And when the organisation breaks down, you and the other lords live on your stores, and the common soldier dies.

DE LA POLE. Parliament will, I have no doubt, be glad to be spared the cost of organisation. I shall point that out too.

BURLEY. To say nothing of the relief of not having to keep up a few dozen useless and mouldering castles in France which no English nobleman will be induced to live in.

GLOUCESTER. Why shouldn’t they live in France?

RICHARD. Because they are all afraid they will miss something in England if they do.

GLOUCESTER. Well; I warn you, England hasn’t ceased to be patriotic because a few irresponsibles are willing to sell her to France. You will only succeed in making yourselves unpopular if you push such a proposition in Parliament. Already every public-house in London is seething with the gossip that the King is pro-French. The sound of it sours the ale on their tongues.

RICHARD. Your ear seems to be very close to the ground.

GLOUCESTER. I make it my business to study the temper of the people.

RICHARD. (_in a tone which is a subtle insult_). Yes.

GLOUCESTER.(_angrily_). And you would do well to study it, too! That is the thing which matters: the temper of the people and not the highfalutin of a few unpractical idealists.

RICHARD. (_mildly_). You can hardly call the Chancellor unpractical; nor Sir Simon Burley. They are hardly men to be led away by—.

GLOUCESTER. And what about my lord of Oxford, who hasn’t opened his mouth for the last hour? Youth, indeed! You talk about the vision of youth, and Lord Oxford spends his time in committee searching for a rhyme!

DE VERE. (_who since the beginning of the scene has been studying a tablet_). Having failed to find reason. (_Mock sententious_) It is a sobering thought for both of us, my lord, that my little song may still be sung when your glorious war is two little lines in the history books.

GLOUCESTER. What I am concerned with is not what I shall be in the history books, but what is to become of France in my lifetime. If this disgraceful peace were to become fact, what about Calais?

RICHARD. If necessary, we could do homage for Calais.

GLOUCESTER. Do homage for Calais! Are you mad? Are you crazy? Do homage for something that is ours by right of conquest! Have you no pride? What have you in your veins, water or sawdust? Whose son are you that you can you suggest such a thing?

LANCASTER. My dear Gloucester—!

GLOUCESTER. Your grandfather would turn in his grave to see you sitting in that chair and throwing away his conquests like empty eggshells.

RICHARD. Curious how everyone loses his head at the mention of Calais. We have no intention of throwing away Calais, my dear uncle.