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Queen’s Men Editions

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 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Primary Source Primary source documents. Use this top-level category only for supplementary texts, usually in combination with the editorial treatment letmixed. Editorial Treatments Distinct approaches to textual editing used by LEMDO editors Excerpted Texts which are not complete, usually because of editorial selection in service of a specific goal. Mixed Texts in which a variety of possibly incongruous editorial approaches have been mixed. Use this category in combination with ldtPrimary. Document History Various sources from which born-digital texts have made their way into the LEMDO collection. Original Source: IML This TEI file was created based on one or more files from the Internet Shakespeare Editions anthology, originally encoded in ISE Markup Language (a custom markup language somewhat resembling SGML). Responsibilities Responsibilities Author MARC Code List for Relators definition: A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Markup Editor MARC Code List for Relators definition: A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. LEMDO uses this term for someone who encodes a file, remediates a converted text, or reviews the XML markup of a file. Textual Editor This term is for use in project-level or edition-level credits if an anthology’s organizational structure includes this role. The term textual editor appears in the file-level metadata for documents produced before 2017. From 2017 on, this term is reserved for project-level credits. Do not use at the file level; if a textual editor performs a specific function with respect to a file, use the precise resp value for their work. Copyright Holder MARC Code List for Relators definition: A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. Published file. Finalized the metadata. Edition was peer reviewed by Janelle Jenstad. Added information to correspond with original editor submission and comply with citation guidelines. Removed short title. Updated comment. Changed annotations to editorial notes. Remediated file. Added document xml:id to the ids throughout the file using XSLT. Removed supplied elements that do not have attributes, using XSLT. Added anchors and modified using XSLT. Converted document from DOCX files. Peter Cockett Peter Cockett

Peter Cockett is an associate professor in the iArts (Integrated Arts) program at McMaster University. He is the co-editor, with Melinda Gough, of Engendering the Stage in the Age of Shakespeare and Beyond (University of Toronto Press, 2025) which publishes the findings of their 2018 Performance as Research (PaR) workshop at the Stratford Festival Lab. He is the general editor (performance), and technical co-ordinating editor of Queen’s Men Editions. His PaR directing credits include King Leir, The Famous Victories of Henry V, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (2006), Clyomon and Clamydes (2010), and Three Ladies of London (2015) for the Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men project (SQM). The process behind the 2006 productions is documented in depth on the project website Performing the Queen’s Men. For the PLS, the University of Toronto’s Medieval and Renaissance Players, he has directed the Digby Mary Magdalene (2003) and the double bill of George Peele’s The Old Wives Tale and the Chester Antichrist (2004). He also directed An Experiment in Elizabethan Comedy (2005) for the SQM project and Inside Out: The Persistence of Allegory (2008) in collaboration with Alan Dessen. Peter is a professional actor and director with numerous stage and screen credits. He can be contacted at cockett@mcmaster.ca.

 Tracey El Hajj Tracey El Hajj

Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.

 Mahayla Galliford Mahayla Galliford

Project Manager, 2025-present; Assistant Project Manager, 2024-2025; Research Assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated from the University of Victoria with a BA (honours with distinction) in 2024, and an MA English in 2026. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Her SSHRC-funded MA thesis project focuses on transcribing, editing, and encoding early modern girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s May Masque in collaboration with LEMDO.

 Andrew Griffin Andrew Griffin

Andrew Griffin is an associate professor in the department of English and an affiliate professor in the department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is general editor (text) of Queen’s Men Editions. He studies early modern drama and early modern historiography while serving as the lead editor at the EMC Imprint. He has co-edited with Helen Ostovich and Holger Schott Syme Locating the Queen’s Men (2009) and has co-edited The Making of a Broadside Ballad (2016) with Patricia Fumerton and Carl Stahmer. His monograph, Untimely Deaths in Renaissance Drama: Biography, History, Catastrophe, was published with the University of Toronto Press in 2019. He is editor of the anonymous The Chronicle History of King Leir (Queen’s Men Editions, 2011). He can be contacted at griffin@english.ucsb.edu.

 Martin Holmes Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.

 Janelle Jenstad Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

 Kate LeBere Kate LeBere KL

Project Manager, 2020–2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019–2020. Textual Remediator and Encoder, 2019–2021. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English at the University of Victoria in 2020. During her degree she published papers in The Corvette (2018), The Albatross (2019), and PLVS VLTRA (2020) and presented at the English Undergraduate Conference (2019), Qualicum History Conference (2020), and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s Project Management in the Humanities Conference (2021). While her primary research focus was sixteenth and seventeenth century England, she completed her honours thesis on Soviet ballet during the Russian Cultural Revolution. She is currently a student at the University of British Columbia’s iSchool, working on her masters in library and information science.

