SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace. The Life of King Henry the Fifth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry V  | Act 1, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace. 

 Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY  CANTERBURY  My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urged, 

 Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign 

 Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, 

 But that the scambling and unquiet time 

 Did push it out of farther question. 

 ELY  But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? 

 CANTERBURY  It must be thought on. If it pass against us, 

 We lose the better half of our possession: 

 For all the temporal lands which men devout 

 By testament have given to the church 

 Would they strip from us; being valued thus: 

 As much as would maintain, to the king's honour, 

 Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights, 

 Six thousand and two hundred good esquires; 

 And, to relief of lazars and weak age, 

 Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil. 

 A hundred almshouses right well supplied; 

 And to the coffers of the king beside, 

 A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill. 

 ELY  This would drink deep. 

 CANTERBURY  'Twould drink the cup and all. 

 ELY  But what prevention? 

 CANTERBURY  The king is full of grace and fair regard. 

 ELY  And a true lover of the holy church. 

 CANTERBURY  The courses of his youth promised it not. 

 The breath no sooner left his father's body, 

 But that his wildness, mortified in him, 

 Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment 

 Consideration, like an angel, came 

 And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him, 

 Leaving his body as a paradise, 

 To envelop and contain celestial spirits. 

 Never was such a sudden scholar made; 

 Never came reformation in a flood, 

 With such a heady currance, scouring faults 

 Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness 

 So soon did lose his seat and all at once 

 As in this king. 

 ELY  We are blessed in the change. 

 CANTERBURY  Hear him but reason in divinity, 

 And all-admiring with an inward wish 

 You would desire the king were made a prelate: 

 Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 

 You would say it hath been all in all his study: 

 List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 

 A fearful battle render'd you in music: 

 Turn him to any cause of policy, 

 The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, 

 Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks, 

 The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, 

 And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, 

 To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences; 

 So that the art and practic part of life 

 Must be the mistress to this theoric: 

 Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, 

 Since his addiction was to courses vain, 

 His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow, 

 His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports, 

 And never noted in him any study, 

 Any retirement, any sequestration 

 From open haunts and popularity. 

 ELY  The strawberry grows underneath the nettle 

 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 

 Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: 

 And so the prince obscured his contemplation 

 Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, 

 Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, 

 Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty. 

 CANTERBURY  It must be so; for miracles are ceased; 

 And therefore we must needs admit the means 

 How things are perfected. 

 ELY  But, my good lord, 

 How now for mitigation of this bill 

 Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty 

 Incline to it, or no? 

 CANTERBURY  He seems indifferent, 

 Or rather swaying more upon our part 

 Than cherishing the exhibiters against us; 

 For I have made an offer to his majesty, 

 Upon our spiritual convocation 

 And in regard of causes now in hand, 

 Which I have open'd to his grace at large, 

 As touching France, to give a greater sum 

 Than ever at one time the clergy yet 

 Did to his predecessors part withal. 

 ELY  How did this offer seem received, my lord? 

 CANTERBURY  With good acceptance of his majesty; 

 Save that there was not time enough to hear, 

 As I perceived his grace would fain have done, 

 The severals and unhidden passages 

 Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms 

 And generally to the crown and seat of France 

 Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather. 

 ELY  What was the impediment that broke this off? 

 CANTERBURY  The French ambassador upon that instant 

 Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come 

 To give him hearing: is it four o'clock? 

 ELY  It is. 

 CANTERBURY  Then go we in, to know his embassy; 

 Which I could with a ready guess declare, 

 Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. 

 ELY  I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it. 



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