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; 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.
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,
ELY And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
CANTERBURY The breath no sooner left his father’s body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem’d to die too;
Sir John Falstaff and all his company along with him
He’s banished on the pain of death
not to come near his person by ten miles
yea, at that very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipp’d the offending Adam out of him,
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
As in this king.
ELY We are blessed in the change.
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
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
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,
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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