West. Then, my[4000]30
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,[4001]
And countenanced by boys and beggary,35
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,[4002]
In his true, native and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form[4003]
Of base and bloody insurrection40
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,[4004]
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd,[4005]
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
Whose white investments figure innocence,[4006]45
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself
Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,[4007]50
Your pens to lances and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet and a point of war?[4008]
Arch. Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.
Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
And with our surfeiting and wanton hours[4009]55
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,[4009]
And we must bleed for it; of which disease[4009]
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.[4009]
But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,[4009]
I take not on me here as a physician,[4009]60
Nor do I as an enemy to peace[4009]
Troop in the throngs of military men;[4009]
But rather show awhile like fearful war,[4009]
To diet rank minds sick of happiness[4009]
And purge the obstructions which begin to stop[4009]65
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.[4009]
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd[4009]
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer.[4009]
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.[4009]
We see which way the stream of time doth run,[4009]70
And are enforced from our most quiet there[4009][4010]
By the rough torrent of occasion;[4009]
And have the summary of all our griefs,[4009]
When time shall serve, to show in articles;[4009]
Which long ere this we offer'd to the king,[4009]75
And might by no suit gain our audience:[4009][4011]
When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs,[4009]
We are denied access unto his person[4009]
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.[4009]
The dangers of the days but newly gone,[4012]80
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood, and the examples
Of every minute's instance, present now,[4013]
Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,[4014]
Not to break peace or any branch of it,85
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
West. When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you,90
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?[4015]
Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth,[4016]
To brother born an household cruelty;[4017]95
I make my quarrel in particular.
West. There is no need of any such redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
Mowb. Why not to him in part, and to us all
That feel the bruises of the days before,100
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand[4018][4019]
Upon our honours?[4018]
West. O, my good Lord Mowbray,[4020]
Construe the times to their necessities,[4020]
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,[4020]105
And not the king, that doth you injuries.[4020]
Yet for your part, it not appears to me[4020]
Either from the king or in the present time[4020][4021]
That you should have an inch of any ground[4020]
To build a grief on: were you not restored[4020]110
To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories,[4020]
Your noble and right well remember'd father's?[4020]
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father lost,[4020]
That need to be revived and breathed in me?[4020]
The king that loved him, as the state stood then,[4020]115
Was force perforce compell'd to banish him:[4020][4022]
And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,[4020][4023][4024]
Being mounted and both roused in their seats,[4020][4024]
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,[4020][4024][4025]
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,[4020][4024]120
Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel[4020][4024][4026]
And the loud trumpet blowing them together,[4020][4024]
Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd[4020][4024]
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,[4020][4024]
O, when the king did throw his warder down,[4020][4024][4027]125
His own life hung upon the staff he threw;[4020]
Then threw he down himself and all their lives[4020]
That by indictment and by dint of sword[4020][4028]
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.[4020]
West. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.[4020]130
The Earl of Hereford was reputed then[4020][4029]
In England the most valiant gentleman:[4020]
Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?[4020]
But if your father had been victor there,[4020]
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:[4020]135
For all the country in a general voice[4020]
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love[4020][4030]
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on[4020][4031]
And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king.[4020][4032]
But this is mere digression from my purpose.[4033]140
Here come I from our princely general
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,[4034]
You shall enjoy them, every thing set off[4034]145
That might so much as think you enemies.[4035]
Mowb. But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.