Act 2, Scene 1

Saint Alban's.

[Enter the KING, QUEEN, GLOSTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK, with FALCONERS halloing.]
Queen Margaret
669 Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,
670 I saw not better sport these seven years' day;
671 Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,
672 And, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out.
King Henry VI
673 But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
674 And what a pitch she flew above the rest!
675 To see how God in all His creatures works!
676 Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.
Duke of Suffolk
677 No marvel, an it like your majesty,
678 My lord protector's hawks do tower so well;
679 They know their master loves to be aloft,
680 And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.
Duke of Gloucester
681 My lord, 't is but a base ignoble mind
682 That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
Cardinal Beaufort
683 I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.
Duke of Gloucester
684 Ay, my lord cardinal? how think you by that?
685 Were it not good your grace could fly to heaven?
King Henry VI
686 The treasury of everlasting joy.
Cardinal Beaufort
687 Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts
688 Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart,
689 Pernicious protector, dangerous peer,
690 That smooth'st it so with king and commonweal.
Duke of Gloucester
691 What, cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?
692 Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?
693 Churchmen so hot? good uncle, hide such malice;
694 With such holiness can you do it?
Duke of Suffolk
695 No malice, sir; no more than well becomes
696 So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.
Duke of Gloucester
697 As who, my lord?
Duke of Suffolk
698 Why, as you, my lord,
699 An 't like your lordly lord-protectorship.
Duke of Gloucester
700 Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.
Queen Margaret
701 And thy ambition, Gloster.
King Henry VI
702 I prithee, peace, good queen,
703 And whet not on these furious peers;
704 For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.
Cardinal Beaufort
705 Let me be blessed for the peace I make
706 Against this proud protector, with my sword!
[Aside to Cardinal.]
Duke of Gloucester
707 Faith, holy uncle, would 't
708 were come to that!
[Aside to Gloster.]
Cardinal Beaufort
709 Marry, when thou dar'st.
[Aside to Cardinal.]
Duke of Gloucester
710 Make up no factious numbers
711 for the matter;
712 In thine own person answer thy abuse.
[Aside to Gloster.]
Cardinal Beaufort
713 Ay, where thou dar'st not peep;
714 an if thou dar'st,
715 This evening, on the east side of the grove.
King Henry VI
716 How now, my lords!
Cardinal Beaufort
717 Believe me, cousin Gloster,
718 Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
719 We had had more sport.—
[Aside to Gloster.]
Cardinal Beaufort
720 Come with thy
721 two-hand sword.
Duke of Gloucester
722 True, uncle.
[Aside to Gloster.]
Cardinal Beaufort
723 Are ye advis'd? the east side
724 of the grove?
[Aside to CARDINAL.]
Duke of Gloucester
725 Cardinal, I am with you.
King Henry VI
726 Why, how now, uncle Gloster!
Duke of Gloucester
727 Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.—
[Aside to Cardinal.]
Duke of Gloucester
728 Now, by God's mother, priest,
729 I'll shave your crown for this,
730 Or all my fence shall fail.
[Aside to Gloster.]
Cardinal Beaufort
731 Medice, teipsum—
732 Protector, see to 't well, protect yourself.
King Henry VI
733 The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.
734 How irksome is this music to my heart!
735 When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?
736 I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.
[Enter a Townsman of Saint Alban's, crying 'A miracle!']
Duke of Gloucester
737 What means this noise?
738 Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?
Townsman
739 A miracle! A miracle!
Duke of Suffolk
740 Come to the king, and tell him what miracle.
Townsman
741 Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine,
742 Within this half hour, hath receiv'd his sight;
743 A man that ne'er saw in his life before.
King Henry VI
744 Now, God be prais'd, that to believing souls
745 Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!
[Enter the Mayor of Saint Alban's and his brethren, bearing SIMPCOX, between two in a chair, SIMPCOX's Wife following.]
Cardinal Beaufort
746 Here comes the townsmen on procession,
747 To present your highness with the man.
King Henry VI
748 Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,
749 Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.
