Accession : Bess

Full-sized portrait of 

Elizabeth "Bess" Raleigh, 

ca. 1600 by Robert Peake the Elder (ca. 1551–1619)

PROBABLY AFTER ELIZABETH I WAS DEAD

" We mustn’t forget that Elizabeth and her government had total power of censorship, suppression, imprisonment, torture, even death 

And she had made it High Treason to even speak or write about any royal claim. "

Walter Raleigh and son Walter 1602

AFTER ELIZABETH I WAS DEAD

RED HAIR

I am a bastard too; I love bastards: I am a bastard

begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard

in valour, in every thing illegitimate. One bear will

not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard?

Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us: if the

son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment:

farewell, bastard.

Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford,

"Shake-Spear"

Lover and BabyFather to Queen Elizabeth I

Troilus and Cressida 

My bitches wear my collars, 

DO YOU HEAR ME?!

This man has seduced a Ward of the Queen  

and she has married without Royal Consent. 

These offences are punishable by law. 

Arrest him! GO! 

"In her book, The Life of Elizabeth I (1998), the British author and historian Alison Weir states Throckmorton and Raleigh’s first child was conceived by July 1591, the couple were married “in great secrecy” in the autumn of 1591, and their son was born in March 1592. 

RED HAIR

The boy was christened Damerei, after Sir Walter’s claimed ancestors, the D’Ameries. Damerei is believed to have died of the plague during infancy.

Weir states that Queen Elizabeth first became aware in May 1592 of the secret marriage and of Damerei’s birth, despite Bess and Sir Walter’s denials. The couple had married without royal permission, but, significantly, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was in on the secret and acting as godfather to the Raleighs’ son. 

Once the queen found out, she first placed Bess and Raleigh under house arrest, then sent them to the Tower of London, in June 1592. Raleigh was released from the Tower in August 1592 and Bess in December 1592, at which time she joined her husband at Sherborne Castle, his Dorset estate. 

Elizabeth expected the couple to sue for pardon, but they refused to, and Raleigh remained out of favour for five years."

RED HAIR

AMBASSAGE

"Through both her parents, Bess had connections to Henry VIII. Her father, Nicholas Throckmorton, was the cousin of Henry’s sixth wife, Queen Catherine Parr. Anne Carew, Elizabeth’s mother, was the daughter of Nicholas Carew and Elizabeth Carew née Bryan. Nicholas had been a close friend of Henry’s, from childhood until his execution in 1539.

In her aforementioned book, Weir alleges that Elizabeth Carew had earlier been Henry VIII’s mistress, and that he had given her jewels that should technically have belonged to the queen when the queen gave birth to her son. However, there exist no contemporaneous references to a possibility that any of Elizabeth’s children were fathered by Henry.

RED HAIR

AMBASSAGE

"In 1609, six years after Elizabeth died, when King James was still wearing the crown, a certain book was secretly being printed in London. 

And this book told a very different history from the one my teachers told me. 

This book reported that in fact Elizabeth had not been the chaste Virgin Queen. This book reported that, in fact, she had a child. 

“Blasphemy!” 

It told the story of a young Prince who was the unacknowledged Son of the Queen. 

It told how this young Prince tried to overthrow the government and failed. 

It told how he was arrested and put in the Tower of London. 

How he was charged with High Treason against The Crown. 

How he was tried, convicted and sentenced to die by that most grotesque form of execution – drawing and quartering. 

It told how at the last moment the Queen intervened to spare her son’s life. 

And it led to the inescapable conclusion that Elizabeth’s powerful secretary, Robert Cecil, plotted behind the Queen’s back to hold the young man hostage in the Tower until she died and he, Cecil, could put James of Scotland on the throne as King of England. 

Then, after pledging lifelong silence, the prince would be set free and given a Royal pardon. 

This was a hot book! After all, it was claiming that the King of Scotland had stolen the throne of England from a True and Rightful English heir, a Prince who deserved by blood to succeed Elizabeth! 

And this rightful heir was still very much alive! 

This book could start a Civil War! 

This book was Treason! 

It was a kind of diary and it read like a series of private letters, most written directly to the young Prince. 

The book was recording the Prince’s life up to the death of his mother Elizabeth and the moment of Succession to The Throne. 

The author recorded he was “tongue-tied by authority” –prevented by the government from telling The Truth.

We mustn’t forget that Elizabeth and her government had total power of censorship, suppression, imprisonment, torture, even death, and she had made it High Treason to even speak or write about any royal claim. 

