Buckingham

45 - 51
  1. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear,
  2. Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;
  3. And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
  4. And stand between two churchmen, good my lord—
  5. For on that ground I’ll make a holy descant—
  6. And be not easily won to our requests:
  7. Play the maid’s part, still answer nay, and take it.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

52 - 54
  1. I go; and if you plead as well for them
  2. As I can say nay to thee for myself,
  3. No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.

Duke of Buckingham

55 - 58
  1. Go, go up to the leads, the Lord Mayor knocks.
  2. Exit Gloucester.
  3. Enter the Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens.
  4. Welcome, my lord! I dance attendance here;
  5. I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.
  6. Enter Catesby.
  7. Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?

Catesby

59 - 64
  1. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,
  2. To visit him tomorrow or next day.
  3. He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
  4. Divinely bent to meditation,
  5. And in no worldly suits would he be mov’d,
  6. To draw him from his holy exercise.

Duke of Buckingham

65 - 69
  1. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke,
  2. Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,
  3. In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
  4. No less importing than our general good,
  5. Are come to have some conference with his Grace.

Catesby

70
  1. I’ll signify so much unto him straight.
  1. Exit.

Duke of Buckingham

71 - 80
  1. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
  2. He is not lulling on a lewd love-bed,
  3. But on his knees at meditation;
  4. Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
  5. But meditating with two deep divines;
  6. Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
  7. But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.
  8. Happy were England, would this virtuous prince
  9. Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof,
  10. But sure I fear we shall not win him to it.

Mayor

81
  1. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!

Duke of Buckingham

82 - 83
  1. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.
  2. Enter Catesby.
  3. Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?

Catesby

84 - 88
  1. My lord,
  2. He wonders to what end you have assembled
  3. Such troops of citizens to come to him,
  4. His Grace not being warn’d thereof before:
  5. He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.

Byam Shaw, 1901

Duke of Buckingham

89 - 95
  1. Sorry I am my noble cousin should
  2. Suspect me that I mean no good to him.
  3. By heaven, we come to him in perfit love,
  4. And so once more return and tell his Grace.
  5. Exit Catesby.
  6. When holy and devout religious men
  7. Are at their beads, ’tis much to draw them thence,
  8. So sweet is zealous contemplation.
  1. Enter Richard of Gloucester aloft, between two
  2. Bishops. Catesby returns.

Mayor

96
  1. See where his Grace stands, ’tween two clergymen!

Duke of Buckingham

97 - 104
  1. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
  2. To stay him from the fall of vanity;
  3. And see, a book of prayer in his hand—
  4. True ornaments to know a holy man.
  5. Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
  6. Lend favorable ear to our requests,
  7. And pardon us the interruption
  8. Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

105 - 109
  1. My lord, there needs no such apology.
  2. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,
  3. Who, earnest in the service of my God,
  4. Deferr’d the visitation of my friends.
  5. But leaving this, what is your Grace’s pleasure?

Duke of Buckingham

110 - 111
  1. Even that (I hope) which pleaseth God above
  2. And all good men of this ungovern’d isle.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

112 - 114
  1. I do suspect I have done some offense
  2. That seems disgracious in the city’s eye,
  3. And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.

Duke of Buckingham

115 - 116
  1. You have, my lord. Would it might please your Grace,
  2. On our entreaties, to amend your fault!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

117
  1. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?

Duke of Buckingham

118 - 141
  1. Know then, it is your fault that you resign
  2. The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
  3. The sceptred office of your ancestors,
  4. Your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
  5. The lineal glory of your royal house,
  6. To the corruption of a blemish’d stock;
  7. Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
  8. Which here we waken to our country’s good,
  9. The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
  10. Her face defac’d with scars of infamy,
  11. Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
  12. And almost should’red in the swallowing gulf
  13. Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.
  14. Which to recure, we heartily solicit
  15. Your gracious self to take on you the charge
  16. And kingly government of this your land:
  17. Not as protector, steward, substitute,
  18. Or lowly factor for another’s gain;
  19. But as successively, from blood to blood,
  20. Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
  21. For this, consorted with the citizens,
  22. Your very worshipful and loving friends,
  23. And by their vehement instigation,
  24. In this just cause come I to move your Grace.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