 Toby Malone Toby Malone

Toby Malone is an Australian/Canadian academic, dramaturg, and librarian. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto (PhD, 2009) and the University of Western Australia (BA Hons, 2001), and the University of Western Ontario (MLIS, 2023). He has worked as a theatre artist across the world, with companies including the Stratford Festival, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, Driftwood Theatre Group, the Shaw Festival, Poorboy Theatre Scotland, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, CBC, BT/A, and Kill Shakespeare Entertainment. He has published in Shakespeare Survey, Literature/Film Quarterly, Canadian Theatre Review, Borrowers and Lenders, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, appears in published collections with Routledge, Cambridge, and Oxford. Publications include two monographs: dapting War Horse (Palgrave McMillan) and Cutting Plays for Performance: A Practical and Accessible Guide (Routledge), and is currently co-writing an updated version of Shakespeare in Performance: Romeo and Juliet with Jill L. Levenson for Manchester UP. Toby has previously taught at the University of Waterloo and the State University of New York at Oswego, is currently Research Impact Librarian at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Helen Ostovich Helen Ostovich

Helen Ostovich, professor emerita of English at McMaster University, is the founder and general editor of Queen’s Men Editions. She is a general editor of The Revels Plays (Manchester University Press); Series Editor of Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama (Ashgate, now Routledge), and series co-editor of Late Tudor and Stuart Drama (MIP); play-editor of several works by Ben Jonson, in Four Comedies: Ben Jonson (1997); Every Man Out of his Humour (Revels 2001); and The Magnetic Lady (Cambridge 2012). She has also edited the Norton Shakespeare 3 The Merry Wives of Windsor Q1602 and F1623 (2015); The Late Lancashire Witches and A Jovial Crew for Richard Brome Online, revised for a 4-volume set from OUP 2021; The Ball, for the Oxford Complete Works of James Shirley (2021); The Merry Wives of Windsor for Internet Shakespeare Editions, and The Dutch Courtesan (with Erin Julian) for the Complete Works of John Marston, OUP 2022. She has published many articles and book chapters on Jonson, Shakespeare, and others, and several book collections, most recently Magical Transformations of the Early Modern English Stage with Lisa Hopkins (2014), and the equivalent to book website, Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context containing scripts, glossary, almost fifty conference papers edited and updated to essays; video; link to Queen’s Mens Ediitons and YouTube: http://threeladiesoflondon.mcmaster.ca/contexts/index.htm, 2015. Recently, she was guest editor of Strangers and Aliens in London ca 1605, Special Issue on Marston, Early Theatre 23.1 (June 2020). She can be contacted at ostovich@mcmaster.ca.

 Jennifer Parr Jennifer Parr

Jennifer Parr holds a Masters degree in European and Renaissance Drama from the University of Warwick. She is an independent scholar and professional director and dramaturge based in Toronto. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto she became involved as an actor with the P.L.S. Medieval and Renaissance Players’ productions of the Medieval Mystery Cycles returning later to direct an all female company in the York Cycle Fall of the Angels for the international full cycle production in 1998. Her recent productions as director and dramaturge include an all female Julius Caesar and an experimental all female adaptation of Richard III: RIchard 3, Queens 4. Her ongoing research into the historical Richard III and the various theatrical interpretations led to her joining the company of TTR3 as an observer and historical resource for the cast. She also writes a monthly column on music theatre and dance for The WholeNote magazine.

 Jennifer Roberts-Smith Jennifer Roberts-Smith

Jennifer Roberts-Smith is an associate professor of theatre and performance at the University of Waterloo. Her interdisciplinary work in early modern performance editing combines textual scholarship, performance as research, archival theatre history, and design in the development of live and virtual renderings of early modern performance texts, venues, and practices. With Janelle Jenstad and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she is co-editor of Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words New Tools (2018). Her most recent work has focused on methods for design research that deepen interdisciplinary understanding and take a relational approach. She is currently managing director of the qCollaborative (the critical feminist design research lab housed in the University of Waterloo’s Games Institute, and leads the SSHRC-funded Theatre for Relationality and Design for Peace projects. She is also creative director and virtual reality development cluster lead for the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR) project. She can be contacted at jennifer.roberts-smith@uwaterloo.ca.

