And tell me, would the rebels deny me that?
SPENCER. Proud recreants!
EDWARD. Yea, Spencer, traitors all!
ARUNDEL. 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 lords, because our sovereign sends for him
And promiseth he shall be safe returned,
I will this undertake, to have him hence
And see him redelivered to your hands."
EDWARD. Well, and how fortunes it that he came not?
SPENCER. Some treason or some villainy was cause.
ARUNDEL. 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.
SPENCER. A bloody part, flatly against law of arms.
EDWARD. O shall I speak, or shall I sigh and die!
SPENCER. 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.
EDWARD. (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!
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,
Spencer, sweet Spencer, 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.
SPENCER. My lord, here's a messenger from the barons
Desires access unto your majesty.
EDWARD. Admit him near.
Enter the herald from the barons, with his coat of arms.
HERALD. Long live King Edward, England's lawful lord!
EDWARD. 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.
HERALD. 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 Spencer, as a putrifying branch
That deads the royal vine, whose golden leaves
Empale 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 vow'd and consecrate.
SPENCER. Ah, traitors, will they still display their pride?
EDWARD. 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
Spencer from me. Embraces Spencer. Now get thee to thy lords,
And tell them I will come to chastise them
For murdering Gaveston.