Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom : Choose out some secret place, some reverend room, Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a coffin. Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand, Upon my head, and all this famous land. Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed. Boling. They love not poison that do poison need, Nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead, I hate the murtherer, love him murthered. The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour, But neither my good word, nor princely favour : With Cain go wander through the shade of night, And never show thy head by day nor light. Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow : Come, mourn with me for that I do lament, And put on sullen black, incontinent; I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land, To wash this blood off from my guilty hand :March sadly after; grace my mourning here, In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt. THE mother of Aumerle died in 1394. Edmund of Langley was subsequently married. 2 SCENE III." Can no man tell of my unthrifty son?" Shakspere has here laid the connexion between this play and that of 'Henry IV.,' by a dramatic relation of the real events of history. Henry of Monmouth was at this time only twelve years old. Richard had taken him with his army to Ireland; had knighted him; and had kept him as a hostage when he knew of Bolingbroke's invasion. 3 SCENE III." Our trusty brother-in-law." John Duke of Exeter (own brother to Richard II.), who married Elizabeth, the sister of Bolingbroke. * SCENE V." The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear." We subjoin a representation of the groat of Richard II. 5 SCENE VI.-" Hath yielded up his body to the grave." William de Colchester, Abbot of Westminster, according to Holinshed's Chronicle, which Shakspere followed, died about this time. The relation is not correct. He outlived Henry IV. The portrait which we give in the preceding page is from his tomb in Westminster Abbey. HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATION. We have avoided any previous illustration of the history and character of Richard's queen, reserving a short notice for this act, in which she occupies so interesting a position. Richard was twice married. His first wife, who was called the good Queen Anne, died in 1394. His second wife, the queen of this play, was Isabel, eldest daughter of Charles VI. of France. When Richard espoused her, on the 31st of October, 1396, she was but eight years old.. The alliance with France gave the greatest dissatisfaction in England, and was one amongst the many causes of Richard's almost general unpopularity. Froissart mentions Richard's obstinacy in this matter with great naïveté: "It is not pleasant to the realm of England that he should marry with France, and it hath been showed him that the daughter of France is over young, and that this five or six year she shall not be able to keep him company; thereto he hath answered and saith, that she shall grow right well in age." Isabel was espoused at Paris, by proxy. Froissart says, As I was informed, it was a goodly sight to see her behaviour: for all that she was but young, right pleasantly she bare the port of a queen." Isabel lived at Windsor, under the care of Lady de Coucy: but this lady was dismissed for her extravagance, and an Englishwoman, Lady Mortimer, succeeded her in the charge. It appears from the 'Metrical History' that Richard was very much attached to her. In his lamentations in Conway Castle he uses these passionate expressions: My mistress and my consort! accursed be the man, little doth he love us, who thus shamefully separateth us two. I am dying of grief because of it. My fair sister, my lady, and my sole desire. Since I am robbed of the pleasure of beholding thee, such pain and affliction oppresseth my whole heart, that, oftentimes, I am hard upon despair. Alas! Isabel, rightful daughter of France, you were wont to be my joy, my hope, and my consolation; now plainly see that, through the great violence of fortune, which hath slain many a man, I must wrongfully be removed from you." When we observe that Froissart describes the girl of eight years old as deporting herself right pleasantly as a queen, and read of the lamentations of Richard for their separation, as described by one who witnessed them, we may consider that there was an historical as well as a dramatic propriety in the character which Shakspere has drawn of her. In the garden-scene at Langley we have scarcely more elevation of character than might belong to a precocious girl. In one part, however, of the last scene with Richard, we have the majesty of the high-minded woman : "What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform'd and weaken'd? Hath Bolingbroke The poet, however, had an undoubted right to mould his materials to his own "And yet, dear lord, though thy ungrateful land I do remain the same, under thy hand; If all be lost, that government doth stand; Poor Isabel was sent back to France; and there she became, a second time, the victim of a state alliance, being married to the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, who