In this nemesis on the King are associated the Queen and her kindred. They have been assenting parties to the measures against Clarence (however little they may have contemplated the bloody issue to which those measures have been brought by the intrigues of Gloster). ii. ii. 62-65.This we must understand from the introduction of Clarence's children, who serve no purpose except to taunt the Queen in her bereavement:
Boy. Good aunt, you wept not for our father's death;
How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
Girl. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!
ii. ii. 74, &c.
The death of the King, so unexpectedly linked to that of Clarence, removes from the Queen and her kindred the sole bulwark to the hated Woodville family, and leaves them at the mercy of their enemies. Hastings.A third nemesis Action has Hastings for its subject. i. i. 66; iii. ii. 58, &c.Hastings is the head of the court-faction which is opposed to the Queen and her allies, and he passes all bounds of decency in his exultation at the fate which overwhelms his adversaries:
But I shall laugh at this a twelvemonth hence,
That they who brought me in my master's hate,
I live to look upon their tragedy.