Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.
[Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY,
LORD HASTINGS, and others]
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK My friends and brethren,
I must acquaint you that I have received
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
That your attempts may overlive the hazard
And fearful melting of their opposite.
MOWBRAY Thus do the hopes we have
in him touch ground
And dash themselves to pieces.
[Enter a Messenger]
HASTINGS Now, what news?
Messenger West 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.
MOWBRAY The just proportion that we gave them out
Let us sway on and face them in the field.
[Enter WESTMORELAND]
WESTMORELAND Health and fair
greeting from our general,
The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Say on,
my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace:
What doth concern your coming?
WESTMORELAND Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. You, lord archbishop,
Wherefore do you so ill translate ourself
Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances and your tongue divine
To a trumpet and a point of war?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Wherefore do I this?
so the question stands.
Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
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.
I have in equal balance justly weigh’d
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which long ere this we offer’d to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong’d and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
WESTMORELAND When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn’d to grate on you,
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
And consecrate commotion’s bitter edge?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK My brother general,
the commonwealth,
I make my quarrel in particular.
WESTMORELAND There is no need of any such redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
MOWBRAY Why not to him in part, and to us all
That feel the bruises of the days before,
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?
WESTMORELAND O, my good Lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
But this is mere digression 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 so much as think you enemies.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Then take,
my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances:
WESTMORELAND 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.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK My lord, we will do so.
[Exit WESTMORELAND]
MOWBRAY There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.
HASTINGS Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MOWBRAY 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.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK 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.
HASTINGS 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.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ‘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.
MOWBRAY Be it so.
Here is return’d my Lord of Westmoreland.
[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]
WESTMORELAND The prince is here at hand:
pleaseth your lordship
To meet his grace just distance ‘tween our armies.
MOWBRAY Your grace of York, in God’s name then,
set forward.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Before,
and greet his grace: my lord, we come.
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