Act 1, Scene 3

London. The palace.

[Enter PETER and other PETITIONERS.]
First Petitioner
368 My masters, let's stand close; my lord protector
369 will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our
370 supplications in the quill.
Second Petitioner
371 Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good
372 man! Jesu bless him!
[Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN.]
Peter Thump
373 Here 'a comes, methinks, and the queen with him.
374 I'll be the first, sure.
Second Petitioner
375 Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk and
376 not my lord protector.
Duke of Suffolk
377 How now, fellow! wouldst any thing with me?
First Petitioner
378 I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my lord
379 protector.
[Reading]
Queen Margaret
380 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications
381 to his lordship? Let me see them; what is thine?
First Petitioner
382 Mine is, an 't please your grace, against John
383 Goodman, my lord cardinal's man, for keeping my house and lands,
384 and wife and all, from me.
Duke of Suffolk
385 Thy wife too! that's some wrong, indeed.—What's
386 yours?—What's here!
[Reads]
Duke of Suffolk
387 'Against the Duke of Suffolk for
388 enclosing
389 the commons of Melford.'—How now, sir knave!
Second Petitioner
390 Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our
391 whole township.
[Giving his petition]
Peter Thump
392 Against my master, Thomas Horner,
393 for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown.
Queen Margaret
394 What say'st thou? did the Duke of York say he was
395 rightful heir to the crown?
Peter Thump
396 That my master was? no, forsooth; my master said that he
397 was, and that the king was an usurper.
Duke of Suffolk
398 Who is there?
[Enter Servant.]
Duke of Suffolk
399 Take this fellow in, and
400 send for his master with a pursuivant presently.—We'll hear more
401 of your matter before the king.
[Exit Servant with Peter.]
Queen Margaret
402 And as for you, that love to be protected
403 Under the wings of our protector's grace,
404 Begin your suits anew and sue to him.
[Tears the supplications.]
Queen Margaret
405 Away, base cullions!—Suffolk, let them go.
All
406 Come, let's be gone.
[Exeunt.]
Queen Margaret
407 My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,
408 Is this the fashion in the court of England?
409 Is this the government of Britain's isle,
410 And this the royalty of Albion's king?
411 What, shall King Henry be a pupil still
412 Under the surly Gloster's governance?
413 Am I a queen in title and in style,
414 And must be made a subject to a duke?
415 I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours
416 Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love
417 And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,
418 I thought King Henry had resembled thee
419 In courage, courtship, and proportion;
420 But all his mind is bent to holiness,
421 To number Ave-Maries on his beads,
422 His champions are the prophets and apostles,
423 His weapons holy saws of sacred writ,
424 His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves
425 Are brazen images of canoniz'd saints.
426 I would the college of the cardinals
427 Would choose him pope and carry him to Rome,
428 And set the triple crown upon his head;
429 That were a state fit for his holiness.
Duke of Suffolk
430 Madam, be patient; as I was cause
431 Your highness came to England, so will I
432 In England work your grace's full content.
Queen Margaret
433 Beside the haughty protector, have we Beaufort
434 The imperious churchman, Somerset, Buckingham,
435 And grumbling York; and not the least of these
436 But can do more in England than the king.
Duke of Suffolk
437 And he of these that can do most of all
438 Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;
439 Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.
Queen Margaret
440 Not all these lords do vex me half so much
441 As that proud dame, the lord protector's wife.
442 She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
443 More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.
444 Strangers in court do take her for the queen;
445 She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
446 And in her heart she scorns our poverty.
447 Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?
448 Contemptuous base-born callat as she is,
449 She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day,
450 The very train of her worst wearing gown
451 Was better worth than all my father's land
452 Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.
Duke of Suffolk
453 Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,
454 And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds
455 That she will light to listen to the lays,
456 And never mount to trouble you again.
457 So, let her rest; and, madam, list to me,
458 For I am bold to counsel you in this.
459 Although we fancy not the cardinal,
460 Yet must we join with him and with the lords
461 Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.
462 As for the Duke of York, this late complaint
463 Will make but little for his benefit.
464 So, one by one, we'll weed them all at last,
465 And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.
[Sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY, CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOSTER.]
King Henry VI
466 For my part, noble lords, I care not which;
467 Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.
