Which should long since have been surrendered up,

Had but your gracious self been there in place.

QUEEN PHILIPPA

But, Copland, thou didst scorn the King’s command,

Neglecting our commission in his name.

COPLAND

His name I reverence, but his person more.

His name shall keep me in allegiance still,

But to his person I will bend my knee.

KING EDWARD (to the Queen)

I pray thee, Philip, let displeasure pass.

This man doth please me, and I like his words.

For what is he that will attempt great deeds

And lose the glory that ensues, the fame?

All rivers have recourse unto the sea,

And Copland’s faith, relation to his king.

(To Copland) Kneel therefore down.

He knights him

Now rise, King Edward’s knight.

And to maintain thy state, I freely give 96

Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine.

Enter the Earl of Salisbury, with a coronet

Welcome, Lord Salisbury! What news from Bretagne?

EARL OF SALISBURY

This, mighty King: the country we have won,

And Charles de Montfort, regent of that place,

Presents your highness with this coronet,

Protesting true allegiance to your grace.

KING EDWARD

We thank thee for thy service, valiant Earl.

Challenge our favour, for we owe it thee.

EARL OF SALISBURY

But now, my lord, as this is joyful news,

So must my voice be tragical again,

And I must sing of doleful accidents.

KING EDWARD

What, have our men the overthrow at Poitiers,

Or is our son beset with too much odds?

EARL OF SALISBURY

He was, my lord, and as my worthless self,

With forty other serviceable knights,

Under safe conduct of the Dauphin’s seal,

Did travel that way, finding him distressed,

A troop of lances met us on the way,

Surprised and brought us prisoners to the King,

Who, proud of this and eager of revenge,

Commanded straight to cut off all our heads.

And surely we had died but that the Duke,

More full of honour than his angry sire,

Procured our quick deliverance from thence.

But ere we went, ‘Salute your King,’ quoth he,

‘Bid him provide a funeral for his son.

Today our sword shall cut his thread of life

And, sooner than he thinks, we’ll be with him

To quittance those displeasures he hath done.’

This said, we passed, not daring to reply.

Our hearts were dead, our looks diffused and wan.

Wand‘ring, at last we climbed unto a hill

From whence, although our grief were much before,

Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes

Did thrice so much increase our heaviness.

For there, my lord, O there we did descry

Down in a valley how both armies lay.

The French had cast their trenches like a ring,

And every barricado’s open front

Was thick embossed with brazen ordinance.

Here stood a battle of ten thousand horse,

There twice as many pikes in quadrant wise,

Here crossbows and there deadly wounding darts,

And in the midst, like to a slender point

Within the compass of the horizon,

As ’twere a rising bubble in the sea,

A hazel wand amidst a wood of pines,

Or as a bear fast-chained unto a stake,

Stood famous Edward, still expecting when

Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.

Anon, the death-procuring knell begins.

Off go the cannons that, with trembling noise,

Did shake the very mountain where they stood.

Then sound the trumpets’ clangour in the air.

The battles join, and when we could no more

Discern the difference ‘twixt the friend and foe,

So intricate the dark confusion was,

Away we turned our wat’ry eyes with sighs

As black as powder fuming into smoke.

And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told

The most untimely tale of Edward’s fall.

QUEEN PHILIPPA

Ah, me! Is this my welcome into France?

Is this the comfort that I looked to have

When I should meet with my beloved son?

Sweet Ned, I would thy mother, in the sea,

Had been prevented of this mortal grief.

KING EDWARD

Content thee, Philip. ’Tis not tears will serve

To call him back if he be taken hence.

Comfort thyself as I do, gentle Queen,

With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge!

He bids me to provide his funeral!

And so I will, but all the peers in France

Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears

Until their empty veins be dry and sere.

The pillars of his hearse shall be their bones;

The mould that covers him, their city ashes;

His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;

And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,

An hundred-fifty towers shall burning blaze

While we bewail our valiant son’s decease!

Flourish within. Enter a Herald

HERALD

Rejoice, my lord! Ascend the imperial throne!

The mighty and redoubted Prince of Wales,