Weaponless must I fall, and die in bands?
O, must this day be period of my life,
Centre of all my bliss? And ye be men,
Speed to the king.

My Lord of Pembroke’s men,
Strive you no longer: I will have that Gaveston.

Your lordship doth dishonour to yourself,
And wrong our lord, your honourable friend.

No, James, it is my country’s cause I follow.⁠—
Go, take the villain: soldiers, come away;
We’ll make quick work.⁠—Commend me to your master,
My friend, and tell him that I watched it well.⁠—
Come, let thy shadow parley with King Edward.

The king of heaven perhaps, no other king.⁠—
Away!

Come, fellows: it booted not for us to strive:
We will in haste go certify our lord.

I long to hear an answer from the barons
Touching my friend, my dearest Gaveston.
Ah, Spenser, not the riches of my realm
Can ransom him! ah, he is marked to die!
I know the malice of the younger Mortimer;
Warwick I know is rough, and Lancaster
Inexorable; and I shall never see
My lovely Pierce of Gaveston again!
The barons overbear with me their pride.

Were I King Edward, England’s sovereign,
Son to the lovely Eleanor of Spain,
Great Edward Longshanks’ issue, would I bear
These braves, this rage, and suffer uncontrolled
These barons thus to beard me in my land,
In mine own realm? My lord, pardon my speech:
Did you retain your father’s magnanimity,
Did you regard the honour of your name,
You would not suffer thus your majesty
Be counterbuffed of your nobility.
Strike off their heads, and let them preach on poles!
No doubt, such lessons they will teach the rest,
As by their preachments they will profit much,
And learn obedience to their lawful king.

Yes, gentle Spenser, we have been too mild,
Too kind to them; but now have drawn our sword,
And, if they send me not my Gaveston,
We’ll steel it on their crests, and poll their tops.

This haught resolve becomes your majesty,
Not to be tied to their affection,
As though your highness were a schoolboy still,
And must be awed and governed like a child.

Long live my sovereign, the noble Edward,
In peace triumphant, fortunate in wars!

Welcome, old man: com’st thou in Edward’s aid?
Then tell thy prince of whence and what thou art.

Low, with a band of bowmen and of pikes,
Brown bills and targeteers, four hundred strong,
Sworn to defend King Edward’s royal right,
I come in person to your majesty,
Spenser, the father of Hugh Spenser there,
Bound to your highness everlastingly
For favour done, in him, unto us all.

Thy father, Spenser?

True, an it like your grace,
That pours, in lieu of all your goodness shown,
His life, my lord, before your princely feet.

Welcome ten thousand times, old man, again!
Spenser, this love, this kindness to thy king,
Argues thy noble mind and disposition.
Spenser, I here create thee Earl of Wiltshire,
And daily will enrich thee with our favour,
That, as the sunshine, shall reflect o’er thee.
Beside, the more to manifest our love,
Because we hear Lord Bruce doth sell his land,
And that the Mortimers are in hand withal,
Thou shalt have crowns of us to outbid the barons;
And, Spenser, spare them not, lay it on.⁠—
Soldiers, a largess, and thrice-welcome all!

News of dishonour, lord, and discontent.
Our friend Levune, faithful and full of trust,
Informeth us, by letters and by words,
That Lord Valois our brother, King of France,
Because your highness hath been slack in homage,
Hath seized Normandy into his hands.
These be the letters, this the messenger.

Welcome, Levune.⁠—Tush, Sib, if this be all,
Valois and I will soon be friends again.⁠—
But to my Gaveston: shall I never see,
Never behold thee now!⁠—Madam, in this matter
We will employ you and your little son;
You shall go parley with the King of France.⁠—
Boy, see you bear you bravely to the king,
And do your message with a majesty.

Commit not to my youth things of more weight
Than fits a prince so young as I to bear;
And fear not, lord and father⁠—heaven’s great beams
On Atlas’ shoulder shall not lie more safe
Than shall your charge committed to my trust.

Ah, boy, this towardness makes thy mother fear
Thou art not marked to many days on earth!

Madam, we will that you with speed be shipped,
And this our son; Levune shall follow you
With all the haste we can despatch him hence.
Choose of our lords to bear you company;
And go in peace; leave us in wars at home.

Unnatural wars, where subjects brave their king:
God end them once!⁠—My lord, I take my leave,
To make my preparation for France. Exit with Prince Edward.

Ah, traitors, have they put my friend to death?
Tell me, Arundel, died he ere thou cam’st,
Or didst thou see my friend to take his death?

Neither, my lord; for, as he was surprised,
Begirt with weapons and with enemies round,
I did your highness’ message to them all,
Demanding him of them, entreating rather,
And said, upon the honour of my name,
That I would undertake to carry him
Unto your highness, and to bring him back.

I found them at the first inexorable;
The Earl of Warwick would not bide the hearing,
Mortimer hardly; Pembroke and Lancaster
Spake least; and when they flatly had denied,
Refusing to receive me pledge for him,
The Earl of Pembroke mildly thus bespake;
“My lord, because our sovereign sends for him,
And promiseth he shall be safe returned,
I will this undertake, to have him hence,
And see him re-delivered to your hands.”

The Earl of Warwick seized him on his way;
For, being delivered unto Pembroke’s men,
Their lord rode home, thinking his prisoner safe;
But, ere he came, Warwick in ambush lay,
And bare him to his death; and in a trench
Strake off his head, and marched unto the camp.

My lord, refer your vengeance to the sword
Upon these barons; hearten up your men;
Let them not unrevenged murder your friends!
Advance your standard, Edward, in the field,
And march to fire them from their starting-holes.

