King Henry the Fifth Part 6

_Exe._ b.l.o.o.d.y constraint; for if you hide the crown Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it: Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming, In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove.

(That, if requiring fail, he will compel): This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message; Unless the Dauphin be in presence here, To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

_Fr. King._ For us, we will consider of this further: To-morrow shall you bear our full intent Back to our brother England.

[_MONTJOY rises, and retires to R._

_Dau._ (_R. of throne._) For the Dauphin, I stand here for him: What to him from England?

_Exe._ Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt, And any thing that may not misbecome The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my king: an if your father's highness Do not, in grant of all demands at large, Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty, He'll call you to so hot an answer for it, That caves and womby vaultages of France Shall chide your trespa.s.s,[25] and return your mock In second accent of his ordnance.

_Dau._ Say, if my father render fair reply, It is against my will; for I desire Nothing but odds with England: to that end, As matching to his youth and vanity, I did present him with those Paris b.a.l.l.s.

_Exe._ He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it: And, be a.s.sur'd, you'll find a difference Between the promise of his greener days And these he masters now: now he weighs time, Even to the utmost grain: which you shall read[26]

In your own losses, if he stay in France.

_Fr. King._ To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.

_Exe._ Despatch us with all speed, lest that our king Come here himself to question our delay; For he is footed in this land already.

_Fr. King._ You shall be soon despatch'd with fair conditions:

[_MONTJOY crosses to the English party._

A night is but small breath and little pause To answer matters of this consequence.

[_English party exit, with MONTJOY and others, L.H.

French Lords group round the KING._

_Trumpets sound._

[Footnote II.15: ----FRENCH KING,] The costume of Charles VI. is copied from Willemin, Monuments Francais. The dresses of the other Lords are selected from Montfaucon Monarchie Francoise.]

[Footnote II.16: _----more than carefully it us concerns,_] _More than carefully_ is _with more than common care_; a phrase of the same kind with _better than well_. --JOHNSON.]

[Footnote II.17: _How modest in exception,_] How diffident and decent in making objections.]

[Footnote II.18: _----strain_] _lineage_.]

[Footnote II.19: _That +haunted+ us_] To _haunt_ is a word of the utmost horror, which shows that they dreaded the English as goblins and spirits.]

[Footnote II.20: _----crown'd with the golden sun,--_]

Shakespeare's meaning (divested of its poetical fancy) probably is, that the king stood upon an eminence, with the sun shining over his head. --STEEVENS.]

[Footnote II.21: _----+fate+ of him._] His _fate_ is what is allotted him by destiny, or what he is fated to perform.]

[Footnote II.22: _Montjoy,_] Mont-joie is the t.i.tle of the princ.i.p.al king-at-arms in France, as Garter is in our country.]

[Footnote II.23: _----spend their mouths,_] That is, bark; the sportsman's term.]

[Footnote II.24: _----memorable +line+,_] This genealogy; this deduction of his _lineage_.]

[Footnote II.25: _Shall +chide+ your trespa.s.s,_] To _chide_ is to _resound_, to _echo_.]

[Footnote II.26: _----you shall read_] i.e., shall _find_.]

END OF ACT SECOND.

HISTORICAL NOTES TO CHORUS--ACT SECOND.

(A) _These corrupted men,---- One, Richard earl of Cambridge; and the second, Henry lord Scroop of Masham; and the third, Sir Thomas Grey knight of Northumberland,-- Have for the guilt of France (O, guilt, indeed!) Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France._

About the end of July, Henry's ambitious designs received a momentary check from the discovery of a treasonable conspiracy against his person and government, by Richard, Earl of Cambridge, brother of the Duke of York; Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, the Lord Treasurer; and Sir Thomas Grey, of Heton, knight. The king's command for the investigation of the affair, was dated on the 21st of that month, and a writ was issued to the Sheriff of Southampton, to a.s.semble a jury for their trial; and which on Friday, the 2nd of August, found that on the 20th of July, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, and Thomas Grey, of Heton, in the County of Northumberland, knight, had falsely and traitorously conspired to collect a body of armed men, to conduct Edmund, Earl of March,[*] to the frontiers of Wales, and to proclaim him the rightful heir to the crown, in case Richard II. was actually dead; but they had solicited Thomas Frumpyngton, who personated King Richard, Henry Percy, and many others from Scotland to invade the realm, that they had intended to destroy the King, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Gloucester, with other lords and great men; and that Henry, Lord Scroop, of Masham, consented to the said treasonable purposes, and concealed the knowledge of them from the king. On the same day the accused were reported by Sir John Popham, Constable of the Castle of Southampton, to whose custody they had been committed, to have confessed the justice of the charges brought against them, and that they threw themselves on the king's mercy; but Scroop endeavoured to extenuate his conduct, by a.s.serting that his intentions were innocent, and that he appeared only to acquiesce in their designs to be enabled to defeat them. The Earl and Lord Scroop having claimed the privilege of being tried by the peers, were remanded to prison, but sentence of death in the usual manner was p.r.o.nounced against Grey, and he was immediately executed; though, in consequence of Henry having dispensed with his being drawn and hung, he was allowed to walk from the Watergate to the Northgate of the town of Southampton, where he was beheaded. A commission was soon afterwards issued, addressed to the Duke of Clarence, for the trial of the Earl of Cambridge and Lord Scroop: this court unanimously declared the prisoners guilty, and sentence of death having been denounced against them, they paid the forfeit of their lives on Monday, the 5th of August. In consideration of the earl being of the blood royal, he was merely beheaded; but to mark the perfidy and ingrat.i.tude of Scroop, who had enjoyed the king's utmost confidence and friendship, and had even shared his bed, he commanded that he should be drawn to the place of execution, and that his head should be affixed on one of the gates of the city of York. --_Nicolas's History of the Battle of Agincourt_.

