We lose the better half of our possession:
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 the year. Thus runs the bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

"T would 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 courses of his youth promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seemed to die too: yea, at that very moment
Consideration like an angel came,

And whipped 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 prelate : 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 rendered 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 chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honeyed 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 unlettered, rude, and shallow; His hours filled 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 Neighboured by fruit of baser quality : And so the prince obscured his contemplation Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night; Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceased; And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill

Urged 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 opened 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 received, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty :
Save that there was not time enough to hear
(As I perceived 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, Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather. Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off?

Cant. The French ambassador, upon that

Before we hear him, of some things of weight That task our thoughts, concerning us and 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
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 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 washed
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious 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:"
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 lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French; Who, holding in disdain the German women, For some dishonest manners of their life, Established 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 called Meisen.
Thus 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 supposed 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 Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also (that usurped the crown
Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great),
To fine his title with some show of truth
(Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught),
Conveyed himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemagne, 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 Lorraine:
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the
Great

Was re-united 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:
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
Usurped 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 upon 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 played 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,
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.

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.

West. They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might.

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 pavilioned 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 spiritualty 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 sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers 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 unfurnished kingdom
Came pouring like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim-fulness of his force:
Galling the gleanéd land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns:
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.

Cant. She hath been, then, more feared than
harmed, 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.

Exe. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home:
Yet that is but a cursed necessity;
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the arméd 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 divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion. To which is fixéd, 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; Others, like soldiers, arméd in their stings, 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 mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; The sad-eyed 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, looséd 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 left 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.
Now are we well resolved: and (by God's help,
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 dukedoms,
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, 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 worshipped with a waxen epitaph.—

Enter Ambassadors of France.

Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin: for we hear
Your greeting is from him, not from the King.
Amb. May it please your majesty to give us

leave

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 advised 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
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?

claim

K. Ien. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us:

for.

His present and your pains we thank you
When we have matched 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 disturbed
With chaces. And we understand him well
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days;
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valued this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence: as 't is 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 shew 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 turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore chargéd for the wasteful vengeance
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
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's

scorn.

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-hallowed cause.
So, get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—
Convey them with safe conduct.-Fare you well.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.

Exe. This was a merry message.
K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
[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.

[Exeunt.

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,
Promised to Harry and his followers.
The French, advised by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,
Shake in their fear, and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.
O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!
But see thy fault: France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills

With treacherous crowns: and three corrupted men
(One, Richard, Earl of Cambridge; and the second,
Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham; and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland)
Have for the gilt of France (O guilt indeed!)
Confirmed conspiracy with fearful France;
And by their hands this grace of kings must die
(If hell and treason hold their promises)
Ere he take ship for France; and in Southampton.
Linger your patience on; and well digest
The abuse of distance, while we force a play.
The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
The King is set from London; and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
There is the playhouse now, there must you
And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass: for, if we may,
We'll not offend one stomach with our play.
But till the King come forth, and not till then,
Unto Southampton do we shift our scene. [Exit.

sit.