Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“ Plantagenet and Neville spoke of wars in England; Lord Barry and Keating of their Irish schemes—the prince listened and replied; but his soul was far away—Oh, that for ever they might sail thus on the pathless, shoreless sea!—Nothing mean or trivial or ignoble could visit them; no hate, no care, no fear—this might not be, but to have felt, to have lived thus for a few short days, suffices to separate mortal man from the groveling part of his nature—no disgrace, no despair can so bring him back to the low-minded world, as to destroy the sense of having once so existed. ”

“ Or would your majesty wait till he were king of England, when France, Burgundy, and Spain would compete with you? I do believe that this noble gentleman has fair right to his father's crown; he is gallant and generous, so is not King Henry; he is made to be the idol of a warlike people, such as the English, so is not his rival. Do you strike one stroke, the whole realm rises for him, and he becomes its sovereign: then it were a pride and a glory for us, for him a tie to bind him for ever, did he place his diadem on the head of a Scottish damsel. ”

“ Now, O sweetest Kate, I forget disgrace, I forget remorse; I bury every sorrow in thought of thee. Thy idea is as a windless haven to some way-worn vessel—its nest in a vast oak-tree to a tempest-baffled bird—hope of Paradise to the martyr who expires in pain. Wilt thou receive me with thine own dear smile? My divine love, I am not worthy of thee; yet thou art mine—Lackland Richard's single treasure. The stars play strange gambols with us—I am richer than Tudor, and but that thy husband must leave no questioned name, I would sign a bond with fate—let him take England, give me Katherine. ”

“ The heartless tyrant was callous to every pang that he inflicted, or rejoiced that he had the power to wound so deeply one whom he abhorred. Lady Brampton was with her to the last; not to sustain and comfort her; the queen's courage and firmness was far greater than that of her angry friend; she pointed out the hope, that the cruelties exercised towards her might animate the partisans of York to greater ardour; and tears forced themselves into her eyes only when she pictured Richard, her victorious sovereign and son, hastening to unbar her prison doors to restore her to liberty and rank. ”

“ The prince spoke of his life attacked; the men of the warrant their master had for his seizure: what was his crime none knew. "That will I declare freely," said the royal youth; "that unhappy man has sealed my truth by his death. In my childhood I was nurtured in a palace, and bore the title of the duke of York. Edward the Fourth was my father, Edward the Fifth my brother."
"Why this is foulest treason," cried the trembling captain.
"Ay, or fairest loyalty; speak, my friends; which of you will lay hands on your liege, on Richard the Fourth of England?" ”

“ Not a knight shall live in the land, but of your majesty's dubbing. We have but to put to rout King Henry's army, to hang the false loon for a traitor, and to set fire to London and the Parliament. Such nobles as please to doff their silken cloaks, and don miners' jackets, may work, the rest shall hang. Their mere wardrobes, bless the day! will find us and your grace in cloth of gold, embroidery, and other rich garniture to the end of our lives."
"We thank your zeal, my worthy master," said Richard, courteously; "if our good troops do half your saying, King Henry must look to it." ”

“ I do beseech you, Edmund, put a good face on it; speak to our Cornish giants, as if they had souls of mettle, and bodies decked like Ponce de Leon and his peers, when they welcomed Queen Isabel to the Spanish camp. You remember the golden array of the knights, cousin?"
Edmund was impatient of the prince's gay humour; while Katherine, seeing in his bright eyes heroism and lofty resolve, felt a dewy moisture gather in her own: there is something at once awful and affecting, when a man, the sport of fortune, meets her rudest blow unshrinking, and turns her very spite into arms against herself. ”

“ Yet it was not the passion of love that he now felt for his childhood companion; it was tenderness, a brother's care, a friend's watchfulness, all that man can feel for woman, unblended with the desire of making her his; but gratitude and distance had so blended and mingled his emotions, that, thus addressed, he almost felt as if he had been detected in a crime.
"Now, by the Holy Rood, thou blushest," said James, much amused; "not more deeply was fair Katherine's cheek bedyed, when I put the self-same question to her. Does your grace guess, wherefore we journey northwards?" ”

