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Henry V
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Henry VAct 1, scene 1
Scene 1
Synopsis:
The Bishop of Canterbury informs the Bishop of Ely of a bill threatening Church revenues and of a plan to postpone it by justifying King Henry’s invasion of France to claim the French throne. Canterbury also reports his offer of a most generous contribution to the King to help finance the war.
Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0037 My lord, I’ll tell you that self bill is urged
0038 Which in th’ eleventh year of the last king’s reign
0039 Was like, and had indeed against us passed
0040 But that the scambling and unquiet time
0041 5 Did push it out of farther question.
BISHOP OF ELY
0042 But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0043 It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
0044 We lose the better half of our possession,
0045 For all the temporal lands which men devout
0046 10 By testament have given to the Church
0047 Would they strip from us, being valued thus:
0048 “As much as would maintain, to the King’s honor,
0049 Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
0050 Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
0051 15 And, to relief of lazars and weak age
0052 Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
0053 A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
0054 And to the coffers of the King besides,
0055 A thousand pounds by th’ year.” Thus runs the bill.
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BISHOP OF ELY 0056 20 This would drink deep.
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY 0057 ’Twould drink the cup and
0058 all.
BISHOP OF ELY 0059 But what prevention?
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0060 The King is full of grace and fair regard.
BISHOP OF ELY
0061 25 And a true lover of the holy Church.
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0062 The courses of his youth promised it not.
0063 The breath no sooner left his father’s body
0064 But that his wildness, mortified in him,
0065 Seemed to die too. Yea, at that very moment
0066 30 Consideration like an angel came
0067 And whipped th’ offending Adam out of him,
0068 Leaving his body as a paradise
0069 T’ envelop and contain celestial spirits.
0070 Never was such a sudden scholar made,
0071 35 Never came reformation in a flood
0072 With such a heady currance scouring faults,
0073 Nor never Hydra-headed willfulness
0074 So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
0075 As in this king.
BISHOP OF ELY 0076 40 We are blessèd in the change.
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0077 Hear him but reason in divinity
0078 And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
0079 You would desire the King were made a prelate;
0080 Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
0081 45 You would say it hath been all in all his study;
0082 List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
0083 A fearful battle rendered you in music;
0084 Turn him to any cause of policy,
0085 The Gordian knot of it he will unloose
0086 50 Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
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0087
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,0088 And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears
0089 To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
0090 So that the art and practic part of life
0091 55 Must be the mistress to this theoric;
0092 Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
0093 Since his addiction was to courses vain,
0094 His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow,
0095 His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,
0096 60 And never noted in him any study,
0097 Any retirement, any sequestration
0098 From open haunts and popularity.
BISHOP OF ELY
0099 The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
0100 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
0101 65 Neighbored by fruit of baser quality;
0102 And so the Prince obscured his contemplation
0103 Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
0104 Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
0105 Unseen yet crescive in his faculty.
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0106 70 It must be so, for miracles are ceased,
0107 And therefore we must needs admit the means
0108 How things are perfected.
BISHOP OF ELY 0109 But, my good lord,
0110 How now for mitigation of this bill
0111 75 Urged by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
0112 Incline to it or no?
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY 0113 He seems indifferent,
0114 Or rather swaying more upon our part
0115 Than cherishing th’ exhibitors against us;
0116 80 For I have made an offer to his Majesty—
0117 Upon our spiritual convocation
0118 And in regard of causes now in hand,
0119 Which I have opened to his Grace at large,
0120 As touching France—to give a greater sum
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0121
85 Than ever at one time the clergy yet0122 Did to his predecessors part withal.
BISHOP OF ELY
0123 How did this offer seem received, my lord?
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0124 With good acceptance of his Majesty—
0125 Save that there was not time enough to hear,
0126 90 As I perceived his Grace would fain have done,
0127 The severals and unhidden passages
0128 Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
0129 And generally to the crown and seat of France,
0130 Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
BISHOP OF ELY
0131 95 What was th’ impediment that broke this off?
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0132 The French ambassador upon that instant
0133 Craved audience. And the hour, I think, is come
0134 To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?
BISHOP OF ELY 0135 It is.
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
0136 100 Then go we in to know his embassy,
0137 Which I could with a ready guess declare
0138 Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
BISHOP OF ELY
0139 I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.
They exit.