FITZ. I am as glad to go as you to send:
Yet I beseech this favour of your grace,
That I may see Matilda, ere I part.
KING. Matilda! see Matilda, if thou canst,
Before sunset: stay not another day.
FITZ[339]. The abbey-walls, that shroud my happy child,
Appear within her hapless father's sight.
Farewell, my sovereign, Leicester, Richmond, lords:
Farewell to all; grief gives no way to words.
KING. Fitzwater, stay: lords, give us leave awhile.
Hubert, go you before unto the abbess,
And signify our coming. Let her bring
Matilda to her father. (_Exit_ HUBERT.) Come, old man;
Be not too froward, and we shall be friends.
About this girl our mortal jars began,
And, if thou wilt, here all our quarrel ends.
FITZ. Reserve my honour and my daughter's fame,
And no poor subject that your grace commands
Shall willinger submit, obey, and serve.
KING. Do then but this. Persuade thy beauteous child
To leave the nunnery and return to court,
And I protest from henceforth to forswear
All such conceits of lust as I have borne.
FITZ. I will, my lord, do all that I may do;
But give me leave in this to doubt of you.
KING. This small thing grant, and ask me anything;
Or else die in exile, loath'd of the king.
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