“ When we love, it is our aim and conclusion to make the object a part of ourselves—if we are self-willed and evilly inclined, little good can arise; but deep is the fount of generous, devoted, godlike feeling, which this silver key unlocks in gentle hearts. Richard had found in the Lady Katherine a magic mirror, which gave him back himself, arrayed with a thousand alien virtues; his soul was in her hands, plastic to her fairy touch, and tenderness and worship and wonder took his heart, ere passion woke, and threw a chain over these bosom guests, so that they could never depart. ”

“ Nor is this all—despise me if you will, but I confess that I regard others among those with whom I associate, with a clinging affection that forbids me to separate myself from them. Did I not love the noble and good, even as he did, while Richard lived? Does he not now, in his heavenly abode, love them? and must my living heart be stone, because that dear form is dust which was the medium of my communication with his spirit? Where I see suffering, there I must bring my mite for its relief. We are not deities to bestow in impassive benevolence. ”

“ Henry of Richmond, I neither admit nor combat your claim to the crown. Lancaster has many partisans, and the victory is yours. But as duke of York, I challenge and defy you. I call on you, either by person or by champion, to meet me in the lists, that I may defend my honour and maintain the right. Let us spare the people's blood. In single combat let my pretensions be set at issue; and my good sword shall cut to pieces the wicked lies and base traditions you have calumniously and falsely forged to my disgrace. ”

“ Lady, judge me not: you married him you loved, fulfilling thus the best destiny that can be given in this hard world to woman, whose life is merely love. Though he perish in his youth, and you weep for him for ever, hug yourself in the blessed knowledge that your fate is bright as angels: for we reap celestial joys, when love and duty, twined in sisterly embrace, take up their abode together within us: and I—but Katherine, did you hear me?—They perish even as I speak: his cruel heart knows no touch of mercy, and they perish."
"They shall not, dearest," said York's White Rose ”

“ The Lady Katherine saw a vain mask in all the common-place pomp of palaces; she perceived that power failed most when its end was good; she saw that in accomplishing its purpose in the cottage, or in halls of state, felicity resulted from the affections only. It was but being an actor in different scenes, to be a potentate or a peasant; the outward garb is not the livery of the mind: the refinement of taste which enables us to gather pleasure from simple objects; the warmth of heart which necessitates the exercise of our affections, but which is content when they are satisfied ”

“ Cast off the huge burthen of guilt: deliver thy soul into the care of holy men. As thy first act, depart this spot: leave me. It is I who command—Richard of York, thy sovereign. Begone; or kneeling at my feet, seek the grace thou hast so dearly forfeited."
For a moment it almost seemed as if the wretched man were about to obey; but at the moment his groom came from the spring, where he had been watering his horse. The sight of another human being, to witness his degradation, awoke him to frenzy. ”

“ The other was a feeling deeper-rooted in his mind—an intense hatred of the house of York—an exultation in its overthrow and disgrace—a gloating over every circumstance that blotted it with ignominy. If Richard had really been an impostor, Henry had not used half the pains to stigmatize him as low-born—to blast his pride with nicknames, nor have looked forward with the joy he now did, to having him in his power—to the degradation—the mortal stain of infamy he intended to taint him with for ever. ”

“ The mind of man—that mystery, which may lend arms against itself, teaching vain lessons of material philosophy, but which, in the very act, shows its power to play with all created things, adding the sweetness of its own essence to the sweetest, taking its ugliness from the deformed. The creative faculty of man's soul—which, animating Richard, made him see victory in defeat, success and glory in the dark, the tortuous, the thorny path, which it was his destiny to walk from the cradle to the tomb. ”

“ And now, after a reign of two years, as he had forced King Richard to fight for his crown against him, an adventurer and an invader in his realm, did Henry Tudor find himself in his adversary's position, about to risk life and kingdom on one cast of the die against troops as ill-assorted but as desperate and brave as his had been. Henry felt in his heart's core the thrilling pang, which a conviction that all is in the hands of fortune must ever impart to a human being who is her slave. ”

