{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/ff/kj.htm","path":"sks/ff/kj.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/ff/kj.htm","text":"Actus Primus, Scaena Prima.\nEnter King Iohn, Queene Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, and Salisbury,\nwith the\nChattylion of France.\nKing Iohn. Now say Chatillion, what would France with vs?\nChat. Thus (after greeting) speakes the King\nof France,\nIn my behauiour to the Maiesty,\nThe borrowed Maiesty of England heere\nElea. A strange beginning: borrowed Maiesty?\nK.Iohn. Silence (good mother) heare the Embassie\nChat. Philip of France, in right and true behalfe\nOf thy deceased brother, Geffreyes sonne,\nArthur Plantaginet, laies most lawfull claime\nTo this faire Iland, and the Territories:\nTo Ireland, Poyctiers, Aniowe, Torayne, Maine,\nDesiring thee to lay aside the sword\nWhich swaies vsurpingly these seuerall titles,\nAnd put the same into yong Arthurs hand,\nThy Nephew, and right royall Soueraigne\nK.Iohn. What followes if we disallow of this?\nChat. The proud controle of fierce and bloudy warre,\nTo inforce these rights, so forcibly with-held,\nK.Io. Heere haue we war for war, & bloud for bloud,\nControlement for controlement: so answer France\nChat. Then take my Kings defiance from my mouth,\nThe farthest limit of my Embassie\nK.Iohn. Beare mine to him, and so depart in peace,\nBe thou as lightning in the eies of France;\nFor ere thou canst report, I will be there:\nThe thunder of my Cannon shall be heard.\nSo hence: be thou the trumpet of our wrath,\nAnd sullen presage of your owne decay:\nAn honourable conduct let him haue,\nPembroke looke too't: farewell Chattillion.\nExit Chat. and Pem.\nEle. What now my sonne, haue I not euer said\nHow that ambitious Constance would not cease\nTill she had kindled France and all the world,\nVpon the right and party of her sonne.\nThis might haue beene preuented, and made whole\nWith very easie arguments of loue,\nWhich now the mannage of two kingdomes must\nWith fearefull bloudy issue arbitrate\nK.Iohn. Our strong possession, and our right for vs\nEli. Your strong possessio[n] much more then your right,\nOr else it must go wrong with you and me,\nSo much my conscience whispers in your eare,\nWhich none but heauen, and you, and I, shall heare.\nEnter a Sheriffe.\nEssex. My Liege, here is the strangest controuersie\nCome from the Country to be iudg'd by you\nThat ere I heard: shall I produce the men?\nK.Iohn. Let them approach:\nOur Abbies and our Priories shall pay\nThis expeditions charge: what men are you?\nEnter Robert Faulconbridge, and Philip.\nPhilip. Your faithfull subiect, I a gentleman,\nBorne in Northamptonshire, and eldest sonne\nAs I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,\nA Souldier by the Honor-giuing-hand\nOf Cordelion, Knighted in the field\nK.Iohn. What art thou?\nRobert. The son and heire to that same Faulconbridge\nK.Iohn. Is that the elder, and art thou the heyre?\nYou came not of one mother then it seemes\nPhilip. Most certain of one mother, mighty King,\nThat is well knowne, and as I thinke one father:\nBut for the certaine knowledge of that truth,\nI put you o're to heauen, and to my mother;\nOf that I doubt, as all mens children may\nEli. Out on thee rude man, y dost shame thy mother,\nAnd wound her honor with this diffidence\nPhil. I Madame? No, I haue no reason for it,\nThat is my brothers plea, and none of mine,\nThe which if he can proue, a pops me out,\nAt least from faire fiue hundred pound a yeere:\nHeauen guard my mothers honor, and my Land\nK.Iohn. A good blunt fellow: why being yonger born\nDoth he lay claime to thine inheritance?\nPhil. I know not why, except to get the land:\nBut once he slanderd me with bastardy:\nBut where I be as true begot or no,\nThat still I lay vpon my mothers head,\nBut that I am as well begot my Liege\n(Faire fall the bones that tooke the paines for me)\nCompare our faces, and be Iudge your selfe\nIf old Sir Robert did beget vs both,\nAnd were our father, and this sonne like him:\nO old sir Robert Father, on my knee\nI giue heauen thankes I was not like to thee\nK.Iohn. Why what a mad-cap hath heauen lent vs here?\nElen. He hath a tricke of Cordelions face,\nThe accent of his tongue affecteth him:\nDoe you not read some tokens of my sonne\nIn the large composition of this man?\nK.Iohn. Mine eye hath well examined his parts,\nAnd findes them perfect Richard: sirra speake,\nWhat doth moue you to claime your brothers land\nPhilip. Because he hath a half-face like my father?\nWith halfe that face would he haue all my land,\nA halfe-fac'd groat, fiue hundred pound a yeere?\nRob. My gracious Liege, when that my father liu'd,\nYour brother did imploy my father much\nPhil. Well sir, by this you cannot get my land,\nYour tale must be how he employ'd my mother\nRob. And once dispatch'd him in an Embassie\nTo Germany, there with the Emperor\nTo treat of high affaires touching that time:\nTh' aduantage of his absence tooke the King,\nAnd in the meane time soiourn'd at my fathers;\nWhere how he did preuaile, I shame to speake:\nBut truth is truth, large lengths of seas and shores\nBetweene my father, and my mother lay,\nAs I haue heard my father speake himselfe\nWhen this same lusty gentleman was got:\nVpon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd\nHis lands to me, and tooke it on his death\nThat this my mothers sonne was none of his;\nAnd if he were, he came into the world\nFull fourteene weekes before the course of time:\nThen good my Liedge let me haue what is mine,\nMy fathers land, as was my fathers will\nK.Iohn. Sirra, your brother is Legittimate,\nYour fathers wife did after wedlocke beare him:\nAnd if she did play false, the fault was hers,\nWhich fault lyes on the hazards of all husbands\nThat marry wiues: tell me, how if my brother\nWho as you say, tooke paines to get this sonne,\nHad of your father claim'd this sonne for his,\nInsooth, good friend, your father might haue kept\nThis Calfe, bred from his Cow from all the world:\nInsooth he might: then if he were my brothers,\nMy brother might not claime him, nor your father\nBeing none of his, refuse him: this concludes,\nMy mothers sonne did get your fathers heyre,\nYour fathers heyre must haue your fathers land\nRob. Shal then my fathers Will be of no force,\nTo dispossesse that childe which is not his\nPhil. Of no more force to dispossesse me sir,\nThen was his will to get me, as I think\nEli. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,\nAnd like thy brother to enioy thy land:\nOr the reputed sonne of Cordelion,\nLord of thy presence, and no land beside\nBast. Madam, and if my brother had my shape\nAnd I had his, sir Roberts his like him,\nAnd if my legs were two such riding rods,\nMy armes, such eele skins stuft, my face so thin,\nThat in mine eare I durst not sticke a rose,\nLest men should say, looke where three farthings goes,\nAnd to his shape were heyre to all this land,\nWould I might neuer stirre from off this place,\nI would giue it euery foot to haue this face:\nIt would not be sir nobbe in any case\nElinor. I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,\nBequeath thy land to him, and follow me?\nI am a Souldier, and now bound to France\nBast. Brother, take you my land, Ile take my chance;\nYour face hath got fiue hundred pound a yeere,\nYet sell your face for fiue pence and 'tis deere:\nMadam, Ile follow you vnto the death\nElinor. Nay, I would haue you go before me thither\nBast. Our Country manners giue our betters way\nK.Iohn. What is thy name?\nBast. Philip my Liege, so is my name begun,\nPhilip, good old Sir Roberts wiues eldest sonne\nK.Iohn. From henceforth beare his name\nWhose forme thou bearest:\nKneele thou downe Philip, but rise more great,\nArise Sir Richard, and Plantagenet\nBast. Brother by th' mothers side, giue me your hand,\nMy father gaue me honor, yours gaue land:\nNow blessed be the houre by night or day\nWhen I was got, Sir Robert was away\nEle. The very spirit of Plantaginet:\nI am thy grandame Richard, call me so\nBast. Madam by chance, but not by truth, what tho;\nSomething about a little from the right,\nIn at the window, or else ore the hatch:\nWho dares not stirre by day, must walke by night,\nAnd haue is haue, how euer men doe catch:\nNeere or farre off, well wonne is still well shot,\nAnd I am I, how ere I was begot\nK.Iohn. Goe, Faulconbridge, now hast thou thy desire,\nA landlesse Knight, makes thee a landed Squire:\nCome Madam, and come Richard, we must speed\nFor France, for France, for it is more then need\nBast. Brother adieu, good fortune come to thee,\nFor thou wast got i'th way of honesty.\nExeunt. all but bastard.\nBast. A foot of Honor better then I was,\nBut many a many foot of Land the worse.\nWell, now can I make any Ioane a Lady,\nGood den Sir Richard, Godamercy fellow,\nAnd if his name be George, Ile call him Peter;\nFor new made honor doth forget mens names:\n'Tis two respectiue, and too sociable\nFor your conuersion, now your traueller,\nHee and his tooth-picke at my worships messe,\nAnd when my knightly stomacke is suffis'd,\nWhy then I sucke my teeth, and catechize\nMy picked man of Countries: my deare sir,\nThus leaning on mine elbow I begin,\nI shall beseech you; that is question now,\nAnd then comes answer like an Absey booke:\nO sir, sayes answer, at your best command,\nAt your employment, at your seruice sir:\nNo sir, saies question, I sweet sir at yours,\nAnd so ere answer knowes what question would,\nSauing in Dialogue of Complement,\nAnd talking of the Alpes and Appenines,\nThe Perennean and the riuer Poe,\nIt drawes toward supper in conclusion so.\nBut this is worshipfull society,\nAnd fits the mounting spirit like my selfe;\nFor he is but a bastard to the time\nThat doth not smoake of obseruation,\nAnd so am I whether I smacke or no:\nAnd not alone in habit and deuice,\nExterior forme, outward accoutrement;\nBut from the inward motion to deliuer\nSweet, sweet, sweet poyson for the ages tooth,\nWhich though I will not practice to deceiue,\nYet to auoid deceit I meane to learne;\nFor it shall strew the footsteps of my rising:\nBut who comes in such haste in riding robes?\nWhat woman post is this? hath she no husband\nThat will take paines to blow a horne before her?\nO me, 'tis my mother: how now good Lady,\nWhat brings you heere to Court so hastily?\nEnter Lady Faulconbridge and Iames Gurney.\nLady. Where is that slaue thy brother? where is he?\nThat holds in chase mine honour vp and downe\nBast. My brother Robert, old Sir Roberts sonne:\nColbrand the Gyant, that same mighty man,\nIs it Sir Roberts sonne that you seeke so?\nLady. Sir Roberts sonne, I thou vnreuerend boy,\nSir Roberts sonne? why scorn'st thou at sir Robert?\nHe is Sir Roberts sonne, and so art thou\nBast. Iames Gournie, wilt thou giue vs leaue a while?\nGour. Good leaue good Philip\nBast. Philip, sparrow, Iames,\nThere's toyes abroad, anon Ile tell thee more.\nExit Iames.\nMadam, I was not old Sir Roberts sonne,\nSir Robert might haue eat his part in me\nVpon good Friday, and nere broke his fast:\nSir Robert could doe well, marrie to confesse\nCould get me sir Robert could not doe it;\nWe know his handy-worke, therefore good mother\nTo whom am I beholding for these limmes?\nSir Robert neuer holpe to make this legge\nLady. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,\nThat for thine owne gaine shouldst defend mine honor?\nWhat meanes this scorne, thou most vntoward knaue?\nBast. Knight, knight good mother, Basilisco-like:\nWhat, I am dub'd, I haue it on my shoulder:\nBut mother, I am not Sir Roberts sonne,\nI haue disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land,\nLegitimation, name, and all is gone;\nThen good my mother, let me know my father,\nSome proper man I hope, who was it mother?\nLady. Hast thou denied thy selfe a Faulconbridge?\nBast. As faithfully as I denie the deuill\nLady. King Richard Cordelion was thy father,\nBy long and vehement suit I was seduc'd\nTo make roome for him in my husbands bed:\nHeauen lay not my transgression to my charge,\nThat art the issue of my deere offence\nWhich was so strongly vrg'd past my defence\nBast. Now by this light were I to get againe,\nMadam I would not wish a better father:\nSome sinnes doe beare their priuiledge on earth,\nAnd so doth yours: your fault, was not your follie,\nNeeds must you lay your heart at his dispose,\nSubiected tribute to commanding loue,\nAgainst whose furie and vnmatched force,\nThe awlesse Lion could not wage the fight,\nNor keepe his Princely heart from Richards hand:\nHe that perforce robs Lions of their hearts,\nMay easily winne a womans: aye my mother,\nWith all my heart I thanke thee for my father:\nWho liues and dares but say, thou didst not well\nWhen I was got, Ile send his soule to hell.\nCome Lady I will shew thee to my kinne,\nAnd they shall say, when Richard me begot,\nIf thou hadst sayd him nay, it had beene sinne;\nWho sayes it was, he lyes, I say twas not.\nExeunt.\nScaena Secunda.\nEnter before Angiers, Philip King of France, Lewis, Daulphin,\nAustria,\nConstance, Arthur.\nLewis. Before Angiers well met braue Austria,\nArthur that great fore-runner of thy bloud,\nRichard that rob'd the Lion of his heart,\nAnd fought the holy Warres in Palestine,\nBy this braue Duke came early to his graue:\nAnd for amends to his posteritie,\nAt our importance hether is he come,\nTo spread his colours boy, in thy behalfe,\nAnd to rebuke the vsurpation\nOf thy vnnaturall Vncle, English Iohn,\nEmbrace him, loue him, giue him welcome hether\nArth. God shall forgiue you Cordelions death\nThe rather, that you giue his off-spring life,\nShadowing their right vnder your wings of warre:\nI giue you welcome with a powerlesse hand,\nBut with a heart full of vnstained loue,\nWelcome before the gates Angiers Duke\nLewis. A noble boy, who would not doe thee right?\nAust. Vpon thy cheeke lay I this zelous kisse,\nAs seale to this indenture of my loue:\nThat to my home I will no more returne\nTill Angiers, and the right thou hast in France,\nTogether with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,\nWhose foot spurnes backe the Oceans roaring tides,\nAnd coopes from other lands her Ilanders,\nEuen till that England hedg'd in with the maine,\nThat Water-walled Bulwarke, still secure\nAnd confident from forreine purposes,\nEuen till that vtmost corner of the West\nSalute thee for her King, till then faire boy\nWill I not thinke of home, but follow Armes\nConst. O take his mothers thanks, a widdows thanks,\nTill your strong hand shall helpe to giue him strength,\nTo make a more requitall to your loue\nAust. The peace of heauen is theirs y lift their swords\nIn such a iust and charitable warre\nKing. Well, then to worke our Cannon shall be bent\nAgainst the browes of this resisting towne,\nCall for our cheefest men of discipline,\nTo cull the plots of best aduantages:\nWee'll lay before this towne our Royal bones,\nWade to the market-place in French-mens bloud,\nBut we will make it subiect to this boy\nCon. Stay for an answer to your Embassie,\nLest vnaduis'd you staine your swords with bloud,\nMy Lord Chattilion may from England bring\nThat right in peace which heere we vrge in warre,\nAnd then we shall repent each drop of bloud,\nThat hot rash haste so indirectly shedde.