Act 4, Scene 1

London. Before the Tower

[Enter, on one side, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET; on the other, ANNE DUCHESS of GLOSTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET, CLARENCE's young daughter.]
Duchess of York
2319 Who meets us here?—my niece Plantagenet,
2320 Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster?
2321 Now, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower,
2322 On pure heart's love, to greet the tender princes.—
2323 Daughter, well met.
Lady Anne
2324 God give your graces both
2325 A happy and a joyful time of day!
Queen Elizabeth
2326 As much to you, good sister! Whither away?
Lady Anne
2327 No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,
2328 Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
2329 To gratulate the gentle princes there.
Queen Elizabeth
2330 Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter all together:—
2331 And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.
[Enter BRAKENBURY.]
Queen Elizabeth
2332 Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
2333 How doth the prince, and my young son of York?
Sir Robert Brakenbury
2334 Right well, dear madam. By your patience,
2335 I may not suffer you to visit them.
2336 The king hath strictly charg'd the contrary.
Queen Elizabeth
2337 The king! who's that?
Sir Robert Brakenbury
2338 I mean the lord protector.
Queen Elizabeth
2339 The Lord protect him from that kingly title!
2340 Hath he set bounds between their love and me?
2341 I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?
Duchess of York
2342 I am their father's mother; I will see them.
Lady Anne
2343 Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother:
2344 Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,
2345 And take thy office from thee on my peril.
Sir Robert Brakenbury
2346 No, madam, no,—I may not leave it so:
2347 I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.
[Exit.]
[Enter STANLEY.]
Lord Stanley (Derby)
2348 Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,
2349 And I'll salute your grace of York as mother
2350 And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.—
[To the DUCHESS OF GLOSTER.]
Lord Stanley (Derby)
2351 Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,
2352 There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.
Queen Elizabeth
2353 Ah, cut my lace asunder,
2354 That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
2355 Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!
Lady Anne
2356 Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!
Marquess of Dorset
2357 Be of good cheer: mother, how fares your grace?
Queen Elizabeth
2358 O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee gone!
2359 Death and destruction dog thee at thy heels;
2360 Thy mother's name is ominous to children.
2361 If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
2362 And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell:
2363 Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,
2364 Lest thou increase the number of the dead;
2365 And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,
2366 Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.
Lord Stanley (Derby)
2367 Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.—
2368 Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
2369 You shall have letters from me to my son
2370 In your behalf, to meet you on the way:
2371 Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.
Duchess of York
2372 O ill-dispersing wind of misery!—
2373 O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
2374 A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
2375 Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
Lord Stanley (Derby)
2376 Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.
Lady Anne
2377 And I with all unwillingness will go.—
2378 O, would to God that the inclusive verge
2379 Of golden metal that must round my brow
2380 Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain !
2381 Anointed let me be with deadly venom,
2382 And die ere men can say God save the queen!
Queen Elizabeth
2383 Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory;
2384 To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.
Lady Anne
2385 No, why?—When he that is my husband now
2386 Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;
2387 When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands
2388 Which issued from my other angel husband,
2389 And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd;
2390 O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,
2391 This was my wish,—"Be thou," quoth I, "accurs'd
2392 For making me, so young, so old a widow!
2393 And when thou wedd'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
2394 And be thy wife,—if any be so mad,—
2395 More miserable by the life of thee
2396 Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!"
2397 Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,
2398 Within so small a time, my woman's heart
2399 Grossly grew captive to his honey words,
2400 And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,—
2401 Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;
2402 For never yet one hour in his bed
2403 Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,
2404 But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.
2405 Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;
2406 And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.
Queen Elizabeth
2407 Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.
Lady Anne
2408 No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.
Marquess of Dorset
2409 Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!
Lady Anne
2410 Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!
[To DORSET.]
Duchess of York
2411 Go thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee!—
[To ANNE.]
Duchess of York
2412 Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee!—
[To QUEEN ELIZABETH.]
Duchess of York
2413 Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee!
2414 I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!
2415 Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,
2416 And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.
Queen Elizabeth
2417 Stay yet, look back with me unto the Tower.—
2418 Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes
2419 Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls!
2420 Rough cradle for such little pretty ones!
2421 Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow
2422 For tender princes, use my babies well!
2423 So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2329archaic vocab
“To gratulate the gentle princes there”
'Gratulate' means to congratulate or greet with joy — not merely to say thank you, but to welcome someone warmly. Lady Anne is saying all three women have come to the Tower to pay their respects to the young princes.
