We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your highness
To overbear it, and we are all well-pleas'd;
Since all and every part of what we would,
Doth make a stand at what your highness will.
K. John. Some reasons of this double coronation
I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
And more, more strong, thus lessening' my fear,
I shall indue you with: mean time, but ask
What you would have reform'd that is not well,
And well shall you perceive, how willingly
I will both hear and grant you your requests.

Pem. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,
To sound the purposes of all their hearts,
Both for myself and them, but, chief of all,
Your safety, for the which myself and they
Bend their best studies, heartily request

Th' enfranchisement of Arthur; whose restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
To break into this dangerous argument:----
If what in rest you have, in right you hold,
Why should your fears, which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong, then3 move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
The rich advantage of good exercise !—
That the time's enemies may not have this
To grace occasions, let it be our suit,
That you have bid us ask his liberty;
Which for our goods we do no farther ask,
Than whereupon our weal, on yours depending,
Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

K. John. Let it be so: I do commit his youth
Enter HUBErt.

To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you?
[HUBERT talks apart with the King.
Pem. This is the man should do the bloody deed:
He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine.

The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye: that close aspect of his
Doth show the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe 't is done,

What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.

Sal. The colour of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.

Pem. And when it breaks, I fear, will issue thence The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.

K. John. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand. Good lords, although my will to give is living, The suit which you demand is gone and dead: He tells us, Arthur is deceas'd to-night.

Sal. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure. Pem. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was, Before the child himself felt he was sick. This must be answer'd either here, or hence.

K. John. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? Think you, I bear the shears of destiny? Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

Sal. It is apparent foul play; and 't is shame, That greatness should so grossly offer it. So thrive it in your game: and so farewell. Pem. Stay yet, lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee, And find th' inheritance of this poor child, His little kingdom of a forced grave. That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle, Three foot of it doth hold: bad world the while. This must not be thus borne: this will break out To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt. [Exeunt Lords. 1 than lesser is: in f. e. 2 then in f. e. 3 should in f. e.

So foul a sky clears not without a storm:
Pour down thy weather.-How goes all in France ?
Mess. From France to England.-Never such a power
For any foreign preparation,

Was levied in the body of a land.

The copy of your speed is learn'd by them;
For, when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings come that they are all arriv'd.

K. John. O! where hath our intelligence been drunk?
Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,
That such an army could be drawn in France,
And she not hear of it?
Mess.
My liege, her ear
Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April, died
Your noble mother; and, as I hear, my lord,
The lady Constance in a frenzy died
Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard; if true, or false, I know not.

K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful Occasion!
O! make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
My discontented peers.-What! mother dead?
How wildly, then, walks my estate in France !—
Under whose conduct come those powers of France,
That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?
Mess. Under the Dauphin.

Enter the Bastard, and PETER of POMFRET.
K. John.
Thou hast made me giddy
With these ill-tidings.-Now, what says the world
To your proceedings? do not seek to stuff
My head with more ill news, for it is full.

Bast. But if you be afeard to hear the worst,
Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
K. John. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd
Under the tide; but now I breathe again
Aloft the flood, and can give audience
To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

Bast. How I have sped among the clergymen,
The sums I have collected shall express :
But as I travell'd hither through the land,
I find the people strangely fantasied;
Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams,
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;
And here's a prophet, that I brought with me
From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
With many hundreds treading on his heels;
To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
That ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
Your highness should deliver up your crown.

K. John. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so? Peter. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so. K. John. Hubert, away with him: imprison him; And on that day at noon, whereon, he says,

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd.
Deliver him to safety, and return,
For I must use thee.-O my gentle cousin!
[Exit HUBERT, with PETER.
Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?
Bast. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full
Besides, I met lord Bigot, and lord Salisbury, [of it:
With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,
And others more, going to seek the grave
Of Arthur, who, they say, is kill'd to-night
On your suggestion.

The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
To tug and scramble, and to part by the teeth
The unowed interest of proud swelling state.
Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:
Now powers from home, and discontents at home,
Meet in one line and vast confusion waits,

As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he, whose cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempest.-Bear away that child,
And follow me with speed: I'll to the king.
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.
[Exeunt: HUBERT bearing out ARTHUR'S body.1

SCENE 1.-The Same. A Room in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, PANDULPH with the Crown, and Attendants.

K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory.

Pand.

Take again [Giving JOHN the Crown. From this my hand, as holding of the pope, Your sovereign greatness and authority.

Be stirring as the time; meet3 fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away! and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness, and aspiring confidence.

French;

And from his holiness use all your power

To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd.
Our discontented counties do revolt,
Our people quarrel with obedience,
Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul,
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistemper'd humour
Rests by you only to be qualified:

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be minister'd,

Or overthrow incurable ensues.

Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play offers, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,

Upon your stubborn usage of the pope;

But since you are a gentle convertite,

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war,
And make fair weather in your blustering land.
On this Ascension-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of service to the pope,
Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

[Exit.