Duke of Gloucester
750 Stand by, my masters.
751 Bring him near the king;
752 His highness' pleasure is to talk with him.
King Henry VI
753 Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,
754 That we for thee may glorify the Lord.
755 What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?
Saunder Simpcox
756 Born blind, an 't please your grace.
Simpcox's Wife
757 Ay indeed was he.
Duke of Suffolk
758 What woman is this?
Simpcox's Wife
759 His wife, an 't like your worship.
Duke of Gloucester
760 Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst
761 have better told.
King Henry VI
762 Where wert thou born?
Saunder Simpcox
763 At Berwick in the north, an 't like your grace.
King Henry VI
764 Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee;
765 Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass,
766 But still remember what the Lord hath done.
Queen Margaret
767 Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,
768 Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?
Saunder Simpcox
769 God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd
770 A hundred times and oftener, in my sleep,
771 By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,
772 Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'
Simpcox's Wife
773 Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft
774 Myself have heard a voice to call him so.
Cardinal Beaufort
775 What, art thou lame?
Saunder Simpcox
776 Ay, God Almighty help me!
Duke of Suffolk
777 How cam'st thou so?
Saunder Simpcox
778 A fall off of a tree.
Simpcox's Wife
779 A plum-tree, master.
Duke of Gloucester
780 How long hast thou been blind?
Saunder Simpcox
781 O, born so, master!
Duke of Gloucester
782 What, and wouldst climb a tree?
Saunder Simpcox
783 But that in all my life, when I was a youth.
Simpcox's Wife
784 Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.
Duke of Gloucester
785 Mass, thou lov'dst plums well that wouldst venture so.
Saunder Simpcox
786 Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons,
787 And made me climb, with danger of my life.
Duke of Gloucester
788 A subtle knave! but yet it shall not serve.—
789 Let me see thine eyes.—Wink now;—now open them.
790 In my opinion yet thou seest not well.
Saunder Simpcox
791 Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint Alban.
Duke of Gloucester
792 Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?
Saunder Simpcox
793 Red, master, red as blood.
Duke of Gloucester
794 Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?
Saunder Simpcox
795 Black, forsooth, coal-black as jet.
King Henry VI
796 Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?
Duke of Suffolk
797 And yet, I think, jet did he never see.
Duke of Gloucester
798 But cloaks and gowns before this day, a many.
Simpcox's Wife
799 Never before this day in all his life.
Duke of Gloucester
800 Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?
Saunder Simpcox
801 Alas, master, I know not.
Duke of Gloucester
802 What's his name?
Saunder Simpcox
803 I know not.
Duke of Gloucester
804 Nor his?
Saunder Simpcox
805 No, indeed, master.
Duke of Gloucester
806 What's thine own name?
Saunder Simpcox
807 Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.
Duke of Gloucester
808 Then, Saunder, sit there, the lyingest knave in
809 Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as well
810 have known all our names as thus to name the several colours we
811 do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to
812 nominate them all, it is impossible.—My lords, Saint Alban here
813 hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be
814 great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?
Saunder Simpcox
815 O master, that you could!
Duke of Gloucester
816 My masters of Saint Alban's, have you not beadles in
817 your town, and things called whips?
Mayor of Saint Alban's
818 Yes, my lord, if it please your grace.
Duke of Gloucester
819 Then send for one presently.
Mayor of Saint Alban's
820 Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.
[Exit an Attendant.]
Duke of Gloucester
821 Now fetch me a stool hither by and by.—Now, sirrah,
822 if you mean to save yourself from whipping, leap me over this
823 stool and run away.
Saunder Simpcox
824 Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone;
825 You go about to torture me in vain.
[Enter a Beadle with whips.]
Duke of Gloucester
826 Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.—
827 Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.
Beadle
828 I will, my lord.—Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet
829 quickly.
Saunder Simpcox
830 Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.
[After the Beadle hath hit him once, he leaps over the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry, 'A miracle!']