\nEnter Chattilion.\nKing. A wonder Lady: lo vpon thy wish\nOur Messenger Chattilion is arriu'd,\nWhat England saies, say breefely gentle Lord,\nWe coldly pause for thee, Chatilion speake,\nChat. Then turne your forces from this paltry siege,\nAnd stirre them vp against a mightier taske:\nEngland impatient of your iust demands,\nHath put himselfe in Armes, the aduerse windes\nWhose leisure I haue staid, haue giuen him time\nTo land his Legions all as soone as I:\nHis marches are expedient to this towne,\nHis forces strong, his Souldiers confident:\nWith him along is come the Mother Queene,\nAn Ace stirring him to bloud and strife,\nWith her her Neece, the Lady Blanch of Spaine,\nWith them a Bastard of the Kings deceast,\nAnd all th' vnsetled humors of the Land,\nRash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,\nWith Ladies faces, and fierce Dragons spleenes,\nHaue sold their fortunes at their natiue homes,\nBearing their birth-rights proudly on their backs,\nTo make a hazard of new fortunes heere:\nIn briefe, a brauer choyse of dauntlesse spirits\nThen now the English bottomes haue waft o're,\nDid neuer flote vpon the swelling tide,\nTo doe offence and scathe in Christendome:\nThe interruption of their churlish drums\nCuts off more circumstance, they are at hand,\nDrum beats.\nTo parlie or to fight, therefore prepare\nKin. How much vnlook'd for, is this expedition\nAust. By how much vnexpected, by so much\nWe must awake indeuor for defence,\nFor courage mounteth with occasion,\nLet them be welcome then, we are prepar'd.\nEnter K[ing]. of England, Bastard, Queene, Blanch, Pembroke, and\nothers.\nK.Iohn. Peace be to France: If France in peace permit\nOur iust and lineall entrance to our owne;\nIf not, bleede France, and peace ascend to heauen.\nWhiles we Gods wrathfull agent doe correct\nTheir proud contempt that beats his peace to heauen\nFran. Peace be to England, if that warre returne\nFrom France to England, there to liue in peace:\nEngland we loue, and for that Englands sake,\nWith burden of our armor heere we sweat:\nThis toyle of ours should be a worke of thine;\nBut thou from louing England art so farre,\nThat thou hast vnder-wrought his lawfull King,\nCut off the sequence of posterity,\nOut-faced Infant State, and done a rape\nVpon the maiden vertue of the Crowne:\nLooke heere vpon thy brother Geffreyes face,\nThese eyes, these browes, were moulded out of his;\nThis little abstract doth containe that large,\nWhich died in Geffrey: and the hand of time,\nShall draw this breefe into as huge a volume:\nThat Geffrey was thy elder brother borne,\nAnd this his sonne, England was Geffreys right,\nAnd this is Geffreyes in the name of God:\nHow comes it then that thou art call'd a King,\nWhen liuing blood doth in these temples beat\nWhich owe the crowne, that thou ore-masterest?\nK.Iohn. From whom hast thou this great commission France,\nTo draw my answer from thy Articles?\nFra. Fro[m] that supernal Iudge that stirs good thoughts\nIn any breast of strong authoritie,\nTo looke into the blots and staines of right,\nThat Iudge hath made me guardian to this boy,\nVnder whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,\nAnd by whose helpe I meane to chastise it\nK.Iohn. Alack thou dost vsurpe authoritie\nFran. Excuse it is to beat vsurping downe\nQueen. Who is it thou dost call vsurper France?\nConst. Let me make answer: thy vsurping sonne\nQueen. Out insolent, thy bastard shall be King,\nThat thou maist be a Queen, and checke the world\nCon. My bed was euer to thy sonne as true\nAs thine was to thy husband, and this boy\nLiker in feature to his father Geffrey\nThen thou and Iohn, in manners being as like,\nAs raine to water, or deuill to his damme;\nMy boy a bastard? by my soule I thinke\nHis father neuer was so true begot,\nIt cannot be, and if thou wert his mother\nQueen. Theres a good mother boy, that blots thy father\nConst. There's a good grandame boy\nThat would blot thee\nAust. Peace\nBast. Heare the Cryer\nAust. What the deuill art thou?\nBast. One that wil play the deuill sir with you,\nAnd a may catch your hide and you alone:\nYou are the Hare of whom the Prouerb goes\nWhose valour plucks dead Lyons by the beard;\nIle smoake your skin-coat and I catch you right,\nSirra looke too't, yfaith I will, yfaith\nBlan. O well did he become that Lyons robe,\nThat did disrobe the Lion of that robe\nBast. It lies as sightly on the backe of him\nAs great Alcides shooes vpon an Asse:\nBut Asse, Ile take that burthen from your backe,\nOr lay on that shall make your shoulders cracke\nAust. What cracker is this same that deafes our eares\nWith this abundance of superfluous breath?\nKing Lewis, determine what we shall doe strait\nLew. Women & fooles, breake off your conference.\nKing Iohn, this is the very summe of all:\nEngland and Ireland, Angiers, Toraine, Maine,\nIn right of Arthur doe I claime of thee:\nWilt thou resigne them, and lay downe thy Armes?\nIohn. My life as soone: I doe defie thee France,\nArthur of Britaine, yeeld thee to my hand,\nAnd out of my deere loue Ile giue thee more,\nThen ere the coward hand of France can win;\nSubmit thee boy\nQueen. Come to thy grandame child\nCons. Doe childe, goe to yt grandame childe,\nGiue grandame kingdome, and it grandame will\nGiue yt a plum, a cherry, and a figge,\nThere's a good grandame\nArthur. Good my mother peace,\nI would that I were low laid in my graue,\nI am not worth this coyle that's made for me\nQu.Mo. His mother shames him so, poore boy hee weepes\nCon. Now shame vpon you where she does or no,\nHis grandames wrongs, and not his mothers shames\nDrawes those heauen-mouing pearles fro[m] his poor eies,\nWhich heauen shall take in nature of a fee:\nI, with these Christall beads heauen shall be brib'd\nTo doe him Iustice, and reuenge on you\nQu. Thou monstrous slanderer of heauen and earth\nCon. Thou monstrous Iniurer of heauen and earth,\nCall not me slanderer, thou and thine vsurpe\nThe Dominations, Royalties, and rights\nOf this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest sonnes sonne,\nInfortunate in nothing but in thee:\nThy sinnes are visited in this poore childe,\nThe Canon of the Law is laide on him,\nBeing but the second generation\nRemoued from thy sinne-conceiuing wombe\nIohn. Bedlam haue done\nCon. I haue but this to say,\nThat he is not onely plagued for her sin,\nBut God hath made her sinne and her, the plague\nOn this remoued issue, plagued for her,\nAnd with her plague her sinne: his iniury\nHer iniurie the Beadle to her sinne,\nAll punish'd in the person of this childe,\nAnd all for her, a plague vpon her\nQue. Thou vnaduised scold, I can produce\nA Will, that barres the title of thy sonne\nCon. I who doubts that, a Will: a wicked will,\nA womans will, a cankred Grandams will\nFra. Peace Lady, pause, or be more temperate,\nIt ill beseemes this presence to cry ayme\nTo these ill-tuned repetitions:\nSome Trumpet summon hither to the walles\nThese men of Angiers, let vs heare them speake,\nWhose title they admit, Arthurs or Iohns.\nTrumpet sounds. Enter a Citizen vpon the walles.\nCit. Who is it that hath warn'd vs to the walles?\nFra. 'Tis France, for England\nIohn. England for it selfe:\nYou men of Angiers, and my louing subiects\nFra. You louing men of Angiers, Arthurs subiects,\nOur Trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle\nIohn. For our aduantage, therefore heare vs first:\nThese flagges of France that are aduanced heere\nBefore the eye and prospect of your Towne,\nHaue hither march'd to your endamagement.\nThe Canons haue their bowels full of wrath,\nAnd ready mounted are they to spit forth\nTheir Iron indignation 'gainst your walles:\nAll preparation for a bloody siedge\nAnd merciles proceeding, by these French.\nComfort your Citties eies, your winking gates:\nAnd but for our approch, those sleeping stones,\nThat as a waste doth girdle you about\nBy the compulsion of their Ordinance,\nBy this time from their fixed beds of lime\nHad bin dishabited, and wide hauocke made\nFor bloody power to rush vppon your peace.\nBut on the sight of vs your lawfull King,\nWho painefully with much expedient march\nHaue brought a counter-checke before your gates,\nTo saue vnscratch'd your Citties threatned cheekes:\nBehold the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle,\nAnd now insteed of bulletts wrapt in fire\nTo make a shaking feuer in your walles,\nThey shoote but calme words, folded vp in smoake,\nTo make a faithlesse errour in your eares,\nWhich trust accordingly kinde Cittizens,\nAnd let vs in. Your King, whose labour'd spirits\nFore-wearied in this action of swift speede,\nCraues harbourage within your Citie walles\nFrance. When I haue saide, make answer to vs both.\nLoe in this right hand, whose protection\nIs most diuinely vow'd vpon the right\nOf him it holds, stands yong Plantagenet,\nSonne to the elder brother of this man,\nAnd King ore him, and all that he enioyes:\nFor this downe-troden equity, we tread\nIn warlike march, these greenes before your Towne,\nBeing no further enemy to you\nThen the constraint of hospitable zeale,\nIn the releefe of this oppressed childe,\nReligiously prouokes. Be pleased then\nTo pay that dutie which you truly owe,\nTo him that owes it, namely, this yong Prince,\nAnd then our Armes, like to a muzled Beare,\nSaue in aspect, hath all offence seal'd vp:\nOur Cannons malice vainly shall be spent\nAgainst th' involnerable clouds of heauen,\nAnd with a blessed and vn-vext retyre,\nWith vnhack'd swords, and Helmets all vnbruis'd,\nWe will beare home that lustie blood againe,\nWhich heere we came to spout against your Towne,\nAnd leaue your children, wiues, and you in peace.\nBut if you fondly passe our proffer'd offer,\n'Tis not the rounder of your old-fac'd walles,\nCan hide you from our messengers of Warre,\nThough all these English, and their discipline\nWere harbour'd in their rude circumference:\nThen tell vs, Shall your Citie call vs Lord,\nIn that behalfe which we haue challeng'd it?\nOr shall we giue the signall to our rage,\nAnd stalke in blood to our possession?\nCit. In breefe, we are the King of Englands subiects\nFor him, and in his right, we hold this Towne\nIohn. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in\nCit. That can we not: but he that proues the King\nTo him will we proue loyall, till that time\nHaue we ramm'd vp our gates against the world\nIohn. Doth not the Crowne of England, prooue the\nKing?\nAnd if not that, I bring you Witnesses\nTwice fifteene thousand hearts of Englands breed\nBast. Bastards and else\nIohn. To verifie our title with their liues\nFran. As many and as well-borne bloods as those\nBast. Some Bastards too\nFran. Stand in his face to contradict his claime\nCit. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,\nWe for the worthiest hold the right from both\nIohn. Then God forgiue the sinne of all those soules,\nThat to their euerlasting residence,\nBefore the dew of euening fall, shall fleete\nIn dreadfull triall of our kingdomes King\nFran. Amen, Amen, mount Cheualiers to Armes\nBast. Saint George that swindg'd the Dragon,\nAnd ere since sit's on's horsebacke at mine Hostesse dore\nTeach vs some sence. Sirrah, were I at home\nAt your den sirrah, with your Lionnesse,\nI would set an Oxe-head to your Lyons hide:\nAnd make a monster of you\nAust. Peace, no more\nBast. O tremble: for you heare the Lyon rore\nIohn. Vp higher to the plaine, where we'l set forth\nIn best appointment all our Regiments\nBast. Speed then to take aduantage of the field\nFra. It shall be so, and at the other hill\nCommand the rest to stand, God and our right.\nExeunt.\nHeere after excursions, Enter the Herald of France with Trumpets\nto the\ngates.\nF.Her. You men of Angiers open wide your gates,\nAnd let yong Arthur Duke of Britaine in,\nWho by the hand of France, this day hath made\nMuch worke for teares in many an English mother,\nWhose sonnes lye scattered on the bleeding ground:\nMany a widdowes husband groueling lies,\nColdly embracing the discoloured earth,\nAnd victorie with little losse doth play\nVpon the dancing banners of the French,\nWho are at hand triumphantly displayed\nTo enter Conquerors, and to proclaime\nArthur of Britaine, Englands King, and yours.\nEnter English Herald with Trumpet.\nE.Har. Reioyce you men of Angiers, ring your bels,\nKing Iohn, your king and Englands, doth approach,\nCommander of this hot malicious day,\nTheir Armours that march'd hence so siluer bright,\nHither returne all gilt with Frenchmens blood:\nThere stucke no plume in any English Crest,\nThat is remoued by a staffe of France.\nOur colours do returne in those same hands\nThat did display them when we first marcht forth:\nAnd like a iolly troope of Huntsmen come\nOur lustie English, all with purpled hands,\nDide in the dying slaughter of their foes,\nOpen your gates, and giue the Victors way\nHubert. Heralds, from off our towres we might behold\nFrom first to last, the on-set and retyre:\nOf both your Armies, whose equality\nBy our best eyes cannot be censured:\nBlood hath bought blood, and blowes haue answerd blowes:\nStrength matcht with strength, and power confronted\npower,\nBoth are alike, and both alike we like:\nOne must proue greatest. While they weigh so euen,\nWe hold our Towne for neither: yet for both.\nEnter the two Kings with their powers, at seuerall doores.\nIohn. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?\nSay, shall the currant of our right rome on,\nWhose passage vext with thy impediment,\nShall leaue his natiue channell, and ore-swell\nWith course disturb'd euen thy confining shores,\nVnlesse thou let his siluer Water, keepe\nA peacefull progresse to the Ocean\nFra. England thou hast not sau'd one drop of blood\nIn this hot triall more then we of France,\nRather lost more. And by this hand I sweare\nThat swayes the earth this Climate ouer-lookes,\nBefore we will lay downe our iust-borne Armes,\nWee'l put thee downe, 'gainst whom these Armes wee beare,\nOr adde a royall number to the dead:\nGracing the scroule that tels of this warres losse,\nWith slaughter coupled to the name of kings\nBast. Ha Maiesty: how high thy glory towres,\nWhen the rich blood of kings is set on fire:\nOh now doth death line his dead chaps with steele,\nThe swords of souldiers are his teeth, his phangs,\nAnd now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men\nIn vndetermin'd differences of kings.\nWhy stand these royall fronts amazed thus:\nCry hauocke kings, backe to the stained field\nYou equall Potents, fierie kindled spirits,\nThen let confusion of one part confirm\nThe others peace: till then, blowes, blood, and death\nIohn. Whose party do the Townesmen yet admit?