 Samuel Seaberg Samuel Seaberg

Samuel Seaberg, a University of Victoria English undergrad, enjoys riding his bike. During the summer of 2025, he began working with LEMDO as a recipient of the Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award (VKURA). Unfortunately, due to his summer being spent primarily in working to establish an edition of Thomas Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part 2 and consequently working out how to represent multi-text works in a digital space, his bike has suffered severely of sheltered seclusion from the sun. Note: Samuel now works for LEMDO as the Assistant Project Manager, much to his bike’s chagrin.

 Dimitry Senyshyn Dimitry Senyshyn

Dimitry Senyshyn (Clyomon and Clamydes, text) has current research focusing on Shakespeare’s tragicomic romances and their relation to a native tradition of popular romance. He has co-edited an old-spelling edition of The True Tragedie of Richard the Third for QME with Jennifer Robert-Smith. He contributed to the preparation of the REED Inns of Court volume, and he has published in Theatre Research in Canada, Early Theatre, and the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception. He can be contacted at dimitry.senyshyn@gmail.com.

 Joey Takeda Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.

 Nicole Vatcher Nicole Vatcher NV

Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.) in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was women’s writing in the modernist period.

 Anonymous Francis Segar Francis Segar Segar, Francis. How Richard Plantagenet Duke of Gloucester Murdered His Brother’s Children, Usurping the Crown and in the Third Year of His Reign Was Most Worthily Deprived of Life and Kingdom, in Bosworth Plain, by Henry, earl of Richmond, after called King Henry the VII, the 22 of August 1485. Mirror for Magistrates. Ed. J. Haslewood. London: Lackington, Allen, and Co., 1815. LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/ QME Editorial Board

The QME Editorial Board consists of Helen Ostovich, General Editor; Peter Cockett, General Editor (Performance); Andrew Griffin, General Editor (Text); and Janelle Jenstad General Editor (Text).
Source

Modernized text of How Richard Plantagenet Duke of Gloucester murdered his brother’s children, usurping the crown and in the third year of his reign was most worthily deprived of life and kingdom, in Bosworth plain, by Henry, earl of Richmond, after called King Henry the VII, the 22 of August 1485 prepared from Mirror for Magistrates (Segar).