King Henry VI
831 O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?
Queen Margaret
832 It made me laugh to see the villain run.
Duke of Gloucester
833 Follow the knave, and take this drab away.
Simpcox's Wife
834 Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!
Duke of Gloucester
835 Let them be whipped through every market-town
836 till they come to Berwick, from whence they came.
[Exeunt Wife, Beadle, Mayor, etc.]
Cardinal Beaufort
837 Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.
Duke of Suffolk
838 True; made the lame to leap and fly away.
Duke of Gloucester
839 But you have done more miracles than I;
840 You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.
[Enter BUCKINGHAM.]
King Henry VI
841 What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?
Duke of Buckingham
842 Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold.
843 A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,
844 Under the countenance and confederacy
845 Of Lady Eleanor, the protector's wife,
846 The ringleader and head of all this rout,
847 Have practis'd dangerously against your state,
848 Dealing with witches and with conjurers,
849 Whom we have apprehended in the fact,
850 Raising up wicked spirits from underground,
851 Demanding of King Henry's life and death,
852 And other of your highness' privy-council,
853 As more at large your Grace shall understand.
[Aside to Gloster.]
Cardinal Beaufort
854 And so, my lord protector,
855 by this means
856 Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.
857 This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;
858 'T is like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.
Duke of Gloucester
859 Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.
860 Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;
861 And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to thee,
862 Or to the meanest groom.
King Henry VI
863 O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,
864 Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!
Queen Margaret
865 Gloster, see here the tainture of thy nest;
866 And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.
Duke of Gloucester
867 Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal,
868 How I have lov'd my king and commonweal;
869 And, for my wife, I know not how it stands.
870 Sorry I am to hear what I have heard;
871 Noble she is; but if she have forgot
872 Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such
873 As like to pitch defile nobility,
874 I banish her my bed and company,
875 And give her as a prey to law and shame,
876 That hath dishonoured Gloster's honest name.
King Henry VI
877 Well, for this night we will repose us here;
878 To-morrow toward London back again,
879 To look into this business thoroughly,
880 And call these foul offenders to their answers,
881 And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,
882 Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 669cultural context
“flying at the brook”
Falconry phrase: 'flying at the brook' means flying hawks at waterfowl along a stream or marsh, a form of hawking done with falcons trained to strike birds in flight over water. The court is at St Albans on a royal hunting excursion.
TLN 674cultural context
“what a pitch she flew above the rest”
'Pitch' is a falconry term for the highest point a hawk rises before stooping (diving) to strike its quarry. Henry's innocent remark about Gloucester's falcon flying highest will be picked up immediately by Suffolk as a malicious gibe about Gloucester's political ambitions.
TLN 704biblical allusion
“blessed are the peacemakers on earth”
Henry quotes the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount: 'Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God' (Matthew 5:9). The verse is characteristic of Henry's reflexive piety; the Cardinal immediately and wickedly volunteers himself as a peacemaker — against Gloucester, with his sword.
TLN 729wordplay
“I'll shave your crown for this”
Gloucester's threat contains a pun: 'crown' means both the top of the Cardinal's tonsured head (which Gloucester threatens to cut) and his dignity or rank. 'Shave your crown' literally threatens a close blade to the head, but the secondary meaning strips the Cardinal of his clerical status and his lordly 'crown' in one gesture.
TLN 733archaic vocab
“The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords”
'Stomachs' here means tempers, angry pride, or fierce spirit — not the digestive organ. Henry plays on the high wind of the hawking day to remark that his lords' passions are equally stormy.
TLN 741cultural context
“a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine”
St Alban was Britain's first Christian martyr, executed around 304 CE; his shrine at the town bearing his name was a major pilgrimage destination in medieval England, credited with miraculous healings. Blind men, the lame, and the sick traveled there seeking cures, making the scene of a miraculous cure entirely plausible to the crowd, and providing Gloucester a ready-made fraud to expose.
