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Edward III: Act V, Scene 1

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Edward III
Act V, Scene 1

Picardy. The English camp before Calais.

  1. Enter King Edward, Queen Philippa, Derby, soldiers.

Edward III

1 - 7
  1. No more, Queen Philip, pacify yourself;
  2. Copland, except he can excuse his fault,
  3. Shall find displeasure written in our looks.
  4. And now unto this proud resisting town!
  5. Soldiers, assault: I will no longer stay,
  6. To be deluded by their false delays;
  7. Put all to sword, and make the spoil your own.
  1. Enter six Citizens of Calais in their shirts, barefoot, with
  2. halters about their necks.

All Citizens of Calais

8
  1. Mercy, king Edward, mercy, gracious lord!

Edward III

9 - 11
  1. Contemptuous villains, call ye now for truce?
  2. Mine ears are stopped against your bootless cries:—
  3. Sound, drums alarum; draw threatening swords!

First Citizen of Calais

12 - 18
  1. Ah, noble Prince, take pity on this town,
  2. And hear us, mighty king:
  3. We claim the promise that your highness made;
  4. The two days’ respite is not yet expired,
  5. And we are come with willingness to bear
  6. What torturing death or punishment you please,
  7. So that the trembling multitude be saved.

Edward III

19 - 26
  1. My promise? Well, I do confess as much:
  2. But I do require the chiefest citizens
  3. And men of most account that should submit;
  4. You, peradventure, are but servile grooms,
  5. Or some felonious robbers on the sea,
  6. Whom, apprehended, law would execute,
  7. Albeit severity lay dead in us:
  8. No, no, ye cannot overreach us thus.

Second Citizen of Calais

27 - 31
  1. The sun, dread lord, that in the western fall
  2. Beholds us now low brought through misery,
  3. Did in the Orient purple of the morn
  4. Salute our coming forth, when we were known;
  5. Or may our portion be with damned fiends.

Edward III

32 - 38
  1. If it be so, then let our covenant stand:
  2. We take possession of the town in peace,
  3. But, for yourselves, look you for no remorse;
  4. But, as imperial justice hath decreed,
  5. Your bodies shall be dragged about these walls,
  6. And after feel the stroke of quartering steel:
  7. This is your doom;—go, soldiers, see it done.

Queen Philippa

39 - 46
  1. Ah, be more mild unto these yielding men!
  2. It is a glorious thing to stablish peace,
  3. And kings approach the nearest unto God
  4. By giving life and safety unto men:
  5. As thou intendest to be King of France,
  6. So let her people live to call thee king;
  7. For what the sword cuts down or fire hath spoiled,
  8. Is held in reputation none of ours.

Edward III

47 - 55
  1. Although experience teach us this is true,
  2. That peaceful quietness brings most delight,
  3. When most of all abuses are controlled;
  4. Yet, insomuch it shall be known that we
  5. As well can master our affections
  6. As conquer other by the dint of sword,
  7. Philip, prevail; we yield to thy request:
  8. These men shall live to boast of clemency,
  9. And, tyranny, strike terror to thyself.

Second Citizen of Calais

56
  1. Long live your highness! Happy be your reign!

Edward III

57 - 63
  1. Go, get you hence, return unto the town,
  2. And if this kindness hath deserved your love,
  3. Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.—
  4. Exeunt Citizens of Calais.
  5. Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
  6. We would, till gloomy winter were o’er spent,
  7. Dispose our men in garrison a while.
  8. But who comes here?
  1. Enter Copland and King David.

Earl of Derby

64
  1. Copland, my lord, and David, King of Scots.

Edward III

65 - 66
  1. Is this the proud presumptuous esquire of the north,
  2. That would not yield his prisoner to my Queen?

Copland

67 - 68
  1. I am, my liege, a northern esquire indeed,
  2. But neither proud nor insolent, I trust.

Edward III

69 - 70
  1. What moved thee, then, to be so obstinate
  2. To contradict our royal Queen’s desire?

Copland

71 - 82
  1. No willful disobedience, mighty lord,
  2. But my desert and public law at arms:
  3. I took the king myself in single fight,
  4. And, like a soldiers, would be loath to lose
  5. The least pre-eminence that I had won.
  6. And Copland straight upon your highness’ charge
  7. Is come to France, and with a lowly mind
  8. Doth vale the bonnet of his victory:
  9. Receive, dread lord, the custom of my fraught,
  10. The wealthy tribute of my laboring hands,
  11. Which should long since have been surrendered up,
  12. Had but your gracious self been there in place.

