Doth make a stand at what your highness will.

KING JOHN

Some reasons of this double coronation

I have possessed you with, and think them strong.

And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear

I shall endue you with. Meantime but ask

What you would have reformed that is not well,

And well shall you perceive how willingly

I will both hear and grant you your requests.

PEMBROKE

Then I, as one that am the tongue of these

To sound the purposes of all their hearts,

Both for myself and them, but chief of all

Your safety, for the which myself and them

Bend their best studies, heartily request

Th’enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint

Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent

To break into this dangerous argument:

If what in rest you have, in right you hold, 55

Why then your fears—which, as they say, attend

The steps of wrong—should move you to mew up

Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days

With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth

The rich advantage of good exercise?

That the time’s enemies may not have this

To grace occasions, let it be our suit

That you have bid us ask, his liberty;

Which for our goods we do no further ask

Than whereupon our weal, on you depending, 65

Counts it your weal he have his liberty.

Enter Hubert

KING JOHN

Let it be so. I do commit his youth

To your direction.—Hubert, what news with you?

He takes Hubert aside

PEMBROKE

This is the man should do the bloody deed:

He showed his warrant to a friend of mine. 70

The image of a wicked heinous fault

Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his

Does show the mood of a much troubled breast;

And I do fearfully believe ’tis done

What we so feared he had a charge to do. 75

SALISBURY

The colour of the King doth come and go

Between his purpose and his conscience,

Like heralds ’twixt two dreadful battles set.

His passion is so ripe it needs must break.

PEMBROKE

And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence 80

The foul corruption of a sweet child’s death.

KING JOHN (coming forward)

We cannot hold mortality’s strong hand.

Good lords, although my will to give is living,

The suit which you demand is gone and dead.

He tells us Arthur is deceased tonight.

SALISBURY

Indeed we feared his sickness was past cure.

PEMBROKE

Indeed we heard how near his death he was,

Before the child himself felt he was sick.

This must be answered, either here or hence.

KING JOHN

Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? 90

Think you I bear the shears of destiny?

Have I commandment on the pulse of life?

SALISBURY

It is apparent foul play, and ’tis shame

That greatness should so grossly offer it.

So thrive it in your game; and so, farewell.

PEMBROKE

Stay yet, Lord Salisbury; I’ll go with thee,

And find th’inheritance of this poor child,

His little kingdom of a forced grave.

That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle

Three foot of it doth hold. Bad world the while. 100

This must not be thus borne. This will break out

To all our sorrows; and ere long, I doubt.

Exeunt Pembroke, Salisbury, ⌈and other lords ⌉

KING JOHN

They burn in indignation. I repent.

There is no sure foundation set on blood,

No certain life achieved by others’ death. 105

Enter a Messenger

A fearful eye thou hast. Where is that blood

That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?

So foul a sky clears not without a storm;

Pour down thy weather: how goes all in France?

MESSENGER

From France to England. Never such a power

For any foreign preparation

Was levied in the body of a land.

The copy of your speed is learned by them,

For when you should be told they do prepare,

The tidings comes that they are all arrived.

KING JOHN

O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?

Where hath it slept? Where is my mother’s ear,

That such an army could be drawn in France,

And she not hear of it?

MESSENGER My liege, her ear

Is stopped with dust. The first of April died

Your noble mother. And as I hear, my lord,

The Lady Constance in a frenzy died

Three days before; but this from rumour’s tongue

I idly heard; if true or false I know not.

KING JOHN

Withhold thy speed, dreadful Occasion;

O, make a league with me till I have pleased

My discontented peers. What, Mother dead?

How wildly then walks my estate in France!—

Under whose conduct came those powers of France

That thou for truth giv’st out are landed here?

MESSENGER

Under the Dauphin.

Enter the Bastard and Peter of Pomfret

KING JOHN Thou hast made me giddy

With these ill tidings. (To the Bastard) Now, what says

the world

To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff

My head with more ill news, for it is full.

BASTARD

But if you,be afeard to hear the worst, 135

Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.