behold. Sweet men, come to him. Exit.
NYM The King hath run bad humours on the knight,
120
that’s the even of it.
PISTOL Nym, thou hast spoke the right;
His heart is fracted and corroborate.
NYM The King is a good king, but it must be as it
may. He passes some humours and careers.
125
PISTOL Let us condole the knight, for, lambkins, we will
live. Exeunt.
2.2 Enter EXETER, BEDFORD and WESTMORLAND.
BEDFORD
’Fore God, his grace is bold to trust these traitors.
EXETER They shall be apprehended by and by.
WESTMORLAND
How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!
5
BEDFORD The King hath note of all that they intend,
By interception, which they dream not of.
EXETER Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious favours,
That he should for a foreign purse so sell
10
His sovereign’s life to death and treachery!
Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, SCROOP,
CAMBRIDGE and GREY, lords and soldiers.
KING Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. –
My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
15
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them?
SCROOP No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
KING I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
20
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.
CAMBRIDGE
Never was monarch better feared and loved
25
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 True: those that were your father’s enemies
Have steeped their galls in honey and do serve you
30
With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
KING We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our hand
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to their weight and worthiness.
35
SCROOP So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
And labour shall refresh itself with hope
To do your grace incessant services.
KING We judge no less. – Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday
40
That railed against our person. We consider
It was excess of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him.
SCROOP That’s mercy, but too much security.
Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example
45
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING O let us yet be merciful.
CAMBRIDGE So may your highness, and yet punish too.
GREY Sir,
You show great mercy if you give him life,
50
After the taste of much correction.
KING Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults proceeding on distemper
Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
55
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.
60
Who are the late commissioners?
CAMBRIDGE I one, my lord;
Your highness bade me ask for it today.
SCROOP So did you me, my liege.
GREY And me, my royal sovereign.
65
KING [Gives papers.]
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 Westmorland and uncle Exeter,
70
We will aboard tonight. – 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
75
Out of appearance?
[Cambridge, Scroop and Grey fall upon their knees.]
CAMBRIDGE I do confess my fault
And do submit me to your highness’ mercy.
GREY, SCROOP To which we all appeal.
KING The mercy that was quick in us but late
By your own counsel is suppressed and killed:
80
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. –
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge here,
85
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath for a few light crowns lightly conspired
And sworn unto the practices of France
90
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 oh,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature,
95
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knewst 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
100
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 on white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
105
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly 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;
110
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
115
With patches, colours 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 wit
h the name of traitor.
120
If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion-gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back
And tell the legions ‘I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.’
125
O how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
130
Why, so didst thou. 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,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
135
And but in purged judgement trusting neither?
Such and so finely boulted 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,
140
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!
[Cambridge, Scroop and Grey rise.]
EXETER I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
145
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.
150
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.
CAMBRIDGE For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
155
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.
160
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.
165
KING God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed and fixed,
And from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death;
170
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,
175
But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get ye therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
The taste whereof God of his mercy give
180
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences! – Bear them hence.
Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, 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,
185
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver
190
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance.
No king of England, if not king of France!
Flourish. Exeunt.
2.3 Enter PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH, Boy and Hostess.
HOSTESS Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring
thee to Staines.
PISTOL No; for my manly heart doth earn.
Bardolph, be blithe. Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins.
Boy, bristle thy courage up;
5
For Falstaff he is dead, and we must earn therefore.
BARDOLPH Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is,
either in heaven or in hell!
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 187
