MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a power For any foreign preparation Was levied in the body of a land. The copy of your speed is learn’d by them; For when you should be told they do prepare, The tidings comes that they are all arriv’d. KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept? Where is my mother’s care, That such an army could be drawn in France, And she not hear of it? MESSENGER. My liege, her ear Is stopp’d with dust. The first of April died Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord, The Lady Constance in a frenzy died Three days before. But this from rumour’s tongue I idly heard; if true or false I know not. KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion! O, make a league with me, till I have pleas’d My discontented peers! What! Mother dead? How wildly then walks my estate in France! Under whose conduct came those powers of France That thou for truth giv’st out are landed here? MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin. KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy With these in tidings. Enter the Bastard and Peter of Pomfret. Now, what says the world To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff My head with more ill news, for it is full. BASTARD. But if you be afeard to hear the worst, Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head. KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz’d Under the tide, but now I breathe again Aloft the flood, and can give audience To any tongue, speak it of what it will. BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen The sums I have collected shall express. But as I travaill’d hither through the land, I find the people strangely fantasied; Possess’d with rumours, full of idle dreams, Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear. And here’s a prophet that I brought with me From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found With many hundreds treading on his heels; To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes, That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon, Your highness should deliver up your crown. KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so? PETER OF POMFRET. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so. KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him. And on that day at noon, whereon he says I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang’d. Deliver him to safety, and return, For I must use thee. [_Exit Hubert with Peter._] O my gentle cousin, Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arriv’d? BASTARD. The French, my lord. Men’s mouths are full of it. Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury, With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire, And others more, going to seek the grave Of Arthur, whom they say is kill’d tonight On your suggestion. KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go And thrust thyself into their companies. I have a way to will their loves again. Bring them before me. BASTARD. I will seek them out.