KING HENRY THE FIFTH.
[ Enter Chorus.]
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,[1]
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars;[2] and, at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
Crouch for employment.([A]) But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit that hath dar’d
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold[3]
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Upon this little stage[4] the very casques[5]
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place, a million;
And let us, cyphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces[6] work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:[7]
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,[8]
And make imaginary puissance;[9]
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: For the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
Exit.
[ ACT I.]
[ Scene I.—THE PAINTED CHAMBER IN THE ROYAL PALACE AT WESTMINSTER.]
[Frequent reference is made in the Chronicles to the Painted Chamber, as the room wherein Henry V. held his councils.]
Trumpets sound.
King Henry([B]) discovered on his throne (centre)[*], Bedford,([C]) Gloster,([D]) Exeter,([E]) Warwick, Westmoreland, and others in attendance.
K. Hen. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
Exe. (L.) Not here in presence.
K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.
Exeter beckons to a Herald, who goes off, L.H.
West. (L.) Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolv’d,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task[1] our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Re-enter Herald with the Archbishop of Canterbury,([F])[2] and Bishop of Ely,[3] L.H. The Bishops cross to R.C.
Cant. (R.C.) Heaven and its angels guard your sacred throne,
And make you long become it!
K. Hen.
Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,
And justly and religiously unfold,
Why the law Salique,([G]) that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
And Heaven forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest,[4] or bow your reading,[5]
Or nicely charge your understanding soul[6]
With opening titles miscreate,[7] whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth.
For Heaven doth know how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation[8]
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,[9]
How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of Heaven, take heed:
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord.
Cant. (R.C.) Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne.—There is no bar
To make against your highness’ claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,—
No woman shall succeed in Salique land:
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze[10]
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law.
Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles[11]
Usurp’d from you and your progenitors.
K. Hen. May I with right and conscience make this claim?
Cant. (R.C.) The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
For in the book of Numbers is it writ,—
When the son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back unto your mighty ancestors:
Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire’s tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great uncle’s, Edward the black prince,
Who on the French ground play’d a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France,
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.[12]
Ely. (R.C.) Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage, that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
Exe. (L.) Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.
West. (L.) They know your grace hath cause, and means and might:
So hath your highness;[13] never king of England
Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,
And lie pavilion’d in the fields of France.
Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
With blood, and sword, and fire to win your right:
In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.
K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.
Cant. (R.C.) They of those marches,[14] gracious sovereign,
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice that power left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried, and our nation lose
The name of hardiness and policy.
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
Exit Herald with Lords, L.H.
Now are we well resolv’d; and by Heaven’s help,
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,—
France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces.
Re-enter Herald and Lords, L.H., with the Ambassador of France, French Bishops, Gentlemen, and Attendants carrying a treasure chest, L.H.
Now are we well prepar’d to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
Amb. (L.C.) May it please your majesty to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?
K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.
Amb.
Thus, then, in few.[15]
Your highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
In answer of which claim, the prince our master
Says,—that you savour too much of your youth;
And bids you be advis’d, there’s nought in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won;[16]
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?
Exe. Opening the chest. Tennis-balls, my liege.([H])
K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have match’d our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by Heaven’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
And we understand him well,
How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
But tell the Dauphin,—I will keep my state;
Be like a king, and show my soul of greatness,
When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
For I will rise there with so full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
But this lies all within the will of Heaven,
To whom I do appeal; And in whose name,
Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,
To venge me as I may, and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow’d cause.
So, get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin,
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.—
Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.
Exeunt Ambassador, and Attendants, L.H.
Exe. This was a merry message.
K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
The King rises.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
That may give furtherance to our expedition;
For we have now no thought in us but France,
Save those to Heaven, that run before our business.
Therefore let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
That may with reasonable swiftness add
More feathers to our wings; for, Heaven before,
We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door.
The characters group round the King.
Trumpets sound.
[ Scene II.—EASTCHEAP, LONDON.]
Enter Bardolph,([I]) Nym, Pistol, Mrs. Quickly, and Boy, L. 2 E.
