Royal Envy

to Prince Harry]

God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections, which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.

And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court and princes of my blood.
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruined, and the soul of every man
Prophetically do forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession,
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But, like a comet, I was wondered at,

And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dressed myself in such humility
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,

Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast,
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping King, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt, carded his state,

And gave his countenance, against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoffed himself to popularity,
They surfeited with honey, and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded, seen but with such eyes
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze
Such as is bent on sun-like majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes,
But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries,
Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full.
For thou hast lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation. Not an eye
But is a-weary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.
(He weeps)
(King Henry IV, Part One, III, ii, 29-91)

KING RICHARD

When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsmen come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green
Observed his courtship to the common people,
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
And patient underbearing of his fortune,
Off goes his bonnet to an oysterwench.
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee
As were our England in reversion his,

King Henry II, Part Two, Henry receives good news about the discomfiture of the rebels, he reacts with a sudden nausea:

Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?

That have abundance and enjoy it not.
I should rejoice now at this happy news,
And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.
(IV, iii, 103-110)

What is left such a one but perpetual envy?

King Henry V

Let us stride once more unto the breach, and listen with new ears to the oft-quoted soliloquy of King Harry on the dark morn of Agincourt.

KING HARRY

We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness: subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing. What infinite heartsease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy?
And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?
O, ceremony, show me but thy worth.
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,
Than they in fearing,
But poisoned flattery? O be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream
I am a king that find thee, and I know
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But like a lackey from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour to his grave.
And but for ceremony such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the forehand and vantage of a king.
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots
What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
(IV, i, 228-281)

King Henry VI, Part Two, I, ii, 11), but, as we will confirm again below, it turns out to be only a burden and mirage of happiness. Genuine fulfillment, ironically, is available not to distressed sovereigns but to the huddled masses yearning to breathe the salubrious atmosphere of court. Both sides dwell in interminable envy.

King Henry VI

Reduced to the status of a mere spectator in his own fractured realm, Henry sits on a molehill and contemplates the civil clash of arms in eerily familiar terms.

When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind,
Now sways it that way like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind.

Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory.
For Margaret my queen, and Clifford, too,
Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain.
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock,
So many hours must I take my rest,
So many hours must I contemplate,
So many hours must I sport myself,
So many days my ewes have been with young,
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean,
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece.
So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years,
Passed over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! How sweet! How lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their seely sheep
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
When care,mistrust, and treason waits on him.
(II, v, 1-54)

In Act III, sc. 1 Henry, now a refugee, appears disguised as the commoner he has always wanted to be. He thus encounters two conniving gamekeepers who overhear his complaint.

SECOND GAMEKEEPER

KING HENRY

More than I seem, and less than I was born to:
And men may talk of kings, and why not I?

SECOND GAMEKEEPER

KING HENRY

SECOND GAMEKEEPER

But if thou be a king, where is thy crown?

KING HENRY

Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
(King Henry VI, Part Three, III, i, 55-65)

For a brief moment, garbed as an ordinary man, Henry feels he has sloughed off the cares of state. In that moment he relishes what he supposes is the peace of mind enjoyed by quotidian mortals. But the commoners he meets are not bucolic shepherds, but a pair of canny hirelings, who drag poor Henry back into the royal nightmare.

Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
In the space of a few days, Henry has been pacified, the anguish in his heart bated. This contentment is depicted as expressly pastoral, borrowed from the romantic conceptions of the day. Unfortunately, the characters he meets are not jolly men of hill and dale, but rascals scavenging for opportunity. Henry is taken prisoner, and away contentment flies, like a bird which merely perched an hour on his shoulder. The kindly, sporting natives Henry probably expected to find never materialize.