[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 self1 bill is urg'd,

Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling3 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,

10

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 valu'd 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 suppli'd;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

21

"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 promis'd it not. The breath no sooner left his father's body, But that his wildness, mortifi'd in him, Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment Consideration, like an angel, came

And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

T envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,

1 Self, same. 2 Was like, was likely to pass

3 Scambling, scrambling, turbulent.

4 Lazars, diseased beggars or lepers.

5 Mortif'd, destroyed, killed.

30

Ely.

39/

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'd 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 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;
So that the art and practic7 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.10

50

SCENE II. The same.

A room of state in the King's palace.

Trumpets.-KING HENRY on throne, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, Lords, Officers, and Attendants discovered.

King. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

Exe. Not here in presence.
King.

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

King. Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolv'd,2

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

10

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 approbation3

Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 20 Therefore take heed how you impawn1 our

The founder of this law and female bar. 42
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;

Where Charles the Great,1 having subdu'd the
Saxons,

50

There left behind and settl'd certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd then 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 Meisen.
Then 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 defunction3 of King Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred and twenty-six; and Charles the
Great

61

81

That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lor-
raine:

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; 90
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 imbar their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

King.] May I with right and conscience) make this claim?

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

99

For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back into 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!]

110

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead

6

[And with your puissant arm renew their feats. You are their heir; you sit upon their throne; ]{ The blood and courage that renowned them

5 Lineal of, in direct descent from.

6 Unwind your bloody flag, unfurl your battle pennon or banner.

7 Great grandsire, i.e. Edward III.

Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege

Is in the very May-morn of his youth, 120 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 pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,

130

160

For hear her but exampl'd 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 her 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 tear and havoc11 more than she can eat.

13

170

Make boot upon1 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,

195

The poor mechanic porters crowding in 200
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to execútors3 pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously:

220

Let us be worried and our nation lose
The name of hardiness and policy. ]
King. Call in the messengers sent from the
Dauphin.

[Exeunt some Lords and Attendants. Now are we well resolv'd; 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 empery1

O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, Tombless, with no remembrance over them:

4 Empery, dominion.