\nFra. Speake Citizens for England, whose your king\nHub. The king of England, when we know the king\nFra. Know him in vs, that heere hold vp his right\nIohn. In Vs, that are our owne great Deputie,\nAnd beare possession of our Person heere,\nLord of our presence Angiers, and of you\nFra. A greater powre then We denies all this,\nAnd till it be vndoubted, we do locke\nOur former scruple in our strong barr'd gates:\nKings of our feare, vntill our feares resolu'd\nBe by some certaine king, purg'd and depos'd\nBast. By heauen, these scroyles of Angiers flout you kings,\nAnd stand securely on their battelments,\nAs in a Theater, whence they gape and point\nAt your industrious Scenes and acts of death.\nYour Royall presences be rul'd by mee,\nDo like the Mutines of Ierusalem,\nBe friends a-while, and both conioyntly bend\nYour sharpest Deeds of malice on this Towne.\nBy East and West let France and England mount.\nTheir battering Canon charged to the mouthes,\nTill their soule-fearing clamours haue braul'd downe\nThe flintie ribbes of this contemptuous Citie,\nI'de play incessantly vpon these Iades,\nEuen till vnfenced desolation\nLeaue them as naked as the vulgar ayre:\nThat done, disseuer your vnited strengths,\nAnd part your mingled colours once againe,\nTurne face to face, and bloody point to point:\nThen in a moment Fortune shall cull forth\nOut of one side her happy Minion,\nTo whom in fauour she shall giue the day,\nAnd kisse him with a glorious victory:\nHow like you this wilde counsell mighty States,\nSmackes it not something of the policie\nIohn. Now by the sky that hangs aboue our heads,\nI like it well. France, shall we knit our powres,\nAnd lay this Angiers euen with the ground,\nThen after fight who shall be king of it?\nBast. And if thou hast the mettle of a king,\nBeing wrong'd as we are by this peeuish Towne:\nTurne thou the mouth of thy Artillerie,\nAs we will ours, against these sawcie walles,\nAnd when that we haue dash'd them to the ground,\nWhy then defie each other, and pell-mell,\nMake worke vpon our selues, for heauen or hell\nFra. Let it be so: say, where will you assault?\nIohn. We from the West will send destruction\nInto this Cities bosome\nAust. I from the North\nFran. Our Thunder from the South,\nShall raine their drift of bullets on this Towne\nBast. O prudent discipline! From North to South:\nAustria and France shoot in each others mouth.\nIle stirre them to it: Come, away, away\nHub. Heare vs great kings, vouchsafe awhile to stay\nAnd I shall shew you peace, and faire-fac'd league:\nWin you this Citie without stroke, or wound,\nRescue those breathing liues to dye in beds,\nThat heere come sacrifices for the field.\nPerseuer not, but heare me mighty kings\nIohn. Speake on with fauour, we are bent to heare\nHub. That daughter there of Spaine, the Lady Blanch\nIs neere to England, looke vpon the yeeres\nOf Lewes the Dolphin, and that louely maid.\nIf lustie loue should go in quest of beautie,\nWhere should he finde it fairer, then in Blanch:\nIf zealous loue should go in search of vertue,\nWhere should he finde it purer then in Blanch?\nIf loue ambitious, sought a match of birth,\nWhose veines bound richer blood then Lady Blanch?\nSuch as she is, in beautie, vertue, birth,\nIs the yong Dolphin euery way compleat,\nIf not compleat of, say he is not shee,\nAnd she againe wants nothing, to name want,\nIf want it be not, that she is not hee.\nHe is the halfe part of a blessed man,\nLeft to be finished by such as shee,\nAnd she a faire diuided excellence,\nWhose fulnesse of perfection lyes in him.\nO two such siluer currents when they ioyne\nDo glorifie the bankes that bound them in:\nAnd two such shores, to two such streames made one,\nTwo such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,\nTo these two Princes, if you marrie them:\nThis Vnion shall do more then batterie can\nTo our fast closed gates: for at this match,\nWith swifter spleene then powder can enforce\nThe mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,\nAnd giue you entrance: but without this match,\nThe sea enraged is not halfe so deafe,\nLyons more confident, Mountaines and rockes\nMore free from motion, no not death himselfe\nIn mortall furie halfe so peremptorie,\nAs we to keepe this Citie\nBast. Heeres a stay,\nThat shakes the rotten carkasse of old death\nOut of his ragges. Here's a large mouth indeede,\nThat spits forth death, and mountaines, rockes, and seas,\nTalkes as familiarly of roaring Lyons,\nAs maids of thirteene do of puppi-dogges.\nWhat Cannoneere begot this lustie blood,\nHe speakes plaine Cannon fire, and smoake, and bounce,\nHe giues the bastinado with his tongue:\nOur eares are cudgel'd, not a word of his\nBut buffets better then a fist of France:\nZounds, I was neuer so bethumpt with words,\nSince I first cal'd my brothers father Dad\nOld Qu. Son, list to this coniunction, make this match\nGiue with our Neece a dowrie large enough,\nFor by this knot, thou shalt so surely tye\nThy now vnsur'd assurance to the Crowne,\nThat yon greene boy shall haue no Sunne to ripe\nThe bloome that promiseth a mightie fruite.\nI see a yeelding in the lookes of France:\nMarke how they whisper, vrge them while their soules\nAre capeable of this ambition,\nLeast zeale now melted by the windie breath\nOf soft petitions, pittie and remorse,\nCoole and congeale againe to what it was\nHub. Why answer not the double Maiesties,\nThis friendly treatie of our threatned Towne\nFra. Speake England first, that hath bin forward first\nTo speake vnto this Cittie: what say you?\nIohn. If that the Dolphin there thy Princely sonne,\nCan in this booke of beautie read, I loue:\nHer Dowrie shall weigh equall with a Queene:\nFor Angiers, and faire Toraine Maine, Poyctiers,\nAnd all that we vpon this side the Sea,\n(Except this Cittie now by vs besiedg'd)\nFinde liable to our Crowne and Dignitie,\nShall gild her bridall bed and make her rich\nIn titles, honors, and promotions,\nAs she in beautie, education, blood,\nHoldes hand with any Princesse of the world\nFra. What sai'st thou boy? looke in the Ladies face\nDol. I do my Lord, and in her eie I find\nA wonder, or a wondrous miracle,\nThe shadow of my selfe form'd in her eye,\nWhich being but the shadow of your sonne,\nBecomes a sonne and makes your sonne a shadow:\nI do protest I neuer lou'd my selfe\nTill now, infixed I beheld my selfe,\nDrawne in the flattering table of her eie.\nWhispers with Blanch.\nBast. Drawne in the flattering table of her eie,\nHang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,\nAnd quarter'd in her heart, hee doth espie\nHimselfe loues traytor, this is pittie now;\nThat hang'd, and drawne, and quarter'd there should be\nIn such a loue, so vile a Lout as he\nBlan. My vnckles will in this respect is mine,\nIf he see ought in you that makes him like,\nThat any thing he see's which moues his liking,\nI can with ease translate it to my will:\nOr if you will, to speake more properly,\nI will enforce it easlie to my loue.\nFurther I will not flatter you, my Lord,\nThat all I see in you is worthie loue,\nThen this, that nothing do I see in you,\nThough churlish thoughts themselues should bee your\nIudge,\nThat I can finde, should merit any hate\nIohn. What saie these yong-ones? What say you my\nNeece?\nBlan. That she is bound in honor still to do\nWhat you in wisedome still vouchsafe to say\nIohn. Speake then Prince Dolphin, can you loue this\nLadie?\nDol. Nay aske me if I can refraine from loue,\nFor I doe loue her most vnfainedly\nIohn. Then I doe giue Volquessen, Toraine, Maine,\nPoyctiers and Aniow, these fiue Prouinces\nWith her to thee, and this addition more,\nFull thirty thousand Markes of English coyne:\nPhillip of France, if thou be pleas'd withall,\nCommand thy sonne and daughter to ioyne hands\nFra. It likes vs well young Princes: close your hands\nAust. And your lippes too, for I am well assur'd,\nThat I did so when I was first assur'd\nFra. Now Cittizens of Angires ope your gates,\nLet in that amitie which you haue made,\nFor at Saint Maries Chappell presently,\nThe rights of marriage shallbe solemniz'd.\nIs not the Ladie Constance in this troope?\nI know she is not for this match made vp,\nHer presence would haue interrupted much.\nWhere is she and her sonne, tell me, who knowes?\nDol. She is sad and passionate at your highnes Tent\nFra. And by my faith, this league that we haue made\nWill giue her sadnesse very little cure:\nBrother of England, how may we content\nThis widdow Lady? In her right we came,\nWhich we God knowes, haue turn'd another way,\nTo our owne vantage\nIohn. We will heale vp all,\nFor wee'l create yong Arthur Duke of Britaine\nAnd Earle of Richmond, and this rich faire Towne\nWe make him Lord of. Call the Lady Constance,\nSome speedy Messenger bid her repaire\nTo our solemnity: I trust we shall,\n(If not fill vp the measure of her will)\nYet in some measure satisfie her so,\nThat we shall stop her exclamation,\nGo we as well as hast will suffer vs,\nTo this vnlook'd for vnprepared pompe.\nExeunt.\nBast. Mad world, mad kings, mad composition:\nIohn to stop Arthurs Title in the whole,\nHath willingly departed with a part,\nAnd France, whose armour Conscience buckled on,\nWhom zeale and charitie brought to the field,\nAs Gods owne souldier, rounded in the eare,\nWith that same purpose-changer, that slye diuel,\nThat Broker, that still breakes the pate of faith,\nThat dayly breake-vow, he that winnes of all,\nOf kings, of beggers, old men, yong men, maids,\nWho hauing no externall thing to loose,\nBut the word Maid, cheats the poore Maide of that.\nThat smooth-fac'd Gentleman, tickling commoditie,\nCommoditie, the byas of the world,\nThe world, who of it selfe is peysed well,\nMade to run euen, vpon euen ground;\nTill this aduantage, this vile drawing byas,\nThis sway of motion, this commoditie,\nMakes it take head from all indifferency,\nFrom all direction, purpose, course, intent.\nAnd this same byas, this Commoditie,\nThis Bawd, this Broker, this all-changing-word,\nClap'd on the outward eye of fickle France,\nHath drawne him from his owne determin'd ayd,\nFrom a resolu'd and honourable warre,\nTo a most base and vile-concluded peace.\nAnd why rayle I on this Commoditie?\nBut for because he hath not wooed me yet:\nNot that I haue the power to clutch my hand,\nWhen his faire Angels would salute my palme,\nBut for my hand, as vnattempted yet,\nLike a poore begger, raileth on the rich.\nWell, whiles I am a begger, I will raile,\nAnd say there is no sin but to be rich:\nAnd being rich, my vertue then shall be,\nTo say there is no vice, but beggerie:\nSince Kings breake faith vpon commoditie,\nGaine be my Lord, for I will worship thee.\nEnter.\nActus Secundus\nEnter Constance, Arthur, and Salisbury.\nCon. Gone to be married? Gone to sweare a peace?\nFalse blood to false blood ioyn'd. Gone to be freinds?\nShall Lewis haue Blaunch, and Blaunch those Prouinces?\nIt is not so, thou hast mispoke, misheard,\nBe well aduis'd, tell ore thy tale againe.\nIt cannot be, thou do'st but say 'tis so.\nI trust I may not trust thee, for thy word\nIs but the vaine breath of a common man:\nBeleeue me, I doe not beleeue thee man,\nI haue a Kings oath to the contrarie.\nThou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,\nFor I am sicke, and capeable of feares,\nOpprest with wrongs, and therefore full of feares,\nA widdow, husbandles, subiect to feares,\nA woman naturally borne to feares;\nAnd though thou now confesse thou didst but iest\nWith my vext spirits, I cannot take a Truce,\nBut they will quake and tremble all this day.\nWhat dost thou meane by shaking of thy head?\nWhy dost thou looke so sadly on my sonne?\nWhat meanes that hand vpon that breast of thine?\nWhy holdes thine eie that lamentable rhewme,\nLike a proud riuer peering ore his bounds?\nBe these sad signes confirmers of thy words?\nThen speake againe, not all thy former tale,\nBut this one word, whether thy tale be true\nSal. As true as I beleeue you thinke them false,\nThat giue you cause to proue my saying true\nCon. Oh if thou teach me to beleeue this sorrow,\nTeach thou this sorrow, how to make me dye,\nAnd let beleefe, and life encounter so,\nAs doth the furie of two desperate men,\nWhich in the very meeting fall, and dye.\nLewes marry Blaunch? O boy, then where art thou?\nFrance friend with England, what becomes of me?\nFellow be gone: I cannot brooke thy sight,\nThis newes hath made thee a most vgly man\nSal. What other harme haue I good Lady done,\nBut spoke the harme, that is by others done?\nCon. Which harme within it selfe so heynous is,\nAs it makes harmefull all that speake of it\nAr. I do beseech you Madam be content\nCon. If thou that bidst me be content, wert grim\nVgly, and slandrous to thy Mothers wombe,\nFull of vnpleasing blots, and sightlesse staines,\nLame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,\nPatch'd with foule Moles, and eye-offending markes,\nI would not care, I then would be content,\nFor then I should not loue thee: no, nor thou\nBecome thy great birth, nor deserue a Crowne.\nBut thou art faire, and at thy birth (deere boy)\nNature and Fortune ioyn'd to make thee great.\nOf Natures guifts, thou mayst with Lillies boast,\nAnd with the halfe-blowne Rose. But Fortune, oh,\nShe is corrupted, chang'd, and wonne from thee,\nSh' adulterates hourely with thine Vnckle Iohn,\nAnd with her golden hand hath pluckt on France\nTo tread downe faire respect of Soueraigntie,\nAnd made his Maiestie the bawd to theirs.\nFrance is a Bawd to Fortune, and king Iohn,\nThat strumpet Fortune, that vsurping Iohn:\nTell me thou fellow, is not France forsworne?\nEnvenom him with words, or get thee gone,\nAnd leaue those woes alone, which I alone\nAm bound to vnder-beare\nSal. Pardon me Madam,\nI may not goe without you to the kings\nCon. Thou maist, thou shalt, I will not go with thee,\nI will instruct my sorrowes to bee proud,\nFor greefe is proud, and makes his owner stoope,\nTo me and to the state of my great greefe,\nLets kings assemble: for my greefe's so great,\nThat no supporter but the huge firme earth\nCan hold it vp: here I and sorrowes sit,\nHeere is my Throne bid kings come bow to it.\nActus Tertius, Scaena prima.\nEnter King Iohn, France, Dolphin, Blanch, Elianor, Philip, Austria,\nConstance.\nFran. 'Tis true (faire daughter) and this blessed day,\nEuer in France shall be kept festiuall:\nTo solemnize this day the glorious sunne\nStayes in his course, and playes the Alchymist,\nTurning with splendor of his precious eye\nThe meager cloddy earth to glittering gold:\nThe yearely course that brings this day about,\nShall neuer see it, but a holy day\nConst. A wicked day, and not a holy day.\nWhat hath this day deseru'd? what hath it done,\nThat it in golden letters should be set\nAmong the high tides in the Kalender?\nNay, rather turne this day out of the weeke,\nThis day of shame, oppression, periury.