HENRY THE FIFTH

Act 2 Scene 2

(Enter the Dukes of Exeter and Gloucester, and the Earl of Westmorland)
l1l	[Gloucester]	 Fore God, his grace is bold to trust these traitors.
l2l	Exeter	They shall be apprehended by and by.
l3l	Westmorland	How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
l4l		As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
l5l		Crownèd with faith and constant loyalty.
l6l	[Gloucester]	The King hath note of all that they intend,
l7l		By interception which they dream not of.
l8l	Exeter	Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
l9l		Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious favours—
l10l		That he should for a foreign purse so sell
l11l		His sovereign’s life to death and treachery.
		(Sound trumpets. Enter King Harry, Lord Scrope, the Earl of Cambridge, and Sir Thomas Grey)
l12l	King Harry	 Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
l13l		My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham,
l14l		And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.
l15l		Think you not that the powers we bear with us
l16l		Will cut their passage through the force of France,
l17l		Doing the execution and the act
l18l		For which we have in head assembled them?
l19l	Scrope	No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
l20l	King Harry	I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
l21l		We carry not a heart with us from hence
l22l		That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
l23l		Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
l24l		Success and conquest to attend on us.
l25l	Cambridge	Never was monarch better feared and loved
l26l		Than is your majesty. There’s not, I think, a subject
l27l		That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
l28l		Under the sweet shade of your government.
l29l	Grey	True. Those that were your father’s enemies
l30l		Have steeped their galls in honey, and do serve you
l31l		With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
l32l	King Harry	We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
l33l		And shall forget the office of our hand
l34l		Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
l35l		According to their weight and worthiness.
l36l	Scrope	So service shall with steelèd sinews toil,
l37l		And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
l38l		To do your grace incessant services.
l39l	King Harry	We judge no less.—Uncle of Exeter,
l40l		Enlarge the man committed yesterday
l41l		That railed against our person. We consider
l42l		It was excess of wine that set him on,
l43l		And on his more advice we pardon him.
l44l	Scrope	That’s mercy, but too much security.
l45l		Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example
l46l		Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
l47l	King Harry	O let us yet be merciful.
l48l	Cambridge	So may your highness, and yet punish too.
l49l	Grey	Sir, you show great mercy if you give him life,
l50l		After the taste of much correction.
l51l	King Harry	Alas, your too much love and care of me
l52l		Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch.
l53l		If little faults proceeding on distemper
l54l		Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
l55l		When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
l56l		Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man,
l57l		Though Cambridge, Scrope, and Grey, in their dear care
l58l		And tender preservation of our person,
l59l		Would have him punished. And now to our French causes.
l60l		Who are the late commissioners?
	Cambridge	I one, my lord.
l61l		Your highness bade me ask for it today.
l62l	Scrope	So did you me, my liege.
	Grey	And I, my royal sovereign.
l63l	King Harry	Then Richard, Earl of Cambridge, there is yours#
l64l		There yours, Lord Scrope of Masham, and sir knight,
l65l		Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.
l66l		Read them, and know I know your worthiness.—
l67l		My lord of Westmorland, and Uncle Exeter,
l68l		We will aboard tonight.—Why, how now, gentlemen?
l69l		What see you in those papers, that you lose
l70l		So much complexion?—Look ye how they change:
l71l		Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there
l72l		That have so cowarded and chased your blood
l73l		Out of appearance?
	Cambridge	I do confess my fault,
l74l		And do submit me to your highness’ mercy.
l75l	Grey And Scrope	To which we all appeal.
l76l	King Harry	The mercy that was quick in us but late
l77l		By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.
l78l		You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
l79l		For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
l80l		As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.—
l81l		See you, my princes and my noble peers,
l82l		These English monsters? My lord of Cambridge here,
l83l		You know how apt our love was to accord
l84l		To furnish him with all appurtenants
l85l		Belonging to his honour# and this vile man
l86l		Hath for a few light crowns lightly conspired
l87l		And sworn unto the practices of France
l88l		To kill us here in Hampton. To the which
l89l		This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
l90l		Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But O
l91l		What shall I say to thee, Lord Scrope, thou cruel,
l92l		Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?
