That by indictment and by dint of sword
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
Westmoreland
You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentlemen:
Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?
But if your father had been victor there,
He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry:
For all the country in a general voice
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
And bless’d and graced indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely general
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
That might so much as think you enemies.
Mowbray
But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
Westmoreland
Mowbray, you overween to take it so;
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken our army lies,
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason will our heart should be as good
Say you not then our offer is compell’d.
Mowbray
Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
Westmoreland
That argues but the shame of your offence:
A rotten case abides no handling.
Hastings
Hath the Prince John a full commission,
In very ample virtue of his father,
To hear and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
Westmoreland
That is intended in the general’s name:
I muse you make so slight a question.
Archbishop Of York
Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances:
Each several article herein redress’d,
All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insinew’d to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
Westmoreland
This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which God so frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.
Archbishop Of York
My lord, we will do so.
Exit Westmoreland
Mowbray
There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.
Hastings
Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
Mowbray
Yea, but our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action;
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow’d with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.
Archbishop Of York
No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance; for full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear’d to execution.
Hastings
Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement:
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.
Archbishop Of York
’Tis very true:
And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
Mowbray
Be it so.
Here is return’d my Lord of Westmoreland.
Re-enter Westmoreland
Westmoreland
The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship
To meet his grace just distance ’tween our armies.
Mowbray
Your grace of York, in God’s name then, set forward.
Archbishop Of York
Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we come.
Exeunt
SCENE II. ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST.
Enter, from one side, Mowbray, attended; afterwards the Archbishop Of York, Hastings, and others: from the other side, Prince John of Lancaster, and Westmoreland; Officers, and others with them
Lancaster
You are well encounter’d here, my cousin Mowbray:
Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop;
And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
My Lord of York, it better show’d with you
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text
Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword and life to death.
That man that sits within a monarch’s heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord bishop,
It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us the speaker in his parliament;
To us the imagined voice of God himself;
The very opener and intelligencer
Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven
And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
But you misuse the reverence of your place,
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince’s name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have ta’en up,
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my father,
And both against the peace of heaven and him
Have here up-swarm’d them.
Archbishop Of York
Good my Lord of Lancaster,
I am not here against your father’s peace;
But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
The time misorder’d doth, in common sense,
Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form,
To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
The parcels and particulars of our grief,
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,
Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm’d asleep
With grant of our most just and right desires,
And true obedience, of this madness cured,
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
Mowbray
If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
To the last man.
Hastings
And though we here fall down,
We have supplies to second our attempt:
If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;
And so success of mischief shall be born
And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
Whiles England shall have generation.
Lancaster
You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,
To sound the bottom of the after-times.
Westmoreland
Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
How far forth you do like their articles.
Lancaster
I like them all, and do allow them well,
And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
My father’s purposes have been mistook,
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.
My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress’d;
Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
As we will ours: and here between the armies
Let’s drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.
Archbishop Of York
I take your princely word for these redresses.
Lancaster
I give it you, and will maintain my word:
And thereupon I drink unto your grace.
Hastings
Go, captain, and deliver to the army
This news of peace: let them have pay, and part:
I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.
Exit Officer
Archbishop Of York
To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.
Westmoreland
I pledge your grace; and, if you knew what pains
I have bestow’d to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely: but my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
Archbishop Of York
I do not doubt you.
Westmoreland
I am glad of it.
Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
Mowbray
You wish me health in very happy season;
For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
Archbishop Of York
Against ill chances men are ever merry;
But heaviness foreruns the good event.
Westmoreland
Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus, ‘some good thing comes to-morrow.’
Archbishop Of York
Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
Mowbray
So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
Shouts within
Lancaster
The word of peace is render’d: hark, how they shout!
Mowbray
This had been cheerful after victory.
Archbishop Of York
A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
Lancaster
Go, my lord,
And let our army be discharged too.
Exit Westmoreland
And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
March, by us, that we may peruse the men
We should have coped withal.
Archbishop Of York
Go, good Lord Hastings,
And, ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
Exit Hastings
Lancaster
I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.
Re-enter Westmoreland
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
Westmoreland
The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
Will not go off until they hear you speak.
Lancaster
They know their duties.
Re-enter Hastings
Hastings
My lord, our army is dispersed already;
Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses
East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
Westmoreland
Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason:
And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
Of capitol treason I attach you both.
Mowbray
Is this proceeding just and honourable?
Westmoreland
Is your assembly so?
Archbishop Of York
Will you thus break your faith?
Lancaster
I pawn’d thee none:
I promised you redress of these same grievances
Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
I will perform with a most Christian care.
But for you, rebels, look to taste the due
Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter’d stray:
God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
Treason’s true bed and yielder up of breath.
Exeunt
SCENE III. ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST.
Alarum. Excursions. Enter Falstaff and Colevile, meeting
Falstaff
What’s your name, sir? of what condition are you, and of what place, I pray?
Colevile
I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of the dale.
Falstaff
Well, then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your degree, and your place the dale: Colevile shall be still your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a place deep enough; so shall you be still Colevile of the dale.
Colevile
Are not you Sir John Falstaff?
Falstaff
As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do ye yield, sir? or shall I sweat for you? if I do sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death: therefore rouse up fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.
Colevile
I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.
Falstaff
I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name. An I had but a belly of any indifference, I were simply the most active fellow in Europe: my womb, my womb, my womb, undoes me. Here comes our general.
Enter Prince John Of Lancaster, Westmoreland, Blunt, and others
Lancaster
The heat is past; follow no further now:
Call in the powers, good cousin
Westmoreland.
Exit Westmoreland
Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
When every thing is ended, then you come:
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
One time or other break some gallows’ back.
Falstaff
I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never knew yet but rebuke and cheque was the reward of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility; I have foundered nine score and odd posts: and here, travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that? he saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, ‘I came, saw, and overcame.’
Lancaster
It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.
Falstaff
I know not: here he is, and here I yield him: and I beseech your grace, let it be booked with the rest of this day’s deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture on the top on’t, Colevile kissing my foot: to the which course if I be enforced, if you do not all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in the clear sky of fame o’ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins’ heads to her, believe not the word of the noble: therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.
Lancaster
Thine’s too heavy to mount.
Falstaff
Let it shine, then.
Lancaster
Thine’s too thick to shine.
Falstaff
Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it what you will.
Lancaster
Is thy name Colevile?
Colevile
It is, my lord.
Lancaster
A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.
Falstaff
And a famous true subject took him.
Colevile
I am, my lord, but as my betters are
That led me hither: had they been ruled by me,
You should have won them dearer than you have.
Falstaff
I know not how they sold themselves: but thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I thank thee for thee.
Re-enter Westmoreland
Lancaster
Now, have you left pursuit?
Westmoreland
Retreat is made and execution stay’d.
Lancaster
Send Colevile with his confederates
To York, to present execution:
Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.
Exeunt Blunt and others with Colevile
And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords:
I hear the king my father is sore sick:
Our news shall go before us to his majesty,
Complete Plays, The Page 182