Richard, Duke of York
468 If York have ill demean'd himself in France,
469 Then let him be denay'd the regentship.
Duke of Somerset
470 If Somerset be unworthy of the place,
471 Let York be regent; I will yield to him.
Earl of Warwick
472 Whether your grace be worthy, yea or no,
473 Dispute not that; York is the worthier.
Cardinal Beaufort
474 Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.
Earl of Warwick
475 The cardinal's not my better in the field.
Duke of Buckingham
476 All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.
Earl of Warwick
477 Warwick may live to be the best of all.
Earl of Salisbury
478 Peace, son!—and show some reason, Buckingham,
479 Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.
Queen Margaret
480 Because the king, forsooth, will have it so.
Duke of Gloucester
481 Madam, the King is old enough himself
482 To give his censure; these are no women's matters.
Queen Margaret
483 If he be old enough, what needs your grace
484 To be protector of his excellence?
Duke of Gloucester
485 Madam, I am protector of the realm,
486 And, at his pleasure, will resign my place.
Duke of Suffolk
487 Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.
488 Since thou wert king—as who is king but thou?—
489 The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack;
490 The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas;
491 And all the peers and nobles of the realm
492 Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.
Cardinal Beaufort
493 The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags
494 Are lank and lean with thy extortions.
Duke of Somerset
495 Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire
496 Have cost a mass of public treasury.
Duke of Buckingham
497 Thy cruelty in execution
498 Upon offenders hath exceeded law,
499 And left thee to the mercy of the law.
Queen Margaret
500 Thy sale of offices and towns in France,
501 If they were known, as the suspect is great,
502 Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.—
[Exit Gloster. The Queen drops her fan..]
Queen Margaret
503 Give me my fan. What minion! can ye not?
[She gives the Duchess a box on the ear.]
Queen Margaret
504 I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?
Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester
505 Was 't I! yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.
506 Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
507 I'd set my ten commandments in your face.
King Henry VI
508 Sweet aunt, be quiet; 't was against her will.
Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester
509 Against her will! good king, look to 't in time;
510 She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.
511 Though in this place most master wear no breeches,
512 She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.
[Exit.]
Duke of Buckingham
513 Lord cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,
514 And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.
515 She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,
516 She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.
[Exit.]
[Re-enter GLOSTER.]
Duke of Gloucester
517 Now, lords, my choler being overblown
518 With walking once about the quadrangle,
519 I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.
520 As for your spiteful false objections,
521 Prove them, and I lie open to the law;
522 But God in mercy so deal with my soul
523 As I in duty love my king and country!
524 But, to the matter that we have in hand:
525 I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man
526 To be your regent in the realm of France.
Duke of Suffolk
527 Before we make election, give me leave
528 To show some reason, of no little force,
529 That York is most unmeet of any man.
Richard, Duke of York
530 I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:
531 First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;
532 Next, if I be appointed for the place,
533 My Lord of Somerset will keep me here,
534 Without discharge, money, or furniture,
535 Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.
536 Last time, I danc'd attendance on his will
537 Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.
Earl of Warwick
538 That can I witness; and a fouler fact
539 Did never traitor in the land commit.
Duke of Suffolk
540 Peace, headstrong Warwick!
Earl of Warwick
541 Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?
[Enter HORNER and his man PETER, guarded.]
Duke of Suffolk
542 Because here is a man accus'd of treason.
543 Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!
Richard, Duke of York
544 Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?
King Henry VI
545 What mean'st thou, Suffolk? tell me, what are these?
Duke of Suffolk
546 Please it your majesty, this is the man
547 That doth accuse his master of high treason.
548 His words were these: that Richard Duke of York
549 Was rightful heir unto the English crown,
550 And that your majesty was an usurper.
King Henry VI
551 Say, man, were these thy words?
Thomas Horner
552 An 't shall please your majesty, I never said nor
553 thought any such matter; God is my witness, I am
554 falsely accused by the villain.
Peter Thump
555 By these ten bones, my lords, he did speak them to
556 me in the garret one night, as we were scouring my Lord of
557 York's armour.
Richard, Duke of York
558 Base dunghill villain and mechanical,
559 I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.—
560 I do beseech your royal majesty,
561 Let him have all the rigour of the law.
Thomas Horner
562 Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My
563 accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault
564 the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with
565 me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your
566 majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's
567 accusation.
King Henry VI
568 Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?
