Henry the Eighth, coauthored with John Fletcher, is the only English history play of the second half of Shakespeare’s career, when his men were under the patronage of King James I. Written at a time of nostalgia for the age of Queen Elizabeth, the action comes to a climax when a doll representing the newborn future queen is brought on stage, her reign as a “maiden phoenix” is predicted, and her chosen successor, King James, is praised. “A pattern to all princes,” she is later described as one who “shall make it Holy-day”: such language suggests how the English Protestant cult of the Virgin Queen derived some of its power from the way in which it reworked the Roman Catholic cult of the Virgin Mary.
The speech is spoken by the princess’ godfather, Thomas Cranmer, famous as the architect of the English Reformation and a martyr burned to death in the reign of bloody Queen Mary: the linking of the infant Elizabeth to Protestant ideology could not be more strongly expressed. Though the final scene was written by Fletcher, Cranmer’s subsequent image of a “cedar” tree as a representation of the royal genealogical line replicates a prophecy spoken by the god Jupiter in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Events in Henry the Eighth do not, however, seem to have been driven by that sense of destiny, of a providential design leading to the establishment of a new dynasty, which shaped Shakespeare’s earlier chronicle plays. The emphasis is rather on the vicissitudes of court life. The play’s structure is built on an apparently arbitrary pattern of rises and falls: Buckingham falls, Anne Bullen rises, Wolsey rises, Katherine falls, Wolsey falls, Cranmer rises. Again, as Wolsey goes down, Thomas Cromwell comes up: Anne Bullen is “the weight” on this pulley of fortune. There is some skilled compression of history for the sake of dramatic effect: in the play, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey and the triple elevation of Thomas More, Thomas Cranmer, and Anne Bullen effectively work as a single event, whereas in reality these three came to eminence in, respectively, 1529, 1532, and 1533. Wolsey actually died in 1530, three years before the coronation of Anne as Henry’s second queen.
Though grounded in history, the pattern of ascent and descent is analogous to that of romance, with its highs and lows, its voyages and reunions, things lost and found. The play was originally staged under the title All is True, a wittily ironic pointer to its fantastical moments, such as Queen Katherine’s divine vision, which can hardly be literally true. Shakespeare and Fletcher may have chosen to infuse their play with the spirit of romance, so far from the tough world of the Richard and the other Henry plays, in order to create a safety zone that was necessary because Henry the Eighth dramatizes the still contentious issue over which England broke from the Church of Rome, the replacement of Queen Katherine with Anne Bullen. The crux of the action is the fall of Wolsey, mediator between the king and the pope. It becomes the occasion not to pass judgment on the rights and wrongs of the Reformation, but for a generalized reflection on the fickleness of fortune and the fruitlessness of hanging “on princes’ favors.” Henry the Eighth was a great favorite on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stage. That was partly because of the opportunity for spectacle provided by the coronation and the play’s other scenes of procession and court business. But it was also because of the opportunity given to actors by Wolsey’s great set-piece, “Farewell? A long farewell to all my greatness…”
Shakespeare’s Elizabethan history plays were dominated by wars, either civil or on French soil, and battles for succession to the crown. They were written in times of war when the question of the succession to Elizabeth was deeply troubling to the nation. Henry the Eighth, by contrast, was written after several years of peace. Indeed, King James regarded himself as an international peacemaker. Furthermore, he was a married king, so there was no anxiety about the succession, despite the nation’s sorrow at the premature death of his eldest son, Prince Henry, in November 1612. The wedding of the king’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to Frederick the Elector Palatine, the most prominent Protestant ruler in continental Europe, was postponed until February 1613 so as not to be overshadowed by the funeral. Henry the Eighth, a play with both a royal death and a royal wedding, was written in the next few months.
Despite the Protestant match for the princess, there were anxieties about a possible revival of Roman Catholicism: the religious allegiance of James’ queen was a matter of public interest about which rumors circulated. And there was considerable concern over court favorites, as different factions jostled for power. Ever since the spectacular entrance procession of King James into London at the beginning of his reign, the new court had displayed its power through pageantry. The theater played a key role here. The king, his family and his courtiers participated actively in masques, and, in their new capacity as the King’s Men, Shakespeare and his fellows were frequently called upon to play at court. All these concerns are woven into the fabric of Henry the Eighth, making it a distinctively Jacobean drama.