\nOr if it must stand still, let wiues with childe\nPray that their burthens may not fall this day,\nLest that their hopes prodigiously be crost:\nBut (on this day) let Sea-men feare no wracke,\nNo bargaines breake that are not this day made;\nThis day all things begun, come to ill end,\nYea, faith it selfe to hollow falshood change\nFra. By heauen Lady, you shall haue no cause\nTo curse the faire proceedings of this day:\nHaue I not pawn'd to you my Maiesty?\nConst. You haue beguil'd me with a counterfeit\nResembling Maiesty, which being touch'd and tride,\nProues valuelesse: you are forsworne, forsworne,\nYou came in Armes to spill mine enemies bloud,\nBut now in Armes, you strengthen it with yours.\nThe grapling vigor, and rough frowne of Warre\nIs cold in amitie, and painted peace,\nAnd our oppression hath made vp this league:\nArme, arme, you heauens, against these periur'd Kings,\nA widdow cries, be husband to me (heauens)\nLet not the howres of this vngodly day\nWeare out the daies in Peace; but ere Sun-set,\nSet armed discord 'twixt these periur'd Kings,\nHeare me, Oh, heare me\nAust. Lady Constance, peace\nConst. War, war, no peace, peace is to me a warre:\nO Lymoges, O Austria, thou dost shame\nThat bloudy spoyle: thou slaue, thou wretch, y coward,\nThou little valiant, great in villanie,\nThou euer strong vpon the stronger side;\nThou Fortunes Champion, that do'st neuer fight\nBut when her humourous Ladiship is by\nTo teach thee safety: thou art periur'd too,\nAnd sooth'st vp greatnesse. What a foole art thou,\nA ramping foole, to brag, and stamp, and sweare,\nVpon my partie: thou cold blooded slaue,\nHast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?\nBeene sworne my Souldier, bidding me depend\nVpon thy starres, thy fortune, and thy strength,\nAnd dost thou now fall ouer to my foes?\nThou weare a Lyons hide, doff it for shame,\nAnd hang a Calues skin on those recreant limbes\nAus. O that a man should speake those words to me\nPhil. And hang a Calues-skin on those recreant limbs\nAus. Thou dar'st not say so villaine for thy life\nPhil. And hang a Calues-skin on those recreant limbs\nIohn. We like not this, thou dost forget thy selfe.\nEnter Pandulph.\nFra. Heere comes the holy Legat of the Pope\nPan. Haile you annointed deputies of heauen;\nTo thee King Iohn my holy errand is:\nI Pandulph, of faire Millane Cardinall,\nAnd from Pope Innocent the Legate heere,\nDoe in his name religiously demand\nWhy thou against the Church, our holy Mother,\nSo wilfully dost spurne; and force perforce\nKeepe Stephen Langton chosen Archbishop\nOf Canterbury from that holy Sea:\nThis in our foresaid holy Fathers name\nPope Innocent, I doe demand of thee\nIohn. What earthie name to Interrogatories\nCan tast the free breath of a sacred King?\nThou canst not (Cardinall) deuise a name\nSo slight, vnworthy, and ridiculous\nTo charge me to an answere, as the Pope:\nTell him this tale, and from the mouth of England,\nAdde thus much more, that no Italian Priest\nShall tythe or toll in our dominions:\nBut as we, vnder heauen, are supreame head,\nSo vnder him that great supremacy\nWhere we doe reigne, we will alone vphold\nWithout th' assistance of a mortall hand:\nSo tell the Pope, all reuerence set apart\nTo him and his vsurp'd authoritie\nFra. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this\nIohn. Though you, and all the Kings of Christendom\nAre led so grossely by this medling Priest,\nDreading the curse that money may buy out,\nAnd by the merit of vilde gold, drosse, dust,\nPurchase corrupted pardon of a man,\nWho in that sale sels pardon from himselfe:\nThough you, and al the rest so grossely led,\nThis iugling witchcraft with reuennue cherish,\nYet I alone, alone doe me oppose\nAgainst the Pope, and count his friends my foes\nPand. Then by the lawfull power that I haue,\nThou shalt stand curst, and excommunicate,\nAnd blessed shall he be that doth reuolt\nFrom his Allegeance to an heretique,\nAnd meritorious shall that hand be call'd,\nCanonized and worship'd as a Saint,\nThat takes away by any secret course\nThy hatefull life\nCon. O lawfull let it be\nThat I haue roome with Rome to curse a while,\nGood Father Cardinall, cry thou Amen\nTo my keene curses; for without my wrong\nThere is no tongue hath power to curse him right\nPan. There's Law and Warrant (Lady) for my curse\nCons. And for mine too, when Law can do no right.\nLet it be lawfull, that Law barre no wrong:\nLaw cannot giue my childe his kingdome heere;\nFor he that holds his Kingdome, holds the Law:\nTherefore since Law it selfe is perfect wrong,\nHow can the Law forbid my tongue to curse?\nPand. Philip of France, on perill of a curse,\nLet goe the hand of that Arch-heretique,\nAnd raise the power of France vpon his head,\nVnlesse he doe submit himselfe to Rome\nElea. Look'st thou pale France? do not let go thy hand\nCon. Looke to that Deuill, lest that France repent,\nAnd by disioyning hands hell lose a soule\nAust. King Philip, listen to the Cardinall\nBast. And hang a Calues-skin on his recreant limbs\nAust. Well ruffian, I must pocket vp these wrongs,\nBecause,\nBast. Your breeches best may carry them\nIohn. Philip, what saist thou to the Cardinall?\nCon. What should he say, but as the Cardinall?\nDolph. Bethinke you father, for the difference\nIs purchase of a heauy curse from Rome,\nOr the light losse of England, for a friend:\nForgoe the easier\nBla. That's the curse of Rome\nCon. O Lewis, stand fast, the deuill tempts thee heere\nIn likenesse of a new vntrimmed Bride\nBla. The Lady Constance speakes not from her faith,\nBut from her need\nCon. Oh, if thou grant my need,\nWhich onely liues but by the death of faith,\nThat need, must needs inferre this principle,\nThat faith would liue againe by death of need:\nO then tread downe my need, and faith mounts vp,\nKeepe my need vp, and faith is trodden downe\nIohn. The king is moud, and answers not to this\nCon. O be remou'd from him, and answere well\nAust. Doe so king Philip, hang no more in doubt\nBast. Hang nothing but a Calues skin most sweet lout\nFra. I am perplext, and know not what to say\nPan. What canst thou say, but wil perplex thee more?\nIf thou stand excommunicate, and curst?\nFra. Good reuerend father, make my person yours,\nAnd tell me how you would bestow your selfe?\nThis royall hand and mine are newly knit,\nAnd the coniunction of our inward soules\nMarried in league, coupled, and link'd together\nWith all religous strength of sacred vowes,\nThe latest breath that gaue the sound of words\nWas deepe-sworne faith, peace, amity, true loue\nBetweene our kingdomes and our royall selues,\nAnd euen before this truce, but new before,\nNo longer then we well could wash our hands,\nTo clap this royall bargaine vp of peace,\nHeauen knowes they were besmear'd and ouer-staind\nWith slaughters pencill; where reuenge did paint\nThe fearefull difference of incensed kings:\nAnd shall these hands so lately purg'd of bloud?\nSo newly ioyn'd in loue? so strong in both,\nVnyoke this seysure, and this kinde regreete?\nPlay fast and loose with faith? so iest with heauen,\nMake such vnconstant children of our selues\nAs now againe to snatch our palme from palme:\nVn-sweare faith sworne, and on the marriage bed\nOf smiling peace to march a bloody hoast,\nAnd make a ryot on the gentle brow\nOf true sincerity? O holy Sir\nMy reuerend father, let it not be so;\nOut of your grace, deuise, ordaine, impose\nSome gentle order, and then we shall be blest\nTo doe your pleasure, and continue friends\nPand. All forme is formelesse, Order orderlesse,\nSaue what is opposite to Englands loue.\nTherefore to Armes, be Champion of our Church,\nOr let the Church our mother breathe her curse,\nA mothers curse, on her reuolting sonne:\nFrance, thou maist hold a serpent by the tongue,\nA cased Lion by the mortall paw,\nA fasting Tyger safer by the tooth,\nThen keepe in peace that hand which thou dost hold\nFra. I may dis-ioyne my hand, but not my faith\nPand. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith,\nAnd like a ciuill warre setst oath to oath,\nThy tongue against thy tongue. O let thy vow\nFirst made to heauen, first be to heauen perform'd,\nThat is, to be the Champion of our Church,\nWhat since thou sworst, is sworne against thy selfe,\nAnd may not be performed by thy selfe,\nFor that which thou hast sworne to doe amisse,\nIs not amisse when it is truely done:\nAnd being not done, where doing tends to ill,\nThe truth is then most done not doing it:\nThe better Act of purposes mistooke,\nIs to mistake again, though indirect,\nYet indirection thereby growes direct,\nAnd falshood, falshood cures, as fire cooles fire\nWithin the scorched veines of one new burn'd:\nIt is religion that doth make vowes kept,\nBut thou hast sworne against religion:\nBy what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,\nAnd mak'st an oath the suretie for thy truth,\nAgainst an oath the truth, thou art vnsure\nTo sweare, sweares onely not to be forsworne,\nElse what a mockerie should it be to sweare?\nBut thou dost sweare, onely to be forsworne,\nAnd most forsworne, to keepe what thou dost sweare,\nTherefore thy later vowes, against thy first,\nIs in thy selfe rebellion to thy selfe:\nAnd better conquest neuer canst thou make,\nThen arme thy constant and thy nobler parts\nAgainst these giddy loose suggestions:\nVpon which better part, our prayrs come in,\nIf thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know\nThe perill of our curses light on thee\nSo heauy, as thou shalt not shake them off\nBut in despaire, dye vnder their blacke weight\nAust. Rebellion, flat rebellion\nBast. Wil't not be?\nWill not a Calues-skin stop that mouth of thine?\nDaul. Father, to Armes\nBlanch. Vpon thy wedding day?\nAgainst the blood that thou hast married?\nWhat, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?\nShall braying trumpets, and loud churlish drums\nClamors of hell, be measures to our pomp?\nO husband heare me: aye, alacke, how new\nIs husband in my mouth? euen for that name\nWhich till this time my tongue did nere pronounce;\nVpon my knee I beg, goe not to Armes\nAgainst mine Vncle\nConst. O, vpon my knee made hard with kneeling,\nI doe pray to thee, thou vertuous Daulphin,\nAlter not the doome fore-thought by heauen\nBlan. Now shall I see thy loue, what motiue may\nBe stronger with thee, then the name of wife?\nCon. That which vpholdeth him, that thee vpholds,\nHis Honor, Oh thine Honor, Lewis thine Honor\nDolph. I muse your Maiesty doth seeme so cold,\nWhen such profound respects doe pull you on?\nPand. I will denounce a curse vpon his head\nFra. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall fro[m] thee\nConst. O faire returne of banish'd Maiestie\nElea. O foule reuolt of French inconstancy\nEng. France, y shalt rue this houre within this houre\nBast. Old Time the clocke setter, y bald sexton Time:\nIs it as he will? well then, France shall rue\nBla. The Sun's orecast with bloud: faire day adieu,\nWhich is the side that I must goe withall?\nI am with both, each Army hath a hand,\nAnd in their rage, I hauing hold of both,\nThey whurle a-sunder, and dismember mee.\nHusband, I cannot pray that thou maist winne:\nVncle, I needs must pray that thou maist lose:\nFather, I may not wish the fortune thine:\nGrandam, I will not wish thy wishes thriue:\nWho-euer wins, on that side shall I lose:\nAssured losse, before the match be plaid\nDolph. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies\nBla. There where my fortune liues, there my life dies\nIohn. Cosen, goe draw our puisance together,\nFrance, I am burn'd vp with inflaming wrath,\nA rage, whose heat hath this condition;\nThat nothing can allay, nothing but blood,\nThe blood and deerest valued bloud of France\nFra. Thy rage shall burne thee vp, & thou shalt turne\nTo ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire:\nLooke to thy selfe, thou art in ieopardie\nIohn. No more then he that threats. To Arms let's hie.\nExeunt.\nScoena Secunda.\nAllarums, Excursions: Enter Bastard with Austria's head.\nBast. Now by my life, this day grows wondrous hot,\nSome ayery Deuill houers in the skie,\nAnd pour's downe mischiefe. Austrias head lye there,\nEnter Iohn, Arthur, Hubert.\nWhile Philip breathes\nIohn. Hubert, keepe this boy: Philip make vp,\nMy Mother is assayled in our Tent,\nAnd tane I feare\nBast. My Lord I rescued her,\nHer Highnesse is in safety, feare you not:\nBut on my Liege, for very little paines\nWill bring this labor to an happy end.\nEnter.\nAlarums, excursions, Retreat. Enter Iohn, Eleanor, Arthur Bastard,\nHubert,\nLords.\nIohn. So shall it be: your Grace shall stay behinde\nSo strongly guarded: Cosen, looke not sad,\nThy Grandame loues thee, and thy Vnkle will\nAs deere be to thee, as thy father was\nArth. O this will make my mother die with griefe\nIohn. Cosen away for England, haste before,\nAnd ere our comming see thou shake the bags\nOf hoording Abbots, imprisoned angells\nSet at libertie: the fat ribs of peace\nMust by the hungry now be fed vpon:\nVse our Commission in his vtmost force\nBast. Bell, Booke, & Candle, shall not driue me back,\nWhen gold and siluer becks me to come on.\nI leaue your highnesse: Grandame, I will pray\n(If euer I remember to be holy)\nFor your faire safety: so I kisse your hand\nEle. Farewell gentle Cosen\nIohn. Coz, farewell\nEle. Come hether little kinsman, harke, a worde\nIohn. Come hether Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,\nWe owe thee much: within this wall of flesh\nThere is a soule counts thee her Creditor,\nAnd with aduantage meanes to pay thy loue:\nAnd my good friend, thy voluntary oath\nLiues in this bosome, deerely cherished.\nGiue me thy hand, I had a thing to say,\nBut I will fit it with some better tune.\nBy heauen Hubert, I am almost asham'd\nTo say what good respect I haue of thee\nHub. I am much bounden to your Maiesty\nIohn. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,\nBut thou shalt haue: and creepe time nere so slow,\nYet it shall come, for me to doe thee good.\nI had a thing to say, but let it goe:\nThe Sunne is in the heauen, and the proud day,\nAttended with the pleasures of the world,\nIs all too wanton, and too full of gawdes\nTo giue me audience: If the mid-night bell\nDid with his yron tongue, and brazen mouth\nSound on into the drowzie race of night:\nIf this same were a Church-yard where we stand,\nAnd thou possessed with a thousand wrongs:\nOr if that surly spirit melancholy\nHad bak'd thy bloud, and made it heauy, thicke,\nWhich else runnes tickling vp and downe the veines,\nMaking that idiot laughter keepe mens eyes,\nAnd straine their cheekes to idle merriment,\nA passion hatefull to my purposes:\nOr if that thou couldst see me without eyes,\nHeare me without thine eares, and make reply\nWithout a tongue, vsing conceit alone,\nWithout eyes, eares, and harmefull sound of words:\nThen, in despight of brooded watchfull day,\nI would into thy bosome poure my thoughts:\nBut (ah) I will not, yet I loue thee well,\nAnd by my troth I thinke thou lou'st me well\nHub. So well, that what you bid me vndertake,\nThough that my death were adiunct to my Act,\nBy heauen I would doe it\nIohn. Doe not I know thou wouldst?