TLN 756biblical allusion
“Born blind, an 't please your grace”
Simpcox's claim to have been born blind and miraculously cured echoes the New Testament story of the man born blind healed by Jesus at Siloam (John 9:1-7), which was the most famous biblical precedent for this exact type of miracle. Henry, who is steeped in scripture, immediately credits the cure. Gloucester's exposure of the fraud implicitly casts him as the skeptic testing a claim that pious Henry would never question.
TLN 785archaic vocab
“Mass, thou lov'dst plums well”
'Mass' is a mild oath, a weakened form of 'by the Mass' — the Catholic eucharist — used as a colloquial exclamation, equivalent to 'indeed' or 'well then.' Gloucester uses it drily as he closes the trap on Simpcox: a blind man who loves plums enough to risk his life climbing for them.
TLN 809cultural context
“mightst as well have known all our names as thus to name the several colours we do wear”
Gloucester's proof is genuine: a person born blind who had just received sight for the first time would have no way to link color-words to visual impressions they had never had. They might hear colors named but could not match name to sensation until they learned by experience. Simpcox's instant, confident naming of 'red as blood' and 'coal-black as jet' gives him away — he is clearly sighted and always has been.
TLN 816cultural context
“beadles in your town, and things called whips”
A beadle was a parish or town officer whose duties included administering public corporal punishment — specifically, the whipping of vagabonds, petty criminals, and impostors through the streets. Whipping was the standard legal punishment for fraud and vagrancy in Tudor England. Gloucester's dry tone ('things called whips') underlines the obviousness of the remedy.
TLN 837rhetorical device
“Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day”
The Cardinal's remark is bitter irony: Gloucester did perform a kind of secular 'miracle' — making the lame man walk, the opposite of the fraud's fake cure. Suffolk extends it: Gloucester 'made the lame to leap.' Gloucester answers with a sharper counter-irony: the Cardinal and Suffolk themselves have done 'more miracles' by making 'whole towns fly' — a jab at Suffolk's role in surrendering English territories in France.
TLN 843archaic vocab
“A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent”
'Sort' here means 'company' or 'group' of people, not a type or category. 'Naughty' means wicked, morally bad — much stronger than its modern mild sense. 'Lewdly bent' means inclined toward wickedness or low crimes. Buckingham is reporting a conspiracy, not describing misbehaving children.
TLN 848historical topical
“Dealing with witches and with conjurers”
Buckingham reports what the audience saw in Act 1, Scene 4: Eleanor Cobham hired a conjurer and a witch to raise a spirit and ask it the fate of the King. Using magic to foretell a monarch's death counted as high treason in Tudor law, because the prophecy could be taken as an incitement to hasten it. The historical Eleanor Cobham was convicted on exactly this charge in 1441.
historical Eleanor Cobham and the Witchcraft Trial
TLN 857rhetorical device
“this news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge”
The Cardinal taunts Gloucester aside: the news of Eleanor's arrest has 'blunted your sword' — meaning Gloucester no longer has the will or standing to fight the duel they had agreed to meet at the grove this evening. The metaphor is brutal: the Cardinal is rubbing Gloucester's face in his wife's disgrace at the moment Gloucester has just learned of it.
historical Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester ('Good Duke Humphrey')
TLN 865archaic vocab
“see here the tainture of thy nest”
'Tainture' means contamination, defilement, or taint — a staining of honor. Margaret is telling Gloucester to look at the disgrace his wife has brought on their household ('nest'). The bird-metaphor continues the hawking imagery of the scene's opening.
TLN 873rhetorical device
“like to pitch defile nobility”
Gloucester uses the proverb 'he that touches pitch shall be defiled' — meaning that association with the base or wicked corrupts the noble, just as the sticky black tar ('pitch') stains anything it touches. The same proverbial image appears in Ecclesiasticus and in several other Shakespeare plays.
TLN 881archaic vocab
“poise the cause in justice' equal scales”
'Poise' means to weigh or balance. Henry will 'weigh the case in justice's even scales' — the scales of justice being the standard ancient emblem of impartial judgment. The closing couplet presents Henry as ideally impartial, but the audience knows Eleanor's enemies are already controlling the outcome.