Lord of Westmoreland. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace: What doth concern your coming? Then, my lord, Unto your grace do I in chief address The substance of my speech. If that rebellion Came like itself, in base and abject routs, Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags, And countenanced by boys and beggary, I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd, In his true, native and most proper shape, You, reverend father, and these noble lords Had not been here, to dress the ugly form Of base and bloody insurrection With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop, Whose see is by a civil peace maintained, Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd, Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd, Whose white investments figure innocence, The dove and very blessed spirit of peace, Wherefore do you so ill translate ourself Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace, Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war; Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood, Your pens to lances and your tongue divine To a trumpet and a point of war? Wherefore do I this? so the question stands. Briefly to this end: we are all diseased, And with our surfeiting and wanton hours Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, And we must bleed for it; of which disease Our late king, Richard, being infected, died. But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland, I take not on me here as a physician, Nor do I as an enemy to peace Troop in the throngs of military men; But rather show awhile like fearful war, To diet rank minds sick of happiness And purge the obstructions which begin to stop Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly. I have in equal balance justly weigh'd What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer, And find our griefs heavier than our offences. We see which way the stream of time doth run, And are enforced from our most quiet there By the rough torrent of occasion; And have the summary of all our griefs, When time shall serve, to show in articles; Which long ere this we offer'd to the king, And might by no suit gain our audience: When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs, We are denied access unto his person Even by those men that most have done us wrong. The dangers of the days but newly gone, Whose memory is written on the earth With yet appearing blood,