\nGood Hubert, Hubert, Hubert throw thine eye\nOn yon young boy: Ile tell thee what my friend,\nHe is a very serpent in my way,\nAnd wheresoere this foot of mine doth tread,\nHe lies before me: dost thou vnderstand me?\nThou art his keeper\nHub. And Ile keepe him so,\nThat he shall not offend your Maiesty\nIohn. Death\nHub. My Lord\nIohn. A Graue\nHub. He shall not liue\nIohn. Enough.\nI could be merry now, Hubert, I loue thee.\nWell, Ile not say what I intend for thee:\nRemember: Madam, Fare you well,\nIle send those powers o're to your Maiesty\nEle. My blessing goe with thee\nIohn. For England Cosen, goe.\nHubert shall be your man, attend on you\nWith al true duetie: On toward Callice, hoa.\nExeunt.\nScaena Tertia.\nEnter France, Dolphin, Pandulpho, Attendants.\nFra. So by a roaring Tempest on the flood,\nA whole Armado of conuicted saile\nIs scattered and dis-ioyn'd from fellowship\nPand. Courage and comfort, all shall yet goe well\nFra. What can goe well, when we haue runne so ill?\nAre we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?\nArthur tane prisoner? diuers deere friends slaine?\nAnd bloudy England into England gone,\nOre-bearing interruption spight of France?\nDol. What he hath won, that hath he fortified:\nSo hot a speed, with such aduice dispos'd,\nSuch temperate order in so fierce a cause,\nDoth want example: who hath read, or heard\nOf any kindred-action like to this?\nFra. Well could I beare that England had this praise,\nSo we could finde some patterne of our shame:\nEnter Constance.\nLooke who comes heere? a graue vnto a soule,\nHolding th' eternall spirit against her will,\nIn the vilde prison of afflicted breath:\nI prethee Lady goe away with me\nCon. Lo; now: now see the issue of your peace\nFra. Patience good Lady, comfort gentle Constance\nCon. No, I defie all Counsell, all redresse,\nBut that which ends all counsell, true Redresse:\nDeath, death, O amiable, louely death,\nThou odoriferous stench: sound rottennesse,\nArise forth from the couch of lasting night,\nThou hate and terror to prosperitie,\nAnd I will kisse thy detestable bones,\nAnd put my eye-balls in thy vaultie browes,\nAnd ring these fingers with thy houshold wormes,\nAnd stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,\nAnd be a Carrion Monster like thy selfe;\nCome, grin on me, and I will thinke thou smil'st,\nAnd busse thee as thy wife: Miseries Loue,\nO come to me\nFra. O faire affliction, peace\nCon. No, no, I will not, hauing breath to cry:\nO that my tongue were in the thunders mouth,\nThen with a passion would I shake the world,\nAnd rowze from sleepe that fell Anatomy\nWhich cannot heare a Ladies feeble voyce,\nWhich scornes a moderne Inuocation\nPand. Lady, you vtter madnesse, and not sorrow\nCon. Thou art holy to belye me so,\nI am not mad: this haire I teare is mine,\nMy name is Constance, I was Geffreyes wife,\nYong Arthur is my sonne, and he is lost:\nI am not mad, I would to heauen I were,\nFor then 'tis like I should forget my selfe:\nO, if I could, what griefe should I forget?\nPreach some Philosophy to make me mad,\nAnd thou shalt be Canoniz'd (Cardinall.)\nFor, being not mad, but sensible of greefe,\nMy reasonable part produces reason\nHow I may be deliuer'd of these woes.\nAnd teaches mee to kill or hang my selfe:\nIf I were mad, I should forget my sonne,\nOr madly thinke a babe of clowts were he;\nI am not mad: too well, too well I feele\nThe different plague of each calamitie\nFra. Binde vp those tresses: O what loue I note\nIn the faire multitude of those her haires;\nWhere but by chance a siluer drop hath falne,\nEuen to that drop ten thousand wiery fiends\nDoe glew themselues in sociable griefe,\nLike true, inseparable, faithfull loues,\nSticking together in calamitie\nCon. To England, if you will\nFra. Binde vp your haires\nCon. Yes that I will: and wherefore will I do it?\nI tore them from their bonds, and cride aloud,\nO, that these hands could so redeeme my sonne,\nAs they haue giuen these hayres their libertie:\nBut now I enuie at their libertie,\nAnd will againe commit them to their bonds,\nBecause my poore childe is a prisoner.\nAnd Father Cardinall, I haue heard you say\nThat we shall see and know our friends in heauen:\nIf that be true, I shall see my boy againe;\nFor since the birth of Caine, the first male-childe\nTo him that did but yesterday suspire,\nThere was not such a gracious creature borne:\nBut now will Canker-sorrow eat my bud,\nAnd chase the natiue beauty from his cheeke,\nAnd he will looke as hollow as a Ghost,\nAs dim and meager as an Agues fitte,\nAnd so hee'll dye: and rising so againe,\nWhen I shall meet him in the Court of heauen\nI shall not know him: therefore neuer, neuer\nMust I behold my pretty Arthur more\nPand. You hold too heynous a respect of greefe\nConst. He talkes to me, that neuer had a sonne\nFra. You are as fond of greefe, as of your childe\nCon. Greefe fils the roome vp of my absent childe:\nLies in his bed, walkes vp and downe with me,\nPuts on his pretty lookes, repeats his words,\nRemembers me of all his gracious parts,\nStuffes out his vacant garments with his forme;\nThen, haue I reason to be fond of griefe?\nFareyouwell: had you such a losse as I,\nI could giue better comfort then you doe.\nI will not keepe this forme vpon my head,\nWhen there is such disorder in my witte:\nO Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my faire sonne,\nMy life, my ioy, my food, my all the world:\nMy widow-comfort, and my sorrowes cure.\nEnter.\nFra. I feare some out-rage, and Ile follow her.\nEnter\nDol. There's nothing in this world can make me ioy,\nLife is as tedious as a twice-told tale,\nVexing the dull eare of a drowsie man;\nAnd bitter shame hath spoyl'd the sweet words taste,\nThat it yeelds nought but shame and bitternesse\nPand. Before the curing of a strong disease,\nEuen in the instant of repaire and health,\nThe fit is strongest: Euils that take leaue\nOn their departure, most of all shew euill:\nWhat haue you lost by losing of this day?\nDol. All daies of glory, ioy, and happinesse\nPan. If you had won it, certainely you had.\nNo, no: when Fortune meanes to men most good,\nShee lookes vpon them with a threatning eye:\n'Tis strange to thinke how much King Iohn hath lost\nIn this which he accounts so clearely wonne:\nAre not you grieu'd that Arthur is his prisoner?\nDol. As heartily as he is glad he hath him\nPan. Your minde is all as youthfull as your blood.\nNow heare me speake with a propheticke spirit:\nFor euen the breath of what I meane to speake,\nShall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub\nOut of the path which shall directly lead\nThy foote to Englands Throne. And therefore marke:\nIohn hath seiz'd Arthur, and it cannot be,\nThat whiles warme life playes in that infants veines,\nThe mis-plac'dIohn should entertaine an houre,\nOne minute, nay one quiet breath of rest.\nA Scepter snatch'd with an vnruly hand,\nMust be as boysterously maintain'd as gain'd.\nAnd he that stands vpon a slipp'ry place,\nMakes nice of no vilde hold to stay him vp:\nThat Iohn may stand, then Arthur needs must fall,\nSo be it, for it cannot be but so\nDol. But what shall I gaine by yong Arthurs fall?\nPan. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,\nMay then make all the claime that Arthur did\nDol. And loose it, life and all, as Arthur did\nPan. How green you are, and fresh in this old world?\nIohn layes you plots: the times conspire with you,\nFor he that steepes his safetie in true blood,\nShall finde but bloodie safety, and vntrue.\nThis Act so euilly borne shall coole the hearts\nOf all his people, and freeze vp their zeale,\nThat none so small aduantage shall step forth\nTo checke his reigne, but they will cherish it.\nNo naturall exhalation in the skie,\nNo scope of Nature, no distemper'd day,\nNo common winde, no customed euent,\nBut they will plucke away his naturall cause,\nAnd call them Meteors, prodigies, and signes,\nAbbortiues, presages, and tongues of heauen,\nPlainly denouncing vengeance vpon Iohn\nDol. May be he will not touch yong Arthurs life,\nBut hold himselfe safe in his prisonment\nPan. O Sir, when he shall heare of your approach,\nIf that yong Arthur be not gone alreadie,\nEuen at that newes he dies: and then the hearts\nOf all his people shall reuolt from him,\nAnd kisse the lippes of vnacquainted change,\nAnd picke strong matter of reuolt, and wrath\nOut of the bloody fingers ends of Iohn.\nMe thinkes I see this hurley all on foot;\nAnd O, what better matter breeds for you,\nThen I haue nam'd. The Bastard Falconbridge\nIs now in England ransacking the Church,\nOffending Charity: If but a dozen French\nWere there in Armes, they would be as a Call\nTo traine ten thousand English to their side;\nOr, as a little snow, tumbled about,\nAnon becomes a Mountaine. O noble Dolphine,\nGo with me to the King, 'tis wonderfull,\nWhat may be wrought out of their discontent,\nNow that their soules are topfull of offence,\nFor England go; I will whet on the King\nDol. Strong reasons makes strange actions: let vs go,\nIf you say I, the King will not say no.\nExeunt.\nActus Quartus, Scaena prima.\nEnter Hubert and Executioners.\nHub. Heate me these Irons hot, and looke thou stand\nWithin the Arras: when I strike my foot\nVpon the bosome of the ground, rush forth\nAnd binde the boy, which you shall finde with me\nFast to the chaire: be heedfull: hence, and watch\nExec. I hope your warrant will beare out the deed\nHub. Vncleanly scruples feare not you: looke too't.\nYong Lad come forth; I haue to say with you.\nEnter Arthur.\nAr. Good morrow Hubert\nHub. Good morrow, little Prince\nAr. As little Prince, hauing so great a Title\nTo be more Prince, as may be: you are sad\nHub. Indeed I haue beene merrier\nArt. 'Mercie on me:\nMe thinkes no body should be sad but I:\nYet I remember, when I was in France,\nYong Gentlemen would be as sad as night\nOnely for wantonnesse: by my Christendome,\nSo I were out of prison, and kept Sheepe\nI should be as merry as the day is long:\nAnd so I would be heere, but that I doubt\nMy Vnckle practises more harme to me:\nHe is affraid of me, and I of him:\nIs it my fault, that I was Geffreyes sonne?\nNo in deede is't not: and I would to heauen\nI were your sonne, so you would loue me, Hubert:\nHub. If I talke to him, with his innocent prate\nHe will awake my mercie, which lies dead:\nTherefore I will be sodaine, and dispatch\nAr. Are you sicke Hubert? you looke pale to day,\nInsooth I would you were a little sicke,\nThat I might sit all night, and watch with you.\nI warrant I loue you more then you do me\nHub. His words do take possession of my bosome.\nReade heere yong Arthur. How now foolish rheume?\nTurning dispitious torture out of doore?\nI must be breefe, least resolution drop\nOut at mine eyes, in tender womanish teares.\nCan you not reade it? Is it not faire writ?\nAr. Too fairely Hubert, for so foule effect,\nMust you with hot Irons, burne out both mine eyes?\nHub. Yong Boy, I must\nArt. And will you?\nHub. And I will\nArt. Haue you the heart? When your head did but\nake,\nI knit my hand-kercher about your browes\n(The best I had, a Princesse wrought it me)\nAnd I did neuer aske it you againe:\nAnd with my hand, at midnight held your head;\nAnd like the watchfull minutes, to the houre,\nStill and anon cheer'd vp the heauy time;\nSaying, what lacke you? and where lies your greefe?\nOr what good loue may I performe for you?\nMany a poore mans sonne would haue lyen still,\nAnd nere haue spoke a louing word to you:\nBut you, at your sicke seruice had a Prince:\nNay, you may thinke my loue was craftie loue,\nAnd call it cunning. Do, and if you will,\nIf heauen be pleas'd that you must vse me ill,\nWhy then you must. Will you put out mine eyes?\nThese eyes, that neuer did, nor neuer shall\nSo much as frowne on you\nHub. I haue sworne to do it:\nAnd with hot Irons must I burne them out\nAr. Ah, none but in this Iron Age, would do it:\nThe Iron of it selfe, though heate red hot,\nApproaching neere these eyes, would drinke my teares,\nAnd quench this fierie indignation,\nEuen in the matter of mine innocence:\nNay, after that, consume away in rust,\nBut for containing fire to harme mine eye:\nAre you more stubborne hard, then hammer'd Iron?\nAnd if an Angell should haue come to me,\nAnd told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,\nI would not haue beleeu'd him: no tongue but Huberts\nHub. Come forth: Do as I bid you do\nArt. O saue me Hubert, saue me: my eyes are out\nEuen with the fierce lookes of these bloody men\nHub. Giue me the Iron I say, and binde him heere\nArt. Alas, what neede you be so boistrous rough?\nI will not struggle, I will stand stone still:\nFor heauen sake Hubert let me not be bound:\nNay heare me Hubert, driue these men away,\nAnd I will sit as quiet as a Lambe.\nI will not stirre, nor winch, nor speake a word,\nNor looke vpon the Iron angerly:\nThrust but these men away, and Ile forgiue you,\nWhat euer torment you do put me too\nHub. Go stand within: let me alone with him\nExec. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deede\nArt. Alas, I then haue chid away my friend,\nHe hath a sterne looke, but a gentle heart:\nLet him come backe, that his compassion may\nGiue life to yours\nHub. Come (Boy) prepare your selfe\nArt. Is there no remedie?\nHub. None, but to lose your eyes\nArt. O heauen: that there were but a moth in yours,\nA graine, a dust, a gnat, a wandering haire,\nAny annoyance in that precious sense:\nThen feeling what small things are boysterous there,\nYour vilde intent must needs seeme horrible\nHub. Is this your promise? Go too, hold your toong\nArt. Hubert, the vtterance of a brace of tongues,\nMust needes want pleading for a paire of eyes:\nLet me not hold my tongue: let me not Hubert,\nOr Hubert, if you will cut out my tongue,\nSo I may keepe mine eyes. O spare mine eyes,\nThough to no vse, but still to looke on you.\nLoe, by my troth, the Instrument is cold,\nAnd would not harme me\nHub. I can heate it, Boy\nArt. No, in good sooth: the fire is dead with griefe,\nBeing create for comfort, to be vs'd\nIn vndeserued extreames: See else your selfe,\nThere is no malice in this burning cole,\nThe breath of heauen, hath blowne his spirit out,\nAnd strew'd repentant ashes on his head\nHub. But with my breath I can reuiue it Boy\nArt. And if you do, you will but make it blush,\nAnd glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert:\nNay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes:\nAnd, like a dogge that is compell'd to fight,\nSnatch at his Master that doth tarre him on.