Quick. (L.C.) Pr’ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.[17]
Pist. (C.) No; for my manly heart doth yearn.—
Bardolph, be blithe;—Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
And we must yearn therefore.
Bard. (R.) ’Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is!
Quick. (C.) Sure, he’s in Arthur’s bosom,[18] if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. ’A made a finer end,[19] and went away, an it had been any christom child;[20] ’a parted even just between twelve and one, e’en at turning o’ the tide:[21] for after I saw him fumble with the sheets,[22] and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John! quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So a’ cried out—Heaven, Heaven, Heaven! three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him ’a should not think of Heaven; I hoped, there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So ’a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone.
Nym. (R.C.) They say he cried out of sack.
Quick. Ay, that ’a did.
Bard. And of women.
Quick. Nay, that ’a did not.
Boy. (L.) Yes, that ’a did, and said they were devils incarnate.
Quick. crosses L.C. ’A could never abide carnation;[23] ’twas a colour he never liked.
Boy. Do you not remember, ’a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and ’a said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?
Bard. Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire: that’s all the riches I got in his service.
Nym. Shall we shog off?[24] the king will be gone from Southampton.
Pist. Come, let’s away.—My love, give me thy lips.
Look to my chattels and my moveables:
Let senses rule;[25] the word is, Pitch and pay;[26]
Trust none;
For oaths are straws, men’s faiths are wafer-cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog,[27] my duck:
Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.[28]
Go, clear thy crystals.[29]—Yoke-fellows in arms,
Crosses L.H.
Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
Crosses R.H.
Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they say.
Pitt. Touch her soft mouth, and march.
Bard. Farewell, hostess.
Kissing her.
Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.
Pist. Let housewifery appear: keep close, I thee command.
Quick. Farewell; adieu.
Exeunt Bardolph, Pistol, Nym, R.H., and Dame Quickly, L.H.
Boy. As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be a man to me; for, indeed, three such anticks do not amount to a man. For Bardolph,—he is white-livered and red-faced; by the means whereof ’a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol,—he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the means whereof ’a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,—he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest ’a should be thought a coward: but his few bad words are match’d with as few good deeds; for ’a never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal any thing, and call it—purchase. They would have me as familiar with men’s pockets as their gloves or their handkerchiefs: which makes much against my manhood, if I should take from another’s pocket to put into mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them, and seek some better service: their villainy goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.
Distant March heard. Exit Boy, R.H.
END OF FIRST ACT.
[ HISTORICAL NOTE TO CHORUS—ACT FIRST]
([A])
——should famine, sword, and fire,
Crouch for employment.]
Holinshed states that when the people of Rouen petitioned Henry V., the king replied “that the goddess of battle, called Bellona, had three handmaidens, ever of necessity attending upon her, as blood, fire, and famine.” These are probably the dogs of war mentioned in Julius Cæsar.
[ HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT FIRST.]
([B]) King Henry on his throne,] King Henry V. was born at Monmouth, August 9th, 1388, from which place he took his surname. He was the eldest son of Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, afterwards Duke of Hereford, who was banished by King Richard the Second, and, after that monarch’s deposition, was made king of England, A.D. 1399. At eleven years of age Henry V. was a student at Queen’s College, Oxford, under the tuition of his half-uncle, Henry Beaufort, Chancellor of that university. Richard II. took the young Henry with him in his expedition to Ireland, and caused him to be imprisoned in the castle of Trym, but, when his father, the Duke of Hereford, deposed the king and obtained the crown, he was created Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall.
In 1403 the Prince was engaged at the battle of Shrewsbury, where the famous Hotspur was slain, and there wounded in the face by an arrow. History states that Prince Henry became the companion of rioters and disorderly persons, and indulged in a course of life quite unworthy of his high station. There is a tradition that, under the influence of wine, he assisted his associates in robbing passengers on the highway. His being confined in prison for striking the Chief Justice, Sir William Gascoigne, is well known.
