Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning th' accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
SCENE I.-London. The Presence-chamber in the King's Palace.
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the BISHOP OF ELY.
Cant. My lord, I'll tell you,—that self bill is urg'd,
Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question.
Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possessions;
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valued thus,—
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires ;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king, beside,
A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.
Ely. But what prevention ?
'Twould drink the cup and all.
Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration, like an angel, came,
And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor never hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.
We are blesséd in the change.
Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You'd say it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music :
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter :-that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:
Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain;
His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.
Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness. But, my lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons ?
Incline to it, or no?
Cant.
He seems indifferent ;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing th' exhibiters against us :
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
As touching France,—to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.
How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save that there was not time enough to hear—
As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done-
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
Ely. What was th' impediment that broke this off?
Cant. The French ambassador upon that instant
Crav'd audience;-and the hour, I think, is come
To give him hearing: is it four o'clock ?
Then stay, to know his embassy;
Which I could, with a ready guess, declare,
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it.
Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants.
Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege?
Not yet, my cousin : we would be resolv'd,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
Cant. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,
And make you long become it!
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim :
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the sword
That makes such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.
Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,—and you peers, That owe yourselves, your lives, and services
To this imperial throne.—There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,—
"No woman shall succeed in Salique land”:
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe.
Then doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not deviséd for the realm of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Louis his possession, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female :
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
K. Hen. May I with right and conscience make this claim?
Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign !
For in the Book of Numbers is it writ,
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back into your mighty ancestors :
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France,
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France!
Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats :
You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage that renownéd them
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood :
They know your grace hath cause and means and might.
West. So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
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