K. Hen. Else

Your knowledge can instruct me; wherein, sir,
To fall on ceremony, would seem useless,
Which shall not need; for I will be as studious
Of your concealment in our conference,
As any council shall advise.

Hial. Then, sir,

My chief request is, that on notice given
At my despatch in Scotland, you will send
Some learned man of power and experience
To join entreaty with me.

K. Hen. I shall do it,

Being that way well provided by a servant
Which may attend you ever.

Hial. If king James,

By any indirection, should perceive

My coming near your court, I doubt the issue
Of my employment.

K. Hen. Be not your own herald:

I learn sometimes without a cacher.
Hial. Good days

Guard all your princely thoughts!

K. Hen. Urswick, no farther

Than the next open gallery attend him-
A hearty love go with you!

Hial. Your vow'd beadsman.1

[Exeunt URS. and HIAL. K. Hen. King Ferdinand is not so much a fox, But that a cunning huntsman may in time

Fall on the scent; in honourable actions
Safe imitation best deserves a praise.

Re-enter URSWICK.

What, the Castilian's pass'd away?
Urs. He is,

1 Your vow'd beadsman.] One bound to pray for you; from bede, the old English word for prayer: at this time, however, the expression was sufficiently familiar, and meant little more than the common language of civility--your vowed or devoted servant.-GIFFORD.

And undiscovered; the two hundred marks
Your majesty convey'd, he gently purs'd
With a right modest gravity.

K. Hen. What was 't

He muttered in the earnest of his wisdom?
He spoke not to be heard; 't was about-
Urs. Warbeck;

"How if king Henry were but sure of subjects,
Such a wild runagate might soon be caged,
No great ado withstanding."

K. Hen. Nay, nay: something
About my son prince Arthur's match.
Urs. Right, right, sir.

He humm'd it out, how that king Ferdinand
Swore, that the marriage 'twixt the lady Katherine,
His daughter, and the prince of Wales, your son,
Should never be consummated, as long

As any earl of Warwick lived in England
Except by new creation.

K. Hen. I remember,

"T was so indeed: the king his master swore it? Urs. Directly, as he said.

K. Hen. An earl of Warwick!

Provide a messenger for letters instantly

To bishop Fox. Our news from Scotland creeps;
It comes too slow; we must have airy spirits;
Our time requires despatch.-The earl of Warwick!
Let him be son to Clarence,1 younger brother
To Edward! Edward's daughter is, I think,
Mother to our prince Arthur.-[Aside.]—Get a mes-
[Exeunt.

senger.

1 Let him be son to Clarence, &c.] These are ominous musings of the king, who eagerly caught at the words of Ferdinand, as given above, and sought to "export the odium of this innocent prince's execution out of the land, and lay it upon his new ally."

SCENE IV.

Before the Castle of Norham.

Enter King JAMES, WARBECK, CRAWFORD, DALYELL, HERON, ASTLEY, John a-Water, SKETON, and Soldiers.

K. Ja. We trifle time against these castle-walls; The English prelate will not yield; once more Give him a summons!

[A parley is sounded.

Enter on the walls the Bishop of DURHAM, armed, a truncheon in his hand, with Soldiers.

War. See, the jolly clerk

Appears, trimm'd like a ruffian.

K. Ja. Bishop, yet

Set ope the ports, and to your lawful sovereign,
Richard of York, surrender up this castle,

And he will take thee to his grace; else Tweed
Shall overflow his banks with English blood,

And wash the sand that cements those hard stones
From their foundation.

Dur. Warlike king of Scotland,

Vouchsafe a few words from a man enforced
To lay his book aside and clap on arms,
Unsuitable to my age or my profession.
Courageous prince, consider on what grounds
You rend the face of peace, and break a league
With a confederate king that courts your amity;
For whom, too? For a vagabond, a straggler,
Not noted in the world by birth or name,
An obscure peasant, by the rage of hell

Loos'd from his chains to set great kings at strife.
What nobleman, what common man of note,
What ordinary subject hath come in,
Since first you footed on our territories,
To only feign a welcome? Children laugh at

Your proclamations, and the wiser pity

So great a potentate's abuse, by one

Who juggles merely with the fawns and youth
Of an instructed compliment; such spoils,
Such slaughters as the rapine of your soldiers
Already have committed, is enough

To show your zeal in a conceited justice.

Yet, great king, wake not yet my master's vengeance;

But shake that viper off which gnaws your entrails!
I and my fellow-subjects are resolv'd,

If you persist, to stand your utmost fury,
Till our last blood drop from us.

War. O, sir, lend

No ear to this traducer of my honour!

What shall I call thee, thou gray-bearded scandal,
That kick'st against the sovereignty to which
Thou owest allegiance ?-Treason is bold-faced,
And eloquent in mischief. Sacred king,
Be deaf to his known malice.

Dur. Rather yield

Unto those holy motions which inspire

The sacred heart of an anointed body!

It is the surest policy in princes

To govern well their own, than seek encroachment Upon another's right.

Craw. The king is serious,

Deep in his meditation[s].

Dat. Lift them up

To heaven, his better genius!

War. Can you study

While such a devil raves? Oh, sir!

K. Ja. Well, bishop,

You'll not be drawn to mercy?

Dur. Construe me

In like case by a subject of your own.
My resolution's fix'd; king James, be counsell'd,
A greater fate waits on thee.

[Exeunt DURHAM and Soldiers from the walls.

K. Ja. Forage through

The country; spare no prey of life or goods.
War. Oh, sir, then give me leave to yield to na-

ture.

I am most miserable; had I been

Born what this clergyman would, by defame,
Baffle belief with, I had never sought
The truth of mine inheritance with rapes
Of women, or of infants murder'd, virgins
Deflower'd, old men butcher'd, dwellings fired,
My land depopulated, and my people
Afflicted with a kingdom's devastation.
Show more remorse, great king, or I shall never
Endure to see such havoc with dry eyes.
Spare, spare my dear, dear England!

K. Ja. You fool your piety,
Ridiculously careful of an interest

Another man possesseth. Where's your faction?
Shrewdly the bishop guess'd of your adherents,
When not a petty burgess of some town,
No, not a villager hath yet appear'd

In your assistance; that' should make you whine,
And not your country's sufferance, as you term it.
Dal. The king is angry.

Craw. And the passionate duke Effeminately dolent.2

War. The experience

In former trials, sir, both of mine own
Or other princes cast out of their thrones,
Hath so acquainted me how misery
Is destitute of friends or of relief,

That I can easily submit to taste

Lowest reproof, without contempt or words.

1 It appears from Bacon that this was said "half in sport" by James. 2 And the passionate duke

Effeminately dolent.] "It is said that Perkin, acting the part of a prince handsomely, when he saw the Scotch fall to waste his country, came to the king in a passionate (plaintive, tearful) manner, making great lamentation," &c.-BACON.