His folly to the metal of my speech?
There then; how then? what then? let me fee wherein
My tongue has wrong'd him; if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
Why, then my taxing, like a wild-goose, flies
HENRY AND LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.
CH. JUST. I AM affured, if I be measured rightly,
Your majefly hath no just cause to hate me.
P. HENRY. No! might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prifon
Th' immediate heir of England! was this easy?
May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten?
CH. JUST. I then did ufe the perfon of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me :
And in th' administration of his law,
While I was bufy for the commonwealth,
Your highnefs pleafed to forget my place,
The majesty and pow'r of law and juftice,
The image of the king whom I prefented;
And ftruck me in the very feat of judgment:
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority,
And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a fon fet your decrees at nought:
To pluck down juftice from your awful bench,
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and fafety of your perfon:
Nay more, to fpurn at your most royal image,
And mock your working in a fecond body.
Question your royal thoughts, make the cafe yours;
Be now the father and propose a son;
Hear your own dignity fo much profan'd;
See your moft dreadful laws fo loosely flighted;
Behold yourself fo by a fon disdain'd:
And then imagine me taking your part,
And in your pow'r fo filencing your fon,
After this cold confid'rance, fentence me;
And, as you are a king, fpeak in your flate,
What I have done that mitbecame my place,
My perfon, or my liege's fovereignty.
P. HENRY. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this
Therefore ftill bear the balance and the fword;
And I do with your honours may increase,
Till you do live to fee a fon of mine
Offend you, and obey you, as I did :
So fhall I live to speak my father's words;
Happy am I, that have a man fo bold
That dares do juftice on my proper fon;
And no lefs happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness fo
Into the band of juftice."-You committed me;
For which I do commit into your
hand
Th' unftain'd fword that you have us'd to bear ;
With this remembrance, that you use the fame
With a like bold, juft, and impartial fpirit,
As have done 'gainst me.
You fhall be as a father to my youth:
My voice fhall found as you do prompt mine ear;
And I will ftoop and humble my intents
To your well practis'd wife directions.
And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
My father is gone wild into his grave;
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his fpirit fadly I furvive,
To mock the expectations of the world;
To fruftrate prophecies, and to raze out
Rotten opinion, which hath writ me down
After my feeming. Though my tide of blood
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now;
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the fate of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majefty.
Now call we our high court of Parliament:
And let us chufe fuch limbs of noble counfei,
That the great body of our effate may go
In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
That war or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us,
In which you, father, fhall have foremost hand.
Our coronation done, we will accite
(As I before remember'd) all our state,
And (Heav'n cònfigning to my good intents)
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,
Heav'n fhorten Harry's happy life one day.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND BISHOP
OF ELY.
CANT. MY Lord, I'll tell you; that felf bill is urg'd,
Which, in the eleventh year o' th laft king's reign,
Was like, and had indeed against us pafs'd,
But that the fcrambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question.
ELY. But how, my lord, fhall we refift it now?
CANT. It must be thought on. If it pafs against us,
We lofe the better half of our poffeffion :
For all the temporal lands which men devout,
By teftament have given to the church,
Would they ftrip from us; being valu'd thus;
As much as would maintain to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good efquires;
And to relief of lazers and weak age
Of indigent faint fouls, paft corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houfes right well fupply'd;
And to the coffers of the king, befide,
A thousand pounds by th' year. Thus runs the billa
ELY. This would drink deep.
CANT. 'Twould drink the cup and all.
ELY. But what prevention ?
CANT. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
ELY. And a true lover of the holy church.
CANT. The courfes of his youth promis'd it not;:
The breath no fooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortify'd in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Confideration, like an angel, came,
And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradife,
T'envelope and contain celeftial fpirits.
Never was fuch a fudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood
With fuch a heady current, fcouring faults:
Nor ever hydra-headed wilfulness
Se foon did lose his feat, and all at once,
As in this king.
ELY. We're bleffed in the change.
CANT. Hear him but reafon in divinity,
And, all-adıniring, with an inward with
You would defire, the king were made a prelate.
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You'd fay it had been all in all his study.
Lift his difcourfe of war, and you fhall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in mufic.
Turn him to any caufe of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloofe,
Familiar as his garter. When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is ftill;
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To fteal his fweet and honeyed fentences:
So that the act and practic part of life,
Must be the mistress to this theorique.
Which is a wonder how his grace thould glean it,
Since his addiction was to courfes vain;
His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him, any ftudy,
Any retirement, any fequeftration
From open haunts, and popularity.
ELY. The ftrawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholefome berries thrive, and ripen best, Neighbour'd by fruit of bafer quality :
And fo the prince obfcur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the fummer-grafs, fafteft by night,
Unfeen, yet crefcive in his faculty.
CANT. It must be fo: for miracles are ceas'd
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.
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