Page 2864 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

So much as of a thought of ill in him.

BOLINGBROKE

Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true:
That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles
In name of lendings for your highness’ soldiers,
The which he hath detain’d for lewd employments, [90]
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove
Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge
That ever was survey’d by English eye,
That all the treasons for these eighteen years [95]
Complotted and contrivèd in this land
Fetch from false Mowbray, their first head and spring.
Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good,
That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s death, [100]
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluic’d out his innocent soul through streams of blood;
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth [105]
To me for justice and rough chastisement.
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

RICHARD

How high a pitch his resolution soars!
Thomas of Norfolk, what sayst thou to this? [110]

MOWBRAY

O, let my sovereign turn away his face
And bid his ears a little while be deaf
Till I have told this slander of his blood
How God and good men hate so foul a liar!

RICHARD

Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears. [115]
Were he my brother - nay, my kingdom’s heir -
As he is but my father’s brother’s son,