What heart so hard, but doth abhor to hear The rueful reign of me, the third Richard? King unkindly called, though I the crown did wear, Who entered by rigor, but right did not regard, By tyranny proceeding in killing king Edward, Fifth of that name, right heir unto the crown, With Richard, his brother, princes of renown. Of trust they were committed unto my governance, But trust turned to treason, too truly it was tried, Both against nature, duty, and allegiance, For through my procurement most shamefully they dyed: Desire of a kingdom forgetteth all kindred. As after by discourse it shall be shewed here, How cruelly these innocents in prison murdered were. The lords and commons all with one assent, Protector made me both of land and king. But I therewith, alas, was not content: For minding mischief I meant another thing, Which to confusion in short time did me bring: For I, desirous to rule and reign alone, Sought crown and kingdom, yet title had I none. To all peers and princes a president I may be, The like to beware how they do enterprise, And learn their wretched falls by my fact to foresee, Which rueful stand bewailing my chance before their eyes, As one clean bereil of all felicities: For right through might I cruelly defaced. But might helped right and me again displaced. Alas, that ever prince should thus his honor stain With the blood of innocents, most shameful to be told: For these two noble imps I caused to be slain. Of years not full ripe as yet to rule and reign: For which I was abhorred both of young and old, But as the deed was odious in sight of God and man, So shame and destruction in the end I wan. Both God, nature, duty, allegiance all forgot, This vile and heinous act unnaturally conspired: Which horrible deed done, alas, alas, God wot, Such terrors me tormented, and my sprites’ fired As unto such a murder and shameful deed required, Such broil daily felt I breeding in my breast. Whereby, more and more, increased mine unrest. My brother’s children were right heirs unto the crown, Whom nature rather bound to defend then destroy. But I not regarding their right nor my renown, My whole care and study to this end did employ, The crown to obtain, and them both to put down: Wherein I God offended, provoking just his ire, For this my attempt and most wicked desire. To cursed Cain compare my careful case, Which did unjustly slay his brother just Abel: And did not I in rage make run that rueful race My brother duke of Clarence? whose death I shame to tell, For that it was so strange as it was horrible: For sure bedrenched was, and yet no water near, Which strange is to bee told, to all that shall it hear. The but he was not whereat I did shoot. But yet he stood between the mark and me, For had he liv’d, for me it was no boot To tempt the thing that by no means could be. For I third was then of my brethren three: But yet I thought the elder being gone, Then needs must I bear the stroke alone. Desire of rule made me, alas, to rue, My fatal fall I could it not foresee, Puffed up in pride, so haughty then I grew, That none my peer I thought now could bee, Disdaining such as were of high degree: Thus daily rising, and pulling other down, At last I shot how to win the crown. And daily devising which was the best way And mean, how I might my nephews both devour: I secretly then sent, without further delay. To Brakenbury, then lieutenant of the tower, Requesting him by letters to help unto his power, For to accomplish this my desire and will. And that he would secretly my brother’s children kill. He answered plainly with a flat nay, Saying that to dye he would not do that deed: But finding then a proffer to my prey, “Well worth a friend (quoth I) yet in time of need: James Tyrrell hight his name, whom with all speed, I sent again to Brakenbury as you heard before, Commanding him deliver the keys of every door. The keys he rendered, but partaker would not be Of that flagitious fact. O, happy man, I say: As you have heard before, he rather chose to dye. Then on those silly lambs his violent hands to lay: His conscience him pricked his prince to betray, O constant mind, that wouldst not condescend, Thee may I praise, and myself discommend. What though he refused, yet be sure you may. That other were as ready to take in hand that thing, Which watched and waited as duly for their prey. As ever did the cat for the mouse taking, And how they might their purpose best to pass bring: Where Tyrrell he thought good to have no blood shed, Becast them to kill by smothering in their bed. The wolves at hand were ready to devour The silly lambs in bed, whereas they lay, Abiding death, and looking for the hour. For well they wist, they could not scape away: Ah, woe is me, that did them thus betray. In assigning this vile deed to be done, By Miles Forrest and wicked John Dighton. Who prively into their chamber stale, In secret wise somewhat before midnight, And ’gan the bed together tug and hale, Bewrapping them, alas, in woeful plight, Keeping them down, by force, by power, and might. With haling, tugging, turmoiling, turned and tossed, Till they of force were forced yield the ghost. Which when I heard, my heart I felt was eased Of grudge, of grief, and inward deadly pain. But with this deed the nobles were displeased, And said: “O God, shall such a tyrant reign, That hath so cruelly his brother’s children slain?’’ Which bruit once blown in the people’s ears, Their dolor was such, that they burst out in tears. But what thing may suffice unto the greedy man, The more he baths in blood, the bloodier he is alway: By proof I do this speak, which best declare it can, Which only was the cause of this prince’s decay: The wolf was never greedier than I was of my pray: But who so useth murder, full well affirm I dare. With murder shall be quit, ere he thereof beware. And mark the sequel of this begone mischief: Which shortly after was cause of my decay, For high and low conceived such a grief And hate against me, which sought, day by day, All ways and means that possible they may. On me to be revenged for this sin. For cruelly murdering unnaturally my kin. Not only kin, but king, the truth to say, Whom unkindly of kingdom I bereft, His life from him, I also wrought away, With his brother’s, which to my charge was left: Of ambition behold the work and weft, Provoking me to do this heinous treason. And murder them, against all right and reason. After whose death thus wrought by violence, The lords not liking this unnatural deed, Began on me to have great diffidence, Such brinning hate ‘gan in their hearts to breed. Which made me doubt, and sore my danger dreede: Which doubt and dread proved not in vain, By that ensued, alas, unto my pain. For I supposing all things were as I wished, When I had brought these silly babes to bane, But yet in that my purpose