University of Virginia Library

ACT V

Scene i

Picardy. The English Camp before Calais.
Enter King Edward, with Philippa his Queen, and Derby; Officers, Soldiers, etc.

King Edward
No more, Queen Philip, pacify yourself;
Copland, except he can excuse his fault,
Shall find displeasure written in our looks. —
And now unto this proud resisting town:
Soldiers, assault; I will no longer stay,
To be deluded by their false delays ;
Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.
Trumpets sound to arms. Enter, from the town, six Citizens, in their shirts, and barefoot, with halters about their necks.

Citizen
Mercy, King Edward! mercy, gracious lord!

King Edward
Contemptuous villains! call ye now for truce?
Mine ears are stopp'd against your bootless cries!
Sound, drums; Alarum
draw, threatening swords!

Citizen
Ah, noble prince, take pity on this town,
And hear us, mighty king!
We claim the promise that your highness made;
The two days' respite is not yet expir'd,
And we are come with willingness to bear
What torturing death or punishment you please,
So that the trembling multitude be sav'd.

King Edward
My promise? well, I do confess as much:
But I require the chiefest citizens,
And men of most account, that should submit.
You peradventure are but servile grooms
Or some felonious robbers on the sea,
Whom, apprehended, law would execute,
Albeit severity lay dead in us:
No, no, ye cannot overreach us thus.

2nd Citizen
The sun, dread lord, that in the western fall
Beholds us now low brought through misery,
Did in the orient purple of the morn
Salute our coming forth, when we were known;
Or may our portion be with damned fiends.

King Edward
If it be so, then let our covenant stand,
We take possession of the town in peace:
But, for yourselves, look you for no remorse;
But, as imperial justice hath decreed,
Your bodies shall be dragg'd about these walls
And after feel the stroke of quartering steel :
This is your doom; — go, soldiers, see it done.

Queen.
Ah, be more mild unto these yielding men!
It is a glorious thing, to 'stablish peace;
And kings approach the nearest unto God,
By giving life and safety unto men.
As thou intendest to be King of France,
So let her people live to call thee king;
For what the sword cuts down or fire hath spoil'd
Is held in reputation none of ours.

King Edward
Although experience teach us this is true,
That peaceful quietness brings most delight
When most of all abuses are controll'd,
Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we
As well can master our affections
As conquer other by the dint of sword,
Philip, prevail ; we yield to thy request;
These men shall live to boast of clemency,
And, tyranny, strike terror to thyself.

Citizen
Long live your highness! happy be your reign!

King Edward
Go, get you hence, return unto the town;
And if this kindness hath deserv'd your love,
Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.—
Exeunt Citizens.
Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
We would, till gloomy winter were o'er-spent,
Dispose our men in garrison a while.
But who comes here?
Enter Copland and King, David.

Derby
Copland, my lord, and David King of Scots.

King Edward
Is this the proud presumptuous squire o' the north
That would not yield his prisoner to my queen?

Copland
I am, my liege, a northern squire, indeed,
But neither proud nor insolent, I trust.

King Edward
What moved thee then to be so obstinate
To contradict our royal queen's desire ?

Copland
No wilful disobedience, mighty lord,
But my desert and public law of arms:
I took the king myself in single fight;
And, like a soldier, would be loath to lose
The least pre-eminence that I had won:
And Copland straight upon your highness' charge
Is come to France and with a lowly mind
Doth vail the bonnet of his victory.
Receive, dread lord, the custom of my fraught,
The wealthy tribute of my labouring hands;
Which should long since have been surrender'd up,
Had but your gracious self been there in place.

Queen.
But, Copland, thou didst scorn the king's command,
Neglecting our commission in his name.

Copland
His name I reverence, but his person more;
His name shall keep me in allegiance still,
But to his person I will bend my knee.

King Edward
I pray thee, Philip, let displeasure pass;
This man doth please me and I like his words:
For what is he that will attempt high deeds
And lose the glory that ensues the same?
All rivers have recourse unto the sea;
And Copland's faith, relation to his king. —
Kneel therefore down; now rise, King Edward's knight:
And, to maintain thy state, I freely give
Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine. —
Enter Salisbury.
Welcome, Lord Salisbury: what news from Britain?

Salisbury
This, mighty king: the country we have won;
And John de Mountford, regent of that place,
Presents your highness with this coronet,
Protesting true allegiance to your grace.

King Edward
We thank thee for thy service, valiant earl;
Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.

Salisbury
But now, my lord, as this is joyful news,
So must my voice be tragical again
And I must sing of doleful accidents.

King Edward
What, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers?
Or is our son beset with too much odds?

Salisbury
He was, my lord: and as my worthless self,
With forty other serviceable knights,
Under safe-conduct of the Dauphin's seal
Did travel that way, finding him distress'd,
A troop of lances met us on the way,
Surpris'd, and brought us prisoners to the king;
Who, proud of this and eager of revenge,
Commanded straight to cut off all our heads:
And surely we had died, but that the duke,
More full of honour than his angry sire,
Procur'd our quick deliverance from thence:
But, ere we went, 'Salute your king,' quoth he,
'Bid him provide a funeral for his son,
To-day our sword shall cut his thread of life;
And, sooner than he thinks, we'll be with him,
To quittance those displeasures he hath done':
This said, we passed, not daring to reply;
Our hearts were dead, our looks diffus'd and wan.
Wand'ring, at last we climb'd unto a hill;
From whence, although our grief were much before,
Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes
Did thrice so much increase our heaviness:
For there, my lord, O, there we did descry
Down in a valley how both armies lay.
The French had cast their trenches like a ring;
And every barricado's open front
Was thick emboss'd with brazen ordinance.
Here stood a battle of ten thousand horse;
There twice as many pikes, in quadrant-wise:
Here cross-bows and deadly-wounding darts:
And in the midst, like to a slender point
Within the compass of the horizon, —
As't were a rising bubble in the sea,
A hazel-wand amidst a wood of pines,
Or as a bear fast chain'd unto a stake, —
Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
Anon, the death-procuring knell begins:
Off go the cannons, that, with trembling noise,
Did shake the very mountain where they stood;
Then sound the trumpets' clangour in the air,
The battles join : and, when we could no more
Discern the difference 'twixt the friend and foe,
(So intricate the dark confusion was)
Away we turn'd our wat'ry eyes, with sighs
As black as powder fuming into smoke.
And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told
The most untimely tale of Edward's fall.

Queen.
Ah me! is this my welcome into France?
Is this the comfort that I look'd to have
When I should meet with my beloved son?
Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
Had been prevented of this mortal grief!

King Edward
Content thee, Philip: 'tis not tears will serve
To call him back if he be taken hence:
Comfort thyself, as I do, gentle queen,
With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge.
He bids me to provide his funeral;
And so I will: but all the peers in France
Shall mourners be and weep out bloody tears
Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
The pillars of his hearse shall be their bones;
The mould that covers him, their cities' ashes;
His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
While we bewail our valiant son's decease.
Flourish of Trumpets within. Enter a Herald.

Herald
Rejoice, my lord; ascend the imperial throne!
The mighty and redoubted Prince of Wales,
Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
The Frenchman's terror and his country's fame,
Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer:
And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
King John of France together with his son
In captive bonds ; whose diadem he brings
To crown thee with and to proclaim thee king.

King Edward
Away with mourning, Philip, wipe thine eyes; —
Sound, trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
A loud flourish. Enter Prince Edward, Audley, Artois, with King John and Philip.
As things, long lost, when they are found again,
So doth my son rejoice his father's heart,
For whom, even now, my soul was much perplex'd!
Embracing the Prince.

Queen.
Be this a token to express my joy,
Kissing him.
For inward passions will not let me speak.

Prince Edward
My gracious father, here receive the gift,
Presenting him with King John's crown.
This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
Got with as mickle peril of our lives
As e'er was thing of price before this day;
Install your highness in your proper right
And, herewithal, I render to your hands
These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.

King Edward
So, John of France, I see you keep your word.
You promis'd to be sooner with ourself
Than we did think for, and 'tis so indeed:
But, had you done at first as now you do,
How many civil towns had stood untouch'd
That now are turn'd to ragged heaps of stones?
How many people's lives might'st thou have sav'd
That are untimely sunk into their graves?

King John.
Edward, recount not things irrevocable
Tell me what ransom thou requir'st to have.

King Edward
Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known.
But first to England thou must cross the seas
To see what entertainment it affords;
Howe'er it falls, it cannot be so bad
As ours hath been since we arriv'd in France.

King John
Accursed man! of this I was foretold,
But did misconster what the prophet told.

Prince Edward
Now, father, this petition Edward makes,
To Thee, kneels
whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
That, as Thy pleasure chose me for the man
To be the instrument to show Thy power,
So Thou wilt grant, that many princes more,
Bred and brought up within that little isle,
May still be famous for like victories!—
And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
The weary nights that I have watch'd in field,
The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
The fearful menaces were proffer'd me,
The heat and cold and what else might displease,
I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold;
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England's ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire!

King Edward
Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,
An interceasing of our painful arms:
Sheathe up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breath'd
A day or two within this haven-town,
God willing, then for England we'll be shipp'd;
Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen.

Flourish. Exeunt omnes.