Queen Philippa

83 - 84
  1. But, Copland, thou didst scorn the king’s command,
  2. Neglecting our commission in his name.

Copland

85 - 87
  1. His name I reverence, but his person more;
  2. His name shall keep me in allegiance still,
  3. But to his person I will bend my knee.

Edward III

88 - 97
  1. I pray thee, Philip, let displeasure pass;
  2. This man doth please me, and I like his words:
  3. For what is he that will attempt great deeds,
  4. And lose the glory that ensues the same?
  5. All rivers have recourse unto the sea,
  6. And Copland’s faith relation to his king.
  7. Kneel, therefore, down: now rise, king Edward’s knight;
  8. And, to maintain thy state, I freely give
  9. Five hundred marks a year to thee and thine.
  10. Enter Salisbury.
  11. Welcome, lord Salisbury: what news from Britain?

Earl of Salisbury

98 - 101
  1. This, mighty king: the country we have won,
  2. And John de Mountford, regent of that place,
  3. Presents your highness with this coronet,
  4. Protesting true allegiance to your Grace.

Edward III

102 - 103
  1. We thank thee for thy service, valiant Earl;
  2. Challenge our favor, for we owe it thee.

Earl of Salisbury

104 - 106
  1. But now, my lord, as this is joyful news,
  2. So must my voice be tragical again,
  3. And I must sing of doleful accidents.

Edward III

107 - 108
  1. What, have our men the overthrow at Poictiers?
  2. Or is our son beset with too much odds?

Earl of Salisbury

109 - 156
  1. He was, my lord: and as my worthless self
  2. With forty other serviceable knights,
  3. Under safe conduct of the Dauphin’s seal,
  4. Did travail that way, finding him distressed,
  5. A troop of lances met us on the way,
  6. Surprised, and brought us prisoners to the king,
  7. Who, proud of this, and eager of revenge,
  8. Commanded straight to cut off all our heads:
  9. And surely we had died, but that the Duke,
  10. More full of honor than his angry sire,
  11. Procured our quick deliverance from thence;
  12. But, ere we went, “Salute your king,” quoth he,
  13. “Bid him provide a funeral for his son:
  14. To day our sword shall cut his thread of life;
  15. And, sooner than he thinks, we’ll be with him,
  16. To quittance those displeasures he hath done.”
  17. This said, we past, not daring to reply;
  18. Our hearts were dead, our looks diffused and wan.
  19. Wandering, at last we climbed unto a hill,
  20. From whence, although our grief were much before,
  21. Yet now to see the occasion with our eyes
  22. Did thrice so much increase our heaviness:
  23. For there, my lord, oh, there we did descry
  24. Down in a valley how both armies lay.
  25. The French had cast their trenches like a ring,
  26. And every barricado’s open front
  27. Was thick embossed with brazen ordinance;
  28. Here stood a battaile of ten thousand horse,
  29. There twice as many pikes in quadrant wise,
  30. Here crossbows, and deadly wounding darts:
  31. And in the midst, like to a slender point
  32. Within the compass of the horizon,
  33. (As twere a rising bubble in the sea,
  34. A hazel wand amidst a wood of pines,
  35. Or as a bear fast chained unto a stake),
  36. Stood famous Edward, still expecting when
  37. Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh.
  38. Anon the death procuring knell begins:
  39. Off go the cannons, that with trembling noise
  40. Did shake the very mountain where they stood;
  41. Then sound the trumpets’ clangor in the air,
  42. The battles join: and, when we could no more
  43. Discern the difference twixt the friend and foe,
  44. So intricate the dark confusion was,
  45. Away we turned our watery eyes with sighs,
  46. As black as powder fuming into smoke.
  47. And thus, I fear, unhappy have I told
  48. The most untimely tale of Edward’s fall.
Philippa, Queen Consort of Edward III

Philippa, Queen Consort of Edward III

Unknown artist, early 18th century

Queen Philippa

157 - 161
  1. Ah me, is this my welcome into France?
  2. Is this the comfort that I looked to have,
  3. When I should meet with my beloved son?
  4. Sweet Ned, I would thy mother in the sea
  5. Had been prevented of this mortal grief!

