Act 2, Scene 2

Southampton. A council-chamber.

[Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland.]
Duke of Bedford
607 'Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
Duke of Exeter
608 They shall be apprehended by and by.
Earl of Westmoreland
609 How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
610 As if allegiance in their bosoms sat
611 Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.
Duke of Bedford
612 The King hath note of all that they intend,
613 By interception which they dream not of.
Duke of Exeter
614 Nay, but the man that was his bed-fellow,
615 Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,
616 That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
617 His sovereign's life to death and treachery.
[Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey.]
King Henry V
618 Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
619 My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,
620 And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.
621 Think you not that the powers we bear with us
622 Will cut their passage through the force of France,
623 Doing the execution and the act
624 For which we have in head assembled them?
Lord Scroop
625 No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
King Henry V
626 I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
627 We carry not a heart with us from hence
628 That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
629 Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
630 Success and conquest to attend on us.
Earl of Cambridge
631 Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd
632 Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject
633 That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
634 Under the sweet shade of your government.
Sir Thomas Grey
635 True; those that were your father's enemies
636 Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you
637 With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
King Henry V
638 We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
639 And shall forget the office of our hand
640 Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
641 According to the weight and worthiness.
Lord Scroop
642 So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
643 And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
644 To do your Grace incessant services.
King Henry V
645 We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
646 Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
647 That rail'd against our person. We consider
648 It was excess of wine that set him on,
649 And on his more advice we pardon him.
Lord Scroop
650 That's mercy, but too much security.
651 Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
652 Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
King Henry V
653 O, let us yet be merciful.
Earl of Cambridge
654 So may your Highness, and yet punish too.
Sir Thomas Grey
655 Sir,
656 You show great mercy if you give him life
657 After the taste of much correction.
King Henry V
658 Alas, your too much love and care of me
659 Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!
660 If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
661 Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
662 When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,
663 Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,
664 Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care
665 And tender preservation of our person,
666 Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes.
667 Who are the late commissioners?
Earl of Cambridge
668 I one, my lord.
669 Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.
Lord Scroop
670 So did you me, my liege.
Sir Thomas Grey
671 And I, my royal sovereign.
King Henry V
672 Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
673 There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,
674 Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.
675 Read them, and know I know your worthiness.
676 My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
677 We will aboard to-night.—Why, how now, gentlemen!
678 What see you in those papers that you lose
679 So much complexion?—Look ye, how they change!
680 Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there,
681 That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood
682 Out of appearance?
Earl of Cambridge
683 I do confess my fault,
684 And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.
Earl of Cambridge
685 GREY, SCROOP.
686 To which we all appeal.
King Henry V
687 The mercy that was quick in us but late,
688 By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.
689 You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
690 For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
691 As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
King Henry V
692 See you, my princes and my noble peers,
693 These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,
694 You know how apt our love was to accord
695 To furnish him with an appertinents
696 Belonging to his honour; and this man
697 Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd
698 And sworn unto the practices of France
699 To kill us here in Hampton; to the which
700 This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
701 Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O
702 What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,
703 Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
704 Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
705 That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
706 That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
707 Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use,—
708 May it be possible that foreign hire
709 Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
710 That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange,
711 That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
712 As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
713 Treason and murder ever kept together,
714 As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
715 Working so grossly in a natural cause
716 That admiration did not whoop at them;
717 But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
718 Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;
719 And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
720 That wrought upon thee so preposterously
721 Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
722 And other devils that suggest by treasons
723 Do botch and bungle up damnation
724 With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
725 From glist'ring semblances of piety.
726 But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
727 Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
728 Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
729 If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
730 Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
731 He might return to vasty Tartar back,
732 And tell the legions, "I can never win
733 A soul so easy as that Englishman's."
734 O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
735 The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
736 Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
King Henry V
737 Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
738 Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
739 Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
740 Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
741 Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
742 Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
743 Not working with the eye without the ear,
744 And but in purged judgement trusting neither?
745 Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.
746 And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
747 To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
748 With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
749 For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
750 Another fall of man. Their faults are open.
751 Arrest them to the answer of the law;
752 And God acquit them of their practices!
Duke of Exeter
753 I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of
754 Cambridge. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry
755 Lord Scroop of Masham. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name
756 of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.
