ACT FOUR

  SCENE 1

  Original Text

  Enter the ARCHBISHOP of York, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others

  ARCHBISHOP

  What is this forest called?

  HASTINGS

  ’Tis Gaultree Forest, an ’t shall please your Grace.

  ARCHBISHOP

  Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth

  To know the numbers of our enemies.

  HASTINGS

  5

  We have sent forth already.

  ARCHBISHOP

  ’Tis well done.

  My friends and brethren in these great affairs,

  I must acquaint you that I have received

  New-dated letters from Northumberland,

  Their cold intent, tenor, and substance, thus:

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  Here doth he wish his person, with such powers

  As might hold sortance with his quality,

  The which he could not levy; whereupon

  He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,

  To Scotland, and concludes in hearty prayers

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  That your attempts may overlive the hazard

  And fearful melting of their opposite.

  MOWBRAY

  Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground

  And dash themselves to pieces.

  Enter a MESSENGER

  HASTINGS

  Now, what news?

  MESSENGER

  West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,

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  In goodly form comes on the enemy,

  And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number

  Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

  MOWBRAY

  The just proportion that we gave them out.

  Let us sway on and face them in the field.

  Enter WESTMORELAND

  ARCHBISHOP

  25

  What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

  MOWBRAY

  I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.

  WESTMORELAND

  Health and fair greeting from our general,

  The Prince Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

  ARCHBISHOP

  Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace,

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  What doth concern your coming.

  WESTMORELAND

  Then, my lord,

  Unto your Grace do I in chief address

  The substance of my speech. If that rebellion

  Came like itself, in base and abject routs,

  Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage,

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  And countenanced by boys and beggary—

  I say, if damn’d commotion so appeared

  In his true, native, and most proper shape,

  You, reverend father, and these noble lords

  Had not been here to dress the ugly form

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  Of base and bloody insurrection

  With your fair honors. You, Lord Archbishop,

  Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,

  Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched,

  Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored,

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  Whose white investments figure innocence,

  The dove and very blessèd spirit of peace,

  Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself

  Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,

  Into the harsh and boist’rous tongue of war,

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  Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

  Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine

  To a trumpet and a point of war?

  ARCHBISHOP

  Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.

  Briefly, to this end: we are all diseased,

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  And with our surfeiting and wanton hours

  Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,

  And we must bleed for it; of which disease

  Our late King Richard, being infected, died.

  But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,

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  I take not on me here as a physician,

  Nor do I as an enemy to peace

  Troop in the throngs of military men,

  But rather show awhile like fearful war

  To diet rank minds sick of happiness

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  And purge th’ obstructions which begin to stop

  Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

  I have in equal balance justly weighed

  What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,

  And find our griefs heavier than our offenses.

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  We see which way the stream of time doth run

  And are enforced from our most quiet there

  By the rough torrent of occasion,

  And have the summary of all our griefs,

  When time shall serve, to show in articles;

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  Which long ere this we offered to the King

  And might by no suit gain our audience.

  When we are wronged and would unfold our griefs,

  We are denied access unto his person

  Even by those men that most have done us wrong.

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  The dangers of the days but newly gone,

  Whose memory is written on the earth

  With yet appearing blood, and the examples

  Of every minute’s instance, present now,

  Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,

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  Not to break peace or any branch of it,

  But to establish here a peace indeed,

  Concurring both in name and quality.

  WESTMORELAND

  When ever yet was your appeal denied?

  Wherein have you been gallèd by the King?

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  What peer hath been suborned to grate on you,

  That you should seal this lawless bloody book

  Of forged rebellion with a seal divine

  And consecrate commotion’s bitter edge?

  ARCHBISHOP

  My brother general, the commonwealth,

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  To brother born an household cruelty,

  I make my quarrel in particular.

  WESTMORELAND

  There is no need of any such redress,

  Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

  MOWBRAY

  Why not to him in part, and to us all

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  That feel the bruises of the days before

  And suffer the condition of these times

  To lay a heavy and unequal hand

  Upon our honors?

  WESTMORELAND

  O, my good Lord Mowbray,

  Construe the times to their necessities,

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  And you shall say indeed it is the time,

  And not the King, that doth you injuries.

