Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my

speech. My fear is, your displeasure, my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech nowe, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making: and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.-B. it known to you (as it is very well) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your pa tience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, 1 break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me,

will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the genlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen be fore in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen'.

1 This epilogue was merely occasional, and alludes to some theatrical transaction. custom of the old players, at the end of their performance, to pray for their patrons. ancient interludes conclude with some solemn prayer for the king or queen, house of Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills.

2 It was the Almost all the commons, &c.

KING

[blocks in formation]

Lords, Messengers, French and English Soldiers, with other Attendants.

[rine.

The SCENE, at the Beginning of the Play, lies in England; but afterwards, wholly in France,

CHORUS.

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 warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire,
fall,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold
The vasty field of France? or may we cram,
Within this wooden O3, the very casques*
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;

And let us, cyphers to this great accompt,

1

On your imaginary forces' work:
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
5 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 thein 10 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
15 Into an hour-glass; For the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

The transactions comprised in this historical play commence about the latter end of the first, and terminate in the eighth year of this king's reign; when he married Katharine princess of France, and closed up the differences betwixt England and that crown. It was writ (as appears from a passage in the chorus of the fifth act) at the time of the earl of Essex's commanding the forces in Ireland in the reign of queen Elizabeth, and not 'till after Henry the VIth had been played, as may be seen by the conclusion of this play. This goes upon the notion of the Peripatetic system, which imagines several heavens one above another; the last and highest of which was one of fire. 'i. e. this wooden circle. *The helmets. ' i. e. your powers of fancy. Perilous narrow, in burlesque and common language, meant no more than very narrow. In old books this mode of expression occurs perpetually. ACT

2

11

SCENE I.

ACT I

An Antichamber in the English Court, at Kenelworth. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely

Cant. MY lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is

urg'd,

Which, in the eleventh year o'the last king's reign,
Was like, and had indeed against us past,
But that the scambling' and unquiet time
Did push it out of further 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,

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 and faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houses, right well supply'd;
And to the coffers of the king, beside,

5

JA 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 stili,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
So that the art, and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theorique':

10 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 till'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,

15 Any retirement, auy sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

4

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle;

And wholesome berries thrive, and ripen best, 20 Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:

A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill. 25
Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant. "Twould 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, mortify'd 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 him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood2,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

And so the prince obscur'd 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 ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.

Ely. But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill

30 Urg'd 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:
35 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
40 Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty:
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
45 (As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done)
The severals, and unhidden passages,

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:
Hear him debate of common-wealth affairs,
You would say, it hath been all-and-all his study: 50
List his discourse in war, and you shall hear

them.

Of his true titles' to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, to the crown and sat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke this

[ocr errors][merged small]

Meaning, when every one scambled, i. e. scrambled and shifted for himself as well as he could, Alluding to the method by which Hercules cleansed the Augean stables when he turned a river through * That is, his theory must have been taught by art and practice. Theoric or theorique is what terminates in speculation. *i. e. The wild fruit so called, which grows in the woods. i. e. Increasing in its proper power. The passages of his titles are the lines of succession by whichhis claims descend. Unhidden is open, clear.

Cant.

Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant,
Crav'd audience: and the hour, 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 speaks a word of it.
Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it.
[Exeunt.

SCENE

Opens to the presence.

II.

Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford, Warwick,
Westmoreland, and Exeter.

K. Henry. Where is my gracious lord of Can-
terbury?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Henry. Send for him, good uncle'.
West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
K. Henry. Not yet, my cousin; we would be
resolv'd,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task our thoughts', concerning us and France.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop
of Ely.

Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
5 That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the great, having subdu'd the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
10 Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law, to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
15 Is at this day in Germany call'd—Meisen.
Thus 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
20 After defunction of king Pharamond,

Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred 25 throne,

And make you long become it!

K. Henry. 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:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake the sleeping 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,
'Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the
sword

'That makes such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptisin.

Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great
Subdu'd the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair,
30 Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also,-that usurp'd the crown
Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the great,~~
To fine his title with some shew of truth,
35 (Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught
Convey'd himself as heir to the lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the great. Also king Lewis the uinth,
40 Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, 'till satisfy'd
That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the lady Ermengare,

45 Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain;
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,
50 King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather chuse to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare' their crookd titles,
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
K. Henry. May 1, with right and conscience,
make this claim?

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and 55

you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, 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,-60
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land.

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
For in the book of Numbers it is writ-
When the son dies, let the inheritance

'John Holland, duke of Exeter, was married to Elizabeth the king's aunt.
our mind busied with scruples and laborious disquisitions.
supporting that title which shall be now set up.

Meaning, keep

i. e. spurious. 4i. e. in proving and This whole speech is copied from Holinshed. i. e. to make it shewy or specious by some appearance of justice. i. e. lay open, display to view.

Descend

« PreviousContinue »