Enter GROOM.

Groom. Hail, royal prince!

K. Rich. Thauks, noble peer; The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. What art thou? and how comest thou hither, Where no man never comes, but that sad dog That brings me food, to make misfortune live? Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,

When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,

With much ado, at length have gotten leave To look upon my sometime* master's face. O, how it yern'd my heart, when I beheld, In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary! The horse, that thou so often hast bestrid;

Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.

die.

Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on
high;
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to
[Dies.
Exton. As full of valour, as of royal blood:
Both have I spilt; O, would the deed were
good!

For now the devil, that told me I did well,
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear;-
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-Windsor.-A Room in the Castle.

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me,

gentle friend,

How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground.

K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

with LORDS and ATTENDANTS.

Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news

That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.

Would he not stumble? Would he not fali down,

(Since pride must have a fall,) and break the

neck

Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
Was born to bear? I was not made a horse;
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncingt Boling-
broke.

Enter KEEPER, with a Dish. Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay. [To the GROOM. K. Rich. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.

Groom. What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. [Exit. Keep. My lord, will't please you to fall to? K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.

Keep. My lord, I dare not; Sir Pierce of Exton, who

Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
Enter PERCY, with the Bishop of CARLISLE.

Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

Percy. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster,

K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee !

Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. [Beats the KEEPER.

[He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down.

That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire, That staggers thus my person.-Exton, thy

ACT I.

SCENE I.-London.-A Room in the Palace. Enter King HENRY, WESTMORELAND, Sir WALTER BLUNT, and others.

K. Hen. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in stronds* afar remote.
No more the thirsty Erinnyst of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's
blood;

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which,-like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,-
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ, [friends,
(Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engag'd to fight,)
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers'
womb

To chase these pagans, in those holy fields, * Strands, banks of the sea. The fury of discord.

Force, army.

Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelve-month old,
And bootless* 'tis to tell you-we will go;
Therefore we meet not now: -Then let me
hear

Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.t

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,

And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight when, all athwart, there

came

A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mort Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much shame, re-told or spoken of.

K. Hen. It seems then, that the tidings of this broil

Brake off our business for the Holy Land. West. This, match'd with other, did, my

Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,
And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious
friend,

Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome
The earl of Douglas is discomfited; [news.
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty
knights,

Balk'dt in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains: Of prisoners, Hotspur
Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest son [took
To beaten Douglas; and the earls of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.
And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
West. In faith,

It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.
K. Hen. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad,
and inak'st me sin

In envy that my lord Northumberland
Should be the father of so blest a son:
A son, who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet fortune's minion, and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow [prov'd,
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be
That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call'd mine-Percy, his-Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts :-What think
you coz',

Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd,
To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake earl of Fife.
West. This is his uncle's teaching, this is
Worcester,

Malevolent to you in all aspects;
Which makes him prune◊ himself, and bristle
The crest of youth against your dignity. [up
K. Hen. But I have sent for him to answer
this;
And, for this cause, awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.

Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor, so inform the lords :
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be said, and to be done,
Than out of anger can be uttered.
West. I will, my liege.
[Exeunt
SCENE II.-The same.-Another Room in
the Palace.

devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colour'd taffata; I see no reason, why thou should'st be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

Fal. Indeed, you come near me, now, Hal: for we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight so fair. And, I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art king,-as, God save thy grace, (majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none,)

P. Hen. What, none?

Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to en egg and butter. P. Hen. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty; let us be-Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions* of the moon: And let men say, we be men of good government: being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we-steal.

P. Hen. Thou say'st well; and it holds well too: for the fortune of us, that are the moon's men, doth ebb and flow like the sea; being governed as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now: A purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing-lay byt and spent with cryingbring in now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder; and, by and by, in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

P. Hen. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance ?§

Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? what, in thy quips, and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

P. Hen. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

Fal. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning, many a time and oft.

P. Hen. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy

part?

Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

P. Hen. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and, where it would not, I have used my credit.