These excesses gave great uneasiness and annoyance to the king, his father, who dismissed the Prince from the office of President of his Privy Council, and appointed in his stead his second son, Thomas, Duke of Clarence. Henry was crowned King of England on the 9th April, 1413. We read in Stowe— “After his coronation King Henry called unto him all those young lords and gentlemen who were the followers of his young acts, to every one of whom he gave rich gifts, and then commanded that as many as would change their manners, as he intended to do, should abide with him at court; and to all that would persevere in their former like conversation, he gave express commandment, upon pain of their heads, never after that day to come in his presence.”
This heroic king fought and won the celebrated battle of Agincourt, on the 25th October, 1415; married the Princess Katherine, daughter of Charles VI. of France and Isabella of Bavaria, his queen, in the year 1420; and died at Vincennes, near Paris, in the midst of his military glory, August 31st, 1422, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of his reign, leaving an infant son, who succeeded to the throne under the title of Henry VI.
The famous Whittington was for the third time Lord Mayor of London in this reign, A.D. 1419. Thomas Chaucer, son of the great poet, was speaker of the House of Commons, which granted the supplies to the king for his invasion of France.
([C]) Bedford,] John, Duke of Bedford, was the third son of King Henry IV., and his brother, Henry V., left to him the Regency of France. He died in the year 1435. This duke was accounted one of the best generals of the royal race of Plantaganet.
King Lewis XI. being counselled by certain envious persons to deface his tomb, used these, indeed, princely words:— “What honor shall it be to us, or you, to break this monument, and to pull out of the ground the bones of him, whom, in his life time, neither my father nor your progenitors, with all their puissance, were once able to make fly a foot backward? Who by his strength, policy, and wit, kept them all out of the principal dominions of France, and out of this noble Dutchy of Normandy? Wherefore I say first, God save his soul, and let his body now lie in rest, which, when he was alive, would have disquieted the proudest of us all; and for his tomb, I assure you, it is not so worthy or convenient as his honor and acts have deserved.” —Vide Sandford’s History of the Kings of England.
([D]) Gloster,] Humphrey, Duke of Gloster, was the fourth son of King Henry IV., and on the death of his brother, Henry V., became Regent of England. It is generally supposed he was strangled. His death took place in the year 1446.
([E]) Exeter,] Shakespeare is a little too early in giving Thomas Beaufort the title of Duke of Exeter; for when Harfleur was taken, and he was appointed governor of the town, he was only Earl of Dorset. He was not made Duke of Exeter till the year after the battle of Agincourt, November 14, 1416. Exeter was half brother to King Henry IV., being one of the sons of John of Gaunt, by Catherine Swynford.
([F]) Archbishop of Canterbury,] The Archbishop’s speech in this scene, explaining King Henry’s title to the crown of France, is closely copied from Holinshed’s chronicle, page 545.
“About the middle of the year 1414, Henry V., influenced by the persuasions of Chichely, Archbishop of Canterbury, by the dying injunction of his royal father, not to allow the kingdom to remain long at peace, or more probably by those feelings of ambition, which were no less natural to his age and character, than consonant with the manners of the time in which he lived, resolved to assert that claim to the crown of France which his great grandfather, King Edward the Third, had urged with such confidence and success.” —Nicolas’s History of the Battle of Agincourt.
([G]) ——the law Salique,] According to this law no woman was permitted to govern or be a Queen in her own right. The title only was allowed to the wife of the monarch. This law was imported from Germany by the warlike Franks.
([H]) Tennis-balls, my liege.] Some contemporary historians affirm that the Dauphin sent Henry the contemptuous present, which has been imputed to him, intimating that such implements of play were better adapted to his dissolute character than the instruments of war, while others are silent on the subject. The circumstance of Henry’s offering to meet his enemy in single combat, affords some support to the statement that he was influenced by those personal feelings of revenge to which the Dauphin’s conduct would undoubtedly have given birth.
([I]) Enter Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Mrs. Quickly, and Boy.] These followers of Falstaff figured conspicuously through the two parts of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Pistol is a swaggering, pompous braggadocio; Nym a boaster and a coward; and Bardolph a liar, thief, and coward, who has no wit but in his nose.
[ Enter Chorus.]
Cho. Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies:
Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man:
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse;
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With wingéd heels, as English Mercuries;
For now sits expectation in the air.