Edward III

162 - 175
  1. Content thee, Philip; ’tis not tears will serve
  2. To call him back, if he be taken hence:
  3. Comfort thyself, as I do, gentle Queen,
  4. With hope of sharp, unheard of, dire revenge.—
  5. He bids me to provide his funeral,
  6. And so I will; but all the peers in France
  7. Shall mourners be, and weep out bloody tears,
  8. Until their empty veins be dry and sere:
  9. The pillars of his hearse shall be his bones;
  10. The mould that covers him, their city ashes;
  11. His knell, the groaning cries of dying men;
  12. And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb,
  13. An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze,
  14. While we bewail our valiant son’s decease.
  1. After a flourish, sounded within, enter an English Herald.

English Herald

176 - 184
  1. Rejoice, my lord; ascend the imperial throne!
  2. The mighty and redoubted prince of Wales,
  3. Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,
  4. The Frenchman’s terror, and his country’s fame,
  5. Triumphant rideth like a Roman peer,
  6. And, lowly at his stirrup, comes afoot
  7. King John of France, together with his son,
  8. In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings
  9. To crown thee with, and to proclaim thee king.

Edward III

185 - 189
  1. Away with mourning, Philip, wipe thine eyes;—
  2. Sound, trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet!
  3. Enter Prince Edward, King John, Philip, Audley, Artois.
  4. As things long lost, when they are found again,
  5. So doth my son rejoice his father’s heart,
  6. For whom even now my soul was much perplexed.

Queen Philippa

190 - 191
  1. Be this a token to express my joy,
  2. Kisses him.
  3. For inward passion will not let me speak.

Prince Edward

192 - 198
  1. My gracious father, here receive the gift.
  2. Presenting him with King John’s crown.
  3. This wreath of conquest and reward of war,
  4. Got with as mickle peril of our lives,
  5. As ere was thing of price before this day;
  6. Install your highness in your proper right:
  7. And, herewithall, I render to your hands
  8. These prisoners, chief occasion of our strife.

Edward III

199 - 206
  1. So, John of France, I see you keep your word:
  2. You promised to be sooner with our self
  3. Than we did think for, and ’tis so indeed:
  4. But, had you done at first as now you do,
  5. How many civil towns had stood untouched,
  6. That now are turned to ragged heaps of stones!
  7. How many people’s lives mightst thou have saved,
  8. That are untimely sunk into their graves!

John de Valois, King of France

207 - 208
  1. Edward, recount not things irrevocable;
  2. Tell me what ransom thou requirest to have.

Edward III

209 - 213
  1. Thy ransom, John, hereafter shall be known:
  2. But first to England thou must cross the seas,
  3. To see what entertainment it affords;
  4. How ere it falls, it cannot be so bad,
  5. As ours hath been since we arrived in France.

John de Valois, King of France

214 - 215
  1. Accursed man! Of this I was foretold,
  2. But did misconster what the prophet told.

Prince Edward

216 - 235
  1. Now, father, this petition Edward makes
  2. To thee, whose grace hath been his strongest shield,
  3. That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man
  4. To be the instrument to shew thy power,
  5. So thou wilt grant that many princes more,
  6. Bred and brought up within that little Isle,
  7. May still be famous for like victories!
  8. And, for my part, the bloody scars I bear,
  9. And weary nights that I have watched in field,
  10. The dangerous conflicts I have often had,
  11. The fearful menaces were proffered me,
  12. The heat and cold and what else might displease:
  13. I wish were now redoubled twenty fold,
  14. So that hereafter ages, when they read
  15. The painful traffic of my tender youth,
  16. Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve,
  17. As not the territories of France alone,
  18. But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
  19. That justly would provoke fair England’s ire,
  20. Might, at their presence, tremble and retire.

Edward III

236 - 243
  1. Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest,
  2. An intercession of our painful arms:
  3. Sheath up your swords, refresh your weary limbs,
  4. Peruse your spoils; and, after we have breathed
  5. A day or two within this haven town,
  6. God willing, then for England we’ll be shipped;
  7. Where, in a happy hour, I trust, we shall
  8. Arrive, three kings, two princes, and a queen.
  1. Exeunt.
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