Page 857 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Injurious Margaret.

PRINCE EDWARD

And why not ‘Queen’?

WARWICK

Because thy father Henry did usurp;
And thou no more art prince than she is queen. [80]

OXFORD

Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt
Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;
And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth
Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;
And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth [85]
Who by his prowess conquerèd all France:
From these our Henry lineally descends.

WARWICK

Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse
You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost
All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten? [90]
Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.
But for the rest: you tell a pedigree
Of threescore and two years - a silly time
To make prescription for a kingdom’s worth.

OXFORD

Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege [95]
Whom thou obeyed’st thirty and six years,
And not bewray thy treason with a blush?

WARWICK

Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right,
Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?
For shame! Leave Henry and call Edward king. [100]

OXFORD

Call him my king by whose injurious doom
My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,