O England!—model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,—
What might’st thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!
But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills[1]
With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,—
One, Richard earl of Cambridge;[2] and the second,
Henry lord Scroop of Masham,[3] and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,—
Have, for the gilt of France[4] (O guilt, indeed!),
Confirm’d conspiracy with fearful France;([AA])
And by their hands this grace of kings[5] must die,
(If hell and treason hold their promises,)
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
The back scene opens and discovers a tableau, representing the three conspirators receiving the bribe from the emissaries of France.
Linger your patience on; and well digest
The abuse of distance, while we force a play.[6]
The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
The king is set from London; and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton,—
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit:
And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
We’ll not offend one stomach[7] with our play.
But, till the king come forth, and not till then,[8]
Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.
Exit.
[ ACT II.]
[ Scene I.—COUNCIL CHAMBER IN SOUTHAMPTON CASTLE.]
Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland, discovered.
Bed. ’Fore Heaven, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
Exe. They shall be apprehended by and by.
West. How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.
Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of.
Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,([A])
Whom he hath cloy’d and grac’d with princely favours,—
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign’s life to death and treachery!
Distant Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Scroop, Cambridge, Grey, Lords and Attendants, U.E.L.H.
K. Hen. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
My lord of Cambridge,—and my kind lord of Masham,—
And you, my gentle knight,—give me your thoughts:
Think you not, that the powers we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France?
Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
K. Hen. I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,[1]
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.
Cam. (R.) Never was monarch better fear’d and lov’d
Than is your majesty: there’s not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.
Grey. (R.) Even those that were your father’s enemies
Have steep’d their galls in honey, and do serve you
With hearts create[2] of duty and of zeal.
K.Hen. (C.) We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;
And shall forget the office of our hand,
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to the weight and worthiness.
Uncle of Exeter, R.
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail’d against our person: we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on;
And, on his more advice,[3] we pardon him.
Scroop. (R.) That’s mercy, but too much security:
Let him be punish’d, sovereign; lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
K. Hen. O, let us yet be merciful.
Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish too.
Grey. Sir, you show great mercy, if you give him life,
After the taste of much correction.
K. Hen. Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch![4]
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,[5]
Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye[6]
When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d, and digested,
Appear before us?—We’ll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey,—in their dear care
And tender preservation of our person,—
Would have him punish’d. And now to our French causes:
All take their places at Council table.
Who are the late Commissioners?[7]
Cam. R. of table. I one, my lord:
Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.
Scroop. R. of table. So did you me, my liege.
Grey. R. of table. And me, my royal sovereign.
K. Hen. Then, Richard earl of Cambridge, there is yours;—
There yours, lord Scroop of Masham;—and, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:—
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.—
My lord of Westmoreland,—and uncle Exeter,—
L. of table.
We will aboard to-night. Conspirators start from their places.
Why, how now, gentlemen!
What see you in those papers, that you lose
So much complexion?—look ye, how they change!
Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there,
That hath so cowarded and chas’d your blood
Out of appearance?
Cam.
I do confess my fault;
And do submit me to your highness’ mercy.
Falling on his knees.
| Grey. Scroop. | To which we all appeal. Kneeling. |
K. Hen. rising; all the Lords rise with the King. The mercy that was quick[8] in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress’d and kill’d:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy.
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge here,—
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir’d,
And sworn unto the practises of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is,—hath likewise sworn.—But, O,
What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop? thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou that did’st bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost might’st have coin’d me into gold,
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross[9]
As black from white,[10] my eye will scarcely see it;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man.—Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;—
Exeter goes to door U.E.L.H, and calls on the Guard.
And Heaven acquit them of their practises!
Exe. comes down, R.C. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.
Scroop. R., kneeling. Our purposes Heaven justly hath discover’d;
And I repent my fault more than my death.
Cam. R., kneeling. For me,—the gold of France did not seduce;([B])
Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But Heaven be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,[11]
Beseeching Heaven and you to pardon me.
Grey. R. kneeling. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprize:
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. (C.) Heaven quit you in its mercy! Hear your sentence.
