Enter the Archbishop of York, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and Others.
Arch. What is this foreft call'd?
Haft. 'Tis Gualtree forest, an't shall please your grace. Arch. Here stand, my lords; and fend discoverers forth, To know the numbers of our enemies.
Haft. We have fent forth already.
Arch.
My friends, and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenour and substance, thus :-
Here doth he wifh his perfon, with such powers
As might hold fortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may overlive the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their oppofite.
Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground, And dash themselves to pieces.
Mess. Weft of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy:
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand.
Mowb. The juft proportion that we gave them out.
Let us fway on, and face them in the field.
Arch. What well-appointed leader fronts us here ?
Mowb. I think, it is my lord of Westmoreland.
Weft. Health and fair greeting from our general,
The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster.
Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace;
What doth concern your coming?
Weft.
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 with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;
I fay, if damn'd commotion fo appear'd,
In his true, native, and moft 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 honours. You, lord archbishop,—
Whose fee is by a civil peace maintain'd;
Whofe beard the filver 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 fo ill tranflate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous 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 ?-fo the question stands.
Briefly to this end :—We are all diseas'd;
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, fhow a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, fick of happiness;
And purge the obstructions, which begin to ftop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we fuffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We fee which way the ftream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our moft quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occafion :
And have the fummary of all our griefs,
When time fhall ferve, to show in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no fuit gain our audience :
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied accefs unto his perfon
Even by thofe 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 inftance, (prefent now,)
Have put us in thefe ill-befeeming arms:
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
Weft. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you?
That you fhould feal this lawless bloody book
Of forg'd rebellion with a feal divine,
And confecrate commotion's bitter edge?
Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular.
Weft. There is no need of any fuch redrefs;
Or, if there were, it not belongs to you.
Mowb. Why not to him, in part; and to us all,
That feel the bruifes of the days before;
And fuffer the condition of thefe times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours ?
Weft.
O my good lord Mowbray,
Conftrue the times to their neceflities,
And you fhall fay indeed,-it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
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 restor'd
To all the duke of Norfolk's fignories,
Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's?
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father loft,
That need to be reviv'd, and breath'd in me?
The king, that lov'd him, as the state stood then,
Was, force perforce, compell'd to banish him :
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke, and he,-
F
Being mounted, and both roused in their feats,
Their neighing courfers daring of the fpur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparkling through fights of steel,
And the loud trumpet blowing them together;
Then, then, when there was nothing could have staid
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O, when the king did throw his warder 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 fince miscarried under Bolingbroke.
Weft. You fpeak, lord Mowbray, now you know not
The earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentleman;
Who knows, on whom fortune would then have smil'd?
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,
Cry'd hate upon him; and all their prayers, and love,
Were fet on Hereford, whom they doted on,
And bless'd, and grac'd indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digreffion 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 fo much as think you enemies.
Mowb. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
Weft. Mowbray, you overween, to take it fo;
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
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