Richard III
·III iv (aka vii) 179 ·
Verse
Buckingham My lord, this argues conscience in your grace; But the respects thereof are nice and trivial, All circumstances well considered. You say that Edward is your brother's son: So say we too, but not by Edward's wife; For first he was contract to Lady Lucy— Your mother lives a witness to that vow— And afterward by substitute betroth'd To Bona, sister to the King of France. These both put by a poor petitioner, A care-crazed mother of a many children, A beauty-waning and distressed widow, Even in the afternoon of her best days, Made prize and purchase of his lustful eye, Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts To base declension and loathed bigamy By her, in his unlawful bed, he got This Edward, whom our manners term the prince. More bitterly could I expostulate, Save that, for reverence to some alive, I give a sparing limit to my tongue. Then, good my lord, take to your royal self This proffer'd benefit of dignity; If non to bless us and the land withal, Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry From the corruption of abusing times, Unto a lineal true-derived course. |