Let not to-morrow, then, ensue to-day:
Be not thyself; for how art thou a king,
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now, afore God, (God forbid I say true!)
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the _letters patents_ that he hath
By his _attorneys-general_ to sue
_His livery_, and deny his _offer'd homage_,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head."
Act ii. Sc. I.

"_Bol_. I am denied to _sue my livery_ here,
And yet my _letters patents_ give me leave:
My father's _goods are all distrain'd_ and sold;
And these, and all, are all amiss employed.
What would you have me do? I am a subject,
And challenge law: _Attorneys are denied_ me;
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my _inheritance_ of free descent."--_Ib_. Sc. 3.

And Lord Campbell, although he passes by these passages in "Richard
II.," quotes, as important, from a speech of Hotspur's in the "First
Part of Henry IV.," the following lines, which, it will be seen, refer
to the same act of oppression on the part of Richard II. towards
Bolingbroke:--

"He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,
To _sue his livery_ and beg his bread."
Act iv. Sc. 3.

But, here again, Shakespeare, although he may have known more law than
Holinshed, or even Hall, who was a barrister, only used the law-terms
that he found in the paragraph which furnished him with the incident
that he dramatized. For, after recording the death of Gaunt, the
Chronicle goes on:--

"The death of this duke gave occasion of increasing more hatred in the
people of this realme toward the king; for he seized into his hands all
the rents and reuenues of his lands which ought to have descended vnto
the duke of Hereford by lawfull _inheritance_, in reuoking _his letters
patents_ which he had granted to him before, by virtue whereof he might
make his _attorneis generall_ to _sue liverie_ for him of any manner of
_inheritances_ or possessions that might from thencefoorth fall unto
him, and that his homage _might_ be respited with making reasonable
fine," etc.--HOLINSHED, Ed. 1587, p. 496.

The only legal phrase, however, in these passages of "Richard II," which
seems to imply very extraordinary legal knowledge, is the one repeated
in "Henry IV.,"--"sue his livery,"--which was the term applied to the
process by which, in the old feudal tenures, wards, whether of the king
or other guardian, on arriving at legal age, could compel a delivery
of their e