[Footnote *: At that moment the Earl of March was the lawful heir to the crown, he being the heir general of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, _third_ son of Edward III, whilst Henry V. was but the heir of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, King Edward's _fourth_ son.]

HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT SECOND.

(A) _----the man that was his bedfellow,_] So, Holinshed: "The said Lord Scroop was in such favour with the king, that he admitted him sometimes to be his _bedfellow_." The familiar appellation, of _bedfellow_, which appears strange to us, was common among the ancient n.o.bility. There is a letter from the sixth Earl of Northumberland (still preserved in the collection of the present duke), addressed "To his beloved cousin, Thomas Arundel," &c., which begins "_Bedfellow_, after my most haste recommendation." --_Steevens_.

This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of the last century, if not later. Cromwell obtained much of his intelligence, during the civil wars, from the mean men with whom he slept. --_Malone_.

After the battle of Dreux, 1562, the Prince of Conde slept in the same bed with the Duke of Guise; an anecdote frequently cited, to show the magnanimity of the latter, who slept soundly, though so near his greatest enemy, then his prisoner. --_Nares._

(B) _For me,--the gold of France did not seduce;_] Holinshed observes, "that Richard, Earl of Cambridge, did not conspire with the Lord Scroop and Thomas Grey, for the murdering of King Henry to please the French king, but only to the intent to exalt to the crown his brother-in-law Edmund, Earl of March, as heir to Lionel, Duke of Clarence; after the death of which Earl of March, for divers secret impediments not able to have issue, the Earl of Cambridge was sure that the crown should come to him by his wife, and to his children of her begotten; and therefore (as was thought), he rather confessed himself for need of money to be corrupted by the French king, than he would declare his inward mind, &c., which if it were espied, he saw plainly that the Earl of March should have tasted of the same cup that he had drunk, and what should have come to his own children he merely doubted, &c."

A million of gold is stated to have been given by France to the conspirators.

Historians have, however, generally expressed their utter inability to explain upon what grounds the conspirators built their expectation of success; and unless they had been promised powerful a.s.sistance from France, the design seems to have been one of the most absurd and hopeless upon record. The confession of the Earl of Cambridge, and his supplication for mercy in his own hand writing, is in the British Museum.

(C) _Touching our person, seek we no revenge;_] This speech is taken from Holinshed:--

"Revenge herein touching my person, though I seek not; yet for the safeguard of my dear friends, and for due preservation of all sorts, I am by office to cause example to be showed: Get ye hence, therefore, you poor miserable wretches, to the receiving of your just reward, wherein G.o.d's majesty give you grace of his mercy, and repentance of your heinous offences."

(D) _Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:_] "The king went from his castle of Porchester in a small vessel to the sea, and embarking on board his ship, called The Trinity, between the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, he immediately ordered that the sail should be set, to signify his readiness to depart." "There were about fifteen hundred vessels, including about a hundred which were left behind. After having pa.s.sed the Isle of Wight, swans were seen swimming in the midst of the fleet, which, in the opinion of all, were said to be happy auspices of the undertaking. On the next day, the king entered the mouth of the Seine, and cast anchor before a place called Kidecaus, about three miles from Harfleur, where he proposed landing." --_Nicolas's History of Agincourt_.

The departure of Henry's army on this occasion, and the separation between those who composed it and their relatives and friends, is thus described by Drayton, who was born in 1563, and died in 1631:--

There might a man have seen in every street, The father bidding farewell to his son; Small children kneeling at their father's feet: The wife with her dear husband ne'er had done: Brother, his brother, with adieu to greet: One friend to take leave of another, run; The maiden with her best belov'd to part, Gave him her hand who took away her heart.

The n.o.bler youth the common rank above, On their curveting coursers mounted fair: One wore his mistress' garter, one her glove; And he a lock of his dear lady's hair: And he her colours, whom he did most love; There was not one but did some favour wear: And each one took it, on his happy speed, To make it famous by some knightly deed.