Page:Henry VI Part 2 (1923) Yale.djvu/143

King Henry the Sixth "Seynt Salvatoures," where he was to lodge. Having eaten his dinner, a deputation came to wait upon him, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham, the Marquis of Dorset, the Earl of Salisbury, Lord Sudley, and Viscount Beaumont. The last in his capacity of High Constable placed the Duke under arrest by the King's command.'

 And dogged York, that reaches at the moon, Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back, By false accuse doth level at my life. 'On the other hand, the Duke of York had come to the front as the opponent of the Beauforts and as a follower of Duke Humphrey, though he never came anywhere near to supplanting the latter as leader of the opposition to the existing state of government.' (Vickers, op. cit., p. 307) 'To the majority of the English people York passed not as a disturber of the peace, but as a wronged and injured man, goaded into resistance by the machinations of the Court party. In one aspect he was regarded as a great lord of the royal blood excluded from his rightful place at the Council board, and even kept out of the country, by his enemies who had the King's ear. In another he was regarded as the leader and mouthpiece of the Opposition of the day, of the old and popular war-party which inherited the traditions of Henry the Fifth and Humphrey of Gloucester.' (Oman, Warwick, p. 42.) Holinshed and other chroniclers had pointed out that the removal of Gloucester left King Henry exposed to attack by the House of York; but it was the author of the Contention (closely followed in the lines above) who dramatized the Duke of York as a treacherous self seeker, held in check by the good Duke Humphrey. The conception, while unfair to York, gave force and unity to the play.

 And in the number thee, that wishest shame. An allusion to the motto: Honi soit qui mal y pense.