– We humbly take our leaves,

Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

 

Exeunt St. John and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court.

 

KING.

My Lord Archbishop,

Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes?

Methinks it is too saucy for this presence.

ARCHY. Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer's brain, and takes the bandage from the other's eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex's there.

STRAFFORD. A rod in pickle for the Fool's back!

ARCHY. Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for the Fool sees –

STRAFFORD. Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this.

ARCHY. When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them.

 

Enter Secretary Lyttelton, with papers.

 

KING looking over the papers.

These stiff Scots

His Grace of Canterbury must take order

To force under the Church's yoke. – You, Wentworth,

Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add

Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy,

To what in me were wanting. – My Lord Weston,

Look that those merchants draw not without loss

Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment

Of shipmoney, take fullest compensation

For violation of our royal forests,

Whose limits, from neglect, have been o'ergrown

With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost

Farthing exact from those who claim exemption

From knighthood: that which once was a reward

Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects

May know how majesty can wear at will

The rugged mood. – My Lord of Coventry,

Lay my command upon the Courts below

That bail be not accepted for the prisoners

Under the warrant of the Star Chamber.

The people shall not find the stubbornness

Of Parliament a cheap or easy method

Of dealing with their rightful sovereign:

And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry,

We will find time and place for fit rebuke. –

My Lord of Canterbury.

ARCHY.

The fool is here.

LAUD.

I crave permission of your Majesty

To order that this insolent fellow be

Chastised: he mocks the sacred character,

Scoffs at the state, and –

KING.

What, my Archy?

He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears,

Yet with a quaint and graceful licence – Prithee

For this once do not as Prynne would, were he

Primate of England. With your Grace's leave,

He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot

Hung in his gilded prison from the window

Of a queen's bower over the public way,

Blasphemes with a bird's mind: – his words, like arrows

Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit,

Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy. –

 

To Archy.

 

Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence

Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance

To bring news how the world goes there.

 

Exit Archy.

 

Poor Archy!

He weaves about himself a world of mirth

Out of the wreck of ours.

LAUD.

I take with patience, as my Master did,

All scoffs permitted from above.

KING.

My lord,

Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words

Had wings, but these have talons.

QUEEN.

And the lion

That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord,

I see the new-born courage in your eye

Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time,

Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.

Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,

And it were better thou hadst still remained

The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs

The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;

And Opportunity, that empty wolf,

Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions

Even to the disposition of thy purpose,

And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel;

And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,

Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,

And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,

As when she keeps the company of rebels,

Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we

Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle

In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream

Out of our worshipped state.

KING.

Beloved friend,

God is my witness that this weight of power,

Which He sets me my earthly task to wield

Under His law, is my delight and pride

Only because thou lovest that and me.

For a king bears the office of a God

To all the under world; and to his God

Alone he must deliver up his trust,

Unshorn of its permitted attributes.

[It seems] now as the baser elements

Had mutinied against the golden sun

That kindles them to harmony, and quells

Their self-destroying rapine.