Talbot. With scoffs and scorns, and contumelious taunts,
In open market-place produced they me,
To be a public spectacle to all.
Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
The scarecrow that affrights our children so.
Then broke I from the officers that led me,
And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground,
To hurl at the beholders of my shame.
My grisly countenance made others fly,
None durst come near for fear of sudden death.
In iron walls they deem'd me not secure:
So great a fear my name amongst them spread,
That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel,
And spurn in pieces posts of adamant.
Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had:
They walk'd about me every minute-while;
And if I did but stir out of my bed,
Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.
The second part relates chiefly to the contests between the nobles
during the minority of Henry and the death of Gloucester, the good
Duke Humphrey. The character of Cardinal Beaufort is the most
prominent in the group: the account of his death is one of our
author's masterpieces. So is the speech of Gloucester to the nobles
on the loss of the provinces of France by the king's marriage with
Margaret of Anjou. The pretensions and growing ambition of the Duke
of York, the father of Richard III, are also very ably developed.
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