Page 1608 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

ACT I IT

Scene I IT

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely.

CANTERBURY
My lord, I’ll tell you: that self bill is urg’d,
Which in the eleventh year of the last King’s reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass’d,

But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question. [5]

ELY
But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?

CANTERBURY
It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession;
For all the temporal lands which men devout

By testament have given to the Church [10]
Would they strip from us; being valued thus −
As much as would maintain, to the King’s honour,

Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age, [15]
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;

And to the coffers of the King beside,
A thousand pounds by th’year. Thus runs the bill.

ELY
This would drink deep.