Pem. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee,
And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forced grave.
That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle,[478]
Three foot of it doth hold: bad world the while!100
This must not be thus borne: this will break out
To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt. [Exeunt Lords.[479]
K. John. They burn in indignation. I repent:[480][481]
There is no sure foundation set on blood,[481]
No certain life achieved by others' death.[481]105
Enter a Messenger.[482]
A fearful eye thou hast: where is that blood
That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?
So foul a sky clears not without a storm:
Pour down thy weather: how goes all in France?
Mess. From France to England. Never such a power[483]110
For any foreign preparation
Was levied in the body of a land.
The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
For when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings comes that they are all arrived.[484]115
K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,[485]
That such an army could be drawn in France,
And she not hear of it?
Mess. My liege, her ear
Is stopp'd with dust; the first of April died120
Your noble mother: and, as I hear, my lord,
The Lady Constance in a frenzy died
Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard; if true or false I know not.
K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!125
O, make a league with me, till I have pleased
My discontented peers! What! mother dead![486]
How wildly then walks my estate in France!
Under whose conduct came those powers of France[487]
That thou for truth givest out are landed here?130
Mess. Under the Dauphin.[488]
K. John. Thou hast made me giddy
With these ill tidings.