THE LIFE OF
KING HENRY THE FIFTH
CHOR. O for a Muse of Fire, that would ascend
The brightest Heaven of Invention,1
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
Crouch for employment! But pardon, Gentles all,
The flat unraised Spirits that have dar'd
On this unworthy Scaffold to bring forth
So great an object! Can this Cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O 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, ciphers to this great accompt,
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
The perilous narrow Ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary3 puissance ;*
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
1 i.e. Imagination. 2 capacities of visioning and realising.
unreal, but visible and sufficient.
3 intellectual and
i.c. armies. 3
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our Kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,1
Turning the accomplishment of many years
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.
SCENE I. London. KING HENRY THE FIFTH his Palace.
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the
BISHOP OF ELY.
CANT. My Lord, I'll tell you: that self3 Bill is urg'd
Which in the Eleventh Year of the last King's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
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 faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the King, beside,
A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the Bill. ELY. This would drink deep.
"Twould drink the cup and all.
ELY. But what prevention?
The King is full of grace and fair regard,
And a true lover of the holy Church.
1 i.c. periods.
4 turbulent; scrambling. 3 sick and wounded; 'spital-birds.
CANT. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too. Yea; at that very moment,
Consideration,1 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 flood
With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never hydra-headed Wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this King.
ELY.
CANT. Hear him but reason in Divinity,
We are blessed in the change.
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the King were made a prelate;
Hear him debate of Commonwealth affairs,
You would 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 practic 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.
ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
1 i.e. Reflection, Intelligence.
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.
How now for mitigation of this Bill
Urg'd by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
He seems indifferent;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing the exhibiters2 against us:
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
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
(As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done)
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain Dukedoms
And, generally, to the Crown and Seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY. What was the impediment that broke this
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 speak a word of it.
ELY. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it. [exeunt.
1 growing according to its capacity for growth.
2 Parliamentarians in charge
SCENE II. The Same. The Presence-Chamber.
Enter KING HENRY THE FIFTH, GLOUCESTER, Bedford,
EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants.
K. HEN. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
EXE. Not here in presence.
Send for him, good Uncle.
WEST. Shall we call in the Ambassador, my Liege?
K. HEN. 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 the
BISHOP OF ELY.
CANT. God and His Angels guard your sacred Throne,
And make you long become it!
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 our 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 swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration speak, my Lord;
|