TLN 2335historical topical
“I may not suffer you to visit them. The king hath strictly charg'd the contrary”
Brakenbury, as Lieutenant of the Tower, has been ordered by Richard — who is now calling himself king, though not yet crowned — to bar all visitors from the young princes. This is the scene's first sign that the boys are effectively prisoners, not royal guests. The order anticipates what More and Holinshed report: that Richard systematically cut the princes off from family and loyal servants before arranging their deaths.
historical The Princes in the Towerhistorical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 2353cultural context
“cut my lace asunder, That my pent heart may have some scope to beat”
Elizabethan women's bodices were tightly laced at the back; the stiff whalebone or buckram stays compressed the torso. When Queen Elizabeth cries 'cut my lace asunder,' she is asking to have the lacing of her corset cut so she can breathe through the shock. Sudden news was thought to cause fainting by compressing the heart — the same convention gives Juliet's Nurse her request in 'Romeo and Juliet.' It signals physical collapse, not mere distress.
TLN 2365rhetorical device
“die the thrall of Margaret's curse, Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen”
Queen Elizabeth fears she will live long enough to see Margaret's curses fully come true — that she will die as Richard's prisoner ('thrall'), stripped of every role: no longer a mother (her sons will be dead), no longer a wife (Edward IV is dead), no longer a queen. The three-part negation — 'nor mother, wife, nor queen' — mirrors the exact terms of Margaret's curse in Act 1, Scene 3, where she called down ruin on Elizabeth's family and crown.
TLN 2374classical allusion
“A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world, Whose unavoided eye is murderous”
The cockatrice (also called the basilisk) was a legendary creature hatched from a cock's egg brooded by a serpent — its gaze was said to kill instantly. The Duchess of York is calling her own womb ('the bed of death') a nest that hatched Richard, whose 'unavoided' (unavoidable, inescapable) killing gaze is destroying everyone around him. It is the most bitter of the play's many curses: his own mother identifies him as a monster she brought into the world.
TLN 2378rhetorical device
“the inclusive verge Of golden metal that must round my brow Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain! Anointed let me be with deadly venom”
Lady Anne wishes the coronation crown ('the inclusive verge of golden metal') were a red-hot ring that would burn through her skull, and that the holy anointing oil used in the ceremony ('Anointed let me be') were poison. The speech turns the two holiest acts of a coronation — the placing of the crown and the anointing with consecrated oil — into instruments of execution. Anne dreads becoming queen more than death itself.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 2386historical topical
“as I follow'd Henry's corse; When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands Which issued from my other angel husband”
Anne is recalling the extraordinary scene in Act 1 where Richard wooed her as she followed the corpse ('corse') of Henry VI. The 'blood wash'd from his hands' is Henry VI's blood: Richard had just murdered him in the Tower. 'My other angel husband' is the Lancastrian Prince Edward, son of Henry VI, whom Richard had also killed at the battle of Tewkesbury (1471). Anne had been Prince Edward's wife; Richard killed both her husband and her father-in-law before courting her.
historical More's History of King Richard III
TLN 2402historical topical
“never yet one hour in his bed Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep, But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd”
'Golden dew of sleep' is a phrase for the restorative rest that refreshes the body, proverbially precious and brief. Anne reveals that Richard is tormented by nightmares ('timorous dreams') that wake them both. This is not a private marital complaint: the play consistently presents Richard's guilty conscience as erupting in disturbed sleep. His own nightmare on the eve of Bosworth — when the ghosts of his victims curse him — is the culmination of exactly this pattern established here.
TLN 2405historical topical
“he hates me for my father Warwick; And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me”
Anne's father was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as 'the Kingmaker' — the most powerful nobleman of the age, who made and unmade kings during the Wars of the Roses. He switched sides from York to Lancaster and was killed by Richard and Edward at the battle of Barnet (1471). Richard married Anne partly to claim her share of the vast Warwick estates; once those lands were secured, she had served her purpose. Anne says plainly that she expects Richard to have her killed.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 2415archaic vocab
“Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen, And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen”
'Teen' is an archaic word for grief, sorrow, or affliction — related to modern 'teem' (to overflow) and to the verb 'to teen' (to cause grief). The Duchess of York is saying that for every hour of happiness in her eighty-odd years, she has paid a week of misery. It is also a stark piece of arithmetic: she has outlived her husband the Duke of York, killed at Wakefield; her son Clarence, drowned in a butt of malmsey; and now watches her last son destroy what remains of the family.
TLN 2418rhetorical device
“Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls! Rough cradle for such little pretty ones! Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow For tender princes”
Queen Elizabeth addresses the Tower of London directly, as if its stone walls could hear and feel ('apostrophe' — the rhetorical device of speaking to an absent or inanimate thing). She calls the Tower a 'rough cradle,' a 'rude ragged nurse,' and a 'sullen playfellow' — grotesquely domestic images that make the massive fortress sound like a failed nursemaid. 'Immur'd' means walled up or imprisoned, from Latin 'in murus' (within the walls). The Tower was the most powerful symbol of royal imprisonment in England.
historical The Princes in the Tower