ACT THIRD
Scene One
[London. The Parliament House]
Flourish. Enter King, Exeter, Gloucester, Winchester, Warwick, Somerset, Suffolk, Richard Plantagenet. Gloucester offers to put up a bill; Winchester snatches it, tears it.
Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,
With written pamphlets studiously devis'd,
Humphrey of Gloucester? If thou canst accuse,
Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge, 4
Do it without invention, suddenly;
As I, with sudden and extemporal speech
Purpose to answer what thou canst object.
Glo. Presumptuous priest! this place commands my patience 8
Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.
Think not, although in writing I preferr'd
The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able 12
Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen:
No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
As very infants prattle of thy pride. 16
Thou art a most pernicious usurer,
Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree; 20
And for thy treachery, what's more manifest,
Act Third, Scene One; cf. n.
5 invention: preconceived design
9 find: i.e., to thy sorrow
13 method . . . pen: summary of what I have written
