[Exeunt cum PRIOR.

    Enter LEICESTER, drum and ancient.

JOHN.  Welcome from war, thrice noble Earl of Leicester,
Unto our court:  welcome, most valiant earl.

LEI.  Your court in England, and King Richard gone! 
A king in England, and the king from home! 
This sight and salutations are so strange,
That what I should I know not how to speak.

JOHN.  What would you say? speak boldly, we entreat.

LEI.  It is not fear, but wonder, bars my speech. 
I muse to see a mother and a queen,
Two peers so great as Salisbury and Chester,
Sit and support proud usurpation,
And see King Richard’s crown worn by Earl John.

QUEEN.  He sits as viceroy and a[s] substitute.

CHES.  He must and shall resign, when Richard comes.

SAL.  Chester, he will, without your must and shall.

LEI.  Whether he will or no, he shall resign.

JOHN.  You know your own will, Leicester, but not mine.

LEI.  Tell me among ye, where is reverend Ely,
Left by our dread king as his deputy?

JOHN.  Banish’d he is, as proud usurpers should.

LEI.  Pride then, belike, was enemy to pride: 
Ambition in yourself his state envied. 
Where is Fitzwater, that old honour’d lord?

JOHN.  Dishonour’d and exil’d, as Ely is.

LEI.  Exil’d he may be, but dishonour’d never! 
He was a fearless soldier and a virtuous scholar. 
But where is Huntington, that noble youth?

CHES.  Undone by riot.

LEI.  Ah! the greater ruth.

JOHN.  Leicester, you question more than doth become you. 
On to the purpose, why you come to us.

LEI.  I come to Ely and to all the state,
Sent by the king, who three times sent before
To have his ransom brought to Austria: 
And if you be elected deputy,
Do as you ought, and send the ransom-money.

JOHN.  Leicester, you see I am no deputy;
And Richard’s ransom if you do require,
Thus we make answer:  Richard is a king,
In Cyprus, Acon, Acre, and rich Palestine. 
To get those kingdoms England lent him men,
And many a million of her substance spent,
The very entrails of her womb were rent: 
No plough but paid a share, no needy hand,
But from his poor estate of penury
Unto his voyage offer’d more than mites,
And more, poor souls, than they had might to spare. 
Yet were they joyful; for still flying news—­
And lying I perceive them now to be—­
Came of King Richard’s glorious victories,
His conquest of the Soldan,[217] and such tales
As blew them up with hope, when he return’d,
He would have scatter’d gold about the streets.