l93l		Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
l94l		That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,
l95l		That almost mightst ha’ coined me into gold
l96l		Wouldst thou ha’ practised on me for thy use:
l97l		May it be possible that foreign hire
l98l		Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
l99l		That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange
l100l		That though the truth of it stands off as gross
l101l		As black on white, my eye will scarcely see it.
l102l		Treason and murder ever kept together,
l103l		As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
l104l		Working so grossly in a natural cause
l105l		That admiration did not whoop at them#
l106l		But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in
l107l		Wonder to wait on treason and on murder.
l108l		And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
l109l		That wrought upon thee so preposterously
l110l		Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.
l111l		And other devils that suggest by treasons
l112l		Do botch and bungle up damnation
l113l		With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetched
l114l		From glist’ring semblances of piety#
l115l		But he that tempered thee, bade thee stand up,
l116l		Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
l117l		Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
l118l		If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
l119l		Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
l120l		He might return to vasty Tartar back
l121l		And tell the legions, “I can never win
l122l		A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.”
l123l		O how hast thou with jealousy infected
l124l		The sweetness of affiance. Show men dutiful?
l125l		Why so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
l126l		Why so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
l127l		Why so didst thou. Seem they religious?
l128l		Why so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
l129l		Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger,
l130l		Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
l131l		Garnished and decked in modest complement,
l132l		Not working with the eye without the ear,
l133l		And but in purgèd judgement trusting neither?
l134l		Such, and so finely boulted, didst thou seem.
l135l		And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
l136l		To mark the full-fraught man, and best endowed,
l137l		With some suspicion. I will weep for thee,
l138l		For this revolt of thine methinks is like
l139l		Another fall of man.—Their faults are open.
l140l		Arrest them to the answer of the law,
l141l		And God acquit them of their practices.
l142l	Exeter	 I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
l143l		Richard, Earl of Cambridge.—I arrest thee of high
l144l		treason, by the name of Henry, Lord Scrope of
l145l		Masham.—I arrest thee of high treason, by the name
l146l		of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.
l147l	Scrope	 Our purposes God justly hath discovered,
l148l		And I repent my fault more than my death,
l149l		Which I beseech your highness to forgive
l150l		Although my body pay the price of it.
l151l	Cambridge	For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
l152l		Although I did admit it as a motive
l153l		The sooner to effect what I intended.
l154l		But God be thankèd for prevention,
l155l		Which heartily in sufferance will rejoice,
l156l		Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
l157l	Grey	Never did faithful subject more rejoice
l158l		At the discovery of most dangerous treason
l159l		Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself,
l160l		Prevented from a damnèd enterprise.
l161l		My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
l162l	King Harry	God ’quit you in his mercy. Hear your sentence.
l163l		You have conspired against our royal person,
l164l		Joined with an enemy proclaimed and fixed,
l165l		And from his coffers
l166l		Received the golden earnest of our death,
l167l		Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
l168l		His princes and his peers to servitude,
l169l		His subjects to oppression and contempt,
l170l		And his whole kingdom into desolation.
l171l		Touching our person seek we no revenge,
l172l		But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
l173l		Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
l174l		We do deliver you. Get ye therefore hence,
l175l		Poor miserable wretches, to your death#
l176l		The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
l177l		You patience to endure, and true repentance
l178l		Of all your dear offences.—Bear them hence.
		(Exeunt the traitors, guarded)
l179l		Now lords for France, the enterprise whereof
l180l		Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
l181l		We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
l182l		Since God so graciously hath brought to light
l183l		This dangerous treason lurking in our way
l184l		To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
l185l		But every rub is smoothèd on our way.
l186l		Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver
l187l		Our puissance into the hand of God,
l188l		Putting it straight in expedition.
l189l		Cheerly to sea, the signs of war advance:
l190l		No king of England, if not king of France.
		(Flourish. Exeunt)