He called his book an “ambassage.” 

We don’t hear that word much these days because an “ambassage” is a secret message intended only for a monarch. 

An ambassador of the Court memorizes this message to avoid leaving any paper trail, and to give himself deniability: “Look, I’m not carrying any message!” 

He then delivers it to a King or Queen in person, orally. 

But the author of this dangerous book couldn’t do that; he was confined to words, words on the page, so it’s a “written ambassage” and he addresses it to the young Prince as a subject or “vassal” speaking to his monarch: 

LORD OF MY LOVE, TO WHOM IN VASSALAGE THY MERIT HATH MY DUTY STRONGLY KNIT, TO THEE I SEND THIS WRITTEN AMBASSAGE, TO WITNESS DUTY, NOT TO SHOW MY WIT -

DUTY SO GREAT, WHICH WIT SO POOR AS MINE MAY MAKE SEEM BARE, IN WANTING WORDS TO SHOW IT… 

The treasonous book I’m talking about was entitled :

SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS 

"SHAKE-SPEARES is hyphenated, indicating the likelihood of a pen name. 

It’s also part of the title, but where it should have gone was down here between the two parallel lines, where it should have said, “By William Shakespeare.”

But instead, it's just a blank space - They went to the trouble of printing the lines...!!

The Myth of Anglo-Saxons

As noted in lines 105–114 and lines 1260–1267 of Beowulf, Grendel and his mother are described as descendants of the Biblical Cain.

"I hope that the praise-worthy example you have exhibited, will rouse the dormant spirit of the great and the affluent in the Principality, and induce them so to co-operate with you, that the Genius of Cambria may awake from the slumber of ages, shake off that darkness and false taste which Gothic barbarity and tyranny imposed upon her, and re-assume her ancient and splendid greatness."

- WILLIAM PROBERT

The Myth of the Anglo-Saxons is that there are Anglo-Saxons.

There were Britons, and there were Saxons.

And Saxons are German.

The Britons fight (and defeat) The Saxons

And the Saxons were Gothic, they were Un-British - they were German.

"Just don't take any class where you have to read BEOWULF."

- Woody Allen,

An Anti-German for Reasons of his own

"Historian Michael Wood returns to his first great love, the Anglo-Saxon world, to reveal the origins of our literary heritage. 
[No, it bloody isn't.]

Focusing on Beowulf and drawing on other Anglo-Saxon classics, he traces the birth of English poetry back to the Dark Ages. 

Travelling across the British Isles from East Anglia to Scotland and with the help of Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, actor Julian Glover, local historians and enthusiasts, he brings the story and language of this iconic poem to life."

This is horrible, brutal, beastial Klingoneseque Stuff :

"Grendel grabs a second warrior, but is shocked when the warrior grabs back with fearsome strength. 

As Grendel attempts to disengage, he and the reader both discover that Beowulf is that second warrior. 

A battle ensues, with Beowulf’s warriors attempting to aid in the melee. 

Finally Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm, mortally wounding the creature. 

Grendel flees but dies in his marsh-den. 

There, Beowulf later engages in a fierce battle with Grendel’s mother, over whom he triumphs. 

Following her death, Beowulf finds Grendel’s corpse and removes his head, which he keeps as a trophy. "

And over time, after they had gained a dominance and dominon over the Britons, and established the House of Wessex, they assimilated British Law (Molmutine Law) into their own legal code, and began calling themselves Kings of Angle-land (England).

Not Britain.

So, Don't Say "Anglo-Saxon" - Say "German"

The Story of the Welsh Dragon

The story of the Red Dragon, ‘Y Ddraig Goch’ (literally, the red dragon), that appears on the Welsh flag goes back centuries, even to before the invasion of Britain by the Saxons.

When the Celts ruled Britain, before they were driven out of England into Wales and Cornwall, there was a legend in the Mabinogion, a collection of eleven stories, that a red dragon living in Britain had begun fighting with an invading White Dragon.

As the two fought, they wounded each other, and the cries of agony from the red dragon made crops barren, killed animals and caused pregnant women to miscarry.

King Lludd, the ruler of Britain at the time, went to visit his sibling Llefelys, who was in France. He was instructed that to stop the dragons fighting, thus ending the cries that were ruining his people, he must dig a pit large enough to contain them both in the centre of Britain. 

He must then fill it with mead and cover it in cloth.

Having done this, the dragons came and drank the mead, which made them drowsy, and they fell asleep in the pit, wrapped in the cloth. Lludd imprisoned them, and in the Mabinogion, that is the end of the matter.

