Richard III, Act III, Scene 7
BUCKINGHAM:
Know then, it is your fault that you resign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The sceptred office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemished stock,
Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts —
Which here we waken to our country's good —
The noble isle doth want her proper limbs.
Her face defaced with scars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants
And almost shouldered in the swallowing gulf
Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion,
Which to recure we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land,
Not as Protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another's gain,
But as successively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just cause come I to move your grace.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER:
I cannot tell if to depart in silence
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert,
Unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty and so many my defects,
That I would rather hide me from my greatness —
Being a barque to brook no mighty sea —
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smothered.
But, God be thanked, there is no need of me,
And much I need to help you, were there need.
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellowed by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay that you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars,
Which God defend that I should wring from him.
BUCKINGHAM:
My lord, this argues conscience in your grace,
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.
You say that Edward is your brother's son,
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife,
For first was he contract to Lady Lucy,
Your mother lives a witness to his vow,
And afterward, by substitute, betrothed
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put off, a poor petitioner,
A care-crazed mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduced the pitch and height of his degree
To base declension and loathed bigamy.
By her in his unlawful bed he got
This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that for reverence to some alive
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffered benefit of dignity,
If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing times
Unto a lineal, true-derived course.
MAYOR (to Richard):
Do, good my lord. Your citizens entreat you.
BUCKINGHAM (to Richard):
Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffered love.
CATESBY (to Richard):
O make them joyful. Grant their lawful suit.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER:
Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty.
I do beseech you, take it not amiss,
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
BUCKINGHAM:
If you refuse it, as, in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, your brother's son,
As well we know your tenderness of heart
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally indeed to all estates,
Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house.
And in this resolution here we leave you.
Come, citizens. 'Swounds, I'll entreat no more.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER:
O do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.
Exeunt Buckingham and some others.
CATESBY:
Call him again, sweet prince. Accept their suit.
(ANOTHER):
If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER:
Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Call them again.
Exit one or more.
I am not made of stone,
But penetrable to your kind entreats,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
Enter Buckingham and the rest.
Cousin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load.
But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof.
For God doth know, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.
MAYOR:
God bless your grace! We see it and will say it.
RICHARD GLOUCESTER:
In saying so you shall but say the truth.
BUCKINGHAM:
Then I salute you with this royal title:
Long live kind Richard, England's worthy king!
(ALL BUT RICHARD):
Amen.