Lord Scroop
757 Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,
758 And I repent my fault more than my death,
759 Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,
760 Although my body pay the price of it.
Earl of Cambridge
761 For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
762 Although I did admit it as a motive
763 The sooner to effect what I intended.
764 But God be thanked for prevention,
765 Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
766 Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
Sir Thomas Grey
767 Never did faithful subject more rejoice
768 At the discovery of most dangerous treason
769 Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
770 Prevented from a damned enterprise.
771 My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
King Henry V
772 God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
773 You have conspir'd against our royal person,
774 Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
775 Received the golden earnest of our death;
776 Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
777 His princes and his peers to servitude,
778 His subjects to oppression and contempt,
779 And his whole kingdom into desolation.
780 Touching our person seek we no revenge;
781 But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
782 Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
783 We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
784 Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
785 The taste whereof God of his mercy give
786 You patience to endure, and true repentance
787 Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, guarded.]
King Henry V
788 Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
789 Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
790 We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
791 Since God so graciously hath brought to light
792 This dangerous treason lurking in our way
793 To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
794 But every rub is smoothed on our way.
795 Then forth, dear countrymen! Let us deliver
796 Our puissance into the hand of God,
797 Putting it straight in expedition.
798 Cheerly to sea! The signs of war advance!
799 No king of England, if not king of France!
[Flourish.]
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 607historical topical
“his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors”
The scene stages the historical Southampton Plot of August 1415, in which three trusted men -- Richard, Earl of Cambridge; Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham; and Sir Thomas Grey of Northumberland -- were paid by France to murder Henry before he could sail. Henry had already been secretly informed of the conspiracy and stages this confrontation as a trap.
historical The Southampton plot
TLN 614historical topical
“the man that was his bed-fellow, Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours”
'Bed-fellow' here is not simply poetic; it describes a recognized relationship of royal intimacy. A king's bedfellow was a personal companion who shared the royal bedchamber -- a sign of exceptional trust. Henry had raised Scroop to that level of confidence, which makes his betrayal the sharpest wound. 'Cloy'd with gracious favours' means surfeited, overwhelmed with royal gifts.
TLN 646archaic vocab
“Enlarge the man committed yesterday, That rail'd against our person”
'Enlarge' means to set free, to release from confinement -- the opposite of its modern sense. 'Committed' means imprisoned, placed in custody. Henry is ordering the release of a man locked up for speaking against the king while drunk. The scene uses this pardon as a trap: the three traitors urge severity, and Henry will shortly turn their own words against them.
TLN 658archaic vocab
“your too much love and care of me Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch”
'Orisons' are prayers. Henry is being ironic: the traitors' pleas that he punish the drunk who mocked him are, he says, 'heavy prayers' -- weighty intercessions working against the prisoner -- because they will (by their own logic) come back on the traitors themselves. The more emphatically they urge punishment for a minor offender, the worse they look when their own far graver crime is revealed.
TLN 660archaic vocab
“little faults, proceeding on distemper, Shall not be wink'd at”
'Distemper' here means the physical and moral disorder caused by excessive drinking -- a disruption of the body's proper 'temper' or balance. Elizabethan medicine held that health depended on four bodily humors kept in balance; excess drink upset that balance (distempered it). 'Wink'd at' means ignored or overlooked, as if closing one's eyes to the fault.
TLN 694archaic vocab
“how apt our love was to accord To furnish him with an appertinents”
'Appertinents' (sometimes spelled 'appurtenances') means the titles, estates, privileges, and belongings that go along with an honor or rank -- all the perquisites that 'appertain' (belong) to a position. Henry is saying he was ready to give Cambridge everything that came with his earldom. 'An appertinents' with the singular article is a grammatical usage now obsolete.
TLN 697wordplay
“for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd”
Henry puns on 'light': the crowns (coins) paid by France are 'light' in the sense of cheaply worth little -- possibly even clipped or debased coins -- and Cambridge 'lightly' (readily, carelessly) sold himself for so trivial a price. The pun also carries the sense of moral lightness -- he acted rashly and without sufficient weight of conscience.