Later, however, in the Historia Britonum, the dragons are still trapped in the pit and cloth, and every time King Vortigern attempts to build a castle there, the walls and foundations are destroyed overnight, though nobody knows why.

Vortigern’s advisors say that to solve the problem he must find a boy without a natural father and sacrifice him. This will stop the destruction of his castle.

When this boy is found [Merlyn], and it is revealed to him that he is to be sacrificed so that Vortigern’s castle can be built, the boy says that the advisors are wrong, and that actually the destruction is occurring because of the two dragons trapped in the pit.

So, Vortigern digs open the pit, frees the two dragons, and finally the red dragon kills the white dragon. The boy pipes up again, telling Vortigern that the Red Dragon represented the people over which Vortigern ruled, whereas the white dragon represented the Saxons.

Vortigern’s people are presumed to have been the native Britons who, although they were driven by the Saxons into only Wales and Cornwall, were never completely defeated.

 They didn’t exactly slay the white dragon as they were supposed to, however.

This article was written by Tom Sangers for Snowdonia Tourist Services, who offer a Snowdonia holiday in North Wales cottages.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Sangers

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3128436

"Until the late 1970s, all scholarship on Grendel’s mother and translations of the phrase “aglæc-wif” were influenced by the edition of noted Beowulf scholar Frederick Klaeber. His edition, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, has been considered a standard in Beowulf scholarship since its first publication in 1922. According to Klaeber’s glossary, “aglæc-wif” translates as: “wretch, or monster of a woman.” Klaeber’s glossary also defines “aglæca/æglæca” as “monster, demon, fiend” when referring to Grendel or Grendel’s mother 

and as “warrior, hero” when referring to the character Beowulf.

Klaeber has influenced many translations of Beowulf. Notable interpretations of “aglæc-wif” which follow Klaeber include “monstrous hell bride” (Heaney), “monster-woman” (Chickering) “woman, monster-wife” (Donaldson), “Ugly troll-lady” (Trask)  and “monstrous hag” (Kennedy).

Doreen M.E. Gillam’s 1961 essay, “The Use of the Term ‘Æglæca’ in Beowulf at Lines 893 and 2592,” explores Klaeber’s dual use of the term “aglæca/æglæca” for the heroes Sigemund and Beowulf as well as for Grendel and Grendel’s mother.

She argues that “aglæca/æglæca” is used in works besides Beowulf to reference both “devils and human beings”. She further argues that this term is used to imply “supernatural,” “unnatural” or even “inhuman” characteristics, as well as hostility towards other creatures.

Gillam suggests: “Beowulf, the champion of men against monsters, is almost inhuman himself. [Aglæca/æglæca] epitomises, in one word, the altogether exceptional nature of the dragon fight. Beowulf, the champion of good, the ‘monster’ amongst men, challenges the traditional incarnation of evil, the Dragon: æglæca meets æglæcan.”

To the Cymmrarodorion Society, in London.

GENTLEMEN, 

A descendant of the old Silurians presents himself before you with becoming deference, and very respectfully dedicates his translation of the Welsh Laws to your patronage. 

You, Gentlemen, have set a noble example of patriotism and of true greatness. The efforts you are making to recover the precious, literary productions of our beloved country from decay and oblivion, demand the thanks of every Welshman.

I hope that the praise-worthy example you have exhibited, will rouse the dormant spirit of the great and the affluent in the Principality, and induce them so to co-operate with you, that the Genius of Cambria may awake from the slumber of ages, shake off that darkness and false taste which Gothic barbarity and tyranny imposed upon her, and re-assume her ancient and splendid greatness.

I am,

Gentlemen,

With all due respect,

Your obedient, humble Servant,

WILLIAM PROBERT

"Just don't take any class where you have to read BEOWULF."

- Woody Allen

Upon This Rock : King Johnson

Joey Zasa: 

Don Corleone, all bastards are liars. 

Shakespeare wrote poems about them. 

False Creed?

Joey Zasa: 

I have a stone in my shoe, Mr. Corleone. 

A two-bit punk who works for me. 

Who thinks he's related to you. 

A bastard. 

" Parliament had declared that Elizabeth was “lawfully descended and come of the Blood royal” without ever explaining how that could be when her mother’s marriage to the King was invalid. 

Indeed, Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, the first Tudor king, would have had no plausible claim to royal blood had it not been for Parliamentary declarations of legitimacy on both sides of his family tree."

Behold, a Pale Horse

Magna Carta - Choke on it.

