Page 1190 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

LOVELL

Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.

RICHARD

So dear I lov’d the man that I must weep.
I took him for the plainest harmless creature [25]
That breath’d upon the earth a Christian;
Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts.
So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue
That, his apparent open guilt omitted - [30]
I mean his conversation with Shore’s wife -
He liv’d from all attainder of suspects.

BUCKINGHAM

Well, well, he was the covert’st shelter’d traitor.
Would you imagine, or almost believe,
Were’t not that by great preservation [35]
We live to tell it, that the subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council-house,
To murder me and my good lord of Gloucester?

MAY OR

Had he done so?

RICHARD

What, think you we are Turks or infidels? [40]
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly in the villain’s death,
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England, and our persons’ safety,
Enforc’d us to this execution. [45]

MAY OR

Now fair befall you! He deserv’d his death,
And your good Graces both have well proceeded,
To warn false traitors from the like attempts.

BUCKINGHAM