A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

"Twould drink the cup and all. 20

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 promised 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, like an angel, came

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelope 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.
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 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,

19. A thousand pounds by the
year. 'Hall and Holinshed the
principal sum. "And the king
to have clerely to his cofers
twentie thousand poundes'
(Hall). Shakespeare reckons

"

30

40

interest therefore at five per cent' (Wright).

28. Consideration, serious reflection.

34. currance, current.

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 :

And so the prince obscured 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 ceased;
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.

Ely.

51. the art and practic part of life, etc. The practical life must with him have been the source of theoretical knowledge, instead of the field for its application; he must have learnt the principles of life by living.

52. theoric, theory.

55. companies, companions. 59. popularity, association with the public.

etc.

61, 62. wholesome berries, It has been pointed out

But, my good lord,

50

60

In

that Montaigne expresses this idea more explicitly in a passage (iii. 9) which Shakespeare perhaps knew in the original. Florio's translation (1603) it runs: 'Roses and Violets are ever the sweeter and more odoriferous, that grow neere under Garlike and Onions, forasmuch as they suck and draw all the ill savours of the ground unto them.'

66. crescive in his faculty, increasing in virtue of its latent capacity.

70

Doth his majesty

How now for mitigation of this bill

Urged by the commons?
Incline to it, or no?
Cant.

He seems indifferent,

Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing the exhibiters 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 received, my

lord?

Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived 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
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this
off?

Cant. The French ambassador upon that instant Craved 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.

74. exhibiters, introducers of

the bill in Parliament.

86. severals, details.

[Exeunt.

80

90

86. unhidden passages, manifest courses or channels of descent.

SCENE II. The same.

The Presence chamber.

BEDFORD,

Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER,

EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and

Attendants.

K. Hen. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury ?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen.

Send for him, good uncle.

West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin: we would be
resolved,

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!

K. Hen.

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

4. cousin. Westmoreland was a cousin only by marriage. He had married, as his second wife, a daughter of John of

ΙΟ

Gaunt, half sister of Henry IV., and aunt of the king.

14. bow, warp.

15. nicely, sophistically.

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 wrongs give edge unto the
swords

That make 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 baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and

you peers,

That owe yourselves, your lives 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,
'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant :'
'No woman shall succeed in Salique land :'
Which Salique land the French unjustly glose
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;

19. in approbation of, in proving, making good.

32. As pure as sin, (concisely expressed for) 'as pure as the heart from sin.'

20

30

40

33 f. The whole of the archbishop's exposition is taken from Holinshed, in parts almost word

for word.

40. glose, explain.