SHERIFF.
It is.
BUCKINGHAM.
Why, then All-Souls’ day is my body’s doomsday.
This is the day which, in King Edward’s time,
I wished might fall on me when I was found
False to his children and his wife’s allies.
This is the day wherein I wished to fall
By the false faith of him whom most I trusted.
This, this All-Souls’ day to my fearful soul
Is the determined respite of my wrongs.
That high All-Seer which I dallied with
Hath turned my feigned prayer on my head
And given in earnest what I begged in jest.
Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points in their masters’ bosoms.
Thus Margaret’s curse falls heavy on my neck:
“When he,” quoth she, “shall split thy heart with sorrow,
Remember Margaret was a prophetess.”
Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.
[Exit with Officers.]
SCENE II. Plain near Tamworth
Enter Richmond, Oxford, Blunt, Herbert, and others, with drum and colours.
RICHMOND.
Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,
Bruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we marched on without impediment;
And here receive we from our father Stanley
Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
That spoiled your summer fields and fruitful vines,
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
In your embowelled bosoms—this foul swine
Is now even in the centre of this isle,
Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.
From Tamworth thither is but one day’s march.
In God’s name, cheerly on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
OXFORD.
Every man’s conscience is a thousand men,
To fight against that guilty homicide.
HERBERT.
I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.
BLUNT.
He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,
Which in his dearest need will fly from him.
RICHMOND.
All for our vantage. Then in God’s name, march.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.