TPTT The Life of Henry the Fifth: ACT II
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
PROLOGUE
SCENE I. London. A street.
SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber.
SCENE III. London. Before a tavern.
SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace.
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber.
Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND
BEDFORD
      'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
EXETER
      They shall be apprehended by and by.
WESTMORELAND
      How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
      As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
5     Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.
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 dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,
10    That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
      His sovereign's life to death and treachery.
Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY V, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and Attendants
KING HENRY V
      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:
15    Think you not that the powers we bear with us
      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 HENRY V
20    I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded
      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
25    Never was monarch better fear'd and loved
      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
30    Have steep'd their galls in honey and do serve you
      With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
KING HENRY V
      We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;
      And shall forget the office of our hand,
      Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
35    According to the weight and worthiness.
SCROOP
      So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
      And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
      To do your grace incessant services.
KING HENRY V
      We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
40    Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
      That rail'd 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:
45    Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
      Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING HENRY V
      O, let us yet be merciful.
CAMBRIDGE
      So may your highness, and yet punish too.
GREY
      Sir,
50    You show great mercy, if you give him life,
      After the taste of much correction.
KING HENRY V
      Alas, your too much love and care of me
      Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!
      If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
55    Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
      When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd 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,
60    Would have him punished. And now to our French causes:
      Who are the late commissioners?
CAMBRIDGE
      I one, my lord:
      Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.
SCROOP
      So did you me, my liege.
GREY
65    And I, my royal sovereign.
KING HENRY V
      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.
70    My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
      We will aboard to night. 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
75    That hath so cowarded and chased your blood
      Out of appearance?
CAMBRIDGE
      I do confess my fault;
      And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
GREY
SCROOP
      To which we all appeal.
KING HENRY V
80    The mercy that was quick in us but late,
      By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
      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.
85    See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
      These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,
      You know how apt our love was to accord
      To furnish him with all appertinents
      Belonging to his honour; and this man
90    Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
      And sworn unto the practises of France,
      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, O,
95    What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,
      Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!
      Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
      That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
      That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
100   Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use,
      May it be possible, that foreign hire
      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
105   As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
      Treason and murder ever kept together,
      As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
      Working so grossly in a natural cause,
      That admiration did not whoop at them:
110   But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
      Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
      And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
      That wrought upon thee so preposterously
      Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
115   All other devils that suggest by treasons
      Do botch and bungle up damnation
      With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
      From glistering semblances of piety;
      But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
120   Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
      Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
      If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
      Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
      He might return to vasty Tartar back,
125   And tell the legions 'I can never win
      A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'
      O, how hast thou with 'jealousy infected
      The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
      Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?
130   Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
      Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
      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,
135   Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
      Not working with the eye without the ear,
      And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
      Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
      And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
140   To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
      With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
      For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
      Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
      Arrest them to the answer of the law;
145   And God acquit them of their practises!
EXETER
      I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
      Richard Earl of Cambridge.
      I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
      Henry Lord Scroop of Masham.
150   I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
      Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.
SCROOP
      Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;
      And I repent my fault more than my death;
      Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
155   Although my body pay the price of it.
CAMBRIDGE
      For me, the gold of France did not seduce;
      Although I did admit it as a motive
      The sooner to effect what I intended:
      But God be thanked for prevention;
160   Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
      Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
GREY
      Never did faithful subject more rejoice
      At the discovery of most dangerous treason
      Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself.
165   Prevented from a damned enterprise:
      My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
KING HENRY V
      God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
      You have conspired against our royal person,
      Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd and from his coffers
170   Received the golden earnest of our death;
      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.
175   Touching our person seek we no revenge;
      But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
      Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
      We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
      Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
180   The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
      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.
185   We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
      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.
190   Then forth, dear countrymen: let us deliver
      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.
Exeunt
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