Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Haftings, and
Hat is the Foreft call'd?
Haft. 'Tis Gaultree Foreft, and't shall please your York. Stand here, my Lords, and fend Discoverers forth, To know the numbers of our Enemies.
Haft. We have fent forth already.
York. 'Tis well done.
My Friends and Brethren, in these great Affairs,
I must acquaint you, that I have receiv'd
New-dated Letters from Northumberland:
Their cold intent, tenure and substance thus,
How doth he wish his Perfon, with fuch Powers
As might hold fortance with his Quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing Fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty Prayers,
That your Attempts may over live the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their Oppofite.
Mow. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground And dash themselves to pieces.
Enter a Meffenger.
Haft. Now, what News?
Meff. Weft of this Foreft, fcarcely off a Mile,
In goodly Form comes on the Enemy:
And by the Ground they hide, I judge their Number
Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thoufand
Mow. The juft proportion that we gave them out,
Let us fway on, and face them in the Field.
Enter Weftmorland.
York. What well appointed Leader fronts us here -
Mow. I think it is my Lord of Westmorland.
Weft. Health and fair Greeting from our General,
The Prince, Lord John, and Duke of Lancaster.
York. Say on, my Lord of Westmorland, in peace:
What doth concern your coming?
Weft. Then, my Lord,
Unto your Grace do I in chief address
The fubftance of my Speech. If that Rebellion
Came like it felf, in base and abject Routs,
Led on by bloody Youth, guarded with Rage,
And countenanc'd by Boys and Beggary:
I fay, if damn'd Commotion fo appear
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, Reverend Father, and thefe Noble Lords,
Had not been here to drefs the ugly Form
Of bafe and bloody Infurrection,
With your fair Honours. You, Lord Archbishop,
Whofe See is by a Civil Peace maintain❜d,
Whofe Beard the Silver Hand of Peace hath touch'd,
Whofe Learning and good Letters Peace hath tutor❜d,
Whose white Investments figure Innocence,
The Dove, and very bleffed Spirit of Peace ;
Wherefore do you fo ili tranflate your self,
Out of the fpeech of Peace, that bears such Grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous Tongue of War?
Turning your Books to Graves, your Ink to Blood,
Your Pens to Launces, and your Tongue divine..
To a loud Trumpet, and a Point of War?
York. Wherefore do I this? So the Question ftands.
Briefly to this end: We are all diseas'd,
And, with our furfeiting and wanton hours,
Have brought our felves into a burning Feaver,
And we muft bleed for it: Of which Disease
Our late King Richard, being infected, dy'd.
But, my moft Noble Lord of Westmorland,
I take not on me here as a Phyfician.
Nor do I, as an Enemy to Peace,
Troop in the Throngs of military Men:
But rather fhew a while like fearful War,
To diet rank Minds, fick of Happiness,
And purge th'obstructions which begin to ftop
Our very Veins of Life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal Ballance juftly weigh'd,
What Wrongs our Arms may do, what Wrongs we fuffer,
And find our Griefs heavier than our Offences.
We fee which way the Stream of Time doth run,
And are inforc'd from our most Quiet there,
By the rough Torrent of Occafion,
And have the fummary of all our Griefs,
When time shall serve, to shew in Articles, '
Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,
And might by no Suit gain our Audience.
When we are wrong'd and would unfold our Griefs,
We are deny'd accefs unto his Perfon,
Even by thofe Men that most have done us wrong.
The danger of the Day's but newly gone,
Whose Memory is written on the Earth
With yet appearing Blood; and the Examples
Of every minutes inftance prefent now,
Hath put us in these ill-befeeming Arms:
Not to break Peace, or any Branch of it,
But to establish here a Peace indeed,
Concurring both in Name and Quality.
Weft. Whenever yet was your Appeal deny'd?
Wherein have you been galled by the King?
What Peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you,
That you fhould feal this lawless bloody Book
Of forg'd Rebellion with a Seal divine?