142 - 174
  1. I cannot tell if to depart in silence,
  2. Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
  3. Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
  4. If not to answer, you might haply think
  5. Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
  6. To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
  7. Which fondly you would here impose on me.
  8. If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
  9. So season’d with your faithful love to me,
  10. Then on the other side, I check’d my friends.
  11. Therefore—to speak, and to avoid the first,
  12. And then, in speaking, not to incur the last—
  13. Definitively thus I answer you:
  14. Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert
  15. Unmeritable shuns your high request.
  16. First, if all obstacles were cut away,
  17. And that my path were even to the crown,
  18. As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
  19. Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
  20. So mighty and so many my defects,
  21. That I would rather hide me from my greatness—
  22. Being a bark to brook no mighty sea—
  23. Than in my greatness covet to be hid
  24. And in the vapor of my glory smother’d.
  25. But God be thank’d, there is no need of me,
  26. And much I need to help you, were there need:
  27. The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
  28. Which mellow’d by the stealing hours of time,
  29. Will well become the seat of majesty,
  30. And make (no doubt) us happy by his reign.
  31. On him I lay that you would lay on me,
  32. The right and fortune of his happy stars,
  33. Which God defend that I should wring from him!
Costume design for Richard

Costume design for Richard

C. F. Tomkins, Colnaghi Son & Co., J. R. Planché, circa 1829

Duke of Buckingham

175 - 201
  1. My lord, this argues conscience in your Grace,
  2. But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
  3. All circumstances well considered.
  4. You say that Edward is your brother’s son:
  5. So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife;
  6. For first was he contract to Lady Lucy—
  7. Your mother lives a witness to his vow—
  8. And afterward by substitute betroth’d
  9. To Bona, sister to the King of France.
  10. These both put off, a poor petitioner,
  11. A care-craz’d mother to a many sons,
  12. A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
  13. Even in the afternoon of her best days,
  14. Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
  15. Seduc’d the pitch and height of his degree
  16. To base declension and loath’d bigamy.
  17. By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
  18. This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.
  19. More bitterly could I expostulate,
  20. Save that for reverence to some alive,
  21. I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
  22. Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
  23. This proffer’d benefit of dignity;
  24. If not to bless us and the land withal,
  25. Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
  26. From the corruption of abusing times
  27. Unto a lineal true-derived course.

Mayor

202
  1. Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.

Duke of Buckingham

203
  1. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer’d love.

Catesby

204
  1. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

205 - 208
  1. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
  2. I am unfit for state and majesty.
  3. I do beseech you take it not amiss,
  4. I cannot nor I will not yield to you.

Duke of Buckingham

209 - 220
  1. If you refuse it—as, in love and zeal,
  2. Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son;
  3. As well we know your tenderness of heart
  4. And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
  5. Which we have noted in you to your kindred
  6. And egally indeed to all estates—
  7. Yet know, whe’er you accept our suit or no,
  8. Your brother’s son shall never reign our king,
  9. But we will plant some other in the throne,
  10. To the disgrace and downfall of your house;
  11. And in this resolution here we leave you.
  12. Come, citizens. ’Zounds, I’ll entreat no more.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

221
  1. O, do not swear, my Lord of Buckingham.
  1. Exeunt Buckingham, Mayor, Aldermen, and
  2. Citizens.

Catesby

222 - 223
  1. Call him again, sweet prince, accept their suit.
  2. If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

224 - 237
  1. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
  2. Call them again, I am not made of stones,
  3. But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
  4. Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
  5. Enter Buckingham and the rest.
  6. Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,
  7. Since you will buckle Fortune on my back,
  8. To bear her burden whe’er I will or no,
  9. I must have patience to endure the load;
  10. But if black scandal or foul-fac’d reproach
  11. Attend the sequel of your imposition,
  12. Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
  13. From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
  14. For God doth know, and you may partly see,
  15. How far I am from the desire of this.

Mayor

238
  1. God bless your Grace! We see it and will say it.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

239
  1. In saying so you shall but say the truth.

Duke of Buckingham

240 - 241
  1. Then I salute you with this royal title—
  2. Long live Richard, England’s worthy king!

All

242
  1. Amen.

Duke of Buckingham

243
  1. Tomorrow may it please you to be crown’d?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

244
  1. Even when you please, for you will have it so.

Duke of Buckingham

245 - 246
  1. Tomorrow then we will attend your Grace,
  2. And so most joyfully we take our leave.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

247 - 248
  1. To the Bishops.
  2. Come, let us to our holy work again.—
  3. Farewell, my cousin, farewell, gentle friends.
  1. Exeunt.
Richard Mansfield as the Duke of Gloucester

For God doth know, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.

Richard Mansfield as the Duke of Gloucester

William Winter, 1911

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