Act 3, Scene 7

London. Court of Baynard's Castle.

[Enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM, meeting.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2073 How now, how now! what say the citizens?
Duke of Buckingham
2074 Now, by the holy mother of our Lord,
2075 The citizens are mum, say not a word.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2076 Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children?
Duke of Buckingham
2077 I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,
2078 And his contract by deputy in France;
2079 The insatiate greediness of his desires,
2080 And his enforcement of the city wives;
2081 His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,—
2082 As being got, your father then in France,
2083 And his resemblance, being not like the duke:
2084 Withal I did infer your lineaments,—
2085 Being the right idea of your father,
2086 Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
2087 Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
2088 Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,
2089 Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;
2090 Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose
2091 Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse:
2092 And when mine oratory drew toward end
2093 I bid them that did love their country's good
2094 Cry "God save Richard, England's royal king!"
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2095 And did they so?
Duke of Buckingham
2096 No, so God help me, they spake not a word;
2097 But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,
2098 Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.
2099 Which when I saw, I reprehended them;
2100 And ask'd the mayor what meant this wilful silence:
2101 His answer was—the people were not us'd
2102 To be spoke to but by the recorder.
2103 Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again,—
2104 "Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferr'd;"
2105 But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.
2106 When he had done, some followers of mine own,
2107 At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,
2108 And some ten voices cried, "God save King Richard!"
2109 And thus I took the vantage of those few,—
2110 "Thanks, gentle citizens and friends," quoth I;
2111 "This general applause and cheerful shout
2112 Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard:"
2113 And even here brake off and came away.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2114 What, tongueless blocks were they! would they not speak?
2115 Will not the mayor, then, and his brethren, come?
Duke of Buckingham
2116 The mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;
2117 Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit:
2118 And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
2119 And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;
2120 For on that ground I'll make a holy descant:
2121 And be not easily won to our requests;
2122 Play the maid's part,—still answer nay, and take it.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2123 I go; and if you plead as well for them
2124 As I can say nay to thee for myself,
2125 No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.
Duke of Buckingham
2126 Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.
[Exit GLOSTER.]
[Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and Citizens.]
Duke of Buckingham
2127 Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;
2128 I think the duke will not be spoke withal.
[Enter, from the Castle, CATESBY.]
Duke of Buckingham
2129 Now, Catesby,—what says your lord to my request?
Sir William Catesby
2130 He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord,
2131 To visit him to-morrow or next day:
2132 He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
2133 Divinely bent to meditation:
2134 And in no worldly suit would he be mov'd,
2135 To draw him from his holy exercise.
Duke of Buckingham
2136 Return, good Catesby, to the gracious duke;
2137 Tell him, myself, the mayor and aldermen,
2138 In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
2139 No less importing than our general good,
2140 Are come to have some conference with his grace.
Sir William Catesby
2141 I'll signify so much unto him straight.
[Exit.]
Duke of Buckingham
2142 Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
2143 He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,
2144 But on his knees at meditation;
2145 Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
2146 But meditating with two deep divines;
2147 Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
2148 But praying, to enrich his watchful soul:
2149 Happy were England would this virtuous prince
2150 Take on his grace the sovereignty thereof:
2151 But, sure, I fear, we shall not win him to it.
Lord Mayor of London
2152 Marry, God defend his grace should say us nay!
Duke of Buckingham
2153 I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.
[Re-enter CATESBY.]
Duke of Buckingham
2154 Now, Catesby, what says his grace?
Sir William Catesby
2155 He wonders to what end you have assembled
2156 Such troops of citizens to come to him:
2157 His grace not being warn'd thereof before,
2158 He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.
Duke of Buckingham
2159 Sorry I am my noble cousin should
2160 Suspect me, that I mean no good to him:
2161 By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;
2162 And so once more return and tell his grace.
[Exit CATESBY.]
Duke of Buckingham
2163 When holy and devout religious men
2164 Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,—
2165 So sweet is zealous contemplation.
[Enter GLOSTER in a Galery above, between two BISHOPS. CATESBY returns.]
Lord Mayor of London
2166 See where his grace stands 'tween two clergymen!
Duke of Buckingham
2167 Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
2168 To stay him from the fall of vanity:
2169 And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,—
2170 True ornaments to know a holy man.—
2171 Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
2172 Lend favourable ear to our requests;
2173 And pardon us the interruption
2174 Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2175 My lord, there needs no such apology:
2176 I rather do beseech you pardon me,
2177 Who, earnest in the service of my God,
2178 Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.
