JOHN.  In by yourself; I pass not for your spells. 
Of youth and beauty still you are the foe: 
The curse of Rosamond rests on your head,
Fair Rose confounded by your cank’rous hate,[182]
O, that she were not as to me she is,
A mother, whom by nature I must love,
Then I would tell her she were too-too base
To dote thus on a banish’d careless groom: 
Then should I tell her that she were too fond
To trust[183] fair Marian to an exile’s hand.

Enter a MESSENGER from ELY.

MES.  My lord, my Lord of Ely sends for you
About important business of the state.

JOHN.  Tell the proud prelate I am not dispos’d
Nor in estate to come at his command.
                      [Smites him; he bleeds. 
Begone with that; or tarry, and take this! 
’Zwounds! are ye list’ning for an after-errand?
                             [Exit MESSENGER. 
I’ll follow with revengeful, murd’rous hate
The banish’d, beggar’d, bankrupt Huntington.

Enter SIMON, Earl of Leicester.

LEI.  How now, Prince John? body of me!  I muse
What mad moods toss ye in this busy time
To wound the messenger that Ely sent,
By our consents? i’faith, ye did not well.

JOHN.  Leicester, I meant it, Ely, not his man: 
His servant’s head but bleeds, he headless shall
From all the issues of his traitor-neck
Pour streams of blood, till he be bloodless left. 
By earth, it shall—­by heaven, it shall be so! 
Leicester, it shall, though all the world say no.

LEI.  It shall, it shall! but how shall it be done? 
Not with a stormy tempest of sharp words,
But slow, still speeches and effecting deeds. 
Here comes old Lacy and his brother Hugh! 
One is our friend, and the other is not true.

    Enter LORD LACY, SIR HUGH, and his Boy.

LACY.  Hence, treacher, as thou art! by God’s bless’d mother! 
I’ll lop thy legs off, though thou be my brother,
If with thy flattering tongue thou seek to hide
Thy traitorous purpose.  Ah, poor Huntington! 
How in one hour have villains thee undone!

HUGH.  If you will not believe what I have sworn,
Conceit your worst.  My Lord of Ely knows
That what I say is true.

LACY.  Still facest thou? 
Draw, boy, and quickly see that thou defend thee.

LEI.  Patience, Lord Lacy! get you gone, Sir Hugh;
Provoke him not, for he hath told you true: 
You know it, that I know the Prior of York,
Together with my good lord chancellor,
Corrupted you, Lord Sentloe, Broughton, Warman,
To feast with Robert on his day of fall.

HUGH.  They lie that say it:  I defy ye all.

JOHN.  Now, by the rood, thou liest.  Warman himself,
That creeping Judas, joy’d, and told it me.

LACY.  Let me, my lords, revenge me of this wretch,
By whom my daughter and her love were lost.