In Pierce Pennilesse, Thomas Nashe wrote, "If they have no service abroad, they will make mutinies at home..." Shakespeare's Henry IV similarly advises "busy[ing] giddy minds / With foreign quarrels."

He does exactly that by skillfully and courageously prosecuting a war against France, just as his father told him to do: "Be it thy course to busy giddy minds / With foreign quarrels."

Will his successor resist the advice Shakespeare's Henry IV gave to his son - "to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels"?

Thus he not only overstated his case but mixed up foreign and domestic quarrels precisely when Congress is in a mood to question his judgment on almost everything.

Shakespeare had Henry IV urge his son, 'Be it thy course to busy giddy minds/With foreign quarrels'

"Busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels," one of Shakespeare's characters recommends.

So non-cosmopolitan, so English, so county, so reserved, Grey could not be regarded by anyone as a mettlesome mixer in foreign quarrels.

The insecurity of the throne had made Henry IV consider a diversionary crusade to the Holy Land, for which he advised his son to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels."

Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days.

"When Bolingbroke dies, he tells his son to 'busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels."