Great Britain -- History -- Poetry; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Sources
_Leister_, thy king is now thy captiue made,
Reuenge is in thy hand, where is thy spleene?
Though vnto thee thy soueraigne was betrai’d:
This be thy praise, thou wouldst not with our queene
In _Edward’s_ wrongs be any deeper seene:
While in thy Killingworth thy king remaines,
Nought doth he want that to a king pertaines.
112.
With a strong guard from starting there kept sure,
Our friends meane time being seas’d on by the foe,
Both _Spencers_, _Reading_, _Daniel_, _Milcheldeure_,
In death do happily shut vp their woe,
As pointing out the way that we must go:
_Baldocke_ in prison by a milder fate,
Struck dead with grief preuents their deadly hate.
113.
They, that vnto the king induc’d by reason
Did loyall proue, were traytors to the state:
O impious age, when truth was counted treason,
Heere noble _Arundell_ I waile thy fate,
Whose blood drunke vp by _Mortimer’s_ sterne hate,
Did manifest the spleene, on which he fed
Against his king, for whom thy blood was shed.
114.
Since they by death t’offence haue paid their due,
Who late alone in your displeasure stood,
Whom should your deadly hatred now pursue?
If they were only foes to common good,
That made you satisfaction with their blood:
Why is your liege lord as a common foe
Reseru’d a captiue prince for worser woe?
115.
Bloodie reuenge your hatred cannot bound,
So wilfully to greater mischiefe bent,
The poore imprison’d king must be vncrown’d,
At London by the states in parlament,
It is decreed by mutuall consent:
_Edward_ must be depos’d from royall throne,
Where he had sate now twice ten yeares and one.
116.
O righteous heau’ns, if ye haue powre t’oppose
Fraile man’s vnrighteous thoughts in euery thing:
Then suffer not, ah suffer not my foes
Thus to go on, that are about to bring
Such wofull tidings to a wretched king:
In thrall though I abide, this grace yet giue,
That I at least a captiue king may liue.
117.
Strengthned by will, though not by force of lawes,
To Killingworth th’appointed states are come,
Where, as in censure of some weightie cause,
Twentie and foure agreed vpon their doome,
In order sit within a goodly roome,
And thither do their king to iudgement call,
Who should haue sate chiefe iudge aboue them all.
118.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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