DRAMATIS PERSONE.

HENRY VII.

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 SIMNEL.

HIALAS, a Spanish Agent.

JAMES IV. King of Scotland.

Earl of HUNTLey.

Earl of CRAWFORD.

Lord DALIELL.

MARCHMONT, a Herald.

PERKIN WARBECK.

STEPHEN FRION, his Secretary.
JOHN A-WATER, Mayor of Cork.
HERON, a Mercer.

SKETON, a Tailor.

ASTLEY, a Scrivener.

Lady KATHERINE GORDON.

Countess of CRAWFORD.

JANE DOUGLAS, Lady KATHERINE's Attendant.

Sheriff, Constables, Officers, Guards, Serving-men, Masquers, and Soldiers.

Scene,-Partly in England, partly in Scotland.

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 STANLEY.
Earl of OXFORD, Earl of SURREY, and Lord
DAWBENEY.-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,

Ford has closely followed Lord Bacon; here we have almost his very words. "At this time, the king began to be haunted with spirits, by the magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the ghost of Richard Duke of York, second son to King Edward the Fourth, to walk, and vex him," &c.

At last both thoroughly cured, 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 sacrificed 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 lending to this blood-shrunk commonwealth
A new soul, new birth, in your sacred person.
Daw. Edward the Fourth, after a doubtful for-
tune,

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,
Forced 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,
Though Lancaster doth repossess his right;

6

pull'd from his Boar's sty.] This contemptuous allusion to the armorial bearings of Richard III. is very common in Shakspeare has it frequently in his tragedy of this

our old writers. Usurper.

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.

Orf. Margaret of Burgundy Blows fresh coals of division. Sur. Painted fires,

Without or heat to scorch, or light to cherish.

Daw. York's headless trunk, her father; Ed

ward'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 sedition.

Orf. In her age,

Great sir, observe the wonder,7--she grows fruitful, Who, in her strength of youth, was always barren: Nor are her births as other mothers' are,

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

7 Oxford's speech is principally taken from that of Henry's ambassador (Sir W. Warham) to the archduke. "It is the strangest thing in the world, that the Lady Margaret, excuse us if we name her, whose malice to the king is causeless and endless, should now, when she is old, at the time when other women give over childbearing, bring forth two such monsters, being not the births of nine or ten months, but of many years. And whereas other mothers bring forth children weak, and not able to help themselves, she bringeth forth tall striplings, able, soon after their coming into the world, to bid battle to mighty kings."