You have conspir’d against our royal person,
Join’d with an enemy proclaim’d, and from his coffers
Receiv’d the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;([C])
But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,[12]
Whose ruin you three sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you, therefore, hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, Heaven of its mercy give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences![13]—Bear them hence.
Conspirators rise and exeunt guarded, with Exeter.
Now, Lords, for France; the enterprize whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since Heaven so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen: let us deliver
Our puissance[14] into the hand of Heaven,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:([D])
No king of England, if not king of France.
Exeunt, U.E.L.H.
[ Scene II.—FRANCE. A ROOM IN THE FRENCH KING’S PALACE.]
Trumpets sound.
Enter the French King,[15] attended; the Dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, the Constable, and Others,([E]) L.H.
Fr. King. (C.) Thus come the English with full power upon us;
And more than carefully it us concerns[16]
To answer royally in our defences.
Therefore the Dukes of Berry and of Bretagne,
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,—
And you, Prince Dauphin,—with all swift despatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war
With men of courage and with means defendant.
Dau. (R.C.)
My most redoubted father,
It is most meet we arm us ’gainst the foe:
And let us do it with no show of fear;
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:
For, my good liege, she is so idly king’d,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.
Con. (L.C.)
O peace, prince Dauphin
You are too much mistaken in this king:
With what great state he heard our embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception,[17] and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,
And you shall find his vanities fore-spent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly.
Dau. Well, ’tis not so, my lord high constable;
But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence ’tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems:
So the proportions of defence are fill’d.
Fr. King. Think we King Harry strong;
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh’d upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain[18]
That haunted us[19] in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captiv’d by the hand
Of that black name, Edward, black prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain sire,—on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crown’d with the golden sun,—[20]
Saw his heroical seed, and smil’d to see him
Mangle the work of nature, and deface
The patterns that by Heaven and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him.[21]
Enter Montjoy,[22] L.H., and kneels C. to the King.
Mont. Ambassadors from Henry King of England
Do crave admittance to your majesty.
Fr. King. We’ll give them present audience. Montjoy rises from his knee. Go, and bring them.
Exeunt Montjoy, and certain Lords, L.H.
You see this chase is hotly follow’d, friends.
Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
Most spend their mouths,[23] when what they seem to threaten
Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
Take up the English short; and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head:
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.
French King takes his seat on Throne, R.
Re-enter Montjoy, Lords, with Exeter and Train, L.H.
Fr. King.
From our brother England?
Exe. (L.C.) From him; and thus he greets your majesty.
He wills you, in the awful name of Heaven,
That you divest yourself, and lay apart
The borrow’d glories, that, by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, ’long
To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown,
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,
By custom and the ordinance of times
Unto the crown of France. That you may know
’Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
Pick’d from the worm-holes of long-vanish’d days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak’d,
He sends you this most memorable line,[24]
Gives a paper to Montjoy, who delivers it kneeling to the King.
In every branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you overlook this pedigree:
And when you find him evenly deriv’d
From his most fam’d of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
Fr. King. Or else what follows?
Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove.
(That, if requiring fail, he will compel):
This is his claim, his threat’ning, and my message;
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this further:
To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.
Montjoy rises, and retires to R.
Dau. R. of throne. For the Dauphin,
I stand here for him: What to him from England?
Exe. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king: an if your father’s highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He’ll call you to so hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass,[25] and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.
Dau. Say, if my father render fair reply,
It is against my will; for I desire
Nothing but odds with England: to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,
I did present him with those Paris balls.
Exe. He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it:
And, be assur’d, you’ll find a difference
Between the promise of his greener days
And these he masters now: now he weighs time,
Even to the utmost grain: which you shall read[26]
In your own losses, if he stay in France.
Fr. King. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.
Exe. Despatch us with all speed, lest that our king
Come here himself to question our delay;
For he is footed in this land already.
Fr. King. You shall be soon despatch’d with fair conditions:
Montjoy crosses to the English party.
A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence.
English party exit, with Montjoy and others, L.H. French Lords group round the King.
