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Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;

And whatsoever cunning fiend it was

That wrought upon thee so preposterously

Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;

And other devils that suggest by treasons

Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch'd

From glist'ring semblances of piety;

But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,

Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus

Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,

He might return to vasty Tartar back,

And tell the legions 'I can never win

A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'

O, how hast thou with jealousy infected

The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?

Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?

Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?

Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?

Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,

Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,

Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,

Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,

Not working with the eye without the ear,

And but in purged judgment trusting neither?

Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem;

And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot

To mark the full-fraught man and best indued

With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;

For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like

Another fall of man. Their faults are open.

Arrest them to the answer of the law;

And God acquit them of their practices!

EXETER.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl

of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop

of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey,

knight, of Northumberland.

SCROOP.

Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,

And I repent my fault more than my death;

Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,

Although my body pay the price of it.

CAMBRIDGE.

For me, the gold of France did not seduce,

Although I did admit it as a motive

The sooner to effect what I intended;

But God be thanked for prevention,

Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,

Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

GREY.

Never did faithful subject more rejoice

At the discovery of most dangerous treason

Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,

Prevented from a damned enterprise.

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

KING HENRY.

God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.

You have conspir'd against our royal person,

Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers

Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

His princes and his peers to servitude,

His subjects to oppression and contempt,

And his whole kingdom into desolation.

Touching our person seek we no revenge;

But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,

Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws

We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,

Poor miserable wretches, to your death;

The taste whereof God of his mercy give

You patience to endure, and true repentance

Of all your dear offences. Bear them hence.

Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP, and GREY, guarded

Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof

Shall be to you as us like glorious.

We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,

Since God so graciously hath brought to light

This dangerous treason, lurking in our way

To hinder our beginnings; we doubt not now

But every rub is smoothed on our way.

Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver

Our puissance into the hand of God,

Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance;

No king of England, if not king of France!

Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE III. Eastcheap. Before the Boar's Head tavern

Enter PISTOL, HOSTESS, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy

HOSTESS.

Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

PISTOL.

No; for my manly heart doth earn.

Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;

Boy, bristle thy courage up. For