THE LIFE OF

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

PROLOGUE.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

ΙΟ

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;

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Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years

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Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. [Exit.

ACT I.

SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF Ely.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urged,

Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling* and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question. *Scrambling.
Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on.
If it pass

against us,

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We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the church
Would they strip from us; being valued thus:
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;

And to the coffers of the king beside,

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.
Cant.

We are blessed in the change.
Hear him but reason in divinity,

And all-admiring with an inward wish

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You would desire the king were made a prelate: 40
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,
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:*

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*Theory.

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

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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. *Increasing.

Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceased; And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord,

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How now for mitigation of this bill
Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty
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.

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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.

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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. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. The Presence chamber. Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants.

K. Hen.

terbury?

Where is my gracious Lord of Can

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

ΙΟ

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
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 *Illegitimate.
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawnt 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

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Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint +compromise. '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.

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Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and

you peers,