ARCHBISHOP.
No, no, my lord. Note this; the King is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances;
For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life;
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance. For full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion.
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear’d to execution.
HASTINGS.
Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement;
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.
ARCHBISHOP.
’Tis very true,
And therefore be assured, my good Lord Marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
MOWBRAY.
Be it so.
Here is return’d my Lord of Westmoreland.
Enter Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND.
The prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship
To meet his Grace just distance ’tween our armies.
MOWBRAY.
Your Grace of York, in God’s name then set forward.
ARCHBISHOP.
Before, and greet his Grace. My lord, we come.
[Exeunt.]