The cause why thus I lead him in my hand, His skin with bloud and teares so sore bestaynd,[957] Is that thou mayest the better vnderstand, How hardly fortune hath for vs ordaynd, In whome her loue and hate bee hole contaynd: For I am _Richard_, prince _Plantagenet_, The duke of _Yorke_ in royall race beget.[958] 3. For _Richard_ earle of _Cambridge_, eldest sonne Of _Edmund Langley_, thyrd[959] sonne of king _Edward_, Engendred mee, of _Anne_, whose course[960] did runne Of _Mortimers_ to bee the issue gard: For when her brother _Edmund_ died a ward,[961] Shee was sole heire[962] by due discent of line, Whereby her rightes and titles all were mine. 4. But marke mee nowe, I pray thee, _Baldwine_, marke, And see how force oft ouerbeareth right: Way how vsurpers tyrannously warke, To keepe by murder that they get by might, And note what troublous[963] daungers doe alight On such as seeke to repossesse their owne, And how through rigour right[964] is ouerthrowne. 5. The duke of _Hereford_, _Henry Bolenbroke_,[965] Of whome duke _Mowbray_ told thee now of late, When voide of cause hee[966] had king _Richard_ toke: Hee murdered him, vsurped[967] his estate, Without all right or title, sauing hate Of other’s rule, or loue to rule alone: These two excepted, title had hee none. 6. The realme and crowne was _Edmund Mortimer’s_,[968] Whose father _Roger_ was king _Richard’s_ heire: Which caused _Henry_ and the _Lancasters_[969] To seeke all shiftes our housholdes[970] to appayre, For sure hee was to sit beside the chayre Where wee of power to claime our lawfull right, Wherefore to stroy vs hee did all hee might.[971] 7. His cursed sonne ensued his cruell path, And kept my giltlesse cosin strayt in duraunce: For whome my father hard entreated hath: But liuing hopelesse of his line’s assuraunce, Hee thought it best by pollitike procuraunce, To priue[972] the king, and so restore his frend: Which brought him selfe to an infamous end.[973] 8. For whan king _Henry_,[974] of that name the fifte, Had tane my father in his[975] conspiracy,[976] Hee, from sir _Edmund_ all the blame to shifte, Was fayne to say the[977] _French_ kinge’s ally[978] Had hyred him this trayterous act to trye, For which condemned shortly hee was slaine, In helping right this was my father’s gaine.[979] 9.