"But I hope Truth is subject to no prescription, for Truth is Truth though never so old, and time cannot make that false which was once True." 

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Private Letter to Lord Salisbury, Sir Robert Cecil

May 7, 1603

TO THE

RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,

Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.

Your lordship's in all duty,

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

SCENE I. KING JOHN'S palace.

Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON

KING JOHN

Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?

CHATILLON

Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France

In my behavior to the majesty,

The borrow'd majesty, of England here.

QUEEN ELINOR

A strange beginning: 'borrow'd majesty!'

KING JOHN

Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.

CHATILLON

Philip of France, in right and true behalf

Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,

Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim

To this fair island and the territories,

To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,

Desiring thee to lay aside the sword

Which sways usurpingly these several titles,

And put these same into young Arthur's hand,

Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

KING JOHN

What follows if we disallow of this?

CHATILLON

The proud control of fierce and bloody war,

To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

KING JOHN

Here have we war for war and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

CHATILLON

Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,

The farthest limit of my embassy.

KING JOHN

Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace:

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;

For ere thou canst report I will be there,

The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:

So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath

And sullen presage of your own decay.

An honourable conduct let him have:

Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.

Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE

QUEEN ELINOR

What now, my son! have I not ever said

How that ambitious Constance would not cease

Till she had kindled France and all the world,

Upon the right and party of her son?

This might have been prevented and made whole

With very easy arguments of love,

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

KING JOHN

Our strong possession and our right for us.

QUEEN ELINOR

Your strong possession much more than your right,

Or else it must go wrong with you and me:

So much my conscience whispers in your ear,

Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

Enter a Sheriff

ESSEX

My liege, here is the strangest controversy

Come from country to be judged by you,

That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men?

KING JOHN

Let them approach.

Our abbeys and our priories shall pay

This expedition's charge.

Enter ROBERT and the BASTARD

What men are you?

BASTARD

Your faithful subject I, a gentleman

Born in Northamptonshire and eldest son,

As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,

A soldier, by the honour-giving hand

Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.

KING JOHN

What art thou?

ROBERT

The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.

KING JOHN

Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?

You came not of one mother then, it seems.

BASTARD

Most certain of one mother, mighty king;

That is well known; and, as I think, one father:

But for the certain knowledge of that truth

I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother:

Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.

QUEEN ELINOR

Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother

And wound her honour with this diffidence.

BASTARD

I, madam? no, I have no reason for it;

That is my brother's plea and none of mine;

The which if he can prove, a' pops me out

At least from fair five hundred pound a year:

Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!

KING JOHN

A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

BASTARD

I know not why, except to get the land.

But once he slander'd me with bastardy:

But whether I be as true begot or no,

That still I lay upon my mother's head,

But that I am as well begot, my liege,--

Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!--

Compare our faces and be judge yourself.

If old sir Robert did beget us both

And were our father and this son like him,

O old sir Robert, father, on my knee

I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!

KING JOHN

Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!

QUEEN ELINOR

He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;

The accent of his tongue affecteth him.

Do you not read some tokens of my son

In the large composition of this man?

KING JOHN

Mine eye hath well examined his parts

And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,

What doth move you to claim your brother's land?

BASTARD

Because he hath a half-face, like my father.

With half that face would he have all my land:

A half-faced groat five hundred pound a year!

ROBERT

My gracious liege, when that my father lived,

Your brother did employ my father much,--

BASTARD

Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:

Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.

ROBERT

And once dispatch'd him in an embassy

To Germany, there with the emperor

To treat of high affairs touching that time.

The advantage of his absence took the king

And in the mean time sojourn'd at my father's;

Where how he did prevail I shame to speak,

But Truth is Truth: large lengths of seas and shores

Between my father and my mother lay,

As I have heard my father speak himself,

When this same lusty gentleman was got.

Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd

His lands to me, and took it on his death

That this my mother's son was none of his;

And if he were, he came into the world

Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.

Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,

My father's land, as was my father's will.

KING JOHN

Sirrah, your brother is legitimate;

Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,

And if she did play false, the fault was hers;

Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands

That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,

Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,

Had of your father claim'd this son for his?

In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept

This calf bred from his cow from all the world;

In sooth he might; then, if he were my brother's,

My brother might not claim him; nor your father,

Being none of his, refuse him: this concludes;

My mother's son did get your father's heir;

Your father's heir must have your father's land.

ROBERT

Shall then my father's will be of no force

To dispossess that child which is not his?

BASTARD

Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,

Than was his will to get me, as I think.

QUEEN ELINOR

Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge

And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,

Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,

Lord of thy presence and no land beside?

