The Life Of King Henry The Fifth

1 Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely.
2 CANTERBURY.
3 My lord, I’ll tell you, that self bill is urg’d
4 Which in the eleventh year of the last king’s reign
5 Was like, and had indeed against us passed
6 But that the scambling and unquiet time
7 Did push it out of farther question.
8 ELY.
9 But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
10 CANTERBURY.
11 It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
12 We lose the better half of our possession:
13 For all the temporal lands, which men devout
14 By testament have given to the Church,
15 Would they strip from us; being valu’d thus:
16 As much as would maintain, to the King’s honour,
17 Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
18 Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
19 And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
20 Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
21 A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
22 And to the coffers of the King beside,
23 A thousand pounds by th’ year. Thus runs the bill.
24 ELY.
25 This would drink deep.
26 CANTERBURY.
27 ’Twould drink the cup and all.
28 ELY.
29 But what prevention?
30 CANTERBURY.
31 The King is full of grace and fair regard.
32 ELY.
33 And a true lover of the holy Church.
34 CANTERBURY.
35 The courses of his youth promis’d it not.
36 The breath no sooner left his father’s body
37 But that his wildness, mortified in him,
38 Seemed to die too; yea, at that very moment
39 Consideration like an angel came
40 And whipped th’ offending Adam out of him,
41 Leaving his body as a paradise
42 T’ envelope and contain celestial spirits.
43 Never was such a sudden scholar made,
44 Never came reformation in a flood
45 With such a heady currance scouring faults,
46 Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
47 So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
48 As in this king.
49 ELY.
50 We are blessed in the change.
51 CANTERBURY.
52 Hear him but reason in divinity
53 And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
54 You would desire the King were made a prelate;
55 Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
56 You would say it hath been all in all his study;
57 List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
58 A fearful battle rendered you in music;
59 Turn him to any cause of policy,
60 The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
61 Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
62 The air, a chartered libertine, is still,
63 And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears
64 To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
65 So that the art and practic part of life
66 Must be the mistress to this theoric:
67 Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
68 Since his addiction was to courses vain,
69 His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow,
70 His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,
71 And never noted in him any study,
72 Any retirement, any sequestration
73 From open haunts and popularity.
74 ELY.
75 The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
76 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
77 Neighboured by fruit of baser quality;
78 And so the Prince obscured his contemplation
79 Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
80 Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
81 Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
82 CANTERBURY.
83 It must be so, for miracles are ceased,
84 And therefore we must needs admit the means
85 How things are perfected.
86 ELY.
87 But, my good lord,
88 How now for mitigation of this bill
89 Urged by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
90 Incline to it, or no?
91 CANTERBURY.
92 He seems indifferent,
93 Or rather swaying more upon our part
94 Than cherishing th’ exhibitors against us;
95 For I have made an offer to his Majesty,
96 Upon our spiritual convocation
97 And in regard of causes now in hand,
98 Which I have opened to his Grace at large,
99 As touching France, to give a greater sum
100 Than ever at one time the clergy yet
101 Did to his predecessors part withal.
102 ELY.
103 How did this offer seem received, my lord?
104 CANTERBURY.
105 With good acceptance of his Majesty;
106 Save that there was not time enough to hear,
107 As I perceived his Grace would fain have done,
108 The severals and unhidden passages
109 Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
110 And generally to the crown and seat of France,
111 Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
112 ELY.
113 What was th’ impediment that broke this off?
114 CANTERBURY.
115 The French ambassador upon that instant
116 Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come
117 To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?
118 ELY.
119 It is.
120 CANTERBURY.
121 Then go we in, to know his embassy,
122 Which I could with a ready guess declare
123 Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
124 ELY.
125 I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.
126 [_Exeunt._]