of lazars and weak age,
   Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
   A hundred alms-houses right well supplied;
   And to the coffers of the King, beside,
   A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.
 ELY. This would drink deep.
 CANTERBURY. 'T would 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 promis'd it not.
   The breath no sooner left his father's body
   But that his wildness, mortified in him,
   Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
   Consideration like an angel came
   And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
   Leaving his body as a paradise
   T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
   Never was such a sudden scholar made;
   Never came reformation in a flood,
   With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
   Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulnes
   So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
   As in this king.
 ELY. We are blessed in the change.
 CANTERBURY. Hear him but reason in divinity,
   And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
   You would desire the King were made a prelate;
   Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
   You would say it hath been all in all his study;
   List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
   A fearful battle rend'red you in music.
   Turn him to any cause of policy,
   The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
   Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
   The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
   And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
   To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
   So that the art and practic part of life
   Must be the mistress to this theoric;
   Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
   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,
   Any retirement, any sequestration
   From open haunts and popularity.
 ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
   And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
   Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;
   And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation
   Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
   Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
   Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
 CANTERBURY. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;
   And therefore we must needs admit the means
   How things are perfected.
 ELY. But, my good lord,
   How now for mitigation of this bill
   Urg'd by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
   Incline to it, or no?
 CANTERBURY. He seems indifferent
   Or rather swaying more upon our part
   Than cherishing th' exhibiters against us;
   For I have made an offer to his Majesty-
   Upon our spiritual convocation
   And in regard of causes now in hand,
   Which I have open'd to his Grace at large,
   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 receiv'd, my lord?
 CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty;
   Save that there was not time enough to hear,
   As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done,
   The severals and unhidden passages
   Of his true tides to some certain dukedoms,
   And generally to the crown and seat of France,
   Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
 ELY. What was th' impediment that broke this off?
 CANTERBURY. The French ambassador upon that instant
   Crav'd 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. Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The Presence Chamber in the KING'S palace

Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and attendants

  KING HENRY. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
  EXETER. Not here in presence.
  KING HENRY. Send for him, good uncle.
  WESTMORELAND. Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege?
  KING HENRY. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,
    Before we hear him, of some things of weight
    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

              Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and
                       the BISHOP OF ELY

  CANTERBURY. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,
    And make you long become it!
  KING HENRY. Sure, we thank you.
    My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,
    And justly and religiously unfold
    Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
    Or should or should not bar us in our claim;
    And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
    That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
    Or nicely charge your understanding soul
    With opening titles miscreate whose right
    Suits not in native colours with the truth;
    For God doth know how many, now in health,
    Shall drop their blood in approbation
    Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
    Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
    How you awake our sleeping sword of war-
    We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
    For never two such kingdoms did contend
    Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
    Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
    'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
    That makes such waste in brief mortality.
    Under this conjuration speak, my lord;
    For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
    That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
    As pure as sin with baptism.
  CANTERBURY. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
    That owe yourselves, your lives, and services,
    To this imperial throne. There is no bar
    To make against your Highness' claim to France
    But this, which they produce from Pharamond:
    'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant'-
    'No woman shall succeed in Salique land';
    Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
    The founder of this law and female bar.
    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
    That the land Salique is in Germany,
    Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
    Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,
    There left behind and settled certain French;
    Who, holding in disdain the German women
    For some dishonest manners of their life,
    Establish'd then this law: to wit, no female
    Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
    Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
    Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
    Then doth it well appear the Salique law
    Was not devised for