far I missed: For as the moon doth change after the wane, So changed the hearts of such as I had ta’en To be most true, to troubles did me turn: Such rage and rancor in boiling breasts doth burn, And suddenly a bruit abroad was blown, That Buckingham the duke, both stem and stout, In field was ready, with divers to me known, To give me battle if I durst come out: Which daunted me and put me in great doubt, For that I had no army then prepared: But after that, I little for it cared. But yet remembering, that oft a little spark Suffered doth grow unto a great flame, I thought it wisdom wisely for to warke, Mustered then men in every place I came: And marched forward daily with the same, Directly towards the town of Salisbury, Where I gat knowledge of the duke’s army. And as I passed over Salisbury down, The rumor ran the duke was fled and gone, His host dispersed besides Shrewsbury town. And he dismayed was left there post alone, Bewailing his chance and making great moan: Towards whom I hasted with all expedition. Making due search and diligent inquisition. But at the first I could not of him hear. For he was ’scaped by secret byways. Unto the house of Humphrey Banastre, Whom he had much preferred in his days, And was good lord to him, in all assays: Which he full ill requited in the end, When he was driven to seek a trusty friend. For so it happened to his mishap, alas, When I no knowledge of the duke could hear: A proclamation, by my commandment, was Published and cried throughout every shire. That whoso could tell where the duke were, A thousand mark should have for his pain: What thing so hard but money can obtain? But were it for money, meed, or dread, That Banastre thus betrayed his guest, Divers have diversely divined of this deed, Some deem the worst, and some judge the best, The doubt not dissolved, nor plainly expressed: But of the duke’s death he doubtless was cause. Which dyed without judgment, or order of laws. Lo, this noble duke I brought thus unto bane. Whose doings I doubted and had in great dread, At Banastre’s house I made him to be ta’en, And without judgment be shortened by the head, By the shrive of Shropshire to Salisbury led. In the market place upon the scaffold new, Where all the beholders did much his death rue. And after this done I break up my host, Greatly applauded with this heavy hap, And forthwith I sent to every sea cost. To foresee all mischiefs and stop every gap. Before they should chance or light in my lap, Giving them in charge to have good regard The sea cost to keep, with good watch and ward. Directing my letters unto every shrive, With strait commandment under our name, To suffer no man in their parts to argue, Nor to pass forth out of the same. As they tendered our favor, and void would our blame, Doing therein their pain and industry. With diligent care and vigilant eye. And thus setting things in order as you hear, To prevent mischiefs that might then betide, I thought myself sure, and out of all fear, And for other things began to provide: To Nottingham castle straight did I ride. Where I was not very long space, Strange tidings came, which did me sore amaze. Reported it was, and that for certainty, The earl of Richmond landed was in Wales At Milford Haven, with an huge army, Dismissing his navy which were many sails: Which, at the first, I thought flying tales, But in the end did otherwise prove, Which not a little did me vex and move. Thus fawning fortune ’gan on me to frown, And cast on me her scornful lowering look: Then ’gan I fear the fall of my renown, My heart it fainted, my sinews sore they shook, This heavy hap a scourge for sin I took: Yet did I not then utterly despair, Hoping storms past the weather should be fayre. And then with all speed possible I might, I caused them muster throughout every shire, Determining with the earl speedily to fight, Before that his power much increased were. By such as to him great favor did bear: Which were no small number, by true report made, Daily repairing him for to aid. Directing my letters to divers noblemen, With earnest request their power to prepare To Nottingham castle, where, as I lay then, To aid and assist me in this weighty affair: Where straight to my presence did then repair, John duke of Norfolk, his eldest son also, With th’earl of Northumberland and many other mo. And thus being furnished with men and munition, Forward we marched in order of battle ‘ray, Making by scouts every way inquisition, In what place the earl with his camp lay: Towards whom directly we took then our way, Evermore minding to seek our most avail. In place convenient to give to him battle. So long wee labored, at last our armies met On Bosworth plain, besides Leicester town, Where sure I thought the garland for to get, And purchase peace, or else to lose my crown: But fickle fortune, alas, on me did frown, For when I was encamped in the field, Where most I trusted I soonest was beguiled. The brand of malice thus kindling in my breast Of deadly hate which I to him did bear, Pricked me forward, and bade me not desist, But boldly fight, and take at all no fear, To win the field, and the earl to conquer: Thus hoping glory great to gain and get, Mine army then in order did I set. Betide me life or death I desperately ran, And joined me in battle with this earl so stout. But fortune so him favored that he the battle wan, With force and great power I was beset about: Which when I did behold, in midst of the whole route. With dint of sword I cast me on him to be revenged. Where in the midst of them my wretched life I ended. My body was hurried and tugged like a dog, On horseback all naked and bare as I was borne: My head, hands, and feet, down hanging like a hog, With dirt and blood bespent, my corpse all to torn, Cursing the day that ever I was borne: With grievous wounds bemangled, most horrible to see. So sore they did abhor this my vile cruelty. Lo, hear you may behold the due and just reward Of tyranny and treason, which God doth most detest: For if unto my duty I had taken regard, I might have lined still in honor with the best, And had I not attempt the thing that I ought lest: But desire to rule, alas, did me so blind, Which caused me to do against nature and kind. Ah, cursed caitiff, why did I climb so high, Which was the cause of this my baleful thrall: For still I thirsted for the regal dignity, But hasty rising threateneth sudden fall: Content yourselves with your estates all, And seek not right by wrong to suppress, For God hath promised each wrong to redress. See here the fine and fatal fall of me, And guerdon due for this my wretched deed. Which to all princes a mirror now may be. That shall this tragical story after read, Wishing them all by me to take heed, And suffer right to rule as it is reason: For time tryeth out both truth and also treason.