Kneeling. By earth, the common mother of us all,
By heaven, and all the moving orbs thereof,
By this right hand, and by my father’s sword,
And all the honours ’longing to my crown,
I will have heads and lives for him as many
As I have manors, castles, towns, and towers!⁠—Rises.
Treacherous Warwick! traitorous Mortimer!
If I be England’s king, in lakes of gore
Your headless trunks, your bodies will I trail,
That you may drink your fill, and quaff in blood,
And stain my royal standard with the same,
That so my bloody colours may suggest
Remembrance of revenge immortally
On your accursed traitorous progeny,
You villains that have slain my Gaveston!⁠—
And in this place of honour and of trust,
Spenser, sweet Spenser, I adopt thee here;
And merely of our love we do create thee
Earl of Gloucester and Lord Chamberlain,
Despite of times, despite of enemies.

My lord, here’s a messenger from the barons
Desires access unto your majesty.

So wish not they, I wis, that sent thee hither.
Thou com’st from Mortimer and his complices:
A ranker rout of rebels never was.
Well, say thy message.

The barons, up in arms, by me salute
Your highness with long life and happiness;
And bid me say, as plainer to your grace,
That if without effusion of blood
You will this grief have ease and remedy,
That from your princely person you remove
This Spenser, as a putrifying branch
That deads the royal vine, whose golden leaves
Impale your princely head, your diadem;
Whose brightness such pernicious upstarts dim,
Say they, and lovingly advise your grace
To cherish virtue and nobility,
And have old servitors in high esteem,
And shake off smooth dissembling flatterers:
This granted, they, their honours, and their lives,
Are to your highness vowed and consecrate.

Away! tarry no answer, but be gone!⁠—
Rebels, will they appoint their sovereign
His sports, his pleasures, and his company?⁠—
Yet, ere thou go, see how I do divorce embraces the Younger Spenser
Spenser from thee. Now get thee to thy lords,
And tell them I will come to chastise them
For murdering Gaveston: hie thee, get thee gone!
Edward, with fire and sword, follows at thy heels. Exit Herald.
My lords, perceive you how these rebels swell?⁠—
Soldiers, good hearts! defend your sovereign’s right,
For, now, even now, we march to make them stoop.
Away!

Why do we sound retreat? upon them, lords!
This day I shall your vengeance with my sword
On those proud rebels that are up in arms,
And do confront and countermand their king.

’Tis not amiss, my liege, for either part
To breathe a while; our men, with sweat and dust
All choked well near, begin to faint for heat;
And this retire refresheth horse and man.

Here come the rebels.

Look, Lancaster, yonder is Edward
Among his flatterers.

And there let him be,
Till he pay dearly for their company.

They’d best betimes forsake thee and their trains,
For they’ll betray thee, traitors as they are.

A noble attempt and honourable deed,
Is it not, trow ye, to assemble aid
And levy arms against your lawful king?

For which, ere long, their heads shall satisfy
To appease the wrath of their offended king.

Then, Edward, thou wilt fight it to the last,
And rather bathe thy sword in subjects’ blood
Than banish that pernicious company?

Ay, traitors all, rather than thus be braved,
Make England’s civil towns huge heaps of stones,
And ploughs to go about our palace-gates.

A desperate and unnatural resolution!⁠—
Alarum to the fight!
Saint George for England, and the barons’ right!

Now, lusty lords, now not by chance of war,
But justice of the quarrel and the cause,
Vailed is your pride: methinks you hang the heads
But we’ll advance them, traitors: now ’tis time
To be avenged on you for all your braves,
And for the murder of my dearest friend,
To whom right well you knew our soul was knit,
Good Pierce of Gaveston, my sweet favourite:
Ah, rebels, recreants, you made him away!

Brother, in regard of thee and of thy land,
Did they remove that flatterer from thy throne.

So, sir, you have spoke: away, avoid our presence! Exit Kent.
Accursed wretches, was’t in regard of us,
When we had sent our messenger to request
He might be spared to come to speak with us,
And Pembroke undertook for his return,
That thou, proud Warwick, watched the prisoner,
Poor Pierce, and headed him ’gainst law of arms?
For which thy head shall overlook the rest
As much as thou in rage outwent’st the rest.

Tyrant, I scorn thy threats and menaces;
It is but temporal that thou canst inflict.

The worst is death; and better die to live
Than live in infamy under such a king.

Away with them, my lord of Winchester!
These lusty leaders, Warwick and Lancaster,
I charge you roundly, off with both their heads!
Away!

England, unkind to thy nobility,
Groan for this grief! behold how thou art maimed!

Go, take that haughty Mortimer to the Tower;
There see him safe bestowed; and, for the rest,
Do speedy execution on them all.
Be gone!

What, Mortimer! can ragged stony walls
Immure thy virtue that aspires to heaven?
No, Edward, England’s scourge, it may not be;
Mortimer’s hope surmounts his fortune far.

Sound, drums and trumpets! March with me, my friends.
Edward this day hath crowned him king anew.

Levune, the trust that we repose in thee
Begets the quiet of King Edward’s land:
Therefore be gone in haste, and with advice
Bestow that treasure on the lords of France,
That, therewith all enchanted, like the guard
That suffered Jove to pass in showers of gold
To Danae, all aid may be denied
To Isabel the queen, that now in France
Makes friends, to cross the seas with her young son,
And step into his father’s regiment.

That’s it these barons and the subtle queen
Long levelled at.

Yea, but, Levune, thou seest,
These barons lay their heads on blocks together:
What they intend, the hangman frustrates clean.

Have you no doubt, my lords, I’ll clap so close
Among the lords of France with England’s gold,
That Isabel shall make her plaints in vain,
And France shall be obdurate with her tears.

Then make for France amain; Levune, away!
Proclaim King Edward’s wars and victories.