Page:Henry VI Part 2 (1923) Yale.djvu/141

King Henry the Sixth  I confess, I confess treason. Holinshed makes it clear that the armorer 'was slaine without guilt,'—as a result of intoxication and not of his unrighteous cause. Peter, on the other hand, was a false servant who 'liued not long vnpunished; for being conuict of felonie in court of assise, he was iudged to be hanged, and so was, at Tiburne.' But it was the design of the author of the Contention, whom the reviser here follows closely, to emphasize from the start the treasonable purposes of York.

 I summon your Grace to his majesty's parliament, holden at Bury the first of this next month. The three days' penance imposed on the Duchess were November 13, 15, 17, 1441. The Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds opened on February 10, 1447. Gloucester arrived on the 18th and died on the 23d.

 I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come: 'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man. The parliament had been in session for a week when Gloucester arrived. See previous note.

 We know the time since he was mild and affable, And if we did but glance a far-off look, Immediately he was upon his knee, That all the court admir'd him for submission. This seems not to have been true of Gloucester, who was of an obstinate disposition. The lines are in the rhetorical style that the reviser of this play particularly affects. They are evolved from a slight hint in the Contention:

The time hath bene, but now that time is past,

That none so humble as Duke Humphrey was.'

 Did he not, contrary to form of law, Devise strange deaths for small offences done? 'He was accused, it is said, of malpractices during his Protectorate, especially of having caused men adjudged to die to be put to other execution than the law of the