“ Oh, what am I, king of Scotland, that I am to be made the curse and scourge of my own people? The name of Richard is the bye-word of hate and terror, there, where I seek for blessings and filial love. You know not the mischief your fierce Borderers achieve—it is not yet too late; recall your men; bid them spare my people; let not the blood of my subjects plead against my right; rather would I pine in exile for ever, than occasion the slaughter and misery of my countrymen, my children. ”

“ Richard halted, saying—"Sir knight, I will await you here—do you seek your king: say, I come a voluntary sacrifice, to purchase with drops of my royal blood the baser tide of my poor followers. I demand no more—bid him rear the scaffold; let the headsman sharpen the axe, to lop off the topmost bough of Plantagenet. The price I ask, is the despised lives of men, who, but that they loved me, were incapable of merit or of crime in his eyes. For their humble sakes, like my grandfather York, I am prepared to die. ”

“ He is the true lord of Ireland: we are liegemen in maintaining his right. Plant his banner, rally round it all men who wish well to their country; drive out the good man Poynings; crush the Butlers—aye, down with them; and when Richard is crowned King of Erin, and the Geraldines rule under him, our native land will stand singly, nor want England for a crutch—or, by'r Lady! for a spear to enter her heart, while she leaneth on it; so the wars of York and Lancaster may free us from the proud, imperious English; and the Irish, like the Scotch, have a king and a state of their own. ”

“ She gazed affectionately on the youthful duke; she looked more timidly on Monina, whose sex could not be said to be disguised by her page's dress: the fallen woman fears women, their self-sufficient virtues and cold reprobation; yet the sensibility of Monina's countenance, and the soft expression of her eyes, so all-powerful in their sweetness, could not be mistaken; and her first shrinking from censure was exchanged for even a more painful feeling. They were a lovely pair, these lone guests of poverty; innocence sat on the brow of each, yet love beamed in their aspect:—love! ”

“ The grassy upland and the corn-field, these belong to man, and to her they call Nature, the fair, gaudy dame; but God takes to himself, and lives among these sublime rocks, where power, majesty and eternity are shaped forth, and the grandeur of heaven-piercing cliffs allies us to a simple but elevating image of the Creator."
King James was a poet, and could feel thus—York might smile at his enthusiasm for the bleak and horrific. But had the path to Gordon Castle been ten times more frightful, the thoughts of love were roses, the hopes of love vernal breezes, to adorn it with beauty. ”

“ You must oppose prudence to craft, nor, until your young hand can wield a man's weapon, dare attempt aught against Henry's power. Never forget that you are a king's son, yet suffer not unquiet ambition to haunt you. Sleep in peace, my love, while others wake for you. The time may come when victory will be granted to our arms. Then we shall meet again, not as now, like skulking guilt, but in the open sight of day I shall present my son to his loyal subjects. Now we part, my Richard—again you are lost to me, save in the recollection of this last farewell. ”

“ Richard looked round: Jane was kneeling, her face buried in her hands: Lady Brampton pale, but resolved, was ready to sacrifice the life she had spent for him. O'Water had resigned himself to the final act of a life of peril, sealed in his blood. The lovely Spaniard alone lost all her self-possession; tears streaming from her uplifted eyes; her arms twined round his knees: to fly—fly! was the only thought she could express. "I yield," said York; "throw open the door." O'Water's horse had been led within the hut; he vaulted on his back; he placed the dagger in his belt. ”

“ To accomplish it—and I do believe it to be a just one—I must strike one blow; nor fail. Tudor is yet unprepared; Exeter vacant of garrison; with stout hearts for the work, I trust to be able to seize that city. There the wars of York shall end. So far I confide in your discretions, that you may not deem me mad. More is the single property of my own soul. Will you help me so far, dear friends—so far hazard life—not to conquer a kingdom for Richard, but to redeem his honour?"
The warm-hearted, grey-headed Irish O'Water, with gushing eyes, swore to adhere to him the last. ”