Act 3, Scene 4

London. A Room in the Tower.

[BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL, and others sitting at a table: Officers of the Council attending.]
Lord Hastings
1843 Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met
1844 Is to determine of the coronation.
1845 In God's name speak,—when is the royal day?
Duke of Buckingham
1846 Are all things ready for that royal time?
Lord Stanley (Derby)
1847 Thery are, and wants but nomination.
Bishop of Ely
1848 To-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.
Duke of Buckingham
1849 Who knows the lord protector's mind herein?
1850 Who is most inward with the noble duke?
Bishop of Ely
1851 Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.
Duke of Buckingham
1852 We know each other's faces: for our hearts,
1853 He knows no more of mine than I of yours;
1854 Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.—
1855 Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
Lord Hastings
1856 I thank his grace, I know he loves me well;
1857 But for his purpose in the coronation
1858 I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd
1859 His gracious pleasure any way therein:
1860 But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;
1861 And in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,
1862 Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.
Bishop of Ely
1863 In happy time, here comes the duke himself.
[Enter GLOSTER.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1864 My noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.
1865 I have been long a sleeper; but I trust
1866 My absence doth neglect no great design
1867 Which by my presence might have been concluded.
Duke of Buckingham
1868 Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,
1869 William Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part,—
1870 I mean, your voice,—for crowning of the king.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1871 Than my Lord Hastings no man might be bolder;
1872 His lordship knows me well and loves me well.—
1873 My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn
1874 I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
1875 I do beseech you send for some of them.
Bishop of Ely
1876 Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.
[Exit.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1877 Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.
[Takes him aside.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1878 Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,
1879 And finds the testy gentleman so hot
1880 That he will lose his head ere give consent
1881 His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,
1882 Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.
Duke of Buckingham
1883 Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.
[Exeunt GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM.]
Lord Stanley (Derby)
1884 We have not yet set down this day of triumph.
1885 To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;
1886 For I myself am not so well provided
1887 As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.
[Re-enter BISHOP OF ELY.]
Bishop of Ely
1888 Where is my lord the Duke of Gloster?
1889 I have sent for these strawberries.
Lord Hastings
1890 His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning;
1891 There's some conceit or other likes him well
1892 When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.
1893 I think there's ne'er a man in Christendom
1894 Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;
1895 For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
Lord Stanley (Derby)
1896 What of his heart perceive you in his face
1897 By any livelihood he showed to-day?
Lord Hastings
1898 Marry, that with no man here he is offended;
1899 For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.
[Re-enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1900 I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
1901 That do conspire my death with devilish plots
1902 Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd
1903 Upon my body with their hellish charms?
Lord Hastings
1904 The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,
1905 Makes me most forward in this princely presence
1906 To doom the offenders: whosoe'er they be.
1907 I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1908 Then be your eyes the witness of their evil:
1909 Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
1910 Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:
1911 And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
1912 Consorted with that harlot-strumpet Shore,
1913 That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
Lord Hastings
1914 If they have done this deed, my noble lord,—
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
1915 If!—thou protector of this damned strumpet,
1916 Talk'st thou to me of "ifs"?—Thou art a traitor:—
1917 Off with his head!—now, by Saint Paul I swear,
1918 I will not dine until I see the same.—
1919 Lovel and Ratcliff:—look that it be done:—
1920 The rest, that love me, rise and follow me.
[Exeunt all except HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF.]
Lord Hastings
1921 Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;
1922 For I, too fond, might have prevented this.
1923 Stanley did dream the boar did raze his helm;
1924 And I did scorn it, and disdain to fly.
1925 Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,
1926 And started, when he look'd upon the Tower,
1927 As loth to bear me to the slaughter-house.
1928 O, now I need the priest that spake to me:
1929 I now repent I told the pursuivant,
1930 As too triumphing, how mine enemies
1931 To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,
1932 And I myself secure in grace and favour.
1933 O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse
1934 Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!
Sir Richard Ratcliff
1935 Come, come, despatch; the duke would be at dinner:
1936 Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.
