Re-enter Worcester.[2156]
Hot. Speak of130
'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul[2157]
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,[2158]
And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,[2159]
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer[2160]135
As high in the air as this unthankful king,[2161]
As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.
North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.
Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;140
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,
And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
Wor. I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd[2162]145
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?[2163]
North. He was; I heard the proclamation:
And then it was when the unhappy king,—
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;150
From whence he intercepted did return
To be deposed and shortly murdered.
Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.[2164]
Hot. But, soft, I pray you; did King Richard then155
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer[2165]
Heir to the crown?