Speeches (Lines) for Earl of Suffolk
in "Henry VI, Part II"
Total: 67

1

I,1,5

As by your high imperial majesty
I had in charge at my depart for France,
As procurator to your excellence,
To marry Princess Margaret for your grace,
So, in the famous ancient city, Tours,
In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,
The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne and Alencon,
Seven earls, twelve barons and twenty reverend bishops,
I have perform'd my task and was espoused:
And humbly now upon my bended knee,
In sight of England and her lordly peers,
Deliver up my title in the queen
To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
Of that great shadow I did represent;
The happiest gift that ever marquess gave,
The fairest queen that ever king received.

2

I,1,45

My lord protector, so it please your grace,
Here are the articles of contracted peace
Between our sovereign and the French king Charles,
For eighteen months concluded by consent.

3

I,3,398

How now, fellow! would'st anything with me?

4

I,3,407

Thy wife, too! that's some wrong, indeed. What's
yours? What's here!
[Reads]
'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing the
commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!

5

I,3,420

Who is there?
[Enter Servant]
Take this fellow in, and send for
his master with a pursuivant presently: we'll hear
more of your matter before the King.

6

I,3,456

Madam, be patient: as I was cause
Your highness came to England, so will I
In England work your grace's full content.

7

I,3,463

And he of these that can do most of all
Cannot do more in England than the Nevils:
Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.

8

I,3,479

Madam, myself have limed a bush for her,
And placed a quire of such enticing birds,
That she will light to listen to the lays,
And never mount to trouble you again.
So, let her rest: and, madam, list to me;
For I am bold to counsel you in this.
Although we fancy not the cardinal,
Yet must we join with him and with the lords,
Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.
As for the Duke of York, this late complaint
Will make but little for his benefit.
So, one by one, we'll weed them all at last,
And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.
[Sound a sennet. Enter KING HENRY VI, GLOUCESTER,]
CARDINAL, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,
WARWICK, and the DUCHESS]

9

I,3,516

Resign it then and leave thine insolence.
Since thou wert king—as who is king but thou?—
The commonwealth hath daily run to wreck;
The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas;
And all the peers and nobles of the realm
Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.

10

I,3,561

Before we make election, give me leave
To show some reason, of no little force,
That York is most unmeet of any man.

11

I,3,574

Peace, headstrong Warwick!

12

I,3,578

Because here is a man accused of treason:
Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!

13

I,3,582

Please it your majesty, this is the man
That doth accuse his master of high treason:
His words were these: that Richard, Duke of York,
Was rightful heir unto the English crown
And that your majesty was a usurper.

14

II,1,735

No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My lord protector's hawks do tower so well;
They know their master loves to be aloft,
And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.

15

II,1,753

No malice, sir; no more than well becomes
So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.

16

II,1,756

Why, as you, my lord,
An't like your lordly lord-protectorship.

17

II,1,799

Come to the king and tell him what miracle.

18

II,1,819

What woman is this?

19

II,1,838

How camest thou so?

20

II,1,860

And yet, I think, jet did he never see.

21

II,1,908

True; made the lame to leap and fly away.

22

II,3,1090

Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;
Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.

23

III,1,1319

Well hath your highness seen into this duke;
And, had I first been put to speak my mind,
I think I should have told your grace's tale.
The duchess, by his subornation,
Upon my life, began her devilish practises:
Or, if he were not privy to those faults,
Yet, by reputing of his high descent,
As next the king he was successive heir,
And such high vaunts of his nobility,
Did instigate the bedlam brain-sick duchess
By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep;
And in his simple show he harbours treason.
The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.
No, no, my sovereign; Gloucester is a man
Unsounded yet and full of deep deceit.

24

III,1,1375

Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,
Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art:
I do arrest thee of high treason here.

25

III,1,1414

My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answered:
But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,
Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.
I do arrest you in his highness' name;
And here commit you to my lord cardinal
To keep, until your further time of trial.

26

III,1,1459

Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here
With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,
As if she had suborned some to swear
False allegations to o'erthrow his state?

27

III,1,1522

But, in my mind, that were no policy:
The king will labour still to save his life,
The commons haply rise, to save his life;
And yet we have but trivial argument,
More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.

28

III,1,1528

Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!

29

III,1,1536

Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness, then,
To make the fox surveyor of the fold?
Who being accused a crafty murderer,
His guilt should be but idly posted over,
Because his purpose is not executed.
No; let him die, in that he is a fox,
By nature proved an enemy to the flock,
Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,
As Humphrey, proved by reasons, to my liege.
And do not stand on quillets how to slay him:
Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,
Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,
So he be dead; for that is good deceit
Which mates him first that first intends deceit.

