Grey. } To which we all appeal.
Scroop. }
K. Hen. The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:80
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,[4722]
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.[4723]
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,[4724]85
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents[4725]
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
And sworn unto the practices of France,90
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!95
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use,
May it be possible, that foreign hire100
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[4726]
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.[4727]
Treason and murder ever kept together,105
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,[4728]
That admiration did not whoop at them:[4729]
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:[4730]110
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously[4731]
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:[4732]
All other devils that suggest by treasons[4733]
Do botch and bungle up damnation115
With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd[4734]
From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,[4735]
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.120
If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,[4736]
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions 'I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'125
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?[4737]
Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?130
Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,[4738]
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,[4739]
Not working with the eye without the ear,[4740]135
And but in purged judgement trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued[4741]
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;[4741][4742]140
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!
Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of145
Richard Earl of Cambridge.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry[4743]
Lord Scroop of Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas
Grey, knight, of Northumberland.[4744]150
Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;
And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.
Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce;[4745]155
Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But God be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,[4746]
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.160
Grey. 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 enterprise:
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.165
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
You have conspired against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd and from his coffers[4747]
Received the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,170
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt
And his whole kingdom into desolation.[4748]
Touching our person seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,175
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws[4749]
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,[4750]
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance180
Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, guarded.[4751]