Trumpets sound.
END OF ACT SECOND.
[ HISTORICAL NOTES TO CHORUS—ACT SECOND.]
([AA])
These corrupted men,——
One, Richard earl of Cambridge; and the second,
Henry lord Scroop of Masham; and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey knight of Northumberland,—
Have for the guilt of France (O, guilt, indeed!)
Confirm’d conspiracy with fearful France.
About the end of July, Henry’s ambitious designs received a momentary check from the discovery of a treasonable conspiracy against his person and government, by Richard, Earl of Cambridge, brother of the Duke of York; Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, the Lord Treasurer; and Sir Thomas Grey, of Heton, knight. The king’s command for the investigation of the affair, was dated on the 21st of that month, and a writ was issued to the Sheriff of Southampton, to assemble a jury for their trial; and which on Friday, the 2nd of August, found that on the 20th of July, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, and Thomas Grey, of Heton, in the County of Northumberland, knight, had falsely and traitorously conspired to collect a body of armed men, to conduct Edmund, Earl of March,[*] to the frontiers of Wales, and to proclaim him the rightful heir to the crown, in case Richard II. was actually dead; but they had solicited Thomas Frumpyngton, who personated King Richard, Henry Percy, and many others from Scotland to invade the realm, that they had intended to destroy the King, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Gloucester, with other lords and great men; and that Henry, Lord Scroop, of Masham, consented to the said treasonable purposes, and concealed the knowledge of them from the king. On the same day the accused were reported by Sir John Popham, Constable of the Castle of Southampton, to whose custody they had been committed, to have confessed the justice of the charges brought against them, and that they threw themselves on the king’s mercy; but Scroop endeavoured to extenuate his conduct, by asserting that his intentions were innocent, and that he appeared only to acquiesce in their designs to be enabled to defeat them. The Earl and Lord Scroop having claimed the privilege of being tried by the peers, were remanded to prison, but sentence of death in the usual manner was pronounced against Grey, and he was immediately executed; though, in consequence of Henry having dispensed with his being drawn and hung, he was allowed to walk from the Watergate to the Northgate of the town of Southampton, where he was beheaded. A commission was soon afterwards issued, addressed to the Duke of Clarence, for the trial of the Earl of Cambridge and Lord Scroop: this court unanimously declared the prisoners guilty, and sentence of death having been denounced against them, they paid the forfeit of their lives on Monday, the 5th of August. In consideration of the earl being of the blood royal, he was merely beheaded; but to mark the perfidy and ingratitude of Scroop, who had enjoyed the king’s utmost confidence and friendship, and had even shared his bed, he commanded that he should be drawn to the place of execution, and that his head should be affixed on one of the gates of the city of York. —Nicolas’s History of the Battle of Agincourt.
[ HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT SECOND.]
([A]) ——the man that was his bedfellow,] So, Holinshed: “The said Lord Scroop was in such favour with the king, that he admitted him sometimes to be his bedfellow.” The familiar appellation, of bedfellow, which appears strange to us, was common among the ancient nobility. There is a letter from the sixth Earl of Northumberland (still preserved in the collection of the present duke), addressed “To his beloved cousin, Thomas Arundel,” &c., which begins “Bedfellow, after my most hasté recommendation.” —Steevens.
This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of the last century, if not later. Cromwell obtained much of his intelligence, during the civil wars, from the mean men with whom he slept. —Malone.
After the battle of Dreux, 1562, the Prince of Condé slept in the same bed with the Duke of Guise; an anecdote frequently cited, to show the magnanimity of the latter, who slept soundly, though so near his greatest enemy, then his prisoner. —Nares.
([B]) For me,—the gold of France did not seduce;] Holinshed observes, “that Richard, Earl of Cambridge, did not conspire with the Lord Scroop and Thomas Grey, for the murdering of King Henry to please the French king, but only to the intent to exalt to the crown his brother-in-law Edmund, Earl of March, as heir to Lionel, Duke of Clarence; after the death of which Earl of March, for divers secret impediments not able to have issue, the Earl of Cambridge was sure that the crown should come to him by his wife, and to his children of her begotten; and therefore (as was thought), he rather confessed himself for need of money to be corrupted by the French king, than he would declare his inward mind, &c., which if it were espied, he saw plainly that the Earl of March should have tasted of the same cup that he had drunk, and what should have come to his own children he merely doubted, &c.”
