King Henry V | Page 9

of duty and of zeal.
KING HENRY.?We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,?And shall forget the office of our hand?Sooner than quittance of desert and merit?According to the weight and worthiness.
SCROOP.?So service shall with steeled sinews toil,?And labour shall refresh itself with hope,?To do your Grace incessant services.
KING HENRY.?We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,?Enlarge the man committed yesterday,?That rail'd against our person. We consider?It was excess of wine that set him on,?And on his more advice we pardon him.
SCROOP.?That's mercy, but too much security.?Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example?Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING HENRY.?O, let us yet be merciful.
CAMBRIDGE.?So may your Highness, and yet punish too.
GREY.?Sir,?You show great mercy if you give him life?After the taste of much correction.
KING HENRY.?Alas, your too much love and care of me?Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!?If little faults, proceeding on distemper,?Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye?When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,?Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,?Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care?And tender preservation of our person,?Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes.?Who are the late commissioners?
CAMBRIDGE.?I one, my lord.?Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.
SCROOP.?So did you me, my liege.
GREY.?And I, my royal sovereign.
KING HENRY.?Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;?There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,?Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.?Read them, and know I know your worthiness.?My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,?We will aboard to-night.--Why, how now, gentlemen!?What see you in those papers that you lose?So much complexion?--Look ye, how they change!?Their cheeks are paper.--Why, what read you there,?That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood?Out of appearance?
CAMBRIDGE.?I do confess my fault,?And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.
GREY, SCROOP.?To which we all appeal.
KING HENRY.?The mercy that was quick in us but late,?By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.?You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,?For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,?As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
See you, my princes and my noble peers,?These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,?You know how apt our love was to accord?To furnish him with an appertinents?Belonging to his honour; and this man?Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd?And sworn unto the practices of France?To kill us here in Hampton; to the which?This knight, no less for bounty bound to us?Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O?What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,?Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!?Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,?That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,?That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,?Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use,--?May it be possible that foreign hire?Could out of thee extract one spark of evil?That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange,?That, though the truth of it stands off as gross?As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.?Treason and murder ever kept together,?As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,?Working so grossly in a natural cause?That admiration did not whoop at them;?But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in?Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;?And whatsoever cunning fiend it was?That wrought upon thee so preposterously?Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;?And other devils that suggest by treasons?Do botch and bungle up damnation?With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd?From glist'ring semblances of piety.?But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,?Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,?Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.?If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus?Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,?He might return to vasty Tartar back,?And tell the legions, "I can never win?A soul so easy as that Englishman's."?O, how hast thou with jealousy infected?The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful??Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family??Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious??Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,?Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,?Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,?Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,?Not working with the eye without the ear,?And but in purged judgement trusting neither??Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.?And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot?To mark the full-fraught man and best indued?With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;?For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like?Another fall of man. Their faults are open.?Arrest them to the answer of the law;?And God acquit them of their practices!
EXETER.?I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of Cambridge. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop of Masham. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.
SCROOP.?Our