York. The Archbishop’s palace.
[Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords
HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH]
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.
HASTINGS Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.
LORD BARDOLPH
The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?
HASTINGS With him, we may.
LORD BARDOLPH Yea, marry, there’s the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
‘Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.
LORD BARDOLPH It was, my lord;
who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so, with great imagination
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leap’d into destruction.
HASTINGS But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
HASTINGS I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
LORD BARDOLPH What,
is the king but five and twenty thousand?
HASTINGS To us no more;
nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us: so is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
That he should draw his several strengths together
And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded. Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,
Are now become enamour’d on his grave:
Thou, that threw’st dust upon his goodly head
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke.
MOWBRAY Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?
HASTINGS We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.
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