Southampton.]

Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland.

Bedford. Fore God, his Grace is bold to trust these traitors.

Exeter. They shall be apprehended by and by.°

Westmoreland How smooth and even° they do bear themselves,

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!

122 quotidian tertian two kinds of intermittent fevers, the first recurring daily, the second every third day (a nonsensical phrase)

124 run bad humors vented his ill humor

125 even truth

127 fracted and corroborate broken and joined together (?) 129 passes some humors, and careers indulges some whims and liveliness 2.2.2 apprehended by and by arrested soon 3 even unruffled

Bedford. The King hath note° of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

Exeter. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,°

Whom he hath dulled and cloyed° with gracious
favors—
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His Sovereign’s life to death and treachery!
Sound trumpets. Enter the King, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey, [Lords, and Attendants].

King. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.

My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of
Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not that the pow‘rs we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head° assembled them?

Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

King. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded

We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows° not in a fair consent° with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

Cambridge. Never was monarch better feared and loved

Than is your Majesty. There’s not, I think, a sub
ject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade° of your government.

Grey. True. Those that were your father’s enemies

Have steeped their galls° in honey, and do serve
you

6 note knowledge

8 bedfellow i.e., Scroop

9 dulled and cloyed bored and overindulged

18 in head as an organized force

22 grows lives

22 consent agreement

28 shade protection

30 galls Bitterness


With hearts create° of duty, and of zeal.

King. 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 steelèd sinews toil,

And labor shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your Grace incessant services.

King. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,

Enlarge° the man committed yesterday
That railed 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 punished, Sovereign, lest example
Breed (by his sufferance)° more of such a kind.

King. 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. Alas, your too much love and care of me

Are heavy orisonso ‘gainst this poor wretch!
If little faults proceeding on distemper°
Shall not be winked° at, how shall we stretch° our
eye
When capital° crimes, chewed, swallowed, and di
gested,
Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man,

31 create created

33 office proper function

34 quittance requital

40 Enlarge set at liberty

43 on his more advice on maturer reflection

44 security want of caution

46 by his sufferance by not checking him

47 yet now as always

51 taste experience

53 heavy orisons weighty pleas

54 proceeding on distemper i.e., committed when drunk

55 winked connived

55 stretch open wide

56 capital punishable by death


Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their
dear° care
And tender preservation of our person,
Would have him punished. And now to our French
causes.°
Who are the late° commissioners?

Cambridge. I one, my lord.

Your Highness bade me ask for it° today.

Scroop. So did you me, my liege.

Grey. And I, my royal Sovereign.

King. 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 tonight.—Why, how now, gentle
men?
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 chased 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. The mercy that was quick in us but late,

By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.
You must not dare (for shame) to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,

58 dear (1) deeply felt (2) dire

60 causes affairs

61 late recently appointed

63 it i.e., the written commission

73 complexion color

76 appearance sight


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 all appertinents
Belonging to his honor; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly° conspired
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 coined me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practiced 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 hoop 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

86 accord agree

89 light... lightly trivial... readily

90 practices intrigues

99 practiced on me for thy use plotted against me for your own profit

103 off as gross out as plain

106 yoke-devils fellow-devils

107-08 so grossly ... at them so obviously in a matter natural to them that no one cried out in wonder

109 proportion propriety

112 preposterously unnaturally

113 voice vote

114 suggest tempt


Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched
From glist‘ring semblances of piety;°
But he that tempered° 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 gulled 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,°
Garnished and decked in modest complement,°
Not working with the eye without the ear,°
And but in purged judgment 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;

115-17 Do botch ... piety disguise the fact of damnation with folly, false pretexts and behavior borrowed from bright outward manifestations of piety

118 tempered worked upon

118 stand up make a stand straightforwardly

120 dub invest (with a title)

122 lion gait (cf. 1 Peter 5:8 “your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”)

123 Tartar Tartarus hell

124 legions i.e., of devils

126 jealousy infected suspicion tainted

127 affiance confidence

127 Show seen

133 swerving with the Mood erring after the flesh

134 modest complement unostentatious demeanor

135 Not working with the eye without the ear i.e., listening as well as seeing

137 bolted sifted (as flour)

139 Full-fraught completely gifted

139 indued endowed

142 open patent

143 answer punishment


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 purposes God justly hath discovered,

And I repent my fault more than my death—
Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.

Cambridge. For me, the gold of France did not seduce,

Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended.
But God be thankèd for prevention,°
Which I in sufferance° heartily will rejoice,°
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 damnèd enterprise.
My fault, but not my body, pardon, Sovereign.

King. God quit° you in His mercy! Hear your sentence.

You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his
coffers
Received the golden earnest° of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaugh
ter,
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,

144 acquit requite

158 prevention (four syllables)

159 sufferance suffering the penalty

159 rejoice i.e., rejoice at

166 quit absolve

169 golden earnest advance payment


But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,°
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you.