I warn you that it is all very well to take this detached view of the war; you can say what you like here in conference and you can out-vote us here; but you will get short shrift in the Commons.

RICHARD. I will get short shrift! (_There is a horrified pause._) You chose your words carelessly, my dear uncle.

LANCASTER. (_pouring oil_). Gloucester means that it will be difficult to persuade the Commons to give up claims to France which they have been taught to believe rightful and necessary.

RICHARD. It is for us to teach the Commons better. What the Commons are taught, they think; (_looking meaningly at GLOUCESTER_) as you very well know. Who are the Commons; to decide the foreign policy of a country? A lot of little clerks and country knights, who know the price of hay and how to write a letter; how are they to judge? It is for us to see that they are neither misgoverned nor misled.

LANCASTER. But—supposing for a moment that this peace policy of yours is carried into effect, can you guarantee that France will be equally conscious of her high mission in European politics? Once our army is disbanded, how can you trust them to refrain from snapping up such a juicy morsel as England will be?

RICHARD. Because France wants peace, too, in her heart. There is no peace, because France too is plagued by people like you, like the Commons, like Arundel, like Gloucester, who say: “It would be shameful to stop! We must go on.”

ARUNDEL. And we must! I am not ashamed to say it. We have interests in France which must be protected; we have colonists in Calais, if nothing else. The whole of France was ours once, and what we have done before we can do again.

DE LA POLE. That last sentence does more credit to Lord Arundel’s sentiment than to his intelligence. When the late King and the Prince of Wales gained such spectacular victories in France they were opposed to a conscript and unwilling army. To-day, France has learned her lesson and has a well-paid and well-supplied voluntary army, which will prove a very different proposition.

ARUNDEL. Maybe; but we have new artillery. Marvellous artillery!

RICHARD. Which Lord Arundel is dying to try on something more exciting than dummies.

YORK. We seem to be getting no nearer an agreement on the subject. Perhaps if we had dinner first—. What does anyone think?

GLOUCESTER. Does the Chancellor propose to tell the Commons that all the prospective wealth of France is to be given up for a will of the wisp, for an idea?

DE LA POLE. No, I propose to tell the Commons that, if we make this peace, they need no longer lose their trade with Flanders because of the French navy’s depredations, and that the whole of France will be open for new trade instead of for annihilation. Your good Englishman has a very healthy respect for trade when fighting is not available.

GLOUCESTER. But you misjudge him if you think he can be bribed by the prospect of trade into forgetting what is due to his country. We are not so far away from Crécy and Poitiers as all that!

RICHARD. Between now and Poitiers a starving army dragged itself beaten out of France. It is said that even my fire-eater of a father died disillusioned.

ARUNDEL. That is merely a matter of organising supplies.

RICHARD.