  Yet for your part, it not appears to me

  Either from the King or in the present time

  That you should have an inch of any ground

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  To build a grief on. Were you not restored

  To all the Duke of Norfolk’s seigniories,

  Your noble and right well remembered father’s?

  MOWBRAY

  What thing, in honor, had my father lost,

  That need to be revived and breathed in me?

  115

  The King that loved him, as the state stood then,

  Was force perforce compelled to banish him,

  And then that Harry Bolingbroke and he,

  Being mounted and both rousèd in their seats,

  Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,

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  Their armèd staves in charge, their beavers down,

  Their eyes of fire sparking through sights of steel

  And the loud trumpet blowing them together,

  Then, then, when there was nothing could have stayed

  My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,

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  O, when the King did throw his warder down—

  His own life hung upon the staff he threw—

  Then threw he down himself and all their lives

  That by indictment and by dint of sword

  Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

  WESTMORELAND

  130

  You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.

  The Earl of Hereford was reputed then

  In England the most valiant gentleman.

  Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?

  But if your father had been victor there,

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  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 blessed and graced, indeed more than the King.

  140

  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,

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  You shall enjoy them, everything 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.

  150

  This offer comes from mercy, not from fear.

  For, lo, within a ken our army lies,

  Upon mine honor, all too confident

  To give admittance to a thought of fear.

  Our battle is more full of names than yours,

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  Our men more perfect in the use of arms,

  Our armor all as strong, our cause the best.

  Then reason will our hearts should be as good.

  Say you not then our offer is compelled.

  MOWBRAY

  Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley.

  WESTMORELAND

  160

  That argues but the shame of your offense.

  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

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  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

  Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,

  For this contains our general grievances.

  170

  Each several article herein redressed,

  All members of our cause, both here and hence,

  That are insinewed to this action,

  Acquitted by a true substantial form

  And present execution of our wills

  175

  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,

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  And either end in peace, which God so frame,

  Or to the place of difference call the swords

  Which must decide it.

  ARCHBISHOP

  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

  185

  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

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  That every slight and false-derivèd 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 winnowed with so rough a wind

  195

  That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff

  And good from bad find no partition.

  ARCHBISHOP

  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

  200

  Revives two greater in the heirs of life;

  And therefore will he wipe his tables clean

  And keep no telltale to his memory

  That may repeat and history his loss

  To new remembrance. For full well he knows

  205

  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;

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  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 upreared to execution.

  HASTINGS

  215

  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

  ’Tis very true,

  220

  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 returned my Lord of Westmoreland.

  Enter WESTMORELAND

  WESTMORELAND

  225

  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

  Before, and greet his Grace.— (to WESTMORELAND) My lord, we come.

  The ARCHBISHOP, MOWBRAY, YORK, HASTINGS and the others go forward

  Enter Prince John of LANCASTER and officers with him

  LANCASTER

  You are well encountered here, my cousin Mowbray.—

  230

  Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop,—

  And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.—

  My Lord of York, it better showed with you

  When that your flock, assembled by the bell,

  Encircled you to hear with reverence

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  Your exposition on the holy text

  Than now to see you here, an iron man talking,

  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

  240

  And ripens in the sunshine of his favor,

  Would he abuse the countenance of the King,

  Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach

  In shadow of such greatness! With you, Lord Bishop,

  It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken

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  How deep you were within the books of God,

  To us the speaker in His parliament,

  To us th’ imagined voice of God himself,

  The very opener and intelligencer

  Between the grace, the sanctities, of heaven,

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  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 favorite doth his prince’s name,

  In deeds dishonorable? You have ta’en up,

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  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-swarmed them.

  ARCHBISHOP

  Good my Lord of Lancaster,

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  I am not here against your father’s peace,

  But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland,

  The time misordered doth, in common sense,

  Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form

  To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace

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  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 charmed asleep

  With grant of our most just and right desires,

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  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;

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  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

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  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 honor of my blood,

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  My father’s purposes have been mistook,

  And some about him have too lavishly

  Wrested his meaning and authority.

  (to ARCHBISHOP) My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redressed;

  Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,

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  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 restorèd love and amity.

  ARCHBISHOP

  295

  I take your princely word for these redresses.