University of Virginia Library

Scene VII.—A room in the Archiepiscopal Palace at Canterbury.

The Prior of Merton, Llewellen.
Llew.
Three bishops had arrived the day before me
At Bayeux while the king and queen held feast:
They instanced with such art the primate's rage,
Compassionated so well the kingdom's wrongs,
Some drew their swords; the king looked round and cried,
‘Your counsel, lords?’ They answered, ‘We are priests:
Your captains and your peers shall best advise you.’
Leicester spake first;—'twas parable, not counsel.
Malvoisin next—a babbler. Bohun thus:
‘I know not what can deal with knaves revolted
But wicker-rope or sword.’ Then with dropped eyes,
Gilbert of London, rising, both his hands
Clasped on his breast, spake softly thus: ‘My lords,
Behoves us in this crisis to be meek
Lest we too much inflame the primate's zeal,
Who, like a king, an army at his back,
In vengeance sweeps from shore to shore of England
To abase a king ill-crowned.’

Prior.
What answered Henry?

Llew.
There fell on him that frenzy of his race
Which threats the world with doom. I know not all—
The men that saw it saw as in a trance
And what they saw divulge not save in part.
The fire-cloud of that wrath burned out at last:
The Ill Spirits left him. On the rush-strewn floor
There sat he glaring maniac-like, the straws
Now kneading and now gnawing. That too passed:
The king was standing in their midst: his eye
Slowly he turned from each to each; then spake
With pointed finger, and with serpent hiss:
‘Slaves, slaves, not barons hath my kingdom bred,
Slaves that in silence stand, and eye their king
Mocked by a low-born knave!’

Prior.
None answered? Ha!

Llew.
No man. From that mute hall four knights forth strode—
Fitz-Urse, De Tracy, Moreville, Richard Brito.
At twelve last night they entered Saltwood gates:
De Broc attended them.

Prior.
The end draws nigh.