BASTARD

Madam, an if my brother had my shape,

And I had his, sir Robert's his, like him;

And if my legs were two such riding-rods,

My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin

That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose

Lest men should say 'Look, where three-farthings goes!'

And, to his shape, were heir to all this land,

Would I might never stir from off this place,

I would give it every foot to have this face;

I would not be sir Nob in any case.

QUEEN ELINOR

I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,

Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?

I am a soldier and now bound to France.

BASTARD

Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.

Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,

Yet sell your face for five pence and 'tis dear.

Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.

QUEEN ELINOR

Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

BASTARD

Our country manners give our betters way.

KING JOHN

What is thy name?

BASTARD

Philip, my liege, so is my name begun,

Philip, good old sir Robert's wife's eldest son.

KING JOHN

From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear'st:

Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,

Arise sir Richard and Plantagenet.

BASTARD

Brother by the mother's side, give me your hand:

My father gave me honour, yours gave land.

Now blessed by the hour, by night or day,

When I was got, sir Robert was away!

QUEEN ELINOR

The very spirit of Plantagenet!

I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so.

BASTARD

Madam, by chance but not by truth; what though?

Something about, a little from the right,

In at the window, or else o'er the hatch:

Who dares not stir by day must walk by night,

And have is have, however men do catch:

Near or far off, well won is still well shot,

And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

KING JOHN

Go, Faulconbridge: now hast thou thy desire;

A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.

Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed

For France, for France, for it is more than need.

BASTARD

Brother, adieu: good fortune come to thee!

For thou wast got i' the way of honesty.

Exeunt all but BASTARD

A foot of honour better than I was;

But many a many foot of land the worse.

Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.

'Good den, sir Richard!'--'God-a-mercy, fellow!'--

And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;

For new-made honour doth forget men's names;

'Tis too respective and too sociable

For your conversion. Now your traveller,

He and his toothpick at my worship's mess,

And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,

Why then I suck my teeth and catechise

My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'

Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,

'I shall beseech you'--that is question now;

And then comes answer like an Absey book:

'O sir,' says answer, 'at your best command;

At your employment; at your service, sir;'

'No, sir,' says question, 'I, sweet sir, at yours:'

And so, ere answer knows what question would,

Saving in dialogue of compliment,

And talking of the Alps and Apennines,

The Pyrenean and the river Po,

It draws toward supper in conclusion so.

But this is worshipful society

And fits the mounting spirit like myself,

For he is but a bastard to the time

That doth not smack of observation;

And so am I, whether I smack or no;

And not alone in habit and device,

Exterior form, outward accoutrement,

But from the inward motion to deliver

Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth:

Which, though I will not practise to deceive,

Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;

For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.

But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?

What woman-post is this? hath she no husband

That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE and GURNEY

O me! it is my mother. How now, good lady!

What brings you here to court so hastily?

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he,

That holds in chase mine honour up and down?

BASTARD

My brother Robert? old sir Robert's son?

Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?

Is it sir Robert's son that you seek so?

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,

Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at sir Robert?

He is sir Robert's son, and so art thou.

BASTARD

James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?

GURNEY

Good leave, good Philip.

BASTARD

Philip! sparrow: James,

There's toys abroad: anon I'll tell thee more.

Exit GURNEY

Madam, I was not old sir Robert's son:

Sir Robert might have eat his part in me

Upon Good-Friday and ne'er broke his fast:

Sir Robert could do well: marry, to confess,

Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:

We know his handiwork: therefore, good mother,

To whom am I beholding for these limbs?

Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,

That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?

What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?

BASTARD

Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.

What! I am dubb'd! I have it on my shoulder.

But, mother, I am not sir Robert's son;

I have disclaim'd sir Robert and my land;

Legitimation, name and all is gone:

Then, good my mother, let me know my father;

Some proper man, I hope: who was it, mother?

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?

BASTARD

As faithfully as I deny the devil.

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE

King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father:

By long and vehement suit I was seduced

To make room for him in my husband's bed:

Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!

Thou art the issue of my dear offence,

Which was so strongly urged past my defence.

BASTARD

Now, by this light, were I to get again,

Madam, I would not wish a better father.

Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,

And so doth yours; your fault was not your folly:

Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,

Subjected tribute to commanding love,

Against whose fury and unmatched force

The aweless lion could not wage the fight,

Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.

He that perforce robs lions of their hearts

May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,

With all my heart I thank thee for my father!

Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well

When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.

Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;

And they shall say, when Richard me begot,

If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin:

Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.

Exeunt