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What should I cite your paffed acts, or tedioufly incence To prefent armes; your faces fhew your hearts conceive offence,

Yea, even your courages devine a conqueft not to faile.

Hope then your Duke doth prophecie, and in that hope prevaile.

A people brave, a terren Heaven, both objects worth your

warres,

Shall be the prizes of your prow's, and mount your fame

to Starres.

Let not a Traytor's perjur'd Sonne extrude us from our

right:

He dyes to live a famous life, that doth for conqueft fight."

Warner's Albion's Engl.

22 Chap. 4 B. 1602. Ed.

NORFOLK's Soliloquy before the Battle of BOSWORTH.

"IF

IF all the Campe prove traytours to my Lord,
Shall spotleffe Norfolke falfifie his word?
Mine oath is past, I fwore t' uphold his crowne,
And that fhall fwim, or I with it will drowne.
It is too late now to difpute the right,

Dare any tongue, fince Yorke fpread forth his light,
Northumberland, or Buckingham defame,

Two valiant Cliffords, Roos, or Beaumont's name,

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Becaufe

Because they in the weaker quarrell die?
They had the King with them, and fo have I.
But ev'ry eye the face of Richard fhunnes,
For that foule murder of his brother's fonnes :
Yet lawes of Knighthood gave me not a sword
To ftrike at him, whom all with joint accord
Have made my Prince, to whom I tribute bring :
I hate his vices, but adore the King.
Victorious Edward, if thy foule can heare
Thy fervant Howard, I devoutly sweare,
That to have fav'd thy children from that day,
My hopes on earthe fhould willingly decay;
Would Gloucester then, my perfect faith had tryed,
And made two graves, when noble Haftings died."

Bofworth Field, p. 7.

King RICHARD's Speech.

"MY fellow Souldiers, though your swords
Are fharpe, and need not whetting by my words;
Yet call to minde thofe many glorious dayes,
In which we treasur'd up immortal prayfe.
If when I ferv'd, I ever fled from foe,
Fly ye from mine, let me be punisht fo:
But if my Father, when at first he try'd
How all his fonnes could fhining blades abide,
Found me an Eagle, whose undazied eyes
Affront the beames, which from the steele arife,
And if I now in action teach the fame,

Know then, ye have but chang'd your Generall's name.

Be

Be ftill yourselves, ye fight against the droffe

Of those, that oft have runne from you with loffe.
How many Somerfets, diffentions brands,
Have felt the force of our revengefull hands!
From whome this Youth, as from a princely floud,
Derives his best, yet not untainted bloud.

Have our affaults made Lancaster to droupe?
And fhall this Welfhman with his ragged troupe
Subdue the Norman and the Saxon line,

That onely Merlin may be thought divine?
See what a guide thefe fugitives have chofe,
Who, bred among the French, our ancient foes,
Forgets the English language, and the ground,

And knowes not what our drums and trumpets found!"

Sir J. Peaumont's Poems.
Lond. Ed. 1629.

Earl RICHMOND's Speech.

"IT is in vaine, brave friends, to fhew the right

Which we are forc'd to feeke by civill fight,

Your fwords are brandifht in a noble cause,
To free your Country from a Tyrant's jawes.
What angry Planet, what disastrous figne
Directs Plantagenet's afflicted line?

Ah, was it not enough, that mutuall rage
In deadly battels fhould this race ingage,
Till by their blowes themselves they fewer make,
And pillers fall, which France could never shake?

But

But muft this crooked Monster now be found,
To lay rough hands on that unclosed wound?
His fecret plots have much increast the flood,
He with his brother's, and his nephewes blood,
Hath ftain'd the brightneffe of his Father's flowres,
And made his own white Rofe as red as ours.
This is the day, whofe fplendour puts to flight
Obfcuring clouds, and brings an age of light.
We fee no hindrance of those wished times,
But this Ufurper, whose depreffing crimes

Will drive him from the mountaine where he stands,
So that he needs muft fall without our hands.
In this we happy are, that by our armes
Both Yorke and Lancaster revenge their harmes.
Here Henry's fervants joyne with Edward's friends,
And leave their privat griefes for publicke ends.”

Sir J. Beaumont.

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SPEECH

SPEECH of VOA DA, Queen of the BRITTON S, before the Battle with the

ROMAN S.

"MY ftate and fex, not hand or hart, most valiant Friends,

with-hild

Me (wretched cause of your repaire, by wicked Romans il'd) From that revenge which I do wish, and ye have cause to worke:

In which suppose not Voada in female feares to lurke.

For, loe, myselfe, unlike myselfe, and these fame Ladies faire In armor, not to shrinke an ynch wheare hottest doings are. Even we do dare to bid the base, and you yourselves shall see Your felves to come behind in armes: the Romaines too that be

Such Conquerors, and valiantlie can womankind oppreffe, Shall know that Brittish women can the Romish wrongs re

dreffe.

Then arme ye with like courages as Ladies fhall prefent, Whom ye, nor wounds, nor death, the praise of onset shall

prevent.

Nor envie that our martiall rage exceeds your manly irs, For by how much more we endure, so much more we defire Revenge, on those in whose default we are unhallowed thus, Whilst they forget themselves for men, or to be borne of us :

Ye

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