To the Rightly Honourable

WILLIAM CAVENDISH,

EARL OF NEWCASTLE, VISCOUNT MANSFIELD, LORD BOLSOVER AND OGLE.1

My Lord,

UT of the darkness of a former age,-enlightened by a late both learned and an honourable pen,2--I have endeavoured to personate a great attempt, and in it a greater danger. In other labours you may read actions of antiquity discoursed; in this abridgment find the actors themselves discoursing, in some kind practised as well what to speak as speaking why to do. Your lordship is a most competent judge in expressions of such credit; commissioned by your known ability in examining, and enabled by your knowledge in determining, the monuments of time. Eminent titles may, indeed, inform who their owners are, not often what. To yours the addition of that information in both cannot in any application be observed flattery, the authority being established by truth. I can only acknowledge the errors in writing mine own; the worthiness of the subject written being a perfection in the story and of it. The custom of your lordship's entertain-ments-even to strangers-is rather an example than a fashion in which consideration I dare not profess a curiosity; but am only studious that your lordship will please, amongst such as best honour your goodness, to admit into your noble construction

JOHN FORD.

1 William Cavendish (nephew to the first Earl of Devonshire), was born in the year 1592, and was early in favour with James 1. He continued in favour with Charles I., and engaged on the Royalist side during the civil war. He was created Duke of Newcastle in 1665, and died in 1676, at the advanced age of 84. 2 i.e. That of Lord Bacon.

PROLOGUE

STUDIES have of this nature been of late
So out of fashion, so unfollowed, that
It is become more justice to revive
The antic follies of the times than strive
To countenance wise industry: no want
Of art doth render wit or lame or scant
Or slothful in the purchase of fresh bays;
But want of truth in them who give the praise
To their self-love, presuming to out-do
The writer, or-for need--the actors too.
But such this author's silence best befits,

Who bids them be in love with their own wits.
From him to clearer judgments we can say
He shows a history couched in a play;

A history of noble mention, known,

Famous, and true; most noble, 'cause our own;
Not forged from Italy, from France, from Spain,
But chronicled at home; as rich in strain

Of brave attempts as ever fertile rage
In action could beget to grace the stage.
We cannot limit scenes, for the whole land
Itself appeared too narrow to withstand
Competitors for kingdoms; nor is here
Unnecessary mirth forced to endear

A multitude: on these two rests the fate
Of worthy expectation,-truth and state.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

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 DALYELL.

MARCHMONT, a Herald.

PERKIN WARBECK.

STEPHEN FRION, his Secretary.

JOHN A-WATER, Mayor of Cork.

HERON, a Mercer.

SKELTON, a Tailor.

ASTLEY, a Scrivener.

Sheriff, Constable, Officers, Messenger, Guards,

Soldiers, Masquers, and Attendants.

Lady KATHERINE GORDON.

Countess of CRAWFORD.

JANE DOUGLAS, Lady Katherine's attendant.

SCENE Partly in ENGLAND, partly in SCOTLAND

SCENE I.- Westminster. The royal Presence-chamber. Enter King HENRY, supported to the throne by the Bishop of DURHAM and Sir WILLIAM STANLEY; Earls of OXFORD and SURREY, and Lord DAWBENEY. A Guard.

ING HEN. Still to be haunted, still

to be pursued,

Still to be frightened with false appari

tions

Of pageant majesty and new-coined
greatness,

As if we were a mockery king in state,
Only ordained 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 birthright; the rent face

1 66

At this time the king began again to be haunted with sprites 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 the king," &c.-Bacon's Henry VII.

And bleeding wounds of England's slaughtered people
Have been by us as by the best physician,
At last both throughly cured and set in safety;
And yet, for all this glorious work of peace,
Ourselves is scarcę 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 rained on, but that
Mercy did gently sheathe 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 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,
Forced to a violent grave:--so just is Heaven,
Him hath your majesty by your own arm,
Divinely strengthened, pulled from his boar's sty,'
And struck the black usurper to a carcass.
Nor doth the house of York decay in honours,
Though Lancaster doth repossess his right;
For Edward's daughter is King Henry's queen,-
A blessèd 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.

Blows fresh coals of division.

Margaret of Burgundy

1 An allusion to the armorial bearings of Richard III,