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be Regent of France. I have already shown that there is a doubt as to the date of this contest. * In the play, Gloucester takes the part of York, until he hears of the armourer's asserting his right to the crown, when he says:

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'Let Somerset be regent o'er the French,

Because in York this breeds suspicion."

I believe that this is so far correct, that Somerset's appointment to the regency occurred about the time of the trial by combat.

The second act exhibits the court hawking at St. Alban's, renews the quarrel between Gloucester and the Cardinal, and exhibits the Queen taking a decided part against the Lord Protector: the Cardinal, churchman as he is, agrees to fight a duel with Gloucester; indeed, makes the first overture towards this method of settling the dispute, for which there is no known authority. The Queen's part is taken from Holinshed.

The Chronicle already cited bears out the play pretty well, except as to dates.

"K. Henry. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester,
ere thou go

Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself
Protector be, and God shall be my hope,

My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feel;

* P. 250.

And go in peace, Humphrey, no less beloved Than when thou wert protector to a king." Though I may decidedly pronounce Shakspeare wrong in taking the Protector's staff from Duke Humphrey at the moment of his wife's condemnation, I cannot assign an exact date to the cessation of the protectorate.

At the time of Gloucester's death, Henry was in the twenty-sixth year of his age; the Duke must therefore have certainly ceased to be Protector for some years preceding that event.* I have quoted the passage in which Henry declares his continued favour to the retiring Protector. But it appears that for several years after the death of the Duke, attempts were repeatedly made by his friends in parliament to procure an acknowledgment of his innocence; but these were always unsuccessful so long as the government was in the hands of Henry himself. They succeeded when York obtained the power. I cannot agree with Lingard, that "no arguments could subdue the conviction or prejudice of the King." Were not his advisers those who had criminated Gloucester?

When the scene changes to the parliament, which, following the Chronicle, is held at St. Edmund's Bury, the Queen breaks out against Gloucester:

* See Lingard, v. 107; and the Rolls cited, v. 433-8. † Lingard, v. 124; from Wheth., 367.

"Can you not see? or will you not observe
The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?
With what a majesty he bears himself;
How insolent he is of late become;

How proud, peremptory, and unlike himself?

We know the time, since he was mild and affable;

And, if we did but glance a far-off look,
Immediately he was upon his knee,

That all the court admired him for submission :

But meet him now, and, be it in the morn,
When every one will give the time of day,
He knits his brow, and shows an angry eye,
And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,
Disdaining duty that to us belongs."

Suffolk accuses him of participation with his Duchess, and each of his enemies flings an accusation.

"Cardinal. Did he not, contrary to form of law, Devise strange deaths for small offences done?

York. And did he not, in his protectorship, Levy great sums of money through the realm, For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it? By means whereof the towns each day revolted."

And when Gloucester appears, and is immediately "arrested of high treason, "York goes further: :

'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes from France,

And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;
By means whereof his highness hath lost France."

These charges are from Holinshed; Gloucester protests his innocence in forcible, and, I think, Shakspearian language.

"Divers articles were laid against him in open council, and in especially one; that he had caused men adjudged to die, to be put to other execution than the law of the land assigned. Surely the Duke, very well learne in the law civil, detesting malefactors, and punishing offenders in severity of justice, got him hatred of such as feared condign reward for their wicked doings. And although the Duke sufficiently answered to all things against him objected, yet, because his death was determined, his wisdom and innocency nothing availed."

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"Is it but thought so? what are they that think it?
I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay,
Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.
So help me God, as I have watch'd the night—
Ay, night by night-in studying good for England!
That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,
Or any groat I hoarded for my use,
Be brought against me at my trial day!
No! many a pound of mine own proper store,
Because I would not tax the needy Commons,

* Hol., 211, from Hall, 209. I cannot discover in records, contemporaries, or even in Fabyan, the charge as specified by Hall.

Have I disbursed to the garrisons,

And never ask'd for restitution."

York reiterates the charge of excessive punish

ments:

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Glouc. Why, 'tis well known, that whiles I was Pro

tector,

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 murderer,

Or foul felonious thief that fleeced poor passengers,
I never gave them condign punishment:
Murder, indeed, that bloody sin, I tortured

Above the felon, or what trespass else."

And he thus characterises his accusers, in terms which must, as I think, have been borrowed from some contemporary Chronicle not now in exist

ence:

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Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice, And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate; Sharp Buckingham unburdens 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 endeavours, have stirr❜d up My lifest liege to be mine enemy."

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