\nAll things that you should vse to do me wrong\nDeny their office: onely you do lacke\nThat mercie, which fierce fire, and Iron extends,\nCreatures of note for mercy, lacking vses\nHub. Well, see to liue: I will not touch thine eye,\nFor all the Treasure that thine Vnckle owes,\nYet am I sworne, and I did purpose, Boy,\nWith this same very Iron, to burne them out\nArt. O now you looke like Hubert. All this while\nYou were disguis'd\nHub. Peace: no more. Adieu,\nYour Vnckle must not know but you are dead.\nIle fill these dogged Spies with false reports:\nAnd, pretty childe, sleepe doubtlesse, and secure,\nThat Hubert for the wealth of all the world,\nWill not offend thee\nArt. O heauen! I thanke you Hubert\nHub. Silence, no more; go closely in with mee,\nMuch danger do I vndergo for thee.\nExeunt.\nScena Secunda.\nEnter Iohn, Pembroke, Salisbury, and other Lordes.\nIohn. Heere once againe we sit: once against crown'd\nAnd look'd vpon, I hope, with chearefull eyes\nPem. This once again (but that your Highnes pleas'd)\nWas once superfluous: you were Crown'd before,\nAnd that high Royalty was nere pluck'd off:\nThe faiths of men, nere stained with reuolt:\nFresh expectation troubled not the Land\nWith any long'd-for-change, or better State\nSal. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pompe,\nTo guard a Title, that was rich before;\nTo gilde refined Gold, to paint the Lilly;\nTo throw a perfume on the Violet,\nTo smooth the yce, or adde another hew\nVnto the Raine-bow; or with Taper-light\nTo seeke the beauteous eye of heauen to garnish,\nIs wastefull, and ridiculous excesse\nPem. But that your Royall pleasure must be done,\nThis acte, is as an ancient tale new told,\nAnd, in the last repeating, troublesome,\nBeing vrged at a time vnseasonable\nSal. In this the Anticke, and well noted face\nOf plaine old forme, is much disfigured,\nAnd like a shifted winde vnto a saile,\nIt makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,\nStartles, and frights consideration:\nMakes sound opinion sicke, and truth suspected,\nFor putting on so new a fashion'd robe\nPem. When Workemen striue to do better then wel,\nThey do confound their skill in couetousnesse,\nAnd oftentimes excusing of a fault,\nDoth make the fault the worse by th' excuse:\nAs patches set vpon a little breach,\nDiscredite more in hiding of the fault,\nThen did the fault before it was so patch'd\nSal. To this effect, before you were new crown'd\nWe breath'd our Councell: but it pleas'd your Highnes\nTo ouer-beare it, and we are all well pleas'd,\nSince all, and euery part of what we would\nDoth make a stand, at what your Highnesse will\nIoh. Some reasons of this double Corronation\nI haue possest you with, and thinke them strong.\nAnd more, more strong, then lesser is my feare\nI shall indue you with: Meane time, but aske\nWhat you would haue reform'd, that is not well,\nAnd well shall you perceiue, how willingly\nI will both heare, and grant you your requests\nPem. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these\nTo sound the purposes of all their hearts,\nBoth for my selfe, and them: but chiefe of all\nYour safety: for the which, my selfe and them\nBend their best studies, heartily request\nTh' infranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint\nDoth moue the murmuring lips of discontent\nTo breake into this dangerous argument.\nIf what in rest you haue, in right you hold,\nWhy then your feares, which (as they say) attend\nThe steppes of wrong, should moue you to mew vp\nYour tender kinsman, and to choake his dayes\nWith barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth\nThe rich aduantage of good exercise,\nThat the times enemies may not haue this\nTo grace occasions: let it be our suite,\nThat you haue bid vs aske his libertie,\nWhich for our goods, we do no further aske,\nThen, whereupon our weale on you depending,\nCounts it your weale: he haue his liberty.\nEnter Hubert.\nIohn. Let it be so: I do commit his youth\nTo your direction: Hubert, what newes with you?\nPem. This is the man should do the bloody deed:\nHe shew'd his warrant to a friend of mine,\nThe image of a wicked heynous fault\nLiues in his eye: that close aspect of his,\nDo shew the mood of a much troubled brest,\nAnd I do fearefully beleeue 'tis done,\nWhat we so fear'd he had a charge to do\nSal. The colour of the King doth come, and go\nBetweene his purpose and his conscience,\nLike Heralds 'twixt two dreadfull battailes set:\nHis passion is so ripe, it needs must breake\nPem. And when it breakes, I feare will issue thence\nThe foule corruption of a sweet childes death\nIohn. We cannot hold mortalities strong hand.\nGood Lords, although my will to giue, is liuing,\nThe suite which you demand is gone, and dead.\nHe tels vs Arthur is deceas'd to night\nSal. Indeed we fear'd his sicknesse was past cure\nPem. Indeed we heard how neere his death he was,\nBefore the childe himselfe felt he was sicke:\nThis must be answer'd either heere, or hence\nIoh. Why do you bend such solemne browes on me?\nThinke you I beare the Sheeres of destiny?\nHaue I commandement on the pulse of life?\nSal. It is apparant foule-play, and 'tis shame\nThat Greatnesse should so grossely offer it;\nSo thriue it in your game, and so farewell\nPem. Stay yet (Lord Salisbury) Ile go with thee,\nAnd finde th' inheritance of this poore childe,\nHis little kingdome of a forced graue.\nThat blood which ow'd the bredth of all this Ile,\nThree foot of it doth hold; bad world the while:\nThis must not be thus borne, this will breake out\nTo all our sorrowes, and ere long I doubt.\nExeunt.\nIo. They burn in indignation: I repent:\nEnter Mes.\nThere is no sure foundation set on blood:\nNo certaine life atchieu'd by others death:\nA fearefull eye thou hast. Where is that blood,\nThat I haue seene inhabite in those cheekes?\nSo foule a skie, cleeres not without a storme,\nPoure downe thy weather: how goes all in France?\nMes. From France to England, neuer such a powre\nFor any forraigne preparation,\nWas leuied in the body of a land.\nThe Copie of your speede is learn'd by them:\nFor when you should be told they do prepare,\nThe tydings comes, that they are all arriu'd\nIoh. Oh where hath our Intelligence bin drunke?\nWhere hath it slept? Where is my Mothers care?\nThat such an Army could be drawne in France,\nAnd she not heare of it?\nMes. My Liege, her eare\nIs stopt with dust: the first of Aprill di'de\nYour noble mother; and as I heare, my Lord,\nThe Lady Constance in a frenzie di'de\nThree dayes before: but this from Rumors tongue\nI idely heard: if true, or false I know not\nIohn. With-hold thy speed, dreadfull Occasion:\nO make a league with me, 'till I haue pleas'd\nMy discontented Peeres. What? Mother dead?\nHow wildely then walkes my Estate in France?\nVnder whose conduct came those powres of France,\nThat thou for truth giu'st out are landed heere?\nMes. Vnder the Dolphin.\nEnter Bastard and Peter of Pomfret.\nIoh. Thou hast made me giddy\nWith these ill tydings: Now? What sayes the world\nTo your proceedings? Do not seeke to stuffe\nMy head with more ill newes: for it is full\nBast. But if you be a-feard to heare the worst,\nThen let the worst vn-heard, fall on your head\nIohn. Beare with me Cosen, for I was amaz'd\nVnder the tide; but now I breath againe\nAloft the flood, and can giue audience\nTo any tongue, speake it of what it will\nBast. How I haue sped among the Clergy men,\nThe summes I haue collected shall expresse:\nBut as I trauail'd hither through the land,\nI finde the people strangely fantasied,\nPossest with rumors, full of idle dreames,\nNot knowing what they feare, but full of feare.\nAnd here's a Prophet that I brought with me\nFrom forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found\nWith many hundreds treading on his heeles:\nTo whom he sung in rude harsh sounding rimes,\nThat ere the next Ascension day at noone,\nYour Highnes should deliuer vp your Crowne\nIohn. Thou idle Dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?\nPet. Fore-knowing that the truth will fall out so\nIohn. Hubert, away with him: imprison him,\nAnd on that day at noone, whereon he sayes\nI shall yeeld vp my Crowne, let him be hang'd\nDeliuer him to safety, and returne,\nFor I must vse thee. O my gentle Cosen,\nHear'st thou the newes abroad, who are arriu'd?\nBast. The French (my Lord) mens mouths are ful of it:\nBesides I met Lord Bigot, and Lord Salisburie\nWith eyes as red as new enkindled fire,\nAnd others more, going to seeke the graue\nOf Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to night, on your suggestion\nIohn. Gentle kinsman, go\nAnd thrust thy selfe into their Companies,\nI haue a way to winne their loues againe:\nBring them before me\nBast. I will seeke them out\nIohn. Nay, but make haste: the better foote before.\nO, let me haue no subiect enemies,\nWhen aduerse Forreyners affright my Townes\nWith dreadfull pompe of stout inuasion.\nBe Mercurie, set feathers to thy heeles,\nAnd flye (like thought) from them, to me againe\nBast. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.\nExit\nIohn. Spoke like a sprightfull Noble Gentleman.\nGo after him: for he perhaps shall neede\nSome Messenger betwixt me, and the Peeres,\nAnd be thou hee\nMes. With all my heart, my Liege\nIohn. My mother dead?\nEnter Hubert.\nHub. My Lord, they say fiue Moones were seene to night:\nFoure fixed, and the fift did whirle about\nThe other foure, in wondrous motion\nIoh. Fiue Moones?\nHub. Old men, and Beldames, in the streets\nDo prophesie vpon it dangerously:\nYong Arthurs death is common in their mouths,\nAnd when they talke of him, they shake their heads,\nAnd whisper one another in the eare.\nAnd he that speakes, doth gripe the hearers wrist,\nWhilst he that heares, makes fearefull action\nWith wrinkled browes, with nods, with rolling eyes.\nI saw a Smith stand with his hammer (thus)\nThe whilst his Iron did on the Anuile coole,\nWith open mouth swallowing a Taylors newes,\nWho with his Sheeres, and Measure in his hand,\nStanding on slippers, which his nimble haste\nHad falsely thrust vpon contrary feete,\nTold of a many thousand warlike French,\nThat were embattailed, and rank'd in Kent.\nAnother leane, vnwash'd Artificer,\nCuts off his tale, and talkes of Arthurs death\nIo. Why seek'st thou to possesse me with these feares?\nWhy vrgest thou so oft yong Arthurs death?\nThy hand hath murdred him: I had a mighty cause\nTo wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him\nH. No had (my Lord?) why, did you not prouoke me?\nIohn. It is the curse of Kings, to be attended\nBy slaues, that take their humors for a warrant,\nTo breake within the bloody house of life,\nAnd on the winking of Authoritie\nTo vnderstand a Law; to know the meaning\nOf dangerous Maiesty, when perchance it frownes\nMore vpon humor, then aduis'd respect\nHub. Heere is your hand and Seale for what I did\nIoh. Oh, when the last accompt twixt heauen & earth\nIs to be made, then shall this hand and Seale\nWitnesse against vs to damnation.\nHow oft the sight of meanes to do ill deeds,\nMake deeds ill done? Had'st not thou beene by,\nA fellow by the hand of Nature mark'd,\nQuoted, and sign'd to do a deede of shame,\nThis murther had not come into my minde.\nBut taking note of thy abhorr'd Aspect,\nFinding thee fit for bloody villanie:\nApt, liable to be employ'd in danger,\nI faintly broke with thee of Arthurs death:\nAnd thou, to be endeered to a King,\nMade it no conscience to destroy a Prince\nHub. My Lord\nIoh. Had'st thou but shooke thy head, or made a pause\nWhen I spake darkely, what I purposed:\nOr turn'd an eye of doubt vpon my face;\nAs bid me tell my tale in expresse words:\nDeepe shame had struck me dumbe, made me break off,\nAnd those thy feares, might haue wrought feares in me.\nBut, thou didst vnderstand me by my signes,\nAnd didst in signes againe parley with sinne,\nYea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,\nAnd consequently, thy rude hand to acte\nThe deed, which both our tongues held vilde to name.\nOut of my sight, and neuer see me more:\nMy Nobles leaue me, and my State is braued,\nEuen at my gates, with rankes of forraigne powres;\nNay, in the body of this fleshly Land,\nThis kingdome, this Confine of blood, and breathe\nHostilitie, and ciuill tumult reignes\nBetweene my conscience, and my Cosins death\nHub. Arme you against your other enemies:\nIle make a peace betweene your soule, and you.\nYong Arthur is aliue: This hand of mine\nIs yet a maiden, and an innocent hand.\nNot painted with the Crimson spots of blood,\nWithin this bosome, neuer entred yet\nThe dreadfull motion of a murderous thought,\nAnd you haue slander'd Nature in my forme,\nWhich howsoeuer rude exteriorly,\nIs yet the couer of a fayrer minde,\nThen to be butcher of an innocent childe\nIohn. Doth Arthur liue? O hast thee to the Peeres,\nThrow this report on their incensed rage,\nAnd make them tame to their obedience.\nForgiue the Comment that my passion made\nVpon thy feature, for my rage was blinde,\nAnd foule immaginarie eyes of blood\nPresented thee more hideous then thou art.\nOh, answer not; but to my Closset bring\nThe angry Lords, with all expedient hast,\nI coniure thee but slowly: run more fast.\nExeunt.\nScoena Tertia.\nEnter Arthur on the walles.\nAr. The Wall is high, and yet will I leape downe.\nGood ground be pittifull, and hurt me not:\nThere's few or none do know me, if they did,\nThis Ship-boyes semblance hath disguis'd me quite.\nI am afraide, and yet Ile venture it.\nIf I get downe, and do not breake my limbes,\nIle finde a thousand shifts to get away;\nAs good to dye, and go; as dye, and stay.\nOh me, my Vnckles spirit is in these stones,\nHeauen take my soule, and England keep my bones.\nDies\nEnter Pembroke, Salisbury, & Bigot.\nSal. Lords, I will meet him at S[aint]. Edmondsbury,\nIt is our safetie, and we must embrace\nThis gentle offer of the perillous time\nPem. Who brought that Letter from the Cardinall?\nSal. The Count Meloone, a Noble Lord of France,\nWhose priuate with me of the Dolphines loue,\nIs much more generall, then these lines import\nBig. To morrow morning let vs meete him then\nSal. Or rather then set forward, for 'twill be\nTwo long dayes iourney (Lords) or ere we meete.\nEnter Bastard.\nBast. Once more to day well met, distemper'd Lords,\nThe King by me requests your presence straight\nSal. The king hath dispossest himselfe of vs,\nWe will not lyne his thin-bestained cloake\nWith our pure Honors: nor attend the foote\nThat leaues the print of blood where ere it walkes.\nReturne, and tell him so: we know the worst\nBast. What ere you thinke, good words I thinke\nwere best\nSal. Our greefes, and not our manners reason now\nBast. But there is little reason in your greefe.\nTherefore 'twere reason you had manners now\nPem. Sir, sir, impatience hath his priuiledge\nBast. 'Tis true, to hurt his master, no mans else\nSal. This is the prison: What is he lyes heere?