THE LIFE OF

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

s King

KING HENRY the Fifth.

CHARLES the Sixth, King of DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,

brothers

France. DUKE OF BEDFORD,

to the LEWIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, DUKE OF EXETER, uncle to the and BOURBOX. King

The Constable of France. DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King. RAMBURES and GRANDPRÉ, French Earls or SALISBURY, WESTMONE. Lords. LAND, and WARWICK.

Governor of Harfleur. - ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. MONTJOY, a French Herald. BISHOP OF ELY.

Ambassadors to the King of Eng. EARL OF CAMBRIDGE,

land. LORD SCROOP.

ISABEL, Queen of France. SIR THOMAS GREY.

KATHARINE, daughter to Charles Sir Thomas ERPINGHAM, GOWER, and Isabel.

FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS, JAMY, ALICE, a lady attending on her. officers in King Henry's army. Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, Bates, Court, WILLIAMS, soldiers formerly Mistress Quickly, and in the same.

now married to Pistol Pistol, Nyu, BARDOLPII.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Boy.

Citizens, Messengers, and At A Herald

tendants. Chorus,

SCENE: England; afterwards France,

PROLOGUE.

Enter Chorus.
Chor. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlıke Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

(281)

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So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? cr may wc cram
Within this wooden ( the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
0, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchics,

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Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years

30 Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, Admit me Chorus to this history; Wlo prologue-like your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. [Exit.

ACT I.
SCENE I. London. An ante-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 urged,
Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us passid,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther 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 possession:
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the church

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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.
Cint.

"Twould drink the cup and all. 20
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,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of hin,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

30 To envelop and contain celestial spirits. Never was such a sudden scholar made; Never came reformation in a flood, With such a leady currance, 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: 40 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 hcar 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;

50 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 60 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighbour'd 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

70
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 open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet

80 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,
Tiie 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? 90

Cant. The French ambassador upon that instant
Craved audience; and the bour, I think, is come
To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?

Ely. It is.
Cant. Then go we in, 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. [Exeunte

SCENE II. The same. The Presence chamber.
Enter King HENRY, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER,

WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants.
K. Hen. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
Exe. Not here in presence.

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K. IIen.

Send for him, good uncle. West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
That lask our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the Bishop OF

ELY.
Cant. God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And make you long become it!
K. IIen.

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.

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Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
llow you awake our slecping 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
Gaiust him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuratiou speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note and believe in heart

30 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, * In terram Salicam inulieres ne succedant;" “No woman shall succeed in Salique laud:" Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze

40 To be the realm of France and Pharamond The founder of this law and female bar. Yet their own authors faithfully aflirm That the land Saliquc is in Germany,