A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the

bill.

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 re-
gard.

not.

Ely. What was the impediment that broke
this off?

Cant. The Fre..en ambassador upon that in
stant,
Crav'd audience: and the hour I think is come,
To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock?
Ely.

It is

Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it Which I could, with a ready guess declare,
Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy;
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it.
[Exeunt,
SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in
the same.

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 the offending Adam out of him:
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To 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.

Ely.

We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the king were made a pre-

late:

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would 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 musick:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordiau 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 honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practick part of life
Must be the mistress to this theorick:
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 wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:

And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet cressive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.
Ely.

But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation:
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.
Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd,
lord?

my

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.

Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford, Exeter,
Warwick, Westmoreland, and Attendants.
K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Can-
terbury?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.

West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be

resolv'd,

That task our thoughts, concerning us and
Before we hear him, of some things of weight,

France.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.

Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred throne,

And make you long become it!

K. Hen.

Sure we thank you.
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
Therefore take heed how you impawn our per
Of what your reverence shall incite us to:

son,

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 wo, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the
swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And 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, gracions sovereign,-and

you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, 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,-
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land:
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze,
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former líons of your blood.
West. They know your grace hath cause, and
means, and might:

For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law,-to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisin.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised 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;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clo-
thair,

Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also,-that usurp'd the crown

So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects;
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in Eng-
land,

And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your

right:

In aid whereof, we of the spirituality

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the
French;

But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

Cant. They of those marches, gracious sove-
reign,

Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,-Shall
To fine his title with some show of truth,
(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and
naught,)

Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the
Tenth,

Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain:
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the
. Great

Was reunited to the crown of France.

So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
So do the kings of France unto this day;
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 son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back unto 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
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action!
Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant
dead,

be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatch-
ers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brimfulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbour-
hood.

Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than

harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,-
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,
The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying, very old and true,➡
If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havock more than she can eat.
Ere. It follows then, the cat must stay at home:
Yet that is but a crush'd necessity;
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home:
For government, though high, and low, and
lower,

Put into parts, doth keep in one concent:
Congruing in a full and natural close,

Like music.

Cant.

True; therefore doth heaven divida
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey bees;
Creatures, that by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad

And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage that renowned 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.
Ere. Your brother kings and monarchs of the Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

earth

Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;.

Which pillage they with merry march bring

home

To the tent-royal of their emperor :
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanick porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate:
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,-
That many things, having full reference
To one concent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark;

As many several ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one self sea;
As many lines close in the dial's centre;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice that power ieft at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lose
The name of hardiness, and policy.
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the
Dauphin.

[Exit an Attendant. The King ascends
his Throne.

When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set,
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard:
Tell him, he hath made a match with such a
wrangler,

That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With chaces. And we understand him well
How he comes o'er us with oar wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valu'd this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous license; As 'tis ever common,
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin,-I will keep my state;
Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,
When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
For that I have laid by my majesty,
And plodded like a man for working-days;
But I will rise there with so full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince,-this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful ven-
geance

That shall fly with them: for many a thousand
widows

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;

Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;

And some are yet ungotten, and unborn,

scorn.

Now are we well resolv'd: and, by God's help,-That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,-
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: Or there we'll sit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery,

O'er France, and all her almost kingly duke

doms:

Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Ton bless, with no remembrance over them:
Either our history shall, with full mouth,
Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless
mouth,

Not worship'd with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France.

Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
Of our fair consin Dauphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
Amb. May it please your majesty, to give us
leave

Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The Dauphin's meaning, and our embassy?
K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian
king;

Unto whose grace our passion is as subject,
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
Therefore, with frank and with uncurbed plain-
ness,

Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
Amb.
Thus then, in few,
Your highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predecessor, King Edward the
Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master
Says, that you savour too much of your youth;
And bids you be advis'd there's nought in France,
That can be with a nimble galliard won;
You cannot revel into dukedoms there :
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you, let the dukedoms, that you claim,
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?
Exe.

sant with us;

Tennis-balls, my liege.

But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal; And in whose name,
Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,
To venge me as I may, and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well hallow'd cause.
So, get you hence in peace; and tell the Dan.
phin,

His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep, more than did laugh at
it-

it.

Convey them with safe conduct.-Fare you well.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.
Ere. This was a merry message.
K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at
Descends from his Throne.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour,
That may give furtherance to our expedition:
For we have now no thought in us but France;
Save those to God, that run before our business.
Therefore, let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected; and all things thought upon,
That may, with reasonable swiftness add
More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
Therefore, let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may on foot be brought.

ACT II.
Enter Chorus.

[Excunt

Chor. Now all the youth of England are on
fire,

And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man:
They sell the pasture now, to buy the horse;
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With winged heels, as English mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air;
And hides a sword, from hilts unto the point,
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,
Promis'd to Harry, and his followers.
The French, advis'd by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,

K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so plea-Shake in their fear; and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.
0 England! model to thy inward greatness,

His present, and your pains we thank you for:

By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy s
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying them.-
See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge
here,-

You know, how apt our love was, to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices of France,

To kill us here in Hampton: to the which,
ene-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,

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!