2179 But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?
Duke of Buckingham
2180 Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
2181 And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2182 I do suspect I have done some offence
2183 That seems disgracious in the city's eye;
2184 And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
Duke of Buckingham
2185 You have, my lord: would it might please your grace,
2186 On our entreaties, to amend your fault!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2187 Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
Duke of Buckingham
2188 Know then, it is your fault that you resign
2189 The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
2190 The scepter'd office of your ancestors,
2191 Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
2192 The lineal glory of your royal house,
2193 To the corruption of a blemish'd stock:
2194 Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,—
2195 Which here we waken to our country's good,—
2196 The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
2197 Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,
2198 Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
2199 And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf
2200 Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.
2201 Which to recure, we heartily solicit
2202 Your gracious self to take on you the charge
2203 And kingly government of this your land;—
2204 Not as protector, steward, substitute,
2205 Or lowly factor for another's gain;
2206 But as successively, from blood to blood,
2207 Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
2208 For this, consorted with the citizens,
2209 Your very worshipful and loving friends,
2210 And, by their vehement instigation,
2211 In this just cause come I to move your grace.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2212 I cannot tell if to depart in silence
2213 Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
2214 Best fitteth my degree or your condition:
2215 If not to answer, you might haply think
2216 Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
2217 To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
2218 Which fondly you would here impose on me;
2219 If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
2220 So season'd with your faithful love to me,
2221 Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
2222 Therefore,—to speak, and to avoid the first,
2223 And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,—
2224 Definitively thus I answer you.
2225 Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
2226 Unmeritable shuns your high request.
2227 First, if all obstacles were cut away,
2228 And that my path were even to the crown,
2229 As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
2230 Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
2231 So mighty and so many my defects,
2232 That I would rather hide me from my greatness,—
2233 Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,—
2234 Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
2235 And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
2236 But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me,—
2237 And much I need to help you, were there need;—
2238 The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
2239 Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,
2240 Will well become the seat of majesty,
2241 And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
2242 On him I lay that you would lay on me,—
2243 The right and fortune of his happy stars;
2244 Which God defend that I should wring from him!
Duke of Buckingham
2245 My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;
2246 But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
2247 All circumstances well considered.
2248 You say that Edward is your brother's son:
2249 So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;
2250 For first was he contract to Lady Lucy,—
2251 Your mother lives a witness to his vow,—
2252 And afterward by substitute betroth'd
2253 To Bona, sister to the King of France.
2254 These both put off, a poor petitioner,
2255 A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,
2256 A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
2257 Even in the afternoon of her best days,
2258 Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
2259 Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree
2260 To base declension and loath'd bigamy:
2261 By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
2262 This Edward, whom our manners call the prince.
2263 More bitterly could I expostulate,
2264 Save that, for reverence to some alive,
2265 I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
2266 Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
2267 This proffer'd benefit of dignity;
2268 If not to bless us and the land withal,
2269 Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
2270 From the corruption of abusing time
2271 Unto a lineal true-derived course.
Lord Mayor of London
2272 Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.
Duke of Buckingham
2273 Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.
Sir William Catesby
2274 O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2275 Alas, why would you heap those cares on me?
2276 I am unfit for state and majesty:—
2277 I do beseech you, take it not amiss:
2278 I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
Duke of Buckingham
2279 If you refuse it,—as, in love and zeal,
2280 Loath to depose the child, your brother's son—
2281 As well we know your tenderness of heart
2282 And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
2283 Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
2284 And equally, indeed, to all estates,—
2285 Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,
2286 Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
2287 But we will plant some other in the throne,
2288 To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
2289 And in this resolution here we leave you.—
2290 Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.
[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, the MAYOR and citizens retiring.]
Sir William Catesby
2291 Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit:
2292 If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2293 Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
2294 Call them again.
[CATESBY goes to the MAYOR, &c., and then exit.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2295 I am not made of stone,
2296 But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
2297 Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
[Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and CATESBY, MAYOR, &c., coming forward.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2298 Cousin of Buckingham,—and sage grave men,
2299 Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
2300 To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,
2301 I must have patience to endure the load:
2302 But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach
2303 Attend the sequel of your imposition,
2304 Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
2305 From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
2306 For God doth know, and you may partly see,
2307 How far I am from the desire of this.
Lord Mayor of London
2308 God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2309 In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
Duke of Buckingham
2310 Then I salute you with this royal title,—
2311 Long live King Richard, England's worthy king!
All
2312 Amen.
Duke of Buckingham
2313 To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2314 Even when you please, for you will have it so.
Duke of Buckingham
2315 To-morrow, then, we will attend your grace:
2316 And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.
[To the BISHOPS.]
Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III)
2317 Come, let us to our holy work again.—
2318 Farewell, my cousin;—farewell, gentle friends.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2077historical topical
“his contract with Lady Lucy”
Buckingham claims Edward IV had secretly contracted (pre-contracted) himself to a Lady Eleanor Butler (also called Lady Lucy) before marrying Elizabeth Woodville, which would make the marriage bigamous and the children illegitimate. This was the official pretext used to pass the act Titulus Regius (June 1483), which declared Edward's sons bastards and cleared the way for Richard. The 'contract by deputy in France' refers to a further supposed betrothal to Bona of Savoy, sister of the French king.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 2084archaic vocab
“I did infer your lineaments,— Being the right idea of your father”
'Lineaments' means physical features or the outlines of the face and body. 'Infer' here means to point out or bring forward (not to conclude, as in modern use). Buckingham is telling Richard that he held up Richard's face as the true image ('idea') of their father, the Duke of York, implying Richard — unlike the bastard Edward — is York's genuine son. The contrast with the bastardy charge is the whole rhetorical point.
TLN 2097rhetorical device
“like dumb statues or breathing stones, Star'd each on other”
Buckingham uses a sharp oxymoron — 'breathing stones' — to describe the citizens: they were alive and present but utterly immobile and silent, as if turned to statues. The comparison captures how chilling the silence was, coming after Buckingham's long oration urging them to shout for Richard as king. Their wordless stare speaks louder than any refusal.
TLN 2101historical topical
“the people were not us'd To be spoke to but by the recorder”
The Recorder was the principal legal officer of the City of London, a barrister who served as the official spokesman between the city government and the Crown. When the Lord Mayor tells Buckingham the citizens would only hear their case put by the Recorder, he is invoking both a procedural technicality and the city's cherished right to be addressed through its own legal channels rather than by a great lord making an improvised political speech.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 2116archaic vocab
“Intend some fear; Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit”
'Intend' here means to pretend or feign, not to plan. Buckingham is stage-directing Richard to act frightened and reluctant, refusing to be approached except through urgent petition ('mighty suit' = urgent entreaty). The entire scene that follows is a piece of deliberate theatre: Richard plays the holy man interrupted at prayer, and Buckingham plays the suppliant begging him to take the crown he secretly craves.
historical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 2120wordplay
“on that ground I'll make a holy descant”
'Descant' was a musical term for an ornamental melody sung above a fixed bass line ('ground') — so Buckingham is saying: give me that pious visual foundation (Richard between two bishops, prayer-book in hand) and I will improvise a flattering speech upon it. The image is apt for the scene's staged theatrics: the 'holy ground' is Richard's costume, and Buckingham's political rhetoric is the virtuosic melody built on top.
TLN 2132historical topical
“two right reverend fathers, Divinely bent to meditation”
The two 'reverend fathers' (bishops) standing beside Richard on the gallery are part of a staged tableau managed by Richard and Buckingham. More's History of Richard III records that Richard appeared 'betwixt two bishops' holding a prayer-book — a piece of political theatre designed to make him look like a pious man reluctantly torn away from prayer by the citizens' urgent petition. The image was recognized as hollow theatrics by More and is played as such by Shakespeare.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 2142historical topical
“this prince is not an Edward! He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed”
Buckingham contrasts Richard (ostentatiously at prayer) with their dead brother Edward IV, whom he portrays as dissolute — lolling on a 'lewd day-bed,' sleeping, 'dallying with a brace of courtesans.' This is the same Edward whose lechery and multiple betrothals Buckingham has just used to declare his children illegitimate. The contrast is calculated to make the watching Mayor and citizens wish to trade a corrupt king's son for this apparently saintly prince.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 2152archaic vocab
“Marry, God defend his grace should say us nay”
'Marry' is a mild oath from 'Mary' — a shortened form of 'by the Virgin Mary.' By Shakespeare's time it had been softened to little more than an exclamation of surprise or emphasis, though its religious origin would still have been understood. The Lord Mayor's line is laced with dramatic irony: he prays God will stop Richard from refusing them, while the audience knows the whole reluctance is a charade.
TLN 2163cultural context
“When holy and devout religious men Are at their beads”
'At their beads' means telling (counting) prayer beads — the rosary, a string of beads used in Catholic practice to count off repeated prayers. In Protestant England the rosary had been officially rejected; its use in this speech, placed in the mouth of a public figure addressing a London crowd, carries residual Catholic colouring that Buckingham exploits to frame Richard as a man of deep, traditional piety rather than the new reforming religion.
