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What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
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BUCKINGHAM:
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Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.
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QUEEN ELIZABETH:
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God grant him health! Did you confer with him?
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BUCKINGHAM:
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Madam, we did: he desires to make atonement
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Betwixt the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
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And betwixt them and my lord chamberlain;
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And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
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QUEEN ELIZABETH:
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Would all were well! but that will never be
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I fear our happiness is at the highest.
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GLOUCESTER:
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They do me wrong, and I will not endure it:
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Who are they that complain unto the king,
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That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
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By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly
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That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
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Because I cannot flatter and speak fair,
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Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,
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Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
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I must be held a rancorous enemy.
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Cannot a plain man live and think no harm,
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But thus his simple truth must be abused
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By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
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RIVERS:
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To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?
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GLOUCESTER:
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To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
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When have I injured thee? when done thee wrong?
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Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction?
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A plague upon you all! His royal person,--
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Whom God preserve better than you would wish!--
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Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,
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But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
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QUEEN ELIZABETH:
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Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.
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The king, of his own royal disposition,
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And not provoked by any suitor else;
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Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
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Which in your outward actions shows itself
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Against my kindred, brothers, and myself,
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Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
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The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.
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GLOUCESTER:
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I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad,
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That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:
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Since every Jack became a gentleman
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There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
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QUEEN ELIZABETH:
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Come, come, we know your meaning, brother
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Gloucester;
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You envy my advancement and my friends':
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God grant we never may have need of you!
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GLOUCESTER:
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Meantime, God grants that we have need of you:
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Your brother is imprison'd by your means,
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Myself disgraced, and the nobility
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Held in contempt; whilst many fair promotions
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Are daily given to ennoble those
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That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble.
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QUEEN ELIZABETH:
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By Him that raised me to this careful height
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From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
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I never did incense his majesty
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Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
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An earnest advocate to plead for him.
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My lord, you do me shameful injury,
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Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
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GLOUCESTER:
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You may deny that you were not the cause
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Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.
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RIVERS:
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She may, my lord, for--
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GLOUCESTER:
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She may, Lord Rivers! why, who knows not so?
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She may do more, sir, than denying that:
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She may help you to many fair preferments,
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And then deny her aiding hand therein,
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And lay those honours on your high deserts.
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What may she not? She may, yea, marry, may she--
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RIVERS:
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What, marry, may she?
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