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Cam.

I do confess my fault;

And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey. Scroop. To which we all appeal.

K. Hen. The mercy, that was quick9 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 them.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 all 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 might'st have coin'd me into gold,
Would'st 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 from white 10, my eye will scarcely see it,
Treason and murder, ever kept together,

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Though the truth be as apparent and visible as black and white contiguous to each other. To stand off is to be prominent.

As two yoke-devils swore to either's purpose,
Working so grossly 11 in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them 12:
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,
H'ath 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 glistering semblances of piety;

But he, that temper'd thee 13, bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou should'st 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

14

The sweetness of affiance 15! 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;

11 i. e. plainly, evidently.

12 Did not whoop at them.' That they excited no exclamation of surprise. Vide note on As You Like It, Act iii. Sc. 2.

13 He that temper'd thee.' That is, he that ruled thee. ‹ Temperator, he that tempereth, or moderateth; he that knoweth how to rule and order.'-Cooper.

14 i. e. Tartarus, the fabled place of future punishment.

15 The sweetness of affiance!' Shakspeare uses this aggravation of the guilt of treachery with great judgment. One of the worst consequences of breach of trust is the diminution of that confidence which makes the happiness of life, and the dissemination of suspicion, which is the poison of society.—Johnson.

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 16;
Not working with the eye, without the ear,

And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither?
Such, and so finely bolted 17, didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued 18,
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!

Exe. 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 purposes God justly hath discover'd; And I repent my fault more than my death; Which I beseech your highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce 19;

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16 Complement' has here the same meaning as in Love's Labour's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1. Bullokar defines it, 'Court-ship, [i. e. courtiership], fulness, perfection, fine behaviour.' The gradual change of this word, to its meaning of ceremonious words, may be traced in Blount's Glossography.

17 Bolted is the same as sifted, and has consequently the meaning of refined.

18 i. e. endowed, or gifted.

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19 For me, the gold of France did not seduce.' diverse write that Richard earle of Cambridge did not conspire with the Lord Scroope, &c. for the murthering of King Henrie, to please the French king withall, but onlie to the intent to exalt the crowne to his brother-in-law Edmund earle of Marche, as heir to Lionel duke of Clarence, who being for diverse secret

Although I did admit it as a motive,
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But God be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice 20,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason,
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprise:

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your

sentence.

You have conspir'd against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you three sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance

Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.

[Exeunt Conspirators, guarded.

impediments not able to have issue, the earl of Cambridge was sure that the crowne should come to him by his wife, and to his children of her begotten. And therefore (as was thought) he rather confessed himselfe for neede of money to be corrupted by the French king, lest the earl of March should have tasted of the same cuppe that he had drunken, and what should have come to his owne children he much doubted,' &c.-Holinshed. 20 i. e. at which prevention, in suffering, I will heartily rejoice.'

Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.

We doubt not of a fair and lucky war:

Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,
To hinder our beginnings, we doubt not now,
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance 21:
No king of England, if not king of France.

SCENE III.

[Exeunt.

London. Mrs. Quickly's House in Eastcheap.

Enter PISTOL, MRS. QUICKLY, NYM,
BARDOLPH, and Boy.

Quick. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring1 thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting

veins.

Boy, bristle thy courage up: for Falstaff he is dead, And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. 'Would, I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven, or in hell!

Quick. Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Ar21 The signs of war advance.' Phaer, in rendering the first line of the eighth Æneid, Ut belle signum,' &c. has

"When signe of war from Laurent townes,' &c.

1 i. e. let me accompany thee. Thus in Measure for Measure:give me leave, my lord,

6

That we may bring you something on the way.'

'Deducere, honourably to bring or accompany to and fro.'Cooper. The expression and the custom are still provincially in use.

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