YOU are gazing upon the death-chamber of a king. He lies upon his bed in the silent, darkened room, and sleep comes and goes from his troubled pillow. Conscience smites him and disease racks his bones. He has been a man of blood all his days, and many crimes are laid to his charge. He has murdered the king whose crown he wears; the blood of an archbishop is upon his head. As fitful slumber seizes him, you perceive a noble youth enter the room. Comely is he in face and figure, though he bears the marks of recent grief. He stands by his father’s couch, and watches the sufferer. As he does so, his eye falls on the king’s crown, and he muses on the weight and cares of majesty. Then he glances again at the prostrate form on the bed, and a great grief surges into his heart, for, to all seeming, the king, his father, is dead. He bursts into tears, and taking up the crown places it on his own head. “My due from thee is this Imperial crown, Which, as immediate from thy place and blood, Derives itself to me. Lo! here it sits, Which God shall guard: and put the world’s whole strength Into one giant arm, it shall not force This lineal honour from me: this from thee Will I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me.” But while he speaks, the king awakes, and his roving eye sees the crown which his son is even now wearing. “Sire,” cries the young prince, “I never thought to hear thee speak again.” Then the dying king reproves him:—— “Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought: I stay too long by thee, I weary thee. Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth! Thou seek’st the greatness that will overwhelm thee. Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity Is held from falling with so weak a wind That it will quickly drop: my day is dim. Thou hast stolen that which, after some few hours, Were thine without offence.” The prince, stricken to the heart by his father’s reproaches, flings himself upon his knees to ask pardon for his presumption, and to assure the king of the innocence of his deed. He swears that no rebel or vain spirit has prompted him to seize the crown. “Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,—— And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,—— I spake unto this crown as having sense.... Accusing it, I put it on my head, To try with it, as with an enemy That had before my face murdered my father, The quarrel of a true inheritor.”