West. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster.
Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in
What doth concern your coming?
Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded 1 with rage,
And countenanced by boys and beggary ;-
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honors.
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd ;
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd;
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace ;-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war ;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?
Arch. Wherefore do I this?-so the question
Briefly to this end:-We are all diseased;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men :
But, rather, show awhile like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness;
And purge the obstructions, which begin to stop
Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience.
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person
Even by those men that most have done us wrong, The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet-appearing blood) and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
West. When ever yet was your appeal denied? Wherein have you been galled by the king? What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you? That you should seal this lawless bloody book Of forged rebellion with a seal divine, And consecrate commotion's bitter edge? Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth, To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular.1
West. There is no need of any such redress;
Or, if there were, it not belongs to you.
Mow. Why not to him, in part; and to us all,
That feel the bruises of the days before;
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
O, my good lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
My general brother, the commonwealth, is the general ground of our taking up arms; the cruelty shown to my natural brother, is my particular ground for engaging in this war.'-Malone.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the king, or in the present time,
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on. Were you not restored
To all the duke of Norfolk's signiories,
Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's?
Mow. What thing, in honor, had my father lost,
That need to be revived and breathed in me?
The king, that loved him, as the state stood then,
Was, force perforce, compell'd to banish him:
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke and he,
Being mounted, and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,
And the loud trumpet blowing them together;—
Then, then, when there was nothing could have
stay'd
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O, when the king did throw his warder1 down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw :
Then threw he down himself; and all their lives,
That, by indictment, and by dint of sword,
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
West. You speak, lord Mowbray, now you know
The earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentleman.
Who knows, on whom Fortune would then have
But, if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry;
For all the country, in a general voice,
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,
And bless'd, and graced indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely general,
To know your griefs; to tell you, from his grace,
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them; every thing set off,
That might so much as think you enemies.
Mow. But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
West. Mowbray, you overween, to take it so :
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken, our army lies,
Upon mine honor, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armor all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good.
Say you not then, our offer is compell'd.
Mow. Well, by my will, we shall admit no
parley.
|