TLN 713rhetorical device
“Treason and murder ever kept together, As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose”
Henry says that treason and murder are naturally paired -- like two oxen 'yoked' together (joined under a single yoke to pull a cart) -- and they usually operate so obviously that people are not even surprised by them. The word 'admiration' in the next line is archaic for 'wonder' or 'astonishment': their coupling 'did not whoop' (did not cry out in amazement) because everyone expected it. Scroop's case is different: he brought wonder to treason because no one could believe it of him.
TLN 719archaic vocab
“whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence”
'Preposterously' is stronger in Elizabethan usage than in modern: it means contrary to nature, with things placed backwards ('pre-' = before, 'posterus' = coming after). The devil who corrupted Scroop acted against the very order of things because Scroop appeared so perfectly virtuous that turning him to treason reversed what seemed natural. Henry says that devil deserves a reputation even in hell for extraordinary skill.
TLN 729biblical allusion
“that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus Should with his lion gait walk the whole world, He might return to vasty Tartar back”
'Lion gait' is a direct echo of 1 Peter 5:8, where the devil is described as 'like a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.' Henry is saying that even this supremely clever devil -- having walked the earth like Peter's lion seeking victims -- could not find a soul as easy to corrupt as Scroop. 'Vasty Tartar' is a name for the classical underworld (Tartarus), used here for hell.
TLN 734archaic vocab
“how hast thou with jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance”
'Affiance' means trust, confidence, or faithful reliance on another person -- from the same root as 'fiancee' (one pledged in faith). Henry says Scroop's treachery has infected the 'sweetness' of trust itself: because Scroop looked so perfectly reliable, his betrayal makes it impossible to be sure of any apparently trustworthy person. 'Jealousy' here means suspicion, not romantic envy.
TLN 735rhetorical device
“Show men dutiful? Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned? Why, so didst thou”
Henry uses anaphora -- the repetition of a phrase at the start of successive clauses -- hammering 'Why, so didst thou' seven times as he lists every virtue Scroop appeared to possess: dutiful, grave, noble, religious, temperate, free from passion, constant, modest. The relentless repetition builds the horror: there was no outward sign by which Scroop could have been detected. The device turns the catalog of virtues into an indictment.
TLN 745archaic vocab
“Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem”
'Bolted' comes from the sieving of flour: to 'bolt' grain was to pass it through a fine cloth sieve (a bolter or boulter) to remove the bran and produce the whitest, most refined flour. 'Finely bolted' therefore means sifted to perfection -- thoroughly refined, purified of all coarseness. Henry is saying Scroop appeared to be a man of entirely purified character, with all base impulses strained out.
TLN 749biblical allusion
“this revolt of thine, methinks, is like Another fall of man”
The 'fall of man' is the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: tempted by the serpent (Satan), they disobeyed God, lost paradise, and brought sin and death into the world (Genesis 3). Henry says Scroop's treachery is a second fall: just as Satan corrupted the first and most perfect man, the devil has corrupted the most seemingly virtuous man Henry knew. The comparison is hyperbolic grief, not theology.
biblical The serpent in the Garden of Eden
TLN 774archaic vocab
“from his coffers Received the golden earnest of our death”
An 'earnest' was a down payment or deposit paid to seal a contract -- money given in advance as a pledge that the rest would follow. Henry is saying the traitors received French gold as a first installment ('earnest') on the contract price for killing him. The phrase makes the assassination explicitly a commercial transaction, with the King's life priced and sold.
TLN 795archaic vocab
“Let us deliver Our puissance into the hand of God”
'Puissance' (pronounced roughly 'PYOO-iss-ance' in Elizabethan verse, or 'PWISS-ance') means military power or armed force -- from French 'puissance,' meaning power. Henry is placing his army in God's hands as he sails for France. The word was a standard elevated term in military and chivalric contexts and is common in the histories.
TLN 799historical topical
“No king of England, if not king of France”
Henry closes the scene with a couplet that states the dynastic claim the whole play turns on: he cannot truly be King of England without also claiming France, because his title to France flows from the same blood right (through Edward III) that makes him English king. The line echoes the Archbishop's Salic-law argument of Act 1 and anticipates the battle cry that will carry the army to Agincourt.
historical The Salic law and Henry's claim to Francehistorical Edward III and his seven sons