Act 2. Scene II

SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber.

Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND
BEDFORD
'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.

EXETER
They shall be apprehended by and by.

WESTMORELAND
How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.

BEDFORD
The king hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of.

EXETER
Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery.

Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY V, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and Attendants

KING HENRY V
Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them?

SCROOP
No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

KING HENRY V
I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

CAMBRIDGE
Never was monarch better fear'd and loved
Than is your majesty: there's not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.

GREY
True: those that were your father's enemies
Have steep'd their galls in honey and do serve you
With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

KING HENRY V
We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;
And shall forget the office of our hand,
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to the weight and worthiness.

SCROOP
So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

KING HENRY V
We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail'd against our person: we consider
it was excess of wine that set him on;
And on his more advice we pardon him.

SCROOP
That's mercy, but too much security:
Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.

KING HENRY V
O, let us yet be merciful.

CAMBRIDGE
So may your highness, and yet punish too.

GREY
Sir,
You show great mercy, if you give him life,
After the taste of much correction.

KING HENRY V