K. John. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet Say that before Ascension-day at noon,

My crown I should give off? Even so I have.
I did suppose it should be on constraint;
But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

Enter the Bastard.

[out,

Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds But Dover castle: London hath receiv'd, Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers. Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone

To offer service to your enemy:

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.
K. John. Would not my lords return to me again,
After they heard young Arthur was alive?

Bast. They found him dead, and cast into the streets
An empty casket, where the jewel of life
By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.
K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live.
Bast. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear, and blank2 distrust,
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:

A cocker'd silken wanton, brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread,

And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms :
Perchance, the cardinal cannot make your peace ;
Or if he do, let it at least be said,

They saw we had a purpose of defence.

K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time.

Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet I know, Our party may well meet a prouder foe. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.—A Plain, near St. Edmund's Bury. Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers.

Lew. My lord Melun, let this be copied out,
And keep it safe for our remembrance.
Return the precedent to these lords again;
That, having our fair order written down,
Both they, and we, perusing o'er these notes,
May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear
A voluntary zeal, and an unurg'd faith,
To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince,
I am not glad that such a sore of time
Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
And heal the inveterate canker of one wound,
By making many. O! it grieves my soul,
That I must draw this metal from my side
5 orders in f. e.

To be a widow-maker; O! and there,
Where honourable rescue, and defence,
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury.
But such is the infection of the time,
That, for the health and physic of our right,
We cannot deal but with the very hand
Of stern injustice and confused wrong.
And is 't not pity, O, my grieved friends!
That we, the sons and children of this isle,
Were born to see so sad an hour as this;
Wherein we step after a stranger, march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up

Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw, and weep
Upon the thought' of this enforced cause)
To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted colours here?

What, here ?-O nation, that thou couldst remove!
That Neptune's arms, who clippeth2 thee about,
Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,
And grapple thee unto a pagan shore;
Where these two Christian armies might combine
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to spend it so unneighbourly!

Lew. A noble temper dost thou show in this;
And great affections wrestling in thy bosom
Do make an earthquake of nobility.
O! what a noble combat hast thou fought,
Between compulsion, and a brave respect
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
Being an ordinary inundation;

But this effusion of such manly drops,
This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,
Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz'd
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figur'd quite o'er with urning meteors.
Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
And with a great heart heave away this storm:
Commend these waters to those baby eyes,
That never saw the giant-world enrag'd;
Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
Into the purse of rich prosperity,

As Lewis himself:-so, nobles, shall you all,
That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.
Enter PANDULPH, attended.

And even there, methinks, an angel spake :
Look, where the holy legate comes apace,
To give us warrant from the hand of heaven,
And on our actions set the name of right
With holy breath.

Pand.
Hail, noble prince of France.
The next is this :-king John hath reconcil'd
Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
That so stood out against the holy church,
The great metropolis and see of Rome:

Therefore, thy threat'ning colours now wind up,
And tame the savage spirit of wild war,
That, like a lion foster'd up at hand,

It may lie gently at the foot of peace,

And be no farther harmful than in show.

Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself,
And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
And now 't is far too huge to be blown out
With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
You taught me how to know the face of right,
Acquainted me with interest to this land,
Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart,
And come ye now to tell me, John hath made
His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,

After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
And now it is half-conquer'd, must I back,

Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,
What men provided, what munition sent,

To underprop this action? is 't not I,
That undergo this charge? who else but I,
And such as to my claim are liable,
Sweat in this business, and maintain this war?
Have I not heard these islanders shout out,
Vive le roy! as I have bank'd their towns?
Have I not here the best cards for the game,
To win this easy match, play'd for a crown,
And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?
No, on my soul, it never shall be said.

Pand. You look but on the outside of this work.
Lew. Outside or inside, I will not return
Till my attempt so much be glorified,
As to my ample hope was promised
Before I drew this gallant head of war,
And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world,
To outlook conquest, and to win renown
Even in the jaws of danger and of death.

[Trumpet sounds.
What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?
Enter the Bastard, attended.
Bast. According to the fair play of the world,
Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.-
My holy lord of Milan, from the king

I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
And, as you answer, I do know the scope
And warrant limited unto my tongue.

Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
And will not temporize with my entreaties:
He flatly says, he 'll not lay down his arms.

Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, The youth says well.-Now, hear our English king, For thus his royalty doth speak in me. He is prepar'd; and reason, too, he should: This apish and unmannerly approach, This harness'd masque, and unadvised revel, This unheard3 sauciness of boyish troops, The king doth smile at; and is well prepar'd To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms, From out the circle of his territories.

4

That hand, which had the strength, even at your door,
To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch;
To dive like buckets in concealed wells;
To crouch in litter of your stable planks;

To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks ;

To hug with swine; to seek sweet safety out
In vaults and prisons, and to thrill, and shake,

I am too high-born to be propertied,

To be a secondary at control,

Or useful serving-man, and instrument,

To any sovereign state throughout the world.

Thinking his voice an armed Englishman:
Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,
That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
No! Know, the gallant monarch is in arms;

1

spot

in f. e.

5 crying: