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 hummed 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.

'Twas 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 so slow, we must have airy spirits;

Our time requires dispatch.-[Aside] The Earl of War

wick!

Let him be son to Clarence, younger brother
To Edward! Edward's daughter is, I think,
Mother to our Prince Arthur.—Get a messenger.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Before the Castle of Norham. Enter King JAMES, PERKIN WARBECK, Earl of CRAWFORD, Lord DALYELL, HERON, ASTLEY, JOHN AWATER, SKELTON, 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 trun

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

Loosed 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 resolved,

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 ow'st 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

Το

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

In like case by a subject of your own:

My resolution's fixed: King James, be counselled,

A greater fate waits on thee.

K. Ja.

[Exeunt Bishop of DURHAM and Soldiers. from the walls.

Forage through

The country; spare no prey of life or goods.

War. O, sir, then give me leave to yield to nature;

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 murdered, virgins

Deflowered, old men butchered, 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.

Ridiculously careful of an interest

You fool your piety

Another man possesseth. Where's your faction?

Shrewdly the bishop guessed of your adherents,

When not a petty burgess of some town,

No, not a villager hath yet appeared

In your

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

Crew.

Effeminately dolent.

War.

And the passionate duke

The experience

In former trials, sir, both of mine own

Or other princes cast out of their thrones,
Have 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.
K. Ja. An humble-minded man!

Enter FRION.

Speaks Master Secretary Frion?

Now, what intelligence

Henry

Fri.
Of England hath in open field o'erthrown
The armies who opposed him in the right
Of this young prince.

K. Ja.

More, if you have it?

Fri.

His subsidies, you mean :

Howard, Earl of Surrey,

Backed by twelve earls and barons of the north,

Ford.

FF

An hundred knights and gentlemen of name,
And twenty thousand soldiers, is at hand.

To raise your siege. Brooke, with a goodly navy,
Is admiral at sea; and Dawbeney follows

With an unbroken army for a second.

War. 'Tis false! they come to side with us.
K. Ja.

:

Retreat

We shall not find them stones and walls to cope with.-
Yet, Duke of York, for such thou sayst thou art,
I'll try thy fortune to the height to Surrey,
By Marchmont, I will send a brave defiance
For single combat; once a king will venture
His person to an earl, with condition

Of spilling lesser blood: Surrey is bold,
And James resolved.

War.

O, rather, gracious sir,

Create me to this glory, since my cause

Doth interest this fair quarrel; valued least,

March softly off: where victory can reap

A harvest crowned with triumph, toil is cheap. [Exeunt.