Act 4, Scene 6

London. The Tower

[Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, Young RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Attendants.]
King Henry VI
2183 Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends
2184 Have shaken Edward from the regal seat
2185 And turn'd my captive state to liberty,
2186 My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,
2187 At our enlargement what are thy due fees?
Lieutenant of the Tower
2188 Subjects may challenge nothing of their sovereigns;
2189 But if an humble prayer may prevail,
2190 I then crave pardon of your Majesty.
King Henry VI
2191 For what, lieutenant? for well using me?
2192 Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,
2193 For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;
2194 Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds
2195 Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,
2196 At last by notes of household harmony
2197 They quite forget their loss of liberty.—
2198 But, Warwick, after God thou sett'st me free,
2199 And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;
2200 He was the author, thou the instrument.
2201 Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite,
2202 By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,
2203 And that the people of this blessed land
2204 May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,
2205 Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,
2206 I here resign my government to thee,
2207 For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.
Earl of Warwick
2208 Your grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,
2209 And now may seem as wise as virtuous
2210 By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,
2211 For few men rightly temper with the stars;
2212 Yet in this one thing let me blame your grace,
2213 For choosing me when Clarence is in place.
George, Duke of Clarence
2214 No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,
2215 To whom the heavens in thy nativity
2216 Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,
2217 As likely to be blest in peace and war;
2218 And therefore, I yield thee my free consent.
Earl of Warwick
2219 And I choose Clarence only for protector.
King Henry VI
2220 Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.
2221 Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,
2222 That no dissension hinder government.
2223 I make you both protectors of this land,
2224 While I myself will lead a private life
2225 And in devotion spend my latter days,
2226 To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.
Earl of Warwick
2227 What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?
George, Duke of Clarence
2228 That he consents if Warwick yield consent,
2229 For on thy fortune I repose myself.
Earl of Warwick
2230 Why, then, though loath, yet I must be content.
2231 We'll yoke together, like a double shadow
2232 To Henry's body, and supply his place,—
2233 I mean in bearing weight of government
2234 While he enjoys the honour and his ease.
2235 And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful
2236 Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,
2237 And all his lands and goods confiscated.
George, Duke of Clarence
2238 What else? and that succession be determin'd.
Earl of Warwick
2239 Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.
King Henry VI
2240 But with the first of all your chief affairs,
2241 Let me entreat—for I command no more—
2242 That Margaret your queen, and my son Edward,
2243 Be sent for to return from France with speed;
2244 For, till I see them here, by doubtful fear
2245 My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.
George, Duke of Clarence
2246 It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.
King Henry VI
2247 My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that
2248 Of whom you seem to have so tender care?
Duke of Somerset
2249 My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.
King Henry VI
2250 Come hither, England's hope.—If secret powers
[Lays his hand on his head.]
King Henry VI
2251 Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
2252 This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.
2253 His looks are full of peaceful majesty,
2254 His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,
2255 His hand to wield a sceptre, and himself
2256 Likely in time to bless a regal throne.
2257 Make much of him, my lords; for this is he
2258 Must help you more than you are hurt by me.
[Enter a Messenger.]
Earl of Warwick
2259 What news, my friend?
Messenger
2260 That Edward is escaped from your brother,
2261 And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.
Earl of Warwick
2262 Unsavoury news! but how made he escape?
Messenger
2263 He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloster
2264 And the Lord Hastings, who attended him
2265 In secret ambush on the forest side,
2266 And from the bishop's huntsmen rescued him,
2267 For hunting was his daily exercise.
Earl of Warwick
2268 My brother was too careless of his charge.—
2269 But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide
2270 A salve for any sore that may betide.
[Exeunt King Henry, Warwick, Clarence, Lieutenant, and attendants.]
Duke of Somerset
2271 My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's,
2272 For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,
2273 And we shall have more wars before 't be long.
2274 As Henry's late presaging prophecy
2275 Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,
2276 So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts
2277 What may befall him, to his harm and ours;
2278 Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,
2279 Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany
2280 Till storms be past of civil enmity.
Earl of Oxford
2281 Ay; for if Edward repossess the crown,
2282 'T is like that Richmond with the rest shall down.
