William Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Second Part

ACT III. 1. SCENE I. The Abbey at Bury St. Edmund's. (continued)

YORK.
In your protectorship you did devise
Strange tortures for offenders never heard of,
That England was defam'd by tyranny.

GLOSTER.
Why, 't is well known that, whiles I was protector,
Pity was all the fault that was in me;
For I should melt at an offender's tears,
And lowly words were ransom for their fault.
Unless it were a bloody murtherer,
Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,
I never gave them condign punishment.
Murther indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd
Above the felon or what trespass else.

SUFFOLK.
My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;
But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,
Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.
I do arrest you in his highness' name,
And here commit you to my lord cardinal
To keep until your further time of trial.

KING.
My Lord of Gloster, 't is my special hope
That you will clear yourself from all suspect;
My conscience tells me you are innocent.

GLOSTER.
Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous.
Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,
And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;
Foul subornation is predominant,
And equity exil'd your highness' land.
I know their complot is to have my life,
And if my death might make this island happy
And prove the period of their tyranny,
I would expend it with all willingness;
But mine is made the prologue to their play,
For thousands more, that yet suspect no peril,
Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.
Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,
And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;
Sharp Buckingham unburthens with his tongue
The envious load that lies upon his heart;
And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,
Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,
By false accuse doth level at my life.--
And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,
Causeless have laid disgraces on my head
And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up
My liefest liege to be mine enemy.--
Ay, all of you have laid your heads together--
Myself had notice of your conventicles--
And all to make away my guiltless life.
I shall not want false witness to condemn me,
Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt;
The ancient proverb will be well effected,--
'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'