Duke of Gloucester
569 This doom, my lord, if I may judge:
570 Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,
571 Because in York this breeds suspicion;
572 And let these have a day appointed them
573 For single combat in convenient place,
574 For he hath witness of his servant's malice.
575 This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.
Duke of Somerset
576 I humbly thank your royal Majesty.
Thomas Horner
577 And I accept the combat willingly.
Peter Thump
578 Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my case.
579 The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy
580 upon me! I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!
Duke of Gloucester
581 Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.
King Henry VI
582 Away with them to prison; and the day of combat shall
583 be the last of the next month.—Come, Somerset, we'll see thee
584 sent away.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 370archaic vocab
“supplications in the quill”
'In the quill' means in a row, one by one, in an orderly file — like quills on a porcupine, lying in line. The First Petitioner plans to hand their written complaints to the Lord Protector in an orderly queue.
TLN 371archaic vocab
“Marry, the Lord protect him”
'Marry' is a mild oath, a corruption of 'Mary' (the Virgin Mary). By Shakespeare's time it had softened into a filler word meaning something like 'indeed' or 'why.' The Second Petitioner is swearing informally — no reverence to Mary is intended.
TLN 387historical topical
“Against the Duke of Suffolk for enclosing the commons of Melford”
'Enclosing the commons' meant a landlord fencing off common land — fields and meadows that villagers had the customary right to graze their animals on — for his own use. In Tudor England this was a bitter grievance: enclosure deprived poor communities of their livelihoods and drove people off the land. A petition against Suffolk for this offense was exactly what common people brought to the Lord Protector.
historical Jack Cade's Rebellion
TLN 393historical topical
“the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown”
York's genealogical claim to the English throne rested on descent from Edward III through both the Mortimer line (from Edward's second surviving son, Lionel of Clarence) and the York line (from his fourth son, Edmund of Langley). That senior line, the Yorks argued, outranked the Lancastrian descent from John of Gaunt (the third surviving son), making Henry VI a usurper. Peter's report of what the armorer Horner said is therefore an act of treason by any who spoke or agreed with it.
historical Edward III and his seven sonshistorical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 400archaic vocab
“send for his master with a pursuivant”
A pursuivant was a royal or heraldic messenger with authority to make arrests — an officer who could compel a subject to appear before the king or council. Suffolk is ordering that the armorer Horner be brought before the court under official compulsion, not merely invited.
TLN 405archaic vocab
“Away, base cullions”
'Cullions' is a contemptuous insult for low, worthless men — literally derived from the word for testicles, so it carries a suggestion of baseness and vulgarity. Margaret uses it to drive the petitioners away after she has torn their supplications, treating them as beneath her notice.
TLN 407rhetorical device
“Is this the guise, Is this the fashion in the court of England? Is this the government of Britain's isle, And this the royalty of Albion's king”
Margaret hammers her point home by starting four consecutive clauses with 'Is this the...' — the rhetorical device called anaphora (repetition of the same words at the start of successive phrases). The insistent repetition mimics mounting outrage and turns each repeated phrase into an accusation. 'Albion' is a poetic, ancient name for Britain.
TLN 415historical topical
“in the city Tours Thou ran'st a tilt”
In 1444 Suffolk travelled to the French city of Tours to negotiate Henry's marriage to Margaret of Anjou and reportedly participated in a tournament there as part of the courtship festivities. 'Ran'st a tilt' means competed in a jousting contest — a horseback charge with lances, a central display of chivalric prowess. Margaret reminds Suffolk that she first noticed and admired him there, not the king she was being given to.
TLN 421cultural context
“To number Ave-Maries on his beads”
To count 'Ave Maries on his beads' is to tell a rosary — a Catholic devotional practice in which a string of beads is used to count repetitions of the Hail Mary prayer ('Ave Maria' is Latin for 'Hail Mary'). Margaret mockingly says Henry's warriors are prayers and scripture rather than soldiers and weapons — his 'tilt-yard' is his study, his weapons are biblical quotations. For an Elizabethan Protestant audience, rosary devotion was also a marker of a backward, popish piety.
TLN 428historical topical
“set the triple crown upon his head”
The 'triple crown' is the papal tiara — the triregnum, a three-tiered crown worn by the Pope as the distinctive headgear of the papacy. Margaret is sarcastically suggesting Henry is so devoted to religion he would be better suited to be Pope than King of England.
