Page 252 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

GLOUCEST ER

What means his grace that he hath changed his style? [50]
No more but plain and bluntly ‘To the king’!
Hath he forgot he is his sovereign,
Or doth this churlish superscription
Pretend some alteration in good will?
What’s here? [Reads] ‘I have upon especial cause, [55]
Moved with compassion of my country’s wrack,
Together with the pitiful complaints
Of such as your oppression feeds upon,
Forsaken your pernicious faction,
And joined with Charles, the rightful King of France.’ [60]
O monstrous treachery! Can this be so?
That in alliance, amity, and oaths,
There should be found such false dissembling guile?

KING HENRY

What? Doth my Uncle Burgundy revolt?

GLOUCEST ER

He doth, my lord, and is become your foe. [65]

KING HENRY

Is that the worst this letter doth contain?

GLOUCEST ER

It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.

KING HENRY

Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with him
And give him chastisement for this abuse. -
How say you, my lord, are you not content? [70]

T ALBOT

Content, my liege? Yes. But that I am prevented,
I should have begged I might have been employed.

KING HENRY

Then gather strength and march unto him straight;
Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.