Page:The religious life of King Henry VI.djvu/36

16 K. Henry. A persecutor, I am sure thou art. If murdering innocents be executing, Why, then thou art an executioner.

Gloucester. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech; For this, amongst the rest, was I ordained. [Stabs him.

K. Henry. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this. O God! forgive my sins and pardon thee.

Then, in the play of King Richard III, Shakespeare again represents Gloucester as the murderer of King Henry. Anne, the wife of the slain Prince Edward, is shown as following the bier of the King whilst it is being borne towards Chertsey, where the corpse was buried after having been exposed at St. Paul's and also for a time at Black Friars, where it is said to have bled, in the sight of the people. The most reliable account says that it was carried to Chertsey in a barge on the Thames, but the poet represents it as being taken by road.

Anne. Set down, set down your honourable load,

If honour be shrouded in a hearse.

Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament

The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster,

Poor key-cold figure of a holy King! Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!

Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!