26

KING HENRY V.

ACT

Bard. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, friends: an thou wilt not, why then be enemies with too. Pr'ythee, put up.

Nym. I shall have my eight shillings, I won of you betting?

Pist. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:
I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me ;-
Is not this just ?-for I shall sutler be

Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

Nym. I shall have my noble?

Pist. In cash most justly paid.

Nym. Well then, that's the humour of it.
Re-enter Mrs. QUICKLY.

Quic. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to sir John: Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.

Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the knight, that's the even of it.

Pist. 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.

Pist. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

Southampton. A Council Chamber. Enter EXETER, BEDFORD,

and WESTMORELAND.

Bed. 'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
Exe. They shall be apprehended by and by.

West. How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
As if allegiance in their bosom sat,

Crowned with faith, and constant loyalty.

Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend,

By interception which they dream not of.

Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,"

[7] So Holinshed: "The said Lord Scroop was in such favour with the king, that he admitted him sometimes to be his bedfellow." The familiar appellation of bedfellow, which appears strange to us, was common among the ancient nobility. There is a letter from the sixth Earl of Northumberland, (still preserved in the col

Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with princely favours,-
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery'
Trumpet sounds.

Enter King HENRY, SCROOP, CAM-
BRIDGE, GREY, Lords and Attendants.

K. Hen. 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, 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. K. Hen. 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.

Cam. Never was monarch better fear'd, and lov'd, 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. Even those, that were your father's enemies, Have steep'd their galls in honey; and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness; And shall forget the office of our hand,

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,

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.

K. Hen. We judge no less.-Uncle of Exeter,
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:

lection of the present Duke,) addressed" To his beloved cousyn Thomas Arundel, &c. which begins," Bedfellow, after my most harte recommendation." STEEV. Cromwell obtained much of his intelligence during the civil wars from the mean men with whom he slept. MALONE.

[8] On his return to more coolness of mind. JOHNSON

Let him be punish'd, sovereign; lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
K. Hen. O, let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish too.
Grey. Sir, you show great mercy, if you give him life,
After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. 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 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,

Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes : Who are the late commissioners ?

Cam. I one, my lord ;

Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.

Scroop. So did you me, my liege.

Grey. And me, my royal sovereign.

K. Hen. Then, Richard, earl of Cambridge, there is your's ;

There your's, lord Scroop of Masham ;-and, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is your's :-
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.-
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,
That hath so cowarded and chas'd your blood

Out of appearance?

Cam. I do confess my fault;

And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey, Scroop. To which we all appeal.

K. Hen. 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 them.

See you, my princess, and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge here,-

[7] Distemper of mind is the predominance of a passion, as distemper of body is the predominance of a humour. JOHNSON. [8] i. e. living. JOHNSON.

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 conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices 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 !
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 might'st have coin'd me into gold,
Would'st thou have practis'd 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
As black from 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:

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,
H'ath got the voice in hell for excellence :
And 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,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

If that same dæmon, that hath gull'd 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.

O, how hast thou with jealousy infected'

[8] Palpably with a plain and visible connection of cause and effect. JOHN. [9] That is, Tartarus, the fabled place of future punishment. STEEVENS. [1] Shakespeare uses this aggravation of the guilt of treachery with great judg One of the worst consequences of breach of trust is the diminution of that

ment.

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?

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;
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,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best endued,
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 ;-
And God acquit them of their practices !

Exe. 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.

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,

Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. 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 ;

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,

confidence which makes the happiness of life, and the dissemination of suspicion, which is the poison of society. JOHNSON.

[2] The king means to say of Scroop, that he was a cautious man, who knew that fronti nulla fides, that a specious appearance was deceitful, and therefore did not work without the eye, without the ear, did not trust the air or look of any man till he had tried him by inquiry and conversation. JOHNSON.

[8] That is, refined or purged from all faults. POPE.

Holinshed, p. 549, observes, from Hall, that the earl of Cambridge plotted to destroy the king, that he might place his brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer earl of March, on the throne. STEEVENS.