King Henry IV Part 2, page 26
I make my quarrel in particular.
WESTMORLAND
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
That feel the bruises of the days before
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And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?
FWESTMORLAND O my good Lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities
And you shall say indeed it is the time,
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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
To build a grief on. Were you not restored
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To all the Duke of Norfolk’s signories,
Your noble and right well-remembered father’s?
MOWBRAY
What thing, in honour, had my father lost
That need to be revived and breathed in me?
The king that loved him, as the state stood then,
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Was force perforce compelled to banish him;
And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,
Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
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Their eyes of fire sparkling 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 –
O, when the King did throw his warder down,
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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.
WESTMORLAND
You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
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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,
He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry;
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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.F
But this is mere digression from my purpose.
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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, everything set off
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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.
WESTMORLAND
Mowbray, you overween to take it so.
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;
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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,
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Our armour 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.
WESTMORLAND
That argues but the shame of your offence:
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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?
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WESTMORLAND
That is intended in the general’s name.
I muse you make so slight a question.
ARCHBISHOP [Offers a paper.]
Then take, my Lord of Westmorland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances.
Each several article herein redressed,
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All members of our cause both here and hence
That are ensinewed to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills,
To us and our purposes confined
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We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
WESTMORLAND [Takes the paper.]
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! –
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Or to the place of diff’rence call the swords
Which must decide it.
ARCHBISHOP My lord, we will do so.
Exit Westmorland.
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
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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 –
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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
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
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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
Revives two greater in the heirs of life;
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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
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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
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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
Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods
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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;
And therefore be assured, my good Lord Marshal,
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If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
Enter WESTMORLAND.
MOWBRAY Be it so.
Here is returned my Lord of Westmorland.
WESTMORLAND
The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship
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To meet his grace just distance ’tween our armies?
Enter Prince JOHN and his Army.
MOWBRAY
Your Grace of York, in God’s name, then, set forward.
ARCHBISHOP [to Mowbray]
Before, and greet his grace.
[to Westmorland] My lord, we come.
[Led by Mowbray, they cross to meet Prince John.]
JOHN
You are well encountered here, my cousin Mowbray.
Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop,
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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
Your exposition on the holy text
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FThanF 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,
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Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach
In shadow of such greatness? With you, Lord Bishop,
Is it even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
How deep you were within the books of God –
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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,
And our dull workings? O, who shall believe
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But you misuse the reverence of your place,
Imply 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,
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The subjects of His substitute, my father,
And both against the peace of heaven and him
Have here upswarmed them.
ARCHBISHOP Good my Lord of Lancaster,
I am not here against your father’s peace;
But, as I told my Lord of Westmorland,
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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
The parcels and particulars of our grief,
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,
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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,
And true obedience, of this madness cured,
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
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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,
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And heir from heir shall hold his quarrel up
Whiles England shall have generation.
JOHN
You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,
To sound the bottom of the after-times.
WESTMORLAND
Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
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How far forth you do like their articles.
JOHN
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
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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,
Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
As we will ours; and here, between the armies,
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Let’s drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear these tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.
[Attendant passes cups.]
ARCHBISHOP
I take your princely word for these redresses.
FJOHNF
I give it you and will maintain my word,
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And thereupon I drink unto your grace. [Drinks.]
FHASTINGSF
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!
FExitF [Captain].
ARCHBISHOP
To you, my noble Lord of Westmorland. [Drinks.]
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WESTMORLAND
I pledge your grace; [Drinks.]
and if you knew what pains
I have bestowed to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely. But my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
ARCHBISHOP
I do not doubt you.
WESTMORLAND I am glad of it.
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Health to my lord and gentle cousin Mowbray!
[Drinks.]
MOWBRAY
You wish me health in very happy season,
For I am on the sudden something ill.
ARCHBISHOP
Against ill chances men are ever merry,
But heaviness foreruns the good event.
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WESTMORLAND
Therefore be merry, coz, since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus: some good thing comes tomorrow.
ARCHBISHOP
Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
MOWBRAY
So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
Shout [within]
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JOHN
The word of peace is rendered. Hark how they shout!
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MOWBRAY
This had been cheerful after victory.
ARCHBISHOP
A peace is of the nature of a conquest,
For then both parties nobly are subdued
And neither party loser.
JOHN [to Westmorland] Go, my lord,
And let our army be discharged too.
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