A million of gold is stated to have been given by France to the conspirators.
Historians have, however, generally expressed their utter inability to explain upon what grounds the conspirators built their expectation of success; and unless they had been promised powerful assistance from France, the design seems to have been one of the most absurd and hopeless upon record. The confession of the Earl of Cambridge, and his supplication for mercy in his own hand writing, is in the British Museum.
([C]) Touching our person, seek we no revenge;] This speech is taken from Holinshed:—
“Revenge herein touching my person, though I seek not; yet for the safeguard of my dear friends, and for due preservation of all sorts, I am by office to cause example to be showed: Get ye hence, therefore, you poor miserable wretches, to the receiving of your just reward, wherein God’s majesty give you grace of his mercy, and repentance of your heinous offences.”
([D]) Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:] “The king went from his castle of Porchester in a small vessel to the sea, and embarking on board his ship, called The Trinity, between the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, he immediately ordered that the sail should be set, to signify his readiness to depart.” “There were about fifteen hundred vessels, including about a hundred which were left behind. After having passed the Isle of Wight, swans were seen swimming in the midst of the fleet, which, in the opinion of all, were said to be happy auspices of the undertaking. On the next day, the king entered the mouth of the Seine, and cast anchor before a place called Kidecaus, about three miles from Harfleur, where he proposed landing.” —Nicolas’s History of Agincourt.
The departure of Henry’s army on this occasion, and the separation between those who composed it and their relatives and friends, is thus described by Drayton, who was born in 1563, and died in 1631:—
There might a man have seen in every street,
The father bidding farewell to his son;
Small children kneeling at their father’s feet:
The wife with her dear husband ne’er had done:
Brother, his brother, with adieu to greet:
One friend to take leave of another, run;
The maiden with her best belov’d to part,
Gave him her hand who took away her heart.
The nobler youth the common rank above,
On their curveting coursers mounted fair:
One wore his mistress’ garter, one her glove;
And he a lock of his dear lady’s hair:
And he her colours, whom he did most love;
There was not one but did some favour wear:
And each one took it, on his happy speed,
To make it famous by some knightly deed.
([E]) Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, the Constable, and others.] Charles VI., surnamed the Well Beloved, was King of France during the most disastrous period of its history. He ascended the throne in 1380, when only thirteen years of age. In 1385 he married Isabella of Bavaria, who was equally remarkable for her beauty and her depravity. The unfortunate king was subject to fits of insanity, which lasted for several months at a time. On the 21st October, 1422, seven years after the battle of Agincourt, Charles VI. ended his unhappy life at the age of 55, having reigned 42 years. Lewis the Dauphin was the eldest son of Charles VI. He was born 22nd January, 1396, and died before his father, December 18th, 1415, in his twentieth year. History says, “Shortly after the battle of Agincourt, either for melancholy that he had for the loss, or by some sudden disease, Lewis, Dovphin of Viennois, heir apparent to the French king, departed this life without issue.”
John, Duke of Burgundy, surnamed the Fearless, succeeded to the dukedom in 1403. He caused the Duke of Orleans to be assassinated in the streets of Paris, and was himself murdered August 28, 1419, on the bridge of Montereau, at an interview with the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. John was succeeded by his only son, who bore the title of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.
The Constable, Charles D’Albret, commanded the French army at the Battle of Agincourt, and was slain on the field.
[ Enter Chorus.]
Chor. Thus with imagin’d wing our swift scene flies,
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king[1] at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty;[2] and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning:
Play with your fancies; and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus’d; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow’d sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage,[3] and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy;[4]
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past, or not arriv’d to, pith and puissance;
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich’d
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull’d and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back;
Tells Harry—that the king doth offer him
Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner
With linstock[5] now the devilish cannon touches,
Alarums, and cannon shot off.
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
Exit.