Lord Hastings
1937 O momentary grace of mortal men,
1938 Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
1939 Who builds his hope in air of your good looks
1940 Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
1941 Ready, with every nod, to tumble down
1942 Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
Lord Lovel
1943 Come, come, despatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.
Lord Hastings
1944 O bloody Richard!—miserable England!
1945 I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee
1946 That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.—
1947 Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head:
1948 They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1873historical topical
“when I was last in Holborn / I saw good strawberries in your garden”
Holborn was a district of London where the Bishop of Ely had a town house with a famous garden. The strawberry request is lifted almost verbatim from Thomas More's History of King Richard III: Richard sends the Bishop for strawberries to clear the room and confer privately with Buckingham, then returns with a wholly changed demeanor to accuse Hastings of treason. The pleasant domestic detail makes the violence that follows all the more shocking.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 1878archaic vocab
“Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business”
'Sounded' means probed or tested discreetly, the way you lower a weighted line (a 'sounding') to measure hidden depths. Catesby has been working as Richard's spy to find out whether Hastings will support Richard's seizure of the throne from the young princes. The line reveals that Hastings's coming execution has been planned in advance; the council meeting is a performance.
TLN 1895rhetorical device
“by his face straight shall you know his heart”
Hastings declares that Richard's mood is always perfectly readable in his face — an observation that is catastrophically wrong and is ironically undercut within minutes. This is a case of dramatic irony: the audience already knows, from Richard's private words with Buckingham, that the cheerful demeanor this morning conceals a murder already planned. Hastings's confident misreading of Richard's transparency is the final proof of how completely he has been fooled.
historical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 1909historical topical
“look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm / Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up”
Richard bares his withered arm as theatrical 'proof' that Queen Elizabeth and Jane Shore have bewitched him. 'Blasted' means blighted by a malignant supernatural force — the same word applied to trees struck and killed by lightning or disease. The charge is a fabrication: More and Holinshed record that Richard staged exactly this exhibition at the council, displaying the arm he was born with to condemn the queen and her ally. That a great lord could be condemned on such a public-performance accusation shows how completely Richard has abolished the council's independence.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 1911historical topical
“this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, / Consorted with that harlot-strumpet Shore”
'Edward's wife' is Queen Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV. 'Shore' is Jane Shore, Edward IV's most famous mistress, a goldsmith's wife who became the king's companion and was later connected with Hastings. Richard accuses the two women of conspiring through witchcraft to blight him. Both More and Holinshed record that Jane Shore was publicly degraded by Richard — made to do penance in a sheet through London's streets — and that Hastings's protection of her was part of the charge against him.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 1923cultural context
“Stanley did dream the boar did raze his helm; / And I did scorn it”
'The boar' is Richard — his personal heraldic badge was a white boar, worn by his retainers as a livery emblem. Stanley dreamed that the boar 'razed' (gashed or scraped away) his helmet — a death threat made legible through heraldry. Hastings dismissed the warning. A 'helm' is a helmet; to raze it is to slash through the armour that should protect the head, foreshadowing his beheading. In the scene where Stanley reported this dream (3.2) Hastings laughed it off, and now he sees it was prophecy.
historical The White Boar (Richard's Badge)
TLN 1933rhetorical device
“O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse / Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head”
In Act 1, Scene 3, the aged Queen Margaret — Lancastrian widow of Henry VI — prophesied Hastings's fall. He laughed at her. Now, about to be executed, he names her aloud and acknowledges her curse has come true. The repeated name ('Margaret, Margaret') is an apostrophe — calling out to an absent person — that doubles as a lament. Margaret functions throughout the play as a prophetic chorus: every curse she pronounces lands exactly. Hastings is the second of her victims to recognize the pattern at the moment of his death.
TLN 1936archaic vocab
“Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head”
'Shrift' means the sacrament of confession — the formal admission of sins to a priest before death, followed by absolution. To be 'shriven' was essential preparation for a Catholic Christian's death; dying unconfessed was to risk hell. 'Make a short shrift' means confess quickly; Ratcliff is hurrying the condemned Hastings through his spiritual preparations because Richard is impatient to see the head. The phrase survives in modern English ('short shrift') but has lost its specifically religious meaning.
TLN 1939rhetorical device
“Who builds his hope in air of your good looks / Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, / Ready, with every nod, to tumble down / Into the fatal bowels of the deep”
Hastings draws a sustained simile: the man who builds his security on a great lord's favor is like a drunk sailor clinging to the top of a mast — swaying, precarious, one stumble away from a fatal plunge into the sea below. The 'good looks' (pleasant expressions) of the powerful are mere wind; the 'fatal bowels of the deep' are death. It is Hastings's own epitaph: he spent the scene confident in Richard's favor and is now moments from the block.