And a fine mess you seem to have made of it.

BURLEY. If I might suggest it, your grace was hardly tactful in your methods. I have never had difficulty with Richard, except when my own judgment in dealing with him has been at fault.

YORK. (_tentatively_). It’s getting late; nearly dinnertime. Do you think we should wait any longer?

DE LA POLE. (_to GLOUCESTER_). I think you are unfair in supposing that it is a matter of wanton bad temper, my lord. The King feels strongly on this subject. In his eyes it is something infinitely important, infinitely worth struggling for. Something constructive, as opposed to the policy of laisser faire which—.

GLOUCESTER. Constructive! To let the French keep all they have taken from us; to kiss and make up and give them our blessing, just because Richard would rather stay at home and buy clothes than take an army into France like his father! The boy’s a coward, I tell you. A lily-livered coward!

DE LA POLE. That, at least, is untrue. And we all know that it is. We have all of us fought in our time, my lords; but it has always been with the comfortable consciousness of the next man’s elbow touching ours; as one of an army; as part of an adventure. Not one of us has walked alone into a hostile mob, and quelled it, as the King did three years ago. A mob which had just seen their leader killed before their eyes. Not one of us has done that, my lords—and I dare not say which one of us would have done it. That was a thing done without prompting, out of his own spirit. (_To LANCASTER_) You were in Scotland, my lord, the Duke of Gloucester was on the Welsh border, and the Duke of York in Portugal. The whole future of this country depended upon a boy of fifteen, and only his courage and initiative saved it from chaos. There is wonderful mettle there, my lords. It is for us merely to guide it, as Sir Simon Burley suggests, and not to thwart and deny it.

GLOUCESTER.(_with an exclamation of derision_). You are bemused with him! You throw away the judgment that a man of your age and experience should have, for the favour of a graceless boy.

DE LA POLE. If I have committed myself to the anti-war policy, it is because I believe in the vision of youth, and in its capacity to evolve something which our hidebound practice and unsupple minds are incapable of conceiving; and not because of any love or favour that I hope for.

LANCASTER. Although as Chancellor it would please you more to see good gold in your own hands than spent on munitions.

DE LA POLE. I would rather see it thrown into the Channel than spent on munitions. At least it would be harmless there.

GLOUCESTER. The pirate turns preacher!

ARUNDEL.