QUEEN ELIZABETH.
How doth the Prince?
MESSENGER.
Well, madam, and in health.
DUCHESS.
What is thy news?
MESSENGER.
Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,
And, with them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
DUCHESS.
Who hath committed them?
MESSENGER.
The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.
ARCHBISHOP.
For what offence?
MESSENGER.
The sum of all I can, I have disclosed.
Why or for what the nobles were committed
Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Ah me! I see the ruin of my house.
The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind;
Insulting tyranny begins to jut
Upon the innocent and aweless throne.
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre;
I see, as in a map, the end of all.
DUCHESS.
Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,
How many of you have mine eyes beheld?
My husband lost his life to get the crown,
And often up and down my sons were tossed
For me to joy and weep their gain and loss.
And being seated, and domestic broils
Clean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors
Make war upon themselves, brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous
And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,
Or let me die, to look on earth no more.