King Henry VI, Part 2 | Page 4

the King of?England's own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'
KING.?They please us well.--Lord marquess, kneel down.?We here create thee the first duke of Suffolk,?And girt thee with the sword.--Cousin of York,?We here discharge your grace from being regent?I' the parts of France, till term of eighteen months?Be full expir'd.--Thanks, uncle Winchester,?Gloster, York, Buckingham, Somerset,?Salisbury, and Warwick;?We thank you all for this great favour done?In entertainment to my princely queen.?Come, let us in, and with all speed provide?To see her coronation be perform'd.
[Exeunt King, Queen, and Suffolk.]
GLOSTER.?Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,?To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief,?Your grief, the common grief of all the land.?What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,?His valour, coin, and people, in the wars??Did he so often lodge in open field,?In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,?To conquer France, his true inheritance??And did my brother Bedford toil his wits?To keep by policy what Henry got??Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,?Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,?Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy??Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,?With all the learned counsel of the realm,?Studied so long, sat in the council-house?Early and late, debating to and fro?How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe,?And had his highness in his infancy?Crowned in Paris in despite of foes??And shall these labours and these honours die??Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,?Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die??O peers of England, shameful is this league!?Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,?Blotting your names from books of memory,?Razing the characters of your renown,?Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,?Undoing all, as all had never been!
CARDINAL.?Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,?This peroration with such circumstance??For France, 't is ours; and we will keep it still.
GLOSTER.?Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can,?But now it is impossible we should.?Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,?Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine?Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style?Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
SALISBURY.?Now, by the death of Him that died for all,?These counties were the keys of Normandy!--?But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?
WARWICK.?For grief that they are past recovery;?For, were there hope to conquer them again,?My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.?Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both,?Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;?And are the cities that I got with wounds?Deliver'd up again with peaceful words??Mort Dieu!
YORK.?For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,?That dims the honour of this warlike isle!?France should have torn and rent my very heart,?Before I would have yielded to this league.?I never read but England's kings have had?Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;?And our King Henry gives away his own,?To match with her that brings no vantages.
GLOSTER.?A proper jest, and never heard before,?That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth?For costs and charges in transporting her!?She should have staid in France, and starv'd in France,?Before--
CARDINAL.?My Lord of Gloster, now ye grow too hot;?It was the pleasure of my lord the King.
GLOSTER.?My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;?'T is not my speeches that you do mislike,?But 't is my presence that doth trouble ye.?Rancour will out.?Proud prelate, in thy face?I see thy fury; if I longer stay,?We shall begin our ancient bickerings.--?Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,?I prophesied France will be lost ere long.
[Exit.]
CARDINAL.?So, there goes our protector in a rage.?'T is known to you he is mine enemy,?Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,?And no great friend, I fear me, to the king.?Consider, lords, he is the next of blood,?And heir apparent to the English crown.?Had Henry got an empire by his marriage,?And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,?There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.?Look to it, lords.?Let not his smoothing words?Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.?What though the common people favour him,?Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloster,'?Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice,?'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'?With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'?I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,?He will be found a dangerous protector.
BUCKINGHAM.?Why should he, then, protect our sovereign,?He being of age to govern of himself?--?Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,?And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,?We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.
CARDINAL.?This weighty business will not brook delay;?I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.
[Exit.]
SOMERSET.?Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride?And greatness of his place be grief to us,?Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;?His insolence is more intolerable?Than all the princes in the land beside;?If Gloster be displac'd, he 'll be protector.
BUCKINGHAM.?Or thou or I, Somerset, will be protector,?Despite Duke Humphrey or the cardinal.
[Exeunt Buckingham and Somerset.]
SALISBURY.?Pride went before, ambition follows him.?While these do labour for their own preferment,?Behoves it us to labour for the realm.?I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloster?Did bear him