30

III,1,1551

Not resolute, except so much were done;
For things are often spoke and seldom meant:
But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,
Seeing the deed is meritorious,
And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,
Say but the word, and I will be his priest.

31

III,1,1562

Here is my hand, the deed is worthy doing.

32

III,1,1601

Why, our authority is his consent,
And what we do establish he confirms:
Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.

33

III,1,1606

A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.
But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.

34

III,1,1615

I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.

35

III,2,1680

Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?

36

III,2,1682

Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;
I will reward you for this venturous deed.
The king and all the peers are here at hand.
Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,
According as I gave directions?

37

III,2,1688

Away! be gone.
[Exeunt Murderers]
[Sound trumpets. Enter KING HENRY VI, QUEEN]
MARGARET, CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with Attendants]

38

III,2,1695

I'll call him presently, my noble lord.

39

III,2,1708

Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.

40

III,2,1716

He doth revive again: madam, be patient.

41

III,2,1719

Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry, comfort!

42

III,2,1843

A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?

43

III,2,1864

Why, Warwick, who should do the duke to death?
Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;
And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.

44

III,2,1882

I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.
Say, if thou darest, proud Lord of Warwick-shire,
That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.

45

III,2,1896

Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanor!
If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree slip; whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevils' noble race.

46

III,2,1913

Thou shall be waking well I shed thy blood,
If from this presence thou darest go with me.

47

III,2,1930

The traitorous Warwick with the men of Bury
Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

48

III,2,1963

'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,
Could send such message to their sovereign:
But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,
To show how quaint an orator you are:
But all the honour Salisbury hath won
Is, that he was the lord ambassador
Sent from a sort of tinkers to the king.

49

III,2,1999

Cease, gentle queen, these execrations,
And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.

50

III,2,2003

A plague upon them! wherefore should I curse them?
Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave:
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words;
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint;
Mine hair be fixed on end, as one distract;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban:
And even now my burthen'd heart would break,
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!
Their softest touch as smart as lizards' sting!
Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,
And boding screech-owls make the concert full!
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell—

51

III,2,2027

You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,
Well could I curse away a winter's night,
Though standing naked on a mountain top,
Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
And think it but a minute spent in sport.

52

III,2,2051

Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished;
Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee.
'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;
A wilderness is populous enough,
So Suffolk had thy heavenly company:
For where thou art, there is the world itself,
With every several pleasure in the world,
And where thou art not, desolation.
I can no more: live thou to joy thy life;
Myself no joy in nought but that thou livest.

53

III,2,2084

If I depart from thee, I cannot live;
And in thy sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
Dying with mother's dug between its lips:
Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad,
And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;
So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,
Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
And then it lived in sweet Elysium.
To die by thee were but to die in jest;
From thee to die were torture more than death:
O, let me stay, befall what may befall!

54

III,2,2104

I go.

55

III,2,2106

A jewel, lock'd into the wofull'st cask
That ever did contain a thing of worth.
Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we
This way fall I to death.

56

IV,1,2181

Look on my George; I am a gentleman:
Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.

57

IV,1,2186

Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.
A cunning man did calculate my birth
And told me that by water I should die:
Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;
Thy name is Gaultier, being rightly sounded.

58

IV,1,2197

Stay, Whitmore; for thy prisoner is a prince,
The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.

59

IV,1,2200

Ay, but these rags are no part of the duke:
Jove sometimes went disguised, and why not I?

60

IV,1,2203

Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,
The honourable blood of Lancaster,
Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.
Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup?
Bare-headed plodded by my foot-cloth mule
And thought thee happy when I shook my head?
How often hast thou waited at my cup,
Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board.
When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?
Remember it and let it make thee crest-fall'n,
Ay, and allay this thy abortive pride;
How in our voiding lobby hast thou stood
And duly waited for my coming forth?
This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,
And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.

61

IV,1,2220

Base slave, thy words are blunt and so art thou.

62

IV,1,2223

Thou darest not, for thy own.

63

IV,1,2225

Pole!

64

IV,1,2260

O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder
Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!
Small things make base men proud: this villain here,
Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more
Than Bargulus the strong Illyrian pirate.
Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives:
It is impossible that I should die
By such a lowly vassal as thyself.
Thy words move rage and not remorse in me:
I go of message from the queen to France;
I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.

65

IV,1,2273

Gelidus timor occupat artus it is thee I fear.

66

IV,1,2277

Suffolk's imperial tongue is stern and rough,
Used to command, untaught to plead for favour.
Far be it we should honour such as these
With humble suit: no, rather let my head
Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any
Save to the God of heaven and to my king;
And sooner dance upon a bloody pole
Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.
True nobility is exempt from fear:
More can I bear than you dare execute.

67

IV,1,2288

Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,
That this my death may never be forgot!
Great men oft die by vile bezonians:
A Roman sworder and banditto slave
Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand
Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders
Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.