LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Not a penny, not a penny. You are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmorland.

Exeunt Lord Chief Justice and his Servant

SIR JOHN If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness than a can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one and the pox pinches the other, and so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

PAGE Sir.

SIR JOHN What money is in my purse?

PAGE Seven groats and two pence.

SIR JOHN I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. (Giving letters) Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the Prince; this to the Earl of Westmorland; and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it. You know where to find me. ⌈Exit Pagel⌉ A pox of this gout!—or a gout of this pox!—for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity. Exit

1.3 Enter the Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray the Earl Marshal, Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolph

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Thus have you heard our cause and known our

means,

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all

Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.

And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?

MOWBRAY

I well allow the occasion of our arms,

But gladly would be better satisfied

How in our means we should advance ourselves

To look with forehead bold and big enough

Upon the power and puissance of the King.

HASTINGS

Our present musters grow upon the file

To five-and-twenty thousand men of choice,

And our supplies live largely in the hope

Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns

With an incensed fire of injuries.

LORD BARDOLPH

The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand

May hold up head without Northumberland.

HASTINGS

With him we may.

LORD BARDOLPH Yea, marry, there’s the point;

But if without him we be thought too feeble,

My judgement is, we should not step too far

Till we had his assistance by the hand;

For in a theme so bloody-faced as this,

Conjecture, expectation, and surmise

Of aids uncertain should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed

It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH

It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,

Flatt’ring himself with project of a power

Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;

And so, with great imagination

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,

And winking leapt into destruction.

HASTINGS

But by your leave, it never yet did hurt

To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

LORD BARDOLPH

Yes, if this present quality of war—

Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot—

Lives so in hope; as in an early spring

We see th‘appearing buds, which to prove fruit

Hope gives not so much warrant as despair

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;

And when we see the figure of the house,

Then must we rate the cost of the erection,

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices, or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more in this great work—

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up—should we survey

The plot of situation and the model,

Consent upon a sure foundation,

Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else

We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men,

Like one that draws the model of an house

Beyond his power to build it, who, half-through,

Gives o’er, and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.

HASTINGS

Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,

Should be stillborn, and that we now possessed

The utmost man of expectation,

I think we are a body strong enough,

Even as we are, to equal with the King.

LORD BARDOLPH

What, is the King but five-and-twenty thousand?

HASTINGS

To us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads: one power against the French,

And one against Glyndwr, perforce a third

Must take up us. So is the unfirm King

In three divided, and his coffers sound

With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

That he should draw his several strengths together

And come against us in full puissance

Need not be dreaded.

HASTINGS If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh

Baying him at the heels. Never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPH

Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGS

The Duke of Lancaster and Westmorland;

Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;