TLN 438historical topical
“Cannot do more in England than the Nevils; Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers”
The Nevilles were the most powerful noble family in northern England: the Earl of Salisbury (Richard Neville) and his son the Earl of Warwick — the future 'Kingmaker' — commanded enormous patronage, military retinues, and regional loyalty. Suffolk is warning that even he and the queen cannot outmaneuver the Neville bloc. 'No simple peers' means no ordinary or insignificant lords.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 448archaic vocab
“Contemptuous base-born callat as she is”
A 'callat' (also spelled 'callet' or 'callot') was an Elizabethan term of abuse for a woman of low or loose character — a scold, a slut, or an impudent woman of base birth. Margaret is calling Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, a common, uppity nobody who has forgotten her station.
historical Eleanor Cobham and the Witchcraft Trial
TLN 452historical topical
“Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter”
To obtain Margaret as Henry's bride, Suffolk agreed in the Treaty of Tours (1444) that England would surrender its claims to the French territories of Maine and Anjou — Margaret's father René's domains — as a condition of the marriage. 'Two dukedoms' refers to these lost French possessions, not literal English titles. Margaret's father, René of Anjou, was notoriously poor; the surrender of Maine and Anjou was widely resented in England as a humiliating diplomatic defeat.
TLN 453rhetorical device
“myself have lim'd a bush for her, And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds”
Suffolk uses birdliming as a metaphor for his trap against Eleanor. Birdlime was a sticky substance spread on branches to catch small birds by their feet. Suffolk has 'limed a bush' — set a sticky trap — and placed a 'quire' (a group, literally a choir) of tempting birds who will sing to Eleanor until she lands and cannot escape. This is how he plans to destroy the Duchess.
historical Eleanor Cobham and the Witchcraft Trial
TLN 488historical topical
“Since thou wert king—as who is king but thou?—”
Suffolk's parenthetical aside — 'as who is king but thou?' — is the scene's sharpest accusation: Gloucester, as Lord Protector, has wielded kingly power while the nominal king Henry VI has been a passive cipher. The dash-framed question cuts deeper than the surrounding charges of poor governance because it questions the constitutional legitimacy of the entire Protectorship.
historical Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester ('Good Duke Humphrey')historical The king's two bodies
TLN 506wordplay
“Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face”
Eleanor's 'ten commandments' are her ten fingernails — the joke being that a woman's scratching claws are her law. The phrase was a common colloquial expression in Elizabethan English for the fingers (each nail a 'commandment' to be obeyed). Eleanor is threatening to scratch Margaret's face raw.
TLN 515rhetorical device
“She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs, She'll gallop far enough to her destruction”
Buckingham mixes two images: Eleanor is 'tickled' (provoked, irritated into reckless motion) and her anger ('fume') is a horse that 'needs no spurs' — no additional goading — before it 'gallops' her straight to ruin. The extended horse-riding metaphor turns Eleanor's rage into a runaway animal that will carry its rider to disaster without any further push from her enemies.
TLN 534archaic vocab
“Without discharge, money, or furniture”
'Discharge' here means release from service or dismissal from duty — York fears he will be sent to France as regent but never formally recalled or paid off. 'Furniture' means military equipment and supplies — the arms, horses, provisions, and materiel needed to run a campaign. York's complaint is that Somerset will keep him tied to France without releasing him and without sending him the resources to actually succeed there.
TLN 558archaic vocab
“Base dunghill villain and mechanical”
York calls Peter a 'mechanical' — that is, a manual laborer, a craftsman, someone who works with his hands for wages. In the social hierarchy of Shakespeare's England, 'mechanicals' were the artisan class below the gentry; calling someone a 'mechanical' was a contemptuous class insult, grouping them with the tradesmen and servants who had no standing to accuse their betters.
TLN 569historical topical
“This doom, my lord, if I may judge: Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French, Because in York this breeds suspicion; And let these have a day appointed them For single combat in convenient place”
Gloucester's 'doom' (judgment, legal ruling) resolves the crisis by two separate decisions: make Somerset regent so that York is not compromised by the treason charge while his own man is accused, and settle the accusation between Horner and Peter by 'single combat' — a judicial duel. Trial by combat was an ancient legal remedy for treason accusations when there was no other evidence: God would grant victory to whichever side told the truth.
historical Trial by combat and the gagehistorical Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester ('Good Duke Humphrey')