TLN 2167rhetorical device
“Two props of virtue for a Christian prince, To stay him from the fall of vanity”
Buckingham's lines are deliberately shaped for the Mayor's ears as praise, but are recognizable to the audience as the language of political fiction. 'Props' is a building metaphor: the bishops are architectural supports preventing the Christian prince from toppling into worldly ambition ('vanity'). The speech is a sustained performance of pious admiration, and the word 'vanity' — worldly pride, the exact sin Richard is secretly committing — is savagely ironic.
TLN 2189rhetorical device
“the supreme seat, the throne majestical, The scepter'd office of your ancestors”
Buckingham's formal petition to Richard runs for twenty lines and is a showpiece of accumulation (Latin: congeries) — heaping up titles, images, and arguments in a rising series. 'Supreme seat... throne majestical... scepter'd office... state of fortune... due of birth... lineal glory' pile up to make refusing the crown seem not merely unwise but a spiritual dereliction. The form mirrors the set-piece of a formal petition, a genre audiences knew from official civic ceremony.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 2199rhetorical device
“shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion”
'Shoulder'd' means shoved or jostled — as a crowd pushes someone toward a dangerous edge. Buckingham pictures the royal bloodline being muscled toward a whirlpool ('gulf') of oblivion: if the legitimate Plantagenet line is passed over and Edward's bastard-born son crowned, England's true royal heritage will be swallowed and forgotten. The image is also indebted to the classical underworld river Lethe, whose waters are the forgetting that follows death.
TLN 2204historical topical
“Not as protector, steward, substitute, Or lowly factor for another's gain”
Buckingham explicitly rejects a lesser role for Richard: not 'Protector' (the title Richard already holds as regent for Edward V), not 'steward' (a manager acting for someone else), not 'substitute' or 'factor' (a business agent earning a profit for another). He insists Richard must take the throne as king outright, in his own right by blood. The enumeration zeroes in on the political logic: Richard must become the principal, not an office-holder who can be removed.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 2216rhetorical device
“Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty”
Richard pretends to reason through why he cannot simply stay silent: if he says nothing, the crowd might think his silence is a concealed ambition ('tongue-tied') that has yielded to their suit. The compressed phrase 'tongue-tied ambition' is a nice piece of self-damning candour: Richard names exactly what he is in the very act of claiming he is not. The 'golden yoke' — a burden that is also a precious crown — is an oxymoron that frames sovereignty as glorious servitude.
TLN 2233rhetorical device
“Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,— Than in my greatness covet to be hid”
A 'bark' is a small sailing vessel, and to 'brook' means to endure or withstand. Richard compares himself to a little boat too frail for heavy seas — a false modesty figure called occupatio (he raises and then dismisses the argument). The metaphor is immediately twisted: 'Than in my greatness covet to be hid / And in the vapour of my glory smother'd' — so great would his glory be that he would be smothered inside it. The elaborate, ornate disclaimer is hollow, but its rhetoric is exactly calculated to seem plausible to the Mayor.
TLN 2282archaic vocab
“gentle, kind, effeminate remorse, Which we have noted in you to your kindred”
'Remorse' here does not mean guilt for a wrong done — it means tender feeling or compassion (from Latin remordere, to bite back at, sting). 'Effeminate' meant over-soft, weak with feeling, not specifically about gender. Buckingham is pretending to flatter Richard by calling him too compassionate toward his relatives — too good-hearted to depose his nephew — when every member of the audience knows Richard has already had that nephew's protectors arrested and killed, and is about to murder the nephew himself.
TLN 2299rhetorical device
“you will buckle fortune on my back, To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no”
Richard's final acceptance speech reactivates the Fortune's-wheel tradition: Fortune is not, as usually imagined, a wheel one rides voluntarily up or down, but a load being strapped ('buckled') to his back against his will. He casts himself as a draught-animal compelled to haul the burden of kingship rather than as the ambitious schemer who has orchestrated this entire scene. The image neatly deflects all personal responsibility onto Fortune and the crowd.
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 2304archaic vocab
“Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me From all the impure blots and stains thereof”
'Acquittance' is a legal term meaning a formal release or discharge from an obligation or debt. Richard is saying that if anything sinful or scandalous ('impure blots') results from taking the crown, the audience's compulsion ('mere enforcement') will serve as his legal receipt — a discharge that frees him from blame. The legalistic metaphor is darkly apt: Richard is simultaneously performing reluctance and building himself a formal alibi. 'Imposition' means the burden laid on him (from 'impose'), not a fraud.