Duke of Somerset
2283 It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.
2284 Come therefore, let's about it speedily.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2187archaic vocab
“At our enlargement what are thy due fees”
'Enlargement' here means release from imprisonment, not a making-bigger. Henry is asking the Tower Lieutenant what fees are owed now that he has been freed — 'enlarged' from confinement was standard Tudor legal and journalistic language for letting a prisoner out.
TLN 2194rhetorical device
“pleasure as incaged birds Conceive when, after many moody thoughts, At last by notes of household harmony They quite forget their loss of liberty”
Henry compares his years in the Tower to caged birds who, after brooding, are soothed into forgetting their captivity by 'household harmony' — the everyday sounds of domesticity. The simile is gently self-deprecating: Henry admits his pleasure was the stunted consolation of a prisoner who has accommodated himself to the cage, not the joy of a free man.
TLN 2198cultural context
“Warwick, after God thou sett'st me free, And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee; He was the author, thou the instrument”
Henry frames Warwick's role in the theological vocabulary of secondary causation: God is the 'author' (the originating cause) and Warwick only the 'instrument' (the tool God uses). This comes from scholastic theology — God works through human agents without sharing the credit. By ranking Warwick below God in the chain of thanks, Henry is both pious and, subtly, keeping the Kingmaker in his subordinate place.
TLN 2201classical allusion
“that I may conquer fortune's spite, By living low where fortune cannot hurt me”
Fortune — the fickle goddess imagined as turning a great wheel — throws down those who ride high. Henry's plan to 'live low' is a classical Stoic strategy: the humble person cannot be toppled by Fortune because they are already at the bottom. The irony is sharp: Henry is still king and therefore still exposed to Fortune's wheel, however much he wishes otherwise.
classical Fortune and her wheelhistorical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)
TLN 2215classical allusion
“the heavens in thy nativity Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown”
Clarence says the stars at Warwick's birth ('in thy nativity') destined him for both peace and war: the olive branch is the classical symbol of peace (carried by suppliants and ambassadors), and the laurel crown is the Roman symbol of military victory. Together they cast Warwick as the complete leader — the man born to triumph in both.
TLN 2224historical topical
“I myself will lead a private life And in devotion spend my latter days, To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise”
Henry formally withdraws from active rule to live as a private, pious man — spending his days in prayer ('devotion') and religious meditation. This is entirely in character: Henry VI was widely regarded, even by his enemies, as personally devout and suited by temperament to a monk's life rather than a king's. Shakespeare and his chronicles (following Hall and Holinshed) depict him as a man born into the wrong vocation.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2250historical topical
“England's hope. If secret powers Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts, This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss”
Henry lays his hand on the head of the boy Henry, Earl of Richmond, and prophesies that this child will one day save England. The 'pretty lad' is the future Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty. Shakespeare's audience in the 1590s would recognize this as the moment the play's long history points toward: the child Henry will defeat Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485 and end the Wars of the Roses.
historical Richmond and the Tudor Mythhistorical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 2263historical topical
“He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloster And the Lord Hastings, who attended him In secret ambush on the forest side”
Richard, Duke of Gloucester — York's deformed youngest son, the future Richard III — rescues his brother Edward IV from house-arrest by ambushing the guards during a hunting exercise. This is the same Richard who will, by the play's end, murder both Prince Edward of Lancaster and the pious King Henry VI in the Tower. Here he appears in the role he excels at: plotting in secret to serve York's interests.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2279historical topical
“Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany Till storms be past of civil enmity”
Somerset and Oxford decide to send the boy Richmond to Brittany for safety. This is historically accurate: the real Henry Tudor was kept in Brittany under the protection of Duke Francis II from 1471 until 1485, when he launched his invasion of England that ended the Wars of the Roses at Bosworth Field. The fourteen years of Breton exile are the background to Richard III.
historical Richmond and the Tudor Myth