The Hollow Crown

The heavens themselves, the planets and this earth

Observe degree, priority and place,

Office and custom, in all line of order

Take but degree away, untune that string,

And, hark, what discord follows!

King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!

England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.

England ne'er had a king until his time.

His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,

More dazzled and drove back his enemies

Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.

Henry the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:

Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,

Combat with adverse planets in the heavens!

A far more glorious star thy soul will make

Than Julius Caesar or bright...

My honourable lords,

Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,

Of loss, of slaughter and discomfiture:

Paris, Guysors, Poitiers, are all quite lost.

What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?

Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns

Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.

Is Paris lost? Is Guysors yielded up?

If Henry were recall'd to life again,

These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.

How were they lost? What treachery was used?

No treachery; but want of men and money.

Of England's coat one half is cut away.

Were our tears wanting to this funeral,

These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.

Give me my steeled coat. I'll fight for France.

Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,

- To weep their intermissive miseries. - O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?

We will not fly, but to our enemies' throats.

Exeter, if thou be slack, I'll fight it out.

Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?

An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,

Wherewith already France is overrun.

My gracious lord, to add to your laments,

Wherewith you now be due King Henry's hearse.

'I must inform you of a fight for Orleans...

'Betwixt the stout lords Talbot and Salisbury...

'.. and the French.'

Salisbury!

'The camp, by night was overrun.'

Talbot slain?

No, Talbot lives

but forced to flee Orleans.

Farewell, my masters.

Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make,

To warm our great Saint George's feast.

I'll either quell the Dauphin utterly,

Or bring him in obedience to our yoke. Come.

I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can,

And there, I will proclaim young Henry king.

Your Majesty.

My lord, your loving nephew.

Richard Plantagenet, is he come?

Aye, noble uncle.

Your nephew, Richard, comes.

Direct mine arms.

I may embrace his neck.

Poor gentleman!

Your wrong doth equal mine.

Deprived of honour and inheritance.

But now the arbitrator of despairs.

Just death.

Kind umpire of men's miseries,

With sweet enlargements doth dismiss me hence:

I would his troubles were expired,

That you might recover what is lost.

Good uncle,

for my father's sake, In honour of a true Plantagenet,

For alliance sake, declare the cause.

Henry the Fourth, grandfather to the young king,

Deposed his true king Richard,

I should have been the rightful next by birth.

When my friends opposed this usurpment

And worked to instate me the rightful heir

I lost my liberty and they their lives.

Are you the rightful king?

And I thy heir?

With silence, nephew, be thou politic:

Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,

And like a mountain,

not to be removed.

And so,

farewell.

And fair be all thy hopes

And prosperous be thy life

in peace and...

.. war.

Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer.

And now, for all those wrongs,

those bitter injuries,

Which too long Fate hath offer'd to my house:

I silently swear with honour to redress.

My great uncle was Edmund Mortimer.

Who married Philippa, sole daughter unto Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

Therefore, so if the issue of the elder son succeed the younger...

.. I am king.

The truth appears so naked on my side

that any poor, blind eye could seek it out.

Since you are tongue-tied and so loathe to speak,

Let him that is a true-born gentleman,

Does he suppose that I have pleaded truth?

From off this briar pluck...

.. a white rose with me.

Let him that is no coward...

.. nor no flatterer,

Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

I love no colours, and without all colour

Of base insinuating flattery

I pluck this...

white rose with my lord.

I pluck this red rose with brave Somerset

And say withal I think he held the right.

Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more,

Till you conclude that he upon whose side

The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree

Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

Good Lord of Warwick, it is well objected:

If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

And I.

Then

for the truth

and plainness of the case.

I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,

Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

Well, well...

Come on! Who else?

Now, Somerset, where is your argument?

Here in my scabbard, meditating that

Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

Meantime

your cheeks do counterfeit our roses,

- For pale they look with fear. - Not for fear

but anger that thy tongue will not confess thy error.

Proud fool, begone!

I scorn both him and thee.

Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.

I'll turn my dagger here into thy throat.

Let us away, good Suffolk

We grace this yeoman by conversing with him.

Now, by God's will!

Thou wrong'st him, Somerset.

Was not thy father for treason executed?

His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;

And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman.

My father was no traitor!

And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,

and scourge you for this apprehension:

Look to it well,

say you were well warn'd.

Thou shalt find us ready for thee still,

And know us by these colours for thy foes,

For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.

And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,

A symbol, white, of my blood-drinking hate,

Shall I for ever..

.. and my faction wear.

Go forward and be choked with thy ambition.

Oh!

Gloucester?

Comest thou with deep premeditated lines,

With written pamphlets studiously devised? Humphrey of Gloucester,

If thou canst accuse,

Do it without invention, suddenly,

As I with sudden and extemporal speech

Purpose to answer what thou canst object.

Your Majesty.

Presumptuous priest!

This place commands my patience,

Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.

Thou art a most pernicious usurer,

Forward by nature, enemy to peace...

Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems

A man of thy profession and degree.

Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,

The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt

From envious malice of thy swelling heart.

Gloucester, I do defy thee.

If I were

covetous, ambitious or perverse,

As he would have me, how am I so poor?

It is not that that hath incensed the duke:

It is because no-one should sway but he,

No-one but he should be about the King,

And that engenders thunder in his breast

And makes him roar these accusations forth.

- Am I not Protector, saucy priest? - Unreverent Gloucester!

Thou art reverent Touching thy spiritual function,

not thy life.

- Rome shall remedy this! - Roam thither, then.

Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,

I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,

To join your hearts in love and amity.

O, what a scandal is it to our crown,

That two such noble peers as ye should jar!