K. Hen. I doubt not that; since we are well per

suaded,

We carry not a heart with us from hence,

That grows not in a fair consent1 with ours;
Nor leave not one behind, that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

Cam. Never was monarch better feared, and loved, Than is your majesty; there's not, I think, a subject, That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness

Under the sweet shade of your government.

Grey. Even those, that were your father's enemies, Have steeped their galls in honey; and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;

And shall forget the office of our hand,

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
According to the weight and worthiness.

Scroop. So service shall with steeled sinews toil;
And labor shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

K. Hen. We judge no less.-Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That railed against our person: we consider,
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And, on his more advice, we pardon him.

2

Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security. Let him be punished, sovereign; lest example Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. K. Hen. O, let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish too. Grey. Sir, you show great mercy, if you give him life, After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. Alas, your too much love and care of me Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.

If little faults, proceeding on distemper,3

Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye,

1 "Consent" is accord, agreement.

2 i. e. his better consideration, or more circumspect behavior.
3 " Distemper" here put for intemperance, or riotous excess.

When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested, Appear before us?-We'll yet enlarge that man, Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey,-in their dear

care

And tender preservation of our person,

Would have him punished. And now to our French

causes.

Who are the late1 commissioners?

Cam. I one, my lord;

Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.
Scroop. So did you me, my liege.

Grey. And me, my royal sovereign.

K. Hen. Then, Richard, earl of Cambridge, there is yours;

There yours, lord Scroop of Masham ;—and, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.—
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness:-
My lord of Westmoreland,—and uncle Exeter,-
We will aboard to-night.-Why, how now, gentlemen?
What see you in those papers, that you lose

So much complexion ?-Look ye, how they change!
Their cheeks are paper.-Why, what read you there,
That hath so cowarded and chased your blood
Out of appearance?

Cam.

I do confess my fault;

And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey. Scroop. To which we all appeal.

K. Hen. The mercy, that was quick in us but late, By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.

You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
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 honor; and this man

1 i. e. those lately appointed.

Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
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!
Thou, that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use?
May it be possible, that foreign hire

2

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
As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils swore to either's purpose,
Working so grossly1 in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them;
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder, to wait on treason, and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was,
That wrought upon thee so preposterously,
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
And other devils, that suggest by treasons,
Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched
From glistering semblances of piety;

But he, that tempered thee, bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

If that same demon, that hath gulled thee thus,
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar 3 back,

And tell the legions-I can never win

1 i. e. plainly, evidently.

2 "Did not whoop at them;" that they excited no exclamation of surprise.

3 i. e. Tartarus, the fabled place of future punishment.

A soul so easy as that Englishman's.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance!

Why, so didst thou.

Why, so didst thou.
Why, so didst thou.
Why, so didst thou.

Show men dutiful? Seem they grave and learned? Come they of noble family? Seem they religious? Or are they spare in diet; Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger; Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood; Garnished and decked in modest complement;1 Not working with the eye, without the ear, And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither? Such, and so finely bolted,2 didst thou seem: And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, To mark the full-fraught man, and best endued, With some suspicion. I will weep for thee; 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 of Richard earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discovered; 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;3

1 "Complement" has here the same meaning as in Love's Labor's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1. Bullokar defines it, “ Court ship [i. e. courtiership], fulness, perfection, fine behavior." The gradual change of this word, to its meaning of ceremonious words, may be traced in Blount's Glossography.

2 Bolted is the same as sifted, and has, consequently, the meaning of refined. diverse write

66

3 "For me, the gold of France did not seduce." that Richard earle of Cambridge did not conspire with the lord Scroope, &c. for the murthering of king Henrie, to please the French king withall, but onlie to the intent to exalt the crowne to his brother-in-law Edmund earle of Marche, as heir to Lionel duke of Clarence, who being for diverse

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,'
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

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.

K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your

sentence.

You have conspired against our royal person,

Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death;

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you three sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor, miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.

[Exeunt conspirators, guarded.
Now, lords, for France: the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war;
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,

secret impediments not able to have issue, the earl of Cambridge was sure that the crowne should come to him by his wife, and to his children of her begotten. And therefore (as was thought) he rather confessed himselfe for neede of money to be corrupted by the French king, lest the earl of Marche should have tasted of the same cuppe that he had drunken, and what should have come to his own children he much doubted," &c.— Holinshed.

1 i. e. "at which prevention, in suffering, I will heartily rejoice."