Scene: dispersed; in England, Flanders, and France.

Edward III

Act I

Scene I

London. A room of state in the palace.

Robert of Artois, banish’d though thou be
From France, thy native country, yet with us
Thou shalt retain as great a signiory;
For we create thee Earl of Richmond here.
And now go forwards with our pedigree;
Who next succeeded Philip Le Beau?

Three sons of his; which all, successfully,
Did sit upon their father’s regal throne,
Yet died and left no issue of their loins.

She was, my lord; and only Isabel
Was all the daughters that this Philip had:
Whom afterward your father took to wife;
And from the fragrant garden of her womb,
Your gracious self, the flower of Europe’s hope,
Derived is inheritor to France.
But note the rancour of rebellious minds.
When thus the lineage of Le Beau was out,
The French obscur’d your mother’s privilege;
And, though she were the next of blood, proclaim’d
John, of the house of Valois, now their king:
The reason was, they say, the realm of France,
Replete with princes of great parentage,
Ought not admit a governor to rule
Except he be descended of the male;
And that’s the special ground of their contempt
Wherewith they study to exclude your grace:
But they shall find that forged ground of theirs
To be but dusty heaps of brittle sand.
Perhaps it will be thought a heinous thing
That I, a Frenchman, should discover this:
But Heaven I call to record of my vows;
It is not hate nor any private wrong,
But love unto my country and the right,
Provokes my tongue thus lavish in report:
You are the lineal watchman of our peace,
And John of Valois indirectly climbs:
What then should subjects, but embrace their king?
And wherein may our duty more be seen,
Than striving to rebate a tyrant’s pride
And place the true shepherd of our commonwealth?

This counsel, Artois, like to fruitful showers,
Hath added growth unto my dignity:
And, by the fiery vigour of thy words,
Hot courage is engender’d in my breast,
Which heretofore was rack’d in ignorance,
But now doth mount with golden wings of fame,
And will approve fair Isabel’s descent
Able to yoke their stubborn necks with steel
That spurn against my sovereignty in France.—Sound a horn.
A messenger?—Lord Audley, know from whence. Exit Audley, and returns.

The Duke of Lorraine, having cross’d the seas,
Entreats he may have conference with your highness.

The most renowned prince, King John of France,
Doth greet thee, Edward: and by me commands,
That, for so much as by his liberal gift
The Guyenne dukedom is entail’d to thee,
Thou do him lowly homage for the same:
And, for that purpose, here I summon thee
Repair to France within these forty days,
That there, according as the custom is,
Thou may’st be sworn true liegeman to our king;
Or, else, thy title in that province dies,
And he himself will repossess the place.

See, how occasion laughs me in the face!
No sooner minded to prepare for France,
But straight I am invited, nay, with threats,
Upon a penalty, enjoin’d to come:
’Twere but a childish part to say him nay.—
Lorraine, return this answer to thy lord:
I mean to visit him, as he requests;
But how? not servilely dispos’d to bend,
But like a conqueror to make him bow.
His lame unpolish’d shifts are come to light,
And truth hath pull’d the vizard from his face
That set a gloss upon his arrogance.
Dare he command a fealty in me?
Tell him, the crown, that he usurps, is mine,
And where he sets his foot, he ought to kneel:
’Tis not a petty dukedom that I claim,
But all the whole dominions of the realm;
Which if with grudging he refuse to yield,
I’ll take away those borrow’d plumes of his
And send him naked to the wilderness.

Then, Edward, here, in spite of all thy lords,
I do pronounce defiance to thy face.

Defiance, Frenchman? we rebound it back,
Even to the bottom of thy master’s throat:
And—be it spoke with reverence of the king
My gracious father, and these other lords.—
I hold thy message but as scurrilous,
And him that sent thee, like the lazy drone
Crept up by stealth unto the eagle’s nest;
From whence we’ll shake him with so rough a storm,
As others shall be warned by his harm.

Bid him leave of the lion’s case he wears,
Lest, meeting with the lion in the field,
He chance to tear him piecemeal for his pride.

The soundest counsel I can give his grace
Is to surrender ere he be constrain’d.
A voluntary mischief hath less scorn,
Than when reproach with violence is borne.

Degenerate traitor, viper to the place
Where thou was foster’d in thine infancy, Drawing his sword.
Bear’st thou a part in this conspiracy?

Lorraine, behold the sharpness of this steel: Drawing his.
Fervent desire, that sits against my heart,
Is far more thorny-pricking than this blade;
That, with the nightingale, I shall be scar’d,
As oft as I dispose my self to rest,
Until my colours be display’d in France.
This is thy final answer; so be gone.

It is not that, nor any English brave,
Afflicts me so, as doth his poison’d view,
That is most false, should most of all be true. Exeunt Lorraine and Train.

Now, lords, our fleeting bark is under sail:
Our gage is thrown, and war is soon begun,
But not so quickly brought unto an end.—

But wherefore comes Sir William Mountague?
How stands the league between the Scot and us?

Crack’d and dissever’d, my renowned lord.
The treacherous king no sooner was inform’d
Of your withdrawing of our army back,
But straight, forgetting of his former oath,
He made invasion on the bordering towns.
Berwick is won; Newcastle spoil’d and lost;
And now the tyrant hath begirt with siege
The castle of Roxborough, where enclos’d
The Countess Salisbury is like to perish.

That is thy daughter, Warwick—is it not?—
Whose husband hath in Britain serv’d so long,
About the planting of Lord Mountford there?