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ST. JOHN:
Madam, the love of Englishmen can make
The lightest favour of their lawful king 30
Outweigh a despot’s.–We humbly take our leaves,
Enriched by smiles which France can never buy.

[EXEUNT ST. JOHN AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT.]

KING:
My Lord Archbishop,
Mark you what spirit sits in St. John’s eyes?
Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. 35

ARCHY:
Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated
[eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will
discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet
setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor
Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age,
and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God
forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that
deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and
weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale
is full of promises, and the other full of protestations:
and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the
dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer’s brain, and takes
the bandage from the other’s eyes, and throws a sword
into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord
Essex’s there. 48

STRAFFORD:
A rod in pickle for the Fool’s back!

ARCHY:
Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the
brine; for the Fool sees–

STRAFFORD:
Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped
out of the palace for this. 53

ARCHY:
When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant
writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever
since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats
were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be
disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools,
and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly
slit each other’s noses and ears (having no need of any
sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves,
to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to
entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic
contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let
all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons
or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the
High-Commission Court, marshal them. 65

[NOTE:
64 pinched marked as doubtful by Rossetti.
1870; Forman, Dowden; penned Woodberry.]

[ENTER SECRETARY LYTTELTON, WITH PAPERS.]

KING [LOOKING OVER THE PAPERS]:
These stiff Scots
His Grace of Canterbury must take order
To force under the Church’s yoke.–You, Wentworth,
Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add
Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy, 70
To what in me were wanting.–My Lord Weston,
Look that those merchants draw not without loss
Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment
Of shipmoney, take fullest compensation
For violation of our royal forests, 75
Whose limits, from neglect, have been o’ergrown
With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost
Farthing exact from those who claim exemption
From knighthood: that which once was a reward
Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects 80
May know how majesty can wear at will
The rugged mood.–My Lord of Coventry,
Lay my command upon the Courts below
That bail be not accepted for the prisoners
Under the warrant of the Star Chamber. 85
The people shall not find the stubbornness
Of Parliament a cheap or easy method
Of dealing with their rightful sovereign:
And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry,
We will find time and place for fit rebuke.– 90
My Lord of Canterbury.