art-white if we hit,
The game is ours. Well, we may rage and rave[484]
At Gloster, Lancaster, Chester, Fauconbridge;
But his the upshot.

QUEEN. Yet begin with Gloster.

HEN. The destinies run to the Book of Fates,
And read in never-changing characters
Robert of Gloster's end; he dies to-day:
So fate, so heaven, so doth King Henry say.

QUEEN. Imperially resolv'd. [_Trumpets far off_.

LEI. The old King comes.

QUEEN. Then comes luxurious lust;
The King of concubines; the King that scorns
The undefiled, chaste, and nuptial bed;
The King that hath his queen imprisoned:
For my sake, scorn him; son, call him not father;
Give him the style of a competitor.

HEN. Pride, seize upon my heart: wrath, fill mine eyes!
Sit, lawful majesty, upon my front,
Duty, fly from me; pity, be exil'd:
Senses, forget that I am Henry's child.

QUEEN. I kiss thee, and I bless thee for this thought.

SCENE THE FIFTEENTH.

_Enter_ KING, LANCASTER, RICHARD, FAUCONBRIDGE.

KING. O Lancaster, bid Henry yield some reason,
Why he desires so much the death of Gloster.

HEN. I hear thee, Henry, and I thus reply:
I do desire the death of bastard Gloster,
For that he spends the Treasure of the Crown;
I do desire the death of bastard Gloster,
For that he doth desire to pull me down.
Or were this false (I purpose to be plain),
He loves thee, and for that I him disdain.

HEN. Therein thou shewest a hate-corrupted mind;
To him the more unjust, to me unkind.

QUEEN. He loves you, as his father lov'd his mother.

KING. Fie, fie upon thee, hateful Elinor;
I thought thou hadst been long since scarlet-dyed.

HEN. She is, and therefore cannot change her colour.

RICH. You are too strict; Earl Gloster's fault
Merits not death.

FAU. By the rood, the Prince says true;
Here is a statute from the Confessor[485].

HEN. The Confessor was but a simple fool.
Away with books; my word shall be a law,
Gloster shall die.

LEI. Let Gloster die the death.

LAN. Leicester, he shall not;
He shall have law, despite of him and thee.

HEN. What law? will you be traitors? what's the law?

RICH. His right hand's loss; and that is such a loss,
As England may lament, all Christians weep.
That hand hath been advanc'd against the Moors,
Driven out the Saracens from Gad's[486] and Sicily,
Fought fifteen battles under Christ's red cross;
And is it not, think you, a grievous loss,
That for a slave (and for no other harm)
It should be sun