\nP. Oh death, made proud with pure & princely beuty,\nThe earth had not a hole to hide this deede\nSal. Murther, as hating what himselfe hath done,\nDoth lay it open to vrge on reuenge\nBig. Or when he doom'd this Beautie to a graue,\nFound it too precious Princely, for a graue\nSal. Sir Richard, what thinke you? you haue beheld,\nOr haue you read, or heard, or could you thinke?\nOr do you almost thinke, although you see,\nThat you do see? Could thought, without this obiect\nForme such another? This is the very top,\nThe heighth, the Crest: or Crest vnto the Crest\nOf murthers Armes: This is the bloodiest shame,\nThe wildest Sauagery, the vildest stroke\nThat euer wall-ey'd wrath, or staring rage\nPresented to the teares of soft remorse\nPem. All murthers past, do stand excus'd in this:\nAnd this so sole, and so vnmatcheable,\nShall giue a holinesse, a puritie,\nTo the yet vnbegotten sinne of times;\nAnd proue a deadly bloodshed, but a iest,\nExampled by this heynous spectacle\nBast. It is a damned, and a bloody worke,\nThe gracelesse action of a heauy hand,\nIf that it be the worke of any hand\nSal. If that it be the worke of any hand?\nWe had a kinde of light, what would ensue:\nIt is the shamefull worke of Huberts hand,\nThe practice, and the purpose of the king:\nFrom whose obedience I forbid my soule,\nKneeling before this ruine of sweete life,\nAnd breathing to his breathlesse Excellence\nThe Incense of a Vow, a holy Vow:\nNeuer to taste the pleasures of the world,\nNeuer to be infected with delight,\nNor conuersant with Ease, and Idlenesse,\nTill I haue set a glory to this hand,\nBy giuing it the worship of Reuenge\nPem. Big. Our soules religiously confirme thy words.\nEnter Hubert.\nHub. Lords, I am hot with haste, in seeking you,\nArthur doth liue, the king hath sent for you\nSal. Oh he is bold, and blushes not at death,\nAuant thou hatefull villain, get thee gone\nHu. I am no villaine\nSal. Must I rob the Law?\nBast. Your sword is bright sir, put it vp againe\nSal. Not till I sheath it in a murtherers skin\nHub. Stand backe Lord Salsbury, stand backe I say\nBy heauen, I thinke my sword's as sharpe as yours.\nI would not haue you (Lord) forget your selfe,\nNor tempt the danger of my true defence;\nLeast I, by marking of your rage, forget\nYour Worth, your Greatnesse, and Nobility\nBig. Out dunghill: dar'st thou braue a Nobleman?\nHub. Not for my life: But yet I dare defend\nMy innocent life against an Emperor\nSal. Thou art a Murtherer\nHub. Do not proue me so:\nYet I am none. Whose tongue so ere speakes false,\nNot truely speakes: who speakes not truly, Lies\nPem. Cut him to peeces\nBast. Keepe the peace, I say\nSal. Stand by, or I shall gaul you Faulconbridge\nBast. Thou wer't better gaul the diuell Salsbury.\nIf thou but frowne on me, or stirre thy foote,\nOr teach thy hastie spleene to do me shame,\nIle strike thee dead. Put vp thy sword betime,\nOr Ile so maule you, and your tosting-Iron,\nThat you shall thinke the diuell is come from hell\nBig. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?\nSecond a Villaine, and a Murtherer?\nHub. Lord Bigot, I am none\nBig. Who kill'd this Prince?\nHub. 'Tis not an houre since I left him well:\nI honour'd him, I lou'd him, and will weepe\nMy date of life out, for his sweete liues losse\nSal. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,\nFor villanie is not without such rheume,\nAnd he, long traded in it, makes it seeme\nLike Riuers of remorse and innocencie.\nAway with me, all you whose soules abhorre\nTh' vncleanly sauours of a Slaughter-house,\nFor I am stifled with this smell of sinne\nBig. Away, toward Burie, to the Dolphin there\nP. There tel the king, he may inquire vs out.\nEx. Lords.\nBa. Here's a good world: knew you of this faire work?\nBeyond the infinite and boundlesse reach of mercie,\n(If thou didst this deed of death) art y damn'd Hubert\nHub. Do but heare me sir\nBast. Ha? Ile tell thee what.\nThou'rt damn'd as blacke, nay nothing is so blacke,\nThou art more deepe damn'd then Prince Lucifer:\nThere is not yet so vgly a fiend of hell\nAs thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this childe\nHub. Vpon my soule\nBast. If thou didst but consent\nTo this most cruell Act: do but dispaire,\nAnd if thou want'st a Cord, the smallest thred\nThat euer Spider twisted from her wombe\nWill serue to strangle thee: A rush will be a beame\nTo hang thee on. Or wouldst thou drowne thy selfe,\nPut but a little water in a spoone,\nAnd it shall be as all the Ocean,\nEnough to stifle such a villaine vp.\nI do suspect thee very greeuously\nHub. If I in act, consent, or sinne of thought,\nBe guiltie of the stealing that sweete breath\nWhich was embounded in this beauteous clay,\nLet hell want paines enough to torture me:\nI left him well\nBast. Go, beare him in thine armes:\nI am amaz'd me thinkes, and loose my way\nAmong the thornes, and dangers of this world.\nHow easie dost thou take all England vp,\nFrom forth this morcell of dead Royaltie?\nThe life, the right, and truth of all this Realme\nIs fled to heauen: and England now is left\nTo tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth\nThe vn-owed interest of proud swelling State:\nNow for the bare-pickt bone of Maiesty,\nDoth dogged warre bristle his angry crest,\nAnd snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:\nNow Powers from home, and discontents at home\nMeet in one line: and vast confusion waites\nAs doth a Rauen on a sicke-falne beast,\nThe iminent decay of wrested pompe.\nNow happy he, whose cloake and center can\nHold out this tempest. Beare away that childe,\nAnd follow me with speed: Ile to the King:\nA thousand businesses are briefe in hand,\nAnd heauen it selfe doth frowne vpon the Land.\nEnter.\nActus Quartus, Scaena prima.\nEnter King Iohn and Pandolph, attendants.\nK.Iohn. Thus haue I yeelded vp into your hand\nThe Circle of my glory\nPan. Take againe\nFrom this my hand, as holding of the Pope\nYour Soueraigne greatnesse and authoritie\nIohn. Now keep your holy word, go meet the French,\nAnd from his holinesse vse all your power\nTo stop their marches 'fore we are enflam'd:\nOur discontented Counties doe reuolt:\nOur people quarrell with obedience,\nSwearing Allegiance, and the loue of soule\nTo stranger-bloud, to forren Royalty;\nThis inundation of mistempred humor,\nRests by you onely to be qualified.\nThen pause not: for the present time's so sicke,\nThat present medcine must be ministred,\nOr ouerthrow incureable ensues\nPand. It was my breath that blew this Tempest vp,\nVpon your stubborne vsage of the Pope:\nBut since you are a gentle conuertite,\nMy tongue shall hush againe this storme of warre,\nAnd make faire weather in your blustring land:\nOn this Ascention day, remember well,\nVpon your oath of seruice to the Pope,\nGoe I to make the French lay downe their Armes.\nEnter.\nIohn. Is this Ascension day? did not the Prophet\nSay, that before Ascension day at noone,\nMy Crowne I should giue off? euen so I haue:\nI did suppose it should be on constraint,\nBut (heau'n be thank'd) it is but voluntary.\nEnter Bastard.\nBast. All Kent hath yeelded: nothing there holds out\nBut Douer Castle: London hath receiu'd\nLike a kinde Host, the Dolphin and his powers.\nYour Nobles will not heare you, but are gone\nTo offer seruice to your enemy:\nAnd wilde amazement hurries vp and downe\nThe little number of your doubtfull friends\nIohn. Would not my Lords returne to me againe\nAfter they heard yong Arthur was aliue?\nBast. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,\nAn empty Casket, where the Iewell of life\nBy some damn'd hand was rob'd, and tane away\nIohn. That villaine Hubert told me he did liue\nBast. So on my soule he did, for ought he knew:\nBut wherefore doe you droope? why looke you sad?\nBe great in act, as you haue beene in thought:\nLet not the world see feare and sad distrust\nGouerne the motion of a kinglye eye:\nBe stirring as the time, be fire with fire,\nThreaten the threatner, and out-face the brow\nOf bragging horror: So shall inferior eyes\nThat borrow their behauiours from the great,\nGrow great by your example, and put on\nThe dauntlesse spirit of resolution.\nAway, and glister like the god of warre\nWhen he intendeth to become the field:\nShew boldnesse and aspiring confidence:\nWhat, shall they seeke the Lion in his denne,\nAnd fright him there? and make him tremble there?\nOh let it not be said: forrage, and runne\nTo meet displeasure farther from the dores,\nAnd grapple with him ere he come so nye\nIohn. The Legat of the Pope hath beene with mee,\nAnd I haue made a happy peace with him,\nAnd he hath promis'd to dismisse the Powers\nLed by the Dolphin\nBast. Oh inglorious league:\nShall we vpon the footing of our land,\nSend fayre-play-orders, and make comprimise,\nInsinuation, parley, and base truce\nTo Armes Inuasiue? Shall a beardlesse boy,\nA cockred-silken wanton braue our fields,\nAnd flesh his spirit in a warre-like soyle,\nMocking the ayre with colours idlely spred,\nAnd finde no checke? Let vs my Liege to Armes:\nPerchance the Cardinall cannot make your peace;\nOr if he doe, let it at least be said\nThey saw we had a purpose of defence\nIohn. Haue thou the ordering of this present time\nBast. Away then with good courage: yet I know\nOur Partie may well meet a prowder foe.\nExeunt.\nScoena Secunda.\nEnter (in Armes) Dolphin, Salisbury, Meloone, Pembroke, Bigot,\nSouldiers.\nDol. My Lord Melloone, let this be coppied out,\nAnd keepe it safe for our remembrance:\nReturne the president to these Lords againe,\nThat hauing our faire order written downe,\nBoth they and we, perusing ore these notes\nMay know wherefore we tooke the Sacrament,\nAnd keepe our faithes firme and inuiolable\nSal. Vpon our sides it neuer shall be broken.\nAnd Noble Dolphin, albeit we sweare\nA voluntary zeale, and an vn-urg'd Faith\nTo your proceedings: yet beleeue me Prince,\nI am not glad that such a sore of Time\nShould seeke a plaster by contemn'd reuolt,\nAnd heale the inueterate Canker of one wound,\nBy making many: Oh it grieues my soule,\nThat I must draw this mettle from my side\nTo be a widdow-maker: oh, and there\nWhere honourable rescue, and defence\nCries out vpon the name of Salisbury.\nBut such is the infection of the time,\nThat for the health and Physicke of our right,\nWe cannot deale but with the very hand\nOf sterne Iniustice, and confused wrong:\nAnd is't not pitty, (oh my grieued friends)\nThat we, the sonnes and children of this Isle,\nWas borne to see so sad an houre as this,\nWherein we step after a stranger, march\nVpon her gentle bosom, and fill vp\nHer Enemies rankes? I must withdraw, and weepe\nVpon the spot of this inforced cause,\nTo grace the Gentry of a Land remote,\nAnd follow vnacquainted colours heere:\nWhat heere? O Nation that thou couldst remoue,\nThat Neptunes Armes who clippeth thee about,\nWould beare thee from the knowledge of thy selfe,\nAnd cripple thee vnto a Pagan shore,\nWhere these two Christian Armies might combine\nThe bloud of malice, in a vaine of league,\nAnd not to spend it so vn-neighbourly\nDolph. A noble temper dost thou shew in this,\nAnd great affections wrastling in thy bosome\nDoth make an earth-quake of Nobility:\nOh, what a noble combat hast fought\nBetween compulsion, and a braue respect:\nLet me wipe off this honourable dewe,\nThat siluerly doth progresse on thy cheekes:\nMy heart hath melted at a Ladies teares,\nBeing an ordinary Inundation:\nBut this effusion of such manly drops,\nThis showre, blowne vp by tempest of the soule,\nStartles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz'd\nThen had I seene the vaultie top of heauen\nFigur'd quite ore with burning Meteors.\nLift vp thy brow (renowned Salisburie)\nAnd with a great heart heaue away this storme:\nCommend these waters to those baby-eyes\nThat neuer saw the giant-world enrag'd,\nNor met with Fortune, other then at feasts,\nFull warm of blood, of mirth, of gossipping:\nCome, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deepe\nInto the purse of rich prosperity\nAs Lewis himselfe: so (Nobles) shall you all,\nThat knit your sinewes to the strength of mine.\nEnter Pandulpho.\nAnd euen there, methinkes an Angell spake,\nLooke where the holy Legate comes apace,\nTo giue vs warrant from the hand of heauen,\nAnd on our actions set the name of right\nWith holy breath\nPand. Haile noble Prince of France:\nThe next is this: King Iohn hath reconcil'd\nHimselfe to Rome, his spirit is come in,\nThat so stood out against the holy Church,\nThe great Metropolis and Sea of Rome:\nTherefore thy threatning Colours now winde vp,\nAnd tame the sauage spirit of wilde warre,\nThat like a Lion fostered vp at hand,\nIt may lie gently at the foot of peace,\nAnd be no further harmefull then in shewe\nDol. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not backe:\nI am too high-borne to be proportied\nTo be a secondary at controll,\nOr vsefull seruing-man, and Instrument\nTo any Soueraigne State throughout the world.\nYour breath first kindled the dead coale of warres,\nBetweene this chastiz'd kingdome and my selfe,\nAnd brought in matter that should feed this fire;\nAnd now 'tis farre too huge to be blowne out\nWith that same weake winde, which enkindled it:\nYou taught me how to know the face of right,\nAcquainted me with interest to this Land,\nYea, thrust this enterprize into my heart,\nAnd come ye now to tell me Iohn hath made\nHis peace with Rome? what is that peace to me?\nI (by the honour of my marriage bed)\nAfter yong Arthur, claime this Land for mine,\nAnd now it is halfe conquer'd, must I backe,\nBecause that Iohn hath made his peace with Rome?\nAm I Romes slaue? What penny hath Rome borne?\nWhat men prouided? What munition sent\nTo vnder-prop this Action? Is't not I\nThat vnder-goe this charge? Who else but I,\nAnd such as to my claime are liable,\nSweat in this businesse, and maintaine this warre?\nHaue I not heard these Islanders shout out\nViue le Roy, as I haue bank'd their Townes?\nHaue I not heere the best Cards for the game\nTo winne this easie match, plaid for a Crowne?\nAnd shall I now giue ore the yeelded Set?\nNo, no, on my soule it neuer shall be said\nPand. You looke but on the out-side of this worke\nDol. Out-side or in-side, I will not returne\nTill my attempt so much be glorified,\nAs to my ample hope was promised,\nBefore I drew this gallant head of warre,\nAnd cull'd these fiery spirits from the world\nTo out-looke Conquest, and to winne renowne\nEuen in the iawes of danger, and of death:\nWhat lusty Trumpet thus doth summon vs?\nEnter Bastard.\nBast. According to the faire-play of the world,\nLet me haue audience: I am sent to speake:\nMy holy Lord of Millane, from the King\nI come to learne how you haue dealt for him:\nAnd, as you answer, I doe know the scope\nAnd warrant limited vnto my tongue\nPand. The Dolphin is too wilfull opposite\nAnd will not temporize with my intreaties:\nHe flatly saies, hee'll not lay downe his Armes\nBast. By all the bloud that euer fury breath'd,\nThe youth saies well. Now heare our English King,\nFor thus his Royaltie doth speake in me:\nHe is prepar'd, and reason to he should,\nThis apish and vnmannerly approach,\nThis harness'd Maske, and vnaduised Reuell,\nThis vn-heard sawcinesse and boyish Troopes,\nThe King doth smile at, and is well prepar'd\nTo whip this dwarfish warre, this Pigmy Armes\nFrom out the circle of his Territories.