peace.

We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of
WEST. This will I show the general. Please you,
lords,

In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which God so frame !
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.

ARCH. My lord, we will do so. [Exit WEST. MoWB. There is a thing within my bosom tells me That no conditions of our peace can stand.

HAST. Fear you not that: if we can make Upon such large terms and so absolute As our conditions shall consist upon,

our peace

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MoWB. Yea, but our valuation shall be such

That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action ;
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.

ARCH. No, no, my lord. Note this; the king

is weary

Of dainty and such picking grievances:

For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory

That may repeat and history his loss

To new remembrance; for full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,

He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution.

HAST. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods On late offenders, that he now doth lack

The

very instruments of chastisement: So that his power, like to a fangless lion, May offer, but not hold.

ARCH.

'Tis very true:

And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,

Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.

MOWB.

Be it so.

Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.

Re-enter WESTMORELAND.

WEST. The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship

To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies. MoWB. Your grace of York, in God's name, then, set forward.

ARCH. Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we

come.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

Another part of the forest.

Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards the ARCHBISHOP, HASTINGS, and others: from the other side, PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, and WESTMORELAND; Officers, and others with them.

LAN. You are well encounter'd here, my cousin
Mowbray :

Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop;
And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
My Lord of York, it better show'd with you
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text

Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword and life to death.
That man that sins within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might be set abroach
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord
bishop,

It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us the speaker in his parliament;

To us the imagined voice of God himself;

The very opener and intelligencer

Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven
And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
But you
misuse the reverence of your place,
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my father,
And both against the peace of heaven and him
Have here up-swarm'd them.

ARCH.

Good my Lord of Lancaster, I am not here against your father's peace; But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland, The time misorder'd doth, in common sense, Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form, To hold our safety up. I sent your grace The parcels and particulars of our grief,

The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,

Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;

Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep
With grant of our most just and right desires,
And true obedience, of this madness cured,
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

MoWB. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes To the last man.

HAST.

And though we here fall down,

We have supplies to second our attempt:
If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;

And so success of mischief shall be born

And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
Whiles England shall have generation.

LAN. You are too shallow, Hastings, much too

shallow,

To sound the bottom of the after-times.

WEST. Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly

How far forth you do like their articles.

LAN. I like them all, and do allow them well,
And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
My father's purposes have been mistook,
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.

My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd:
Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
As we will ours: and here between the armies
Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.

ARCH. I take your princely word for these redresses.

LAN. I give it you, and will maintain my word: And thereupon I drink unto your grace.

HAST. GO, captain, and deliver to the army This news of peace: let them have pay, and part: I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain. [Exit Officer. ARCH. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.