was only nine years old. Her younger sister became the wife of our Henry V. The writer of the Metrical History' appears to have conceived a violent suspicion of Aumerle and of all his proceedings. He represents him as the treacherous cause of Richard's detention in Ireland; and, in the conspiracy of the Abbot of Westminster and the other lords, he is described as basely becoming privy to their designs that he might betray them to Henry IV. Shakspere's version of the story is the more dramatic one, which is given by Holinshed. "This Earl of Rutland, departing before from Westminster, to see his father the Duke of York, as he sat at dinner had his counterpart of the indenture of the confederacy in his bosom. The father, espying it, would needs see what it was: and though the son humbly denied to show it, the father, being more earnest to see it, by force took it out of his bosom, and, perceiving the contents thereof, in a great rage caused his horses to be saddled out of hand, and spitefully reproving his son of treason, for whom he was become surety and mainpernour for his good bearing in open parliament, he incontinently mounted on horseback to ride towards Windsor to the king, to declare to him the malicious intent of his son and his accomplices. The Earl of Rutland, seeing in what danger he stood, took his horse and rode another way to Windsor, in post, so that he got thither before his father; and when he was alighted at the castle-gate, he caused the gates to be shut, saying that he must needs deliver the keys to the king. When he came before the king's presence he kneeled down on his knees, beseeching him of mercy and forgiveness, and declaring the whole matter unto him in order as everything had passed; obtained pardon; and therewith came his father, and, being let in, delivered the indenture which he had taken from his son unto the king; who, thereby perceiving his son's words to be true, changed his purpose for his going to Oxford, and despatched messengers forth to signify unto the Earl of Northumberland his high constable, and to the Earl of Westmoreland his high marshal, and to others his assured friends, of all the doubtful danger and perilous jeopardy." ..... The death of Richard II. is one of those historical mysteries which, perhaps, will never be cleared up. The story which Shakspere has adopted, of his assassination by Sir Pierce of Exton and his followers, was related by Caxton in his addition to Hygden's Polycronicon;' was copied by Fabyan, and, of course, found its way into Holinshed. The honest old compiler, however, notices the other stories-that he died either by compulsory famine or by voluntary pining. Caxton borrowed his account, it is supposed, from a French manuscript in the royal library at Paris, written by a partisan of Richard. In his Chronicle,' printed two years before the additions to the 'Polycronicon,' Caxton takes no notice of the story of the assassination by Sir Pierce of Exton; but says, " He was enfamined unto the death by his keeper. yet much people in England, and in other lands, said that he was alive many year after his death." It is a remarkable confirmation of the belief that Richard did not die by the wounds of a battle-axe, that when his tomb was opened in Westminster Abbey, some years since, his skull was found uninjured. Thomas of Walsingham, who was living at the time of Richard's death, relates that the unhappy captive voluntarily starved himself. His body was removed to the Tower, where it was publicly exhibited. The story of his voluntary starvation is, however, doubtful; that of his violent assassination seems altogether apocryphal. In an important document, whose publication we owe to Sir Henry Ellis-the manifesto of the Percies against Henry IV., issued just before the battle of Shrewsbury-Henry is distinctly charged with having caused Richard to perish from hunger, thirst, and cold, after fifteen days and nights of sufferings unheard of among Christians. Two years afterwards Archbishop Scroop repeats the charge; but he adds what unquestionably weakens its force, ut vulgariter dicitur." There is one other story which has formed the subject of a very curious controversy, but which it would be out of place here to detail-that espoused by Mr. Tytler—that Richard escaped, and lived nineteen years in Scotland. The various arguments for and against this incredible tale may be found in a paper, by the late amiable and accomplished Lord Dover, read before the Royal Society of Literature. The conflicting evidence as to the causes of Richard's death in Pomfret Castle is very ably detailed by Mr. Amyot, in the 20th volume of the Archæologia.' The prison-scene in Shakspere will, perhaps, more than any accredited relation, continue to influence the popular belief; and yet, on the other hand, we have the beautiful passage in Gray's 'Bard' to support the less dramatic story: "Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's spray, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey. Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare, Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast; Close by the regal chair Fell thirst and famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest." 66 |