Visionary nonsense, that’s what it is!

CANTERBURY. My dear brother, vision is not necessarily nonsensical. There have been occasions when it has proved heavensent. Even a crusade achieves something occasionally.

ARUNDEL. Oh, as a Churchman you feel bound to say things like that. But I’m a soldier, and I want to know what good—what practical good—anyone thinks it is going to do us to go begging France for peace as if we were licked, making ourselves the laughing stock of Europe.

DE LA POLE. I can hardly expect Lord Arundel to understand it, but what we are seeking is something new; some way out of the stalemate; out of the everlasting alternation of war and armistice and war again, which is all the history this country has had within living memory. We want a permanent peace in which we may be able to turn to things better worth while than the eternal see-saw of conquest and loss. It is in that hope that we are prepared to treat for a peace with France.

ARUNDEL. Then I say that is treason! It is going back on everything we have been taught to believe. It is betraying the country and those who—.

(_Enter RICHARD. He walks to his seat rather as a child might who knows that be has behaved badly but is still indignant that anyone should think so._)

RICHARD. (_as they resume their seats_). You were saying, Lord Arundel—?

ARUNDEL. I was protesting yet once more, sir, against this monstrous suggestion of—of—.

RICHARD. Of peace.

ARUNDEL. (_unconscious of irony_). Yes, of peace. England is not beaten, sir. She has had reverses, of course, but so has France. The spirit of the people is not broken, sir; the will to win is still there and we have a first-rate army. Once this armistice ends, there is nothing to hinder us from making a new invasion which will result in unqualified victory, a complete vindication of our policy, and a still greater glory for England.

RICHARD. And more cripples begging in the gutters, and more taxes to cover the cost!

ARUNDEL. You can have no war without wastage, sir. As to the cost, the captured provinces in France will more than repay the costs—.

RICHARD. When they are captured.

ARUNDEL. And I cannot help saying, sir, that it is a poor day for England when she has to count the cost before she takes her stand in a rightful war.

RICHARD. Oh, let us have done with humbug! My grandfather invaded France in a trumped-up cause which even he himself didn’t believe in. My father helped him because he liked the game. They both lost practically all they had gained before they died; and now you suggest that I should lay waste France and kill forty thousand men because it is my sacred duty.

GLOUCESTER.