Glo. We will not fly, but to our enemies' throats :
Bedford, if thou be slack, I'll fight it out.

Bed. Gloster, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?
An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,
Wherewith already France is overrun.

Enter a third Messenger.

3 Mess. My gracious lords, to add to your laments, Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse, I must inform you of a dismal fight

Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.

Win. What! wherein Talbot overcame? is't so?

3 Mess. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was o'erthrown: The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.

The tenth of August last, this dreadful lord,
Retiring from the siege of Orleans,

Having scarce full six thousand in his troop,
By three-and-twenty thousand of the French
Was round encompasséd and set upon.
No leisure had he to enrank his men ;

He wanted pikes to set before his archers;
Instead whereof, sharp stakes, pluck'd out of hedges,
They pitched in the ground confusedly,
To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.
More than three hours the fight continuéd;
Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,
Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:
Hundreds he sent to Hell, and none durst stand him;
Here, there, and everywhere, enraged he flew :

The French exclaim'd, the Devil was in arms;
All the whole army stood agazed on him: 10
His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,

10 "Stood agazed on him" is evidently the same as stood aghast at him.

A Talbot! a Talbot! cried out amain,
And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.
Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up,
If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward:
He, being in the vaward, — placed behind,11
With purpose to relieve and follow them,
Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke.
Hence grew the general wreck and massacre ;
Enclosed were they with their enemies :

A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,
Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;

Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,

Durst not presume to look once in the face.

Bed. Is Talbot slain? then I will slay myself,

For living idly here in pomp and ease,

Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,

Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.

3 Mess. O, no, he lives; but is took prisoner, And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford: Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.

Bed. His ransom there is none but I shall pay :
I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne,
His crown shall be the ransom of my friend d;
Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.
Farewell, my masters; to my task will I ;
Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make,
To keep our great Saint George's feast withal:
Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,

Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake.

11 Vaward is an old word for the foremost part of an army, the van. The passage seems to involve a contradiction; but the meaning probably is, that Fastolfe commonly led the vaward, but was on this occasion placed behind. Mason supposes the army to have been attacked in the rear, and remarks that in such cases "the van becomes the rear."

3 Mess. So you had need; for Orleans is besieged; The English army is grown weak and faint:

The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply,

And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,
Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.

Exe. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,
Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,

Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.

Bed. I do remember't; 12 and here take my leave, To go about my preparation.

[Exit.

Glo. I'll to the Tower, with all the haste I can,

To view th' artillery and munition;

And then I will proclaim young Henry king.

[Exit.

Exe. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,

Being ordain'd his special governor ;

And for his safety there I'll best devise.

[Exit.

Win. Each hath his place and function to attend :

I am left out; for me nothing remains.

But long I will not be Jack-out-of-office :

The King from Eltham I intend to steal,

And sit at chiefest stern of public weal. [Exit. Scene closes.

SCENE II. France. Before Orleans.

Flourish. Enter CHARLES, with his Forces; ALENÇON, REIGNIER, and others.

1

Char. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens, So in the earth, to this day is not known:

12 "Remember it" refers to oaths, or rather to oath as implied in the plural form. The old grammar admits oaths when speaking of the oath taken by several persons.

1 Mars his is the old genitive. Nash, in his Preface to Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596, well illustrates the text: "You are as ignorant in the true movings of my Muse as the astronomers are in the true movings of Mars,

Late did he shine upon the English side;
Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.
What towns of any moment but we have?
At pleasure here we lie, near Orleans ;

The whiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,
Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.

Alen. They want their porridge and their fat bull-beeves: Either they must be dieted like mules,

And have their provender tied to their mouths,

Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.

Reig. Let's raise the siege: why lie we idly here?
Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear :
Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury;
And he may well in fretting spend his gall;
Nor men nor money hath he to make war.

Char. Sound, sound alarum! we will rush on them.
Now for the honour of the fórlorn 2 French!
Him I forgive my death that killeth me

When he sees me go back one foot or flee.

[Exeunt.

Alarums; excursions; afterwards a retreat. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, REIGNIER, and others.

Char. Who ever saw the like? what men have I ! Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled, But that they left me 'midst my enemies.

Reig. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;

He fighteth as one weary of his life.
The other lords, like lions wanting food,

which to this day they could never attain unto." The orbit of Mars is in fact so eccentric, and consequently his motions so irregular, that the latter were an inexplicable puzzle to astronomers till the publication of Kepler's work on the subject in 1609.

2 Forlorn here seems to be a sort of inverted prolepsis: the French who were lately forlorn, though they have now ceased to be so.

Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.3

Alen. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records,
England all Olivers and Rolands 4 bred

During the time Edward the Third did reign.
More truly now may this be verified;

For none but Samsons and Goliases

It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!

Lean raw-boned rascals! who would e'er suppose

They had such courage and audacity?

Char. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd slaves,

And hunger will enforce them be more eager :

Of old I know them; rather with their teeth
The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.

Reig. I think, by some odd gimmers 5 or device,
Their arms are set like clocks, still to strike on;
Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.
By my consent, we'll even let them alone.
Alen. Be it so.

Enter the Bastard of Orleans.

Bast. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him. Char. Bastard 6 of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.

3 " Their hungry prey" is the prey for which they are hungry. 4 These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are the theme of the old romances. From the equally doughty and unheard-of exploits of these champions, arose the saying of Giving a Roland for an Oliver, for giving a person as good as he brings.

5 Gimmers, sometimes spelt gimmals or gimals, means a gimcrack or quaint contrivance. So in Bishop Hall's Epistles: "The famous Kentish idol moved her eyes and hands by those secret gimmers which now every puppet play can imitate."

6 Bastard was not in former times a title of reproach. Hurd, in his Letters on Chivalry and Romance, makes it one of the circumstances of agreement between Heroic and Gothic manners, "that bastardy was in credit with both."