Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Flu. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great uncle Edward the plack prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

K. Hen. They did, Fluellen.

Flu. Your majesty says very true: If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshman did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty knows, to this hour is an honourable padge of the service; and, I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.

K. Hen. I wear it for a memorable honour: For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

Flu. All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that: Got pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace and his majesty too!

K. Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. By Cheshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

K. Hen. God keep me so!-Our heralds go with him ; Bring me just notice of the numbers dead

On both our parts.- -Call yonder fellow hither.

[Points to WILLIAMS. Exe. MONTJOY, and others. Exe. Soldier, you must come to the king.

K. Hen. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap? Will. An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

K. Hen. An Englishman?

Will. An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night; who, if 'a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' th' ear: or, if I can see my glove in his cap, (which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear, if alive,) I will strike it out soundly.

K. Hen. What think you, captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

Flu. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your majesty, in my conscience.

K. Hen. It may be, his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.'

Flu. Though he be as goot a gentleman as the tevil is, as Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain, and a Jack-sauce, as ever his plack shoe trod upon Got's ground and his earth, in my conscience, la.

K. Hen. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the fellow.

Will. So I will, my liege, as I live.

K. Hen. Who servest thou under?
Will. Under captain Gower, my liege.

Flu. Gower is a goot captain; and is goot knowledge and literature in the wars.

K. Hen. Call him hither to me, soldier.
Will. I will, my liege.

[Exit.

K. Hen. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me, and stick it in thy cap: When Alençon and myself were down together,' I plucked this glove from his helm: if any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost love me.

Flu. Your grace does me as great honours, as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggrieved at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once; an please Got of his grace, that I might see it. K. Hen. Know'st thou Gower?

Flu. He is my dear friend, an please you.

K. Hen. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my

tent.

Flu. I will fetch him.

[Exit.

K. Hen. My lord of Warwick,-and my brother Glos

ter,

Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:

The glove, which I have given him for a favour,
May, haply, purchase him a box o' th' ear;

It is the soldier's; I, by bargain, should

[9] Great sort-high rank. JOHNSON.

A man of such station as is not bound to hazard his person to answer to a chal

lenge from one of the soldier's low degree. JOHNSON.

[2] This circumstance is not an invention of Shakespeare's. Henry was felled to the ground at the battle of Agincourt, by the duke of Alençon, but recovered and slew two of the duke's attendants. MALONE.

6

VOL. VI.

D 2

Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
If that the soldier strike him, (as, I judge
By his blunt bearing, he will keep his word,)
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;

For I do know Fluellen valiant,

And, touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder,

And quickly will return an injury:

Follow, and see there be no harm between them.

Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

SCENE VIII.

[Exeunt.

Before King HENRY's Pavilion. Enter GOWER and WILLIAMS. Will. I warrant, it is to knight you, captain.

Enter FLUEllen.

Flu. Got's will and his pleasure, captain, I peseech you now, come apace to the king: there is more goot toward you, peradventure, than is in your knowledge to dream of. Will. Sir, know you this glove?

Flu. Know the glove? I know, the glove is a glove.
Will. I know this; and thus I challenge it.

[Strikes him. Flu. 'Sblud, an arrant traitor, as any's in the universal

'orld, or in France, or in England.

Gow. How now, sir? you villain!

Will. Do you think I'll be forsworn?

Flu. Stand away, captain Gower; I will give treason his payment into plows, I warrant you.

Will. I am no traitor.

Flu. That's a lie in thy throat.-I charge you in his majesty's name, apprehend him; he's a friend of the duke Alençon's.

Enter WARWICK and GLOSTER.

War. How now, how now! what's the matter?

Flu. My lord of Warwick, here is (praised be Got for it!) a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer's day. Here is his majesty. Enter King HENRY and EXETER.

K. Hen. How now! what's the matter?

Flu. My liege, here is a villain, and a traitor, that, look your grace, has struck the glove which your majesty is take out of the helmet of Alençon.

Will. My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of it and he, that I gave it to in change, promised to wear it in his cap; I promised to strike him, if he did : I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.

Flu. Your majesty hear now, (saving your majesty's manhood,) what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lowsy knave it is I hope, your majesty is pear me testimony, and witness, and avouchments, that this is the glove of Alençon, that your majesty is give me, in your conscience now.

K. Hen. Give me thy glove, soldier; Look, here is the fellow of it. 'Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike; and thou hast given me most bitter terms.

Flu. An please your majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the 'orld.

K. Hen. How canst thou make me satisfaction?

Will. All offences, my liege, come from the heart: never came any from mine, that might offend your majesty. K. Hen. It was ourself thou didst abuse.

Will. Your majesty came not like yourself: you appeared to me but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness; and what your highness suffered under that shape, I beseech you, take it for your own fault, and not mine: for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech your highness, pardon me.

K. Hen. Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns, And give it to this fellow.-Keep it, fellow;

And wear it for an honour in thy cap,

Till I do challenge it.-Give him the crowns :-
And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.

Flu. By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his pelly-Hold, there is twelve pence for you, and I pray you to serve Got, and keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the petter for you.

Will. I will none of your money.

Flu. It is with a goot will I can tell you, it will serve you to mend your shoes: Come, wherefore should you be so pashful? your shoes is not so goot: 'tis a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.

Enter an English Herald.

K. Hen. Now, herald; are the dead number'd?

Her. Here is the number of the slaughter'd French. [Delivers a paper.

K. Hen. What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle? Exe. Charles duke of Orleans, nephew to the king ; John duke of Bourbon, and lord Bouciqualt:

Of other lords, and barons, knights, and 'squires,
Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.

K. Hen. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French,
That in the field lie slain : of princes, in this number,
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
One hundred twenty-six added to these,
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,
Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights:
So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,
There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries ;*

The rest are-princes, barons, lords, knights, 'squires,
And gentlemen of blood and quality.

The names of those their nobles that lie dead,-
Charles De-la-bret, high constable of France;

Jaques of Chatillon, admiral of France;

The master of the cross-bows, lord Rambures;

Great-master of France, the brave sir Guischard Dauphin ; John duke of Alençon; Anthony duke of Brabant,

The brother to the duke of Burgundy;

And Edward duke of Bar: of lusty earls,
Grandpré, and Roussi, Fauconberg, and Foix,
Beaumont, and Marle, Vaudemont, and Lestrale.
Here was a royal fellowship of death !—
Where is the number of our English dead?

[Herald presents another paper.
Edward the duke of York, the earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire ;3
None else of name; and, of all other men,

[2] Mercenaries are in this place common soldiers or hired soldiers. The gentlemen served at their own charge in consequence of their tenures. JOHNSON.

I doubt the accuracy of Dr. Johnson's assertion, that "the gentlemen served at their own charge in consequence of their tenures;" as, I take it, this practice, which was always confined to those holding by knight's service, and to the term of forty days, had fallen into complete disuse long before Henry the Fifth's time; and personal service would not, at that period, have excused the subsidies which were paid in lieu of it. Even the nobility were, for the most part, retained by contract to serve, with the numbers, for the time, and at the wages, specified in the inden ture. RITSON..

[3] This gentleman saved the king's life in the field. Had our poet been apprized of this circumstance, this brave Welshman would probably have been more particularly noticed. MALONE.