York. My Brother General. the Commonwealth I make my Quarrel in particular.
Weft. There is no need of any fuch Redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
Mow. Why not to him in part, and to us all,
That feel the bruifes of the Days before,
And fuffer the Condition of these Times,
To lay an heavy and unequal Hand
Upon our Honours? >
Weft. O my good Lord Mowbray,
Conftrue the Times to their Neceffities,
And you fhall fay, indeed, it is the Time,
And not the King, that doth you Injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the King, or in the prefent Time,
That you should have an Inch of any Ground
To build a Grief on: Were you not restor❜d
To all the Duke of Norfolk's Seignories,
Your noble and right well remembred Father's?
Mow. What thing, in Honour, had my Father loft
That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?
The King that lov'd him, as the State stood then,
Was forc'd, perforce compell'd to banish him:
And then, that Henry Bullingbroke and he
Being mounted, and both rowsed in their Seats,
Their neighing Courfers daring of the Spur,
Their armed Staves in charge, their Beavers down,
Their Eyes of Fire, fparkling through fights of Steel,
And the loud Trumpet blowing them together:
Then, then, when there was nothing could have ftaid
My Father from the Breaft of Bullingbroke;
O, when the King did throw his Warder down,
His own Life hung upon the Staff he threw,
Then threw he down himself and all their Lives,
That by Indictment, and by dint of Sword,
Have fince mifcarried under Bullingbroke.
Weft. You fpeak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what. The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant Gentleman.
Who knows, on whom Fortune would then have fmil'de But if your Father had been Victor there,
He ne'er had born it out of Coventry.
For all the Country, in a general Voice,
Cry'd hate upon him; and all their Prayers, and Love,
Were fet on Hereford, whom they doted on,
And blefs'd, and grac'd, more than the King himself.
But this is meer digreffion from my Purpose.
Here come 1 from our Princely General,
To know your Griefs; to tell you from his Grace,
That he will give you Audience; and wherein
It fhall appear, that your Demands are just,
You fhall enjoy them, every thing fet off
That might fo much as think you Enemies.
Mom. But he hath forc'd us to compel this Offer,
And it proceeds from Policy, not Love.
Weft. Mowbray, you over-ween to take it fo
This Offer comes from Mercy, not from Fear.
For lo, within a Ken our Army lyes;
Upon mine Honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of Fear.
Our Battel is more full of Names than yours,
Our Men more perfect in the use of Arms,
Our Armour all as ftrong, our Cause the best;
Then Reason will, our Hearts fhould be as good.
Say you not then our Offer is compell'd.
Mow. Well, by my Will we shall admit no Parley?
Weft. That argues but the fhame of your Offence:
A rotten Cafe abides no handling.
Haft. Hath the Prince John a full Commiffion, In very ample Vertue of his Father,
To hear, and abfolutely to determine
Of what Conditions we fhall ftand upon?
Weft. That is intended in the General's Name:
I muse you make fo flight a Question.
York. Then take, my Lord of Westmorland, this Schedule For this contains our general Grievances:
Each feveral Article herein redress'd,
All Members of our Caufe, both here, and hence,
That are infinewed to this Action,
Acquitted by a true fubftantial Form,
And prefent Executions of our Wills,
To us, and to our Purpofes confin'd,
We come within our awful Banks again,
And knit our Powers to the Arm of Peace.
Weft. This will I fhew the General. Please you, Lords, la fight of both our Battels, we may meet
At either end in Peace; which Heav'n fo frame,
Or to the place of difference call the Swords,
Which must needs decide it.
York. My Lord, we will do fo.
Mow. There is a thing within my Bofom tells me, That no Conditions of our Peace can ftand.
Hoft. Fear you not that, if we can make our Peace Upon fuch large Terms, and fo abfolute,
As our Conditions fhall infift upon,
Our Peace shall ftand as firm as Rocky Mountains.
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