\nThat hand which had the strength, euen at your dore,\nTo cudgell you, and make you take the hatch,\nTo diue like Buckets in concealed Welles,\nTo crowch in litter of your stable plankes,\nTo lye like pawnes, lock'd vp in chests and truncks,\nTo hug with swine, to seeke sweet safety out\nIn vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake,\nEuen at the crying of your Nations crow,\nThinking this voyce an armed Englishman.\nShall that victorious hand be feebled heere,\nThat in your Chambers gaue you chasticement?\nNo: know the gallant Monarch is in Armes,\nAnd like an Eagle, o're his ayerie towres,\nTo sowsse annoyance that comes neere his Nest;\nAnd you degenerate, you ingrate Reuolts,\nYou bloudy Nero's, ripping vp the wombe\nOf your deere Mother-England: blush for shame:\nFor your owne Ladies, and pale-visag'd Maides,\nLike Amazons, come tripping after drummes:\nTheir thimbles into armed Gantlets change,\nTheir Needl's to Lances, and their gentle hearts\nTo fierce and bloody inclination\nDol. There end thy braue, and turn thy face in peace,\nWe grant thou canst out-scold vs: Far thee well,\nWe hold our time too precious to be spent\nwith such a brabler\nPan. Giue me leaue to speake\nBast. No, I will speake\nDol. We will attend to neyther:\nStrike vp the drummes, and let the tongue of warre\nPleade for our interest, and our being heere\nBast. Indeede your drums being beaten, wil cry out;\nAnd so shall you, being beaten: Do but start\nAn eccho with the clamor of thy drumme,\nAnd euen at hand, a drumme is readie brac'd,\nThat shall reuerberate all, as lowd as thine.\nSound but another, and another shall\n(As lowd as thine) rattle the Welkins eare,\nAnd mocke the deepe mouth'd Thunder: for at hand\n(Not trusting to this halting Legate heere,\nWhom he hath vs'd rather for sport, then neede)\nIs warlike Iohn: and in his fore-head sits\nA bare-rib'd death, whose office is this day\nTo feast vpon whole thousands of the French\nDol. Strike vp our drummes, to finde this danger out\nBast. And thou shalt finde it (Dolphin) do not doubt\nExeunt.\nScaena Tertia.\nAlarums. Enter Iohn and Hubert.\nIohn. How goes the day with vs? oh tell me Hubert\nHub. Badly I feare; how fares your Maiesty?\nIohn. This Feauer that hath troubled me so long,\nLyes heauie on me: oh, my heart is sicke.\nEnter a Messenger.\nMes. My Lord: your valiant kinsman Falconbridge,\nDesires your Maiestie to leaue the field,\nAnd send him word by me, which way you go\nIohn. Tell him toward Swinsted, to the Abbey there\nMes. Be of good comfort: for the great supply\nThat was expected by the Dolphin heere,\nAre wrack'd three nights ago on Goodwin sands.\nThis newes was brought to Richard but euen now,\nThe French fight coldly, and retyre themselues\nIohn. Aye me, this tyrant Feauer burnes mee vp,\nAnd will not let me welcome this good newes.\nSet on toward Swinsted: to my Litter straight,\nWeaknesse possesseth me, and I am faint.\nExeunt.\nScena Quarta.\nEnter Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot.\nSal. I did not thinke the King so stor'd with friends\nPem. Vp once againe: put spirit in the French,\nIf they miscarry: we miscarry too\nSal. That misbegotten diuell Falconbridge,\nIn spight of spight, alone vpholds the day\nPem. They say King Iohn sore sick, hath left the field.\nEnter Meloon wounded.\nMel. Lead me to the Reuolts of England heere\nSal. When we were happie, we had other names\nPem. It is the Count Meloone\nSal. Wounded to death\nMel. Fly Noble English, you are bought and sold,\nVnthred the rude eye of Rebellion,\nAnd welcome home againe discarded faith,\nSeeke out King Iohn, and fall before his feete:\nFor if the French be Lords of this loud day,\nHe meanes to recompence the paines you take,\nBy cutting off your heads: Thus hath he sworne,\nAnd I with him, and many moe with mee,\nVpon the Altar at S[aint]. Edmondsbury,\nEuen on that Altar, where we swore to you\nDeere Amity, and euerlasting loue\nSal. May this be possible? May this be true?\nMel. Haue I not hideous death within my view,\nRetaining but a quantity of life,\nWhich bleeds away, euen as a forme of waxe\nResolueth from his figure 'gainst the fire?\nWhat in the world should make me now deceiue,\nSince I must loose the vse of all deceite?\nWhy should I then be false, since it is true\nThat I must dye heere, and liue hence, by Truth?\nI say againe, if Lewis do win the day,\nHe is forsworne, if ere those eyes of yours\nBehold another day breake in the East:\nBut euen this night, whose blacke contagious breath\nAlready smoakes about the burning Crest\nOf the old, feeble, and day-wearied Sunne,\nEuen this ill night, your breathing shall expire,\nPaying the fine of rated Treachery,\nEuen with a treacherous fine of all your liues:\nIf Lewis, by your assistance win the day.\nCommend me to one Hubert, with your King;\nThe loue of him, and this respect besides\n(For that my Grandsire was an Englishman)\nAwakes my Conscience to confesse all this.\nIn lieu whereof, I pray you beare me hence\nFrom forth the noise and rumour of the Field;\nWhere I may thinke the remnant of my thoughts\nIn peace: and part this bodie and my soule\nWith contemplation, and deuout desires\nSal. We do beleeue thee, and beshrew my soule,\nBut I do loue the fauour, and the forme\nOf this most faire occasion, by the which\nWe will vntread the steps of damned flight,\nAnd like a bated and retired Flood,\nLeauing our ranknesse and irregular course,\nStoope lowe within those bounds we haue ore-look'd,\nAnd calmely run on in obedience\nEuen to our Ocean, to our great King Iohn.\nMy arme shall giue thee helpe to beare thee hence,\nFor I do see the cruell pangs of death\nRight in thine eye. Away, my friends, new flight,\nAnd happie newnesse, that intends old right.\nExeunt.\nScena Quinta.\nEnter Dolphin, and his Traine.\nDol. The Sun of heauen (me thought) was loth to set;\nBut staid, and made the Westerne Welkin blush,\nWhen English measure backward their owne ground\nIn faint Retire: Oh brauely came we off,\nWhen with a volley of our needlesse shot,\nAfter such bloody toile, we bid good night,\nAnd woon'd our tott'ring colours clearly vp,\nLast in the field, and almost Lords of it.\nEnter a Messenger.\nMes. Where is my Prince, the Dolphin?\nDol. Heere: what newes?\nMes. The Count Meloone is slaine: The English Lords\nBy his perswasion, are againe falne off,\nAnd your supply, which you haue wish'd so long,\nAre cast away, and sunke on Goodwin sands\nDol. Ah fowle, shrew'd newes. Beshrew thy very hart:\nI did not thinke to be so sad to night\nAs this hath made me. Who was he that said\nKing Iohn did flie an houre or two before\nThe stumbling night did part our wearie powres?\nMes. Who euer spoke it, it is true my Lord\nDol. Well: keepe good quarter, & good care to night,\nThe day shall not be vp so soone as I,\nTo try the faire aduenture of to morrow.\nExeunt.\nScena Sexta.\nEnter Bastard and Hubert, seuerally.\nHub. Whose there? Speake hoa, speake quickely, or\nI shoote\nBast. A Friend. What art thou?\nHub. Of the part of England\nBast. Whether doest thou go?\nHub. What's that to thee?\nWhy may not I demand of thine affaires,\nAs well as thou of mine?\nBast. Hubert, I thinke\nHub. Thou hast a perfect thought:\nI will vpon all hazards well beleeue\nThou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well:\nWho art thou?\nBast. Who thou wilt: and if thou please\nThou maist be-friend me so much, as to thinke\nI come one way of the Plantagenets\nHub. Vnkinde remembrance: thou, & endles night,\nHaue done me shame: Braue Soldier, pardon me,\nThat any accent breaking from thy tongue,\nShould scape the true acquaintance of mine eare\nBast. Come, come: sans complement, What newes\nabroad?\nHub. Why heere walke I in the black brow of night\nTo finde you out\nBast. Breefe then: and what's the newes?\nHub. O my sweet sir, newes fitting to the night,\nBlacke, fearefull, comfortlesse, and horrible\nBast. Shew me the very wound of this ill newes,\nI am no woman, Ile not swound at it\nHub. The King I feare is poyson'd by a Monke,\nI left him almost speechlesse, and broke out\nTo acquaint you with this euill, that you might\nThe better arme you to the sodaine time,\nThen if you had at leisure knowne of this\nBast. How did he take it? Who did taste to him?\nHub. A Monke I tell you, a resolued villaine\nWhose Bowels sodainly burst out: The King\nYet speakes, and peraduenture may recouer\nBast. Who didst thou leaue to tend his Maiesty?\nHub. Why know you not? The Lords are all come\nbacke,\nAnd brought Prince Henry in their companie,\nAt whose request the king hath pardon'd them,\nAnd they are all about his Maiestie\nBast. With-hold thine indignation, mighty heauen,\nAnd tempt vs not to beare aboue our power.\nIle tell thee Hubert, halfe my power this night\nPassing these Flats, are taken by the Tide,\nThese Lincolne-Washes haue deuoured them,\nMy selfe, well mounted, hardly haue escap'd.\nAway before: Conduct me to the king,\nI doubt he will be dead, or ere I come.\nExeunt.\nScena Septima.\nEnter Prince Henry, Salisburie, and Bigot.\nHen. It is too late, the life of all his blood\nIs touch'd, corruptibly: and his pure braine\n(Which some suppose the soules fraile dwelling house)\nDoth by the idle Comments that it makes,\nFore-tell the ending of mortality.\nEnter Pembroke.\nPem. His Highnesse yet doth speak, & holds beleefe,\nThat being brought into the open ayre,\nIt would allay the burning qualitie\nOf that fell poison which assayleth him\nHen. Let him be brought into the Orchard heere:\nDoth he still rage?\nPem. He is more patient\nThen when you left him; euen now he sung\nHen. Oh vanity of sicknesse: fierce extreames\nIn their continuance, will not feele themselues.\nDeath hauing praide vpon the outward parts\nLeaues them inuisible, and his seige is now\nAgainst the winde, the which he prickes and wounds\nWith many legions of strange fantasies,\nWhich in their throng, and presse to that last hold,\nCounfound themselues. 'Tis strange y death shold sing:\nI am the Symet to this pale faint Swan,\nWho chaunts a dolefull hymne to his owne death,\nAnd from the organ-pipe of frailety sings\nHis soule and body to their lasting rest\nSal. Be of good comfort (Prince) for you are borne\nTo set a forme vpon that indigest\nWhich he hath left so shapelesse, and so rude.\nIohn brought in.\nIohn. I marrie, now my soule hath elbow roome,\nIt would not out at windowes, nor at doores,\nThere is so hot a summer in my bosome,\nThat all my bowels crumble vp to dust:\nI am a scribled forme drawne with a pen\nVpon a Parchment, and against this fire\nDo I shrinke vp\nHen. How fares your Maiesty?\nIoh. Poyson'd, ill fare: dead, forsooke, cast off,\nAnd none of you will bid the winter come\nTo thrust his ycie fingers in my maw;\nNor let my kingdomes Riuers take their course\nThrough my burn'd bosome: nor intreat the North\nTo make his bleake windes kisse my parched lips,\nAnd comfort me with cold. I do not aske you much,\nI begge cold comfort: and you are so straight\nAnd so ingratefull, you deny me that\nHen. Oh that there were some vertue in my teares,\nThat might releeue you\nIohn. The salt in them is hot.\nWithin me is a hell, and there the poyson\nIs, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize,\nOn vnrepreeuable condemned blood.\nEnter Bastard.\nBast. Oh, I am scalded with my violent motion\nAnd spleene of speede, to see your Maiesty\nIohn. Oh Cozen, thou art come to set mine eye:\nThe tackle of my heart, is crack'd and burnt,\nAnd all the shrowds wherewith my life should saile,\nAre turned to one thred, one little haire:\nMy heart hath one poore string to stay it by,\nWhich holds but till thy newes be vttered,\nAnd then all this thou seest, is but a clod,\nAnd module of confounded royalty\nBast. The Dolphin is preparing hither-ward,\nWhere heauen he knowes how we shall answer him.\nFor in a night the best part of my powre,\nAs I vpon aduantage did remoue,\nWere in the Washes all vnwarily,\nDeuoured by the vnexpected flood\nSal. You breath these dead newes in as dead an eare\nMy Liege, my Lord: but now a King, now thus\nHen. Euen so must I run on, and euen so stop.\nWhat surety of the world, what hope, what stay,\nWhen this was now a King, and now is clay?\nBast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behinde,\nTo do the office for thee, of reuenge,\nAnd then my soule shall waite on thee to heauen,\nAs it on earth hath bene thy seruant still.\nNow, now you Starres, that moue in your right spheres,\nWhere be your powres? Shew now your mended faiths,\nAnd instantly returne with me againe.\nTo push destruction, and perpetuall shame\nOut of the weake doore of our fainting Land:\nStraight let vs seeke, or straight we shall be sought,\nThe Dolphine rages at our verie heeles\nSal. It seemes you know not then so much as we,\nThe Cardinall Pandulph is within at rest,\nWho halfe an houre since came from the Dolphin,\nAnd brings from him such offers of our peace,\nAs we with honor and respect may take,\nWith purpose presently to leaue this warre\nBast. He will the rather do it, when he sees\nOur selues well sinew'd to our defence\nSal. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already,\nFor many carriages hee hath dispatch'd\nTo the sea side, and put his cause and quarrell\nTo the disposing of the Cardinall,\nWith whom your selfe, my selfe, and other Lords,\nIf you thinke meete, this afternoone will poast\nTo consummate this businesse happily\nBast. Let it be so, and you my noble Prince,\nWith other Princes that may best be spar'd,\nShall waite vpon your Fathers Funerall\nHen. At Worster must his bodie be interr'd,\nFor so he will'd it\nBast. Thither shall it then,\nAnd happily may your sweet selfe put on\nThe lineall state, and glorie of the Land,\nTo whom with all submission on my knee,\nI do bequeath my faithfull seruices\nAnd true subiection euerlastingly\nSal. And the like tender of our loue wee make\nTo rest without a spot for euermore\nHen. I haue a kinde soule, that would giue thankes,\nAnd knowes not how to do it, but with teares\nBast. Oh let vs pay the time: but needfull woe,\nSince it hath beene before hand with our greefes.\nThis England neuer did, nor neuer shall\nLye at the proud foote of a Conqueror,\nBut when it first did helpe to wound it selfe.\nNow, these her Princes are come home againe,\nCome the three corners of the world in Armes,\nAnd we shall shocke them: Naught shall make vs rue,\nIf England to it selfe, do rest but true.\nExeunt.\nThe life and death of King Iohn.","title":"The life and death of King John","type":"page"}