DRAMATIS PERSONE.

HENRY VII., King of England.

Lord DAWBENEY.

Sir WILLIAM STANLEY, Lord Chamberlain. Earl of OXFORD.

Earl of SURREY.

Fox, Bishop of Durham.

URSWICK, Chaplain to the King.

Sir ROBERT CLIFFORD.

LAMBERT SIMNELL.

HIALAS, a Spanish Agent.

JAMES IV., King of Scotland.

Earl of HUNTLEY.

Earl of CRAWFORD.

Lord DALYell.

MARCHMONT, a Herald.

PERKIN WARBECK.

STEPHEN FRION, his Secretary.

JOHN A-WATER, Mayor of Cork.

HERON, a mercer.

SKETON, a tailor.

ASTLEY, a scrivener.

Women.

Lady KATHERINE GORDON, wife to PERKIN.
Countess of CRAWFORD.

JANE DOUGLAS, Lady KATHERINE's maid.

Sheriff, Constable, Officers, Serving-men, Masquers, and Soldiers.

PERKIN WARBECK.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Westminster. The Royal Presence

Chamber.

Enter King HENRY, supported to the Throne by the Bishop of DURHAM and Sir WILLIAM STAN LEY. Earl of OXFORD, Earl of SURREY, and Lord DAWBENY in the train.—A Guard.

K. Hen. Still to be haunted, still to be pursued,
Still to be frighted with false apparitions
Of pageant majesty, and new-coin'd greatness,
As if we were a mockery king in state,
Only ordain'd to lavish sweat and blood,
In scorn and laughter to the ghosts of York,
Is all below our merits: Yet, my lords,
My friends and counsellors, yet we sit fast
In our own royal birth-right; the rent face
And bleeding wounds of England's slaughter'd
people,

Have been by us, as by the best physician,
At once both th❜roughly cur'd, and set in safety;

And yet, for all this glorious work of peace,
Ourself is scarce secure.

Dur.
The rage of malice
Conjures fresh spirits with the spells of York;
For ninety years ten English kings and princes,
Threescore great dukes and earls, a thousand lords
And valiant knights, two hundred fifty thousand.
Of English subjects have, in civil wars,
Been sacrific'd to an uncivil thirst

Of discord and ambition: this hot vengeance
Of the just powers above, to utter ruin
And desolation, had reign'd on, but that
Mercy did gently sheath the sword of justice
In sending to this blood-shrunk commonwealth
A new soul, new birth, in your sacred person.
Daw. Edward the Fourth, after a doubtful fortune,
Yielded to nature, leaving to his sons,

Edward and Richard, the inheritance

Of a most bloody purchase; these young princes
Richard the tyrant, their unnatural uncle,
Forc'd to a violent grave; so just is Heaven.
Him hath your majesty, by your own arm,
Divinely strengthen'd, pull'd from his boar's sty
And struck the black usurper to a carcase :
Nor doth the house of York decay in honours,
Tho' Lancaster doth repossess his right;
For Edward's daughter is king Henry's queen:
A blessed union, and a lasting blessing
For this poor panting island, if some shreds,
Some useless remnant of the house of York
Grudge not at this content.

Oxf.

Margaret of Burgundy

Blows fresh coals of division.

Without or heat to scorch, or light to cherish '.

Painted fires, without or heat to scorch, or light to cherish.]

Daw. York's headless trunk, her father; Edward's fate,

Her brother king; the smothering of her nephews
By tyrant Gloster, brother to her nature ;
Nor Gloster's own confusion, (all decrees
Sacred in heaven) can move this woman-monster,
But that she still, from the unbottom'd mine
Of devilish policies, doth vent the ore

Of troubles and seditions.

Oxf.

In her age,

Great sir, observe the wonder, she grows fruitful, Who, in her strength of youth, was always barren : Nor are her birth as other mothers' are,

At nine or ten months' end; she has been with child

Eight or seven years at least; whose twins being born,

A prodigy in nature, even the youngest

Is fifteen years of age at his first entrance,

As soon as known i'th' world, tall striplings, strong And able to give battle unto kings:

Idols of Yorkish malice.

A steely hammer crushes them to pieces'.

K. Hen. Lambert, the eldest, lords, is in our service,

Preferr'd by an officious care of duty

From the scullery to a falconer; strange example!
Which shews the difference between noble natures
And the base-born: but for the upstart duke,
The new reviv'd York, Edward's second son,

Fires merely painted, having neither heat to scorch enemies nor light to cherish friends. The old copy is unintelligible in this passage, by reading corruptedly,--Without to heat or scorch.

This speech is given to Oxford as well as the former in the original. It may be applied to any of the other lords present. I have given it to the bishop of Durham.