Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY My lord, I’ll tell you that self bill is urged Which in th’ eleventh year of the last king’s reign Was like, and had indeed against us passed But that the scambling and unquiet time5 Did push it out of farther question.BISHOP OF ELY But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?BISHOP OF CANTERBURY It must be thought on. If it pass against us, We lose the better half of our possession, For all the temporal lands which men devout10 By testament have given to the Church Would they strip from us, being valued thus: “As much as would maintain, to the King’s honor, Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights, Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;15 And, to relief of lazars and weak age Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil, A hundred almshouses right well supplied; And to the coffers of the King besides, A thousand pounds by th’ year.” Thus runs the bill.
BISHOP OF ELY 20 This would drink deep.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY ’Twould drink the cup and all.BISHOP OF ELY But what prevention?BISHOP OF CANTERBURY The King is full of grace and fair regard.BISHOP OF ELY 25 And a true lover of the holy Church.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY The courses of his youth promised it not. The breath no sooner left his father’s body But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seemed to die too. Yea, at that very moment30 Consideration like an angel came And whipped 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,35 Never came reformation in a flood With such a heady currance scouring faults, Nor never Hydra-headed willfulness So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, As in this king.BISHOP OF ELY 40 We are blessèd in the change.BISHOP OF 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,45 You would say it hath been all in all his study; List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle rendered you in music; Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose50 Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences; So that the art and practic part of life55 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 unlettered, rude, and shallow, His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,60 And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity.BISHOP OF ELY The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best65 Neighbored by fruit of baser quality; And so the Prince obscured his contemplation Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt, Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, Unseen yet crescive in his faculty.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY 70 It must be so, for miracles are ceased, And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.BISHOP OF ELY But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill75 Urged by the Commons? Doth his Majesty Incline to it or no?BISHOP OF CANTERBURY He seems indifferent, Or rather swaying more upon our part Than cherishing th’ exhibitors against us;80 For I have made an offer to his Majesty— Upon our spiritual convocation And in regard of causes now in hand, Which I have opened to his Grace at large, As touching France—to give a greater sum
85 Than ever at one time the clergy yet Did to his predecessors part withal.BISHOP OF ELY How did this offer seem received, my lord?BISHOP OF CANTERBURY With good acceptance of his Majesty— Save that there was not time enough to hear,90 As I perceived his Grace would fain have done, The severals and unhidden passages Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms, And generally to the crown and seat of France, Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.BISHOP OF ELY 95 What was th’ impediment that broke this off?BISHOP OF CANTERBURY The French ambassador upon that instant Craved audience. And the hour, I think, is come To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?BISHOP OF ELY It is.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY 100 Then go we in to know his embassy, Which I could with a ready guess declare Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.BISHOP OF ELY I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.They exit.