Kingly authority is asserted by pageantry, but also by the ruthless axing of counselors who have served their purpose. Buckingham says of York that “no man’s pie is freed / From his ambitious finger,” a sentiment that could apply to any one of the play’s thrusting courtiers as they jostle for the top seat at the table of power. A stage direction in the third act is typical both of the world of the drama and the environment that Shakespeare would have experienced when he took his men to play at court: “Exit King, frowning upon the Cardinal; the nobles throng after him, smiling and whispering.”
The question inevitably raised is whether or not the personal authority of the monarch is absolute. In order to please the courtly audience it was necessary for Shakespeare and Fletcher to follow a broadly pro-Henry line, but there do seem to be moments when a critique of the conscience of the king is built into the action. Specifically, a series of puns on words such as “prick” and “rule” imply that his policy is being determined by his sex drive as much as his desire to serve and shape his nation. The king clearly suffers a failure of “temperance,” a key Protestant virtue, in relation to Anne. And at the most elementary structural level, there is a tension between the representation of the two queens and the state ideology of Protestantism. Katherine of Aragon is the Catholic queen who becomes a near-saint granted a divine vision, while Anne, the trigger for the Reformation, is given a very small part and serves primarily as an object of sexual desire. Equally, although the chancellorship of Sir Thomas More only figures briefly in the play, there is a clear allusion to his subsequent martyrdom for the Catholic cause:
But he’s a learnèd man. May he continue
Long in his highness’ favour, and do justice
For truth’s sake and his conscience, that his bones,
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans’ tears wept on him.
Shakespeare’s late plays share a fascination with the very different directions in which poetic language may lead. Elaborate rhetoric and honeyed words reveal how the verbal arts are tools for preferment and power. Words are both baits for advancement and means of getting off the hook: “may it like your grace / To let my tongue excuse all.” On other occasions, there is a plangent poetry of withdrawal, of retirement from the courtly fray. How is one to achieve inner peace in this world of political turmoil? The courtiers have varying degrees of success in their attempts to learn the Senecan art of patience, of using soliloquy and self-examination as a means of coming to terms with the buffets of political fortune. For Queen Katherine, uniquely, there is a moment of transcendence and divine vision. But it is only a moment, ending with a dissolution analogous to that of Prospero’s masque in The Tempest: “Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone? / And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?”
The voice that is absent from Henry the Eighth is the one that was so forceful in Henry IV and Henry V: the commoners, whose plain prose pricks the bubble of pretentious courtly language. As in The Winter’s Tale, gentlemen are brought on stage in the role of witnesses. But there are no equivalents to The Winter’s Tale’s lower-class characters of Shepherd and Clown. The only prose intervention belongs to a porter in the final act, who hears the hubbub of young gallants outside the closed door of the council chambers. “These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitter apples,” he remarks, perhaps implying that of the three audiences for whom Shakespeare and Fletcher were writing—the court, the select company of the indoor Blackfriars theater and the mass public who paid a penny to stand in the yard of the Globe—it is the first two who now interest them more. Insofar as the play does explore the consciousness of the low born, it is when commoners such as Cromwell and above all Wolsey—son of a provincial butcher—become “great” men, provoking the enmity of the dukes and earls born to ermine. At some level, Shakespeare—son of a provincial glover who had close links with butcher’s business—is reflecting upon his own extraordinary rise. Fletcher, by contrast, was born into a higher social echelon; he and Beaumont did write for the public stage, but always with a particular eye to the court audience.
There was, perhaps, a particular frisson when the play was performed at the Blackfriars, since this was the very location of the trial of Queen Katherine. But there is no doubt that Henry the Eighth was also played at the Globe soon after it was written. At a performance in June 1613, when “chambers” (small cannon) were discharged in the fourth scene, the theater burned down. One of the several surviving accounts of the fire, by the diplomat Sir Henry Wotton, combines reportage with a perceptive reading of the play:
Now, to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what has happened this week at the Bank’s side. The King’s players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order with their Georges and garters, the Guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey’s house, and certain chambers being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle ale.
Wotton’s account reveals how much care the King’s Men took in their efforts to represent “pomp and majesty” on stage: from the matting on the floor to the garters and crosses of Saint George on the costumes, everything is contrived “to make greatness very familiar.” Intriguingly, though, the effect of transforming royal processions through Whitehall and Westminster into passages of a play on the matted stage of a thatched theater in the margins of Southwark is also to make greatness seem just a little ridiculous. The representation of the intrinsic theatricality of state power hints at its flimsiness, its reliance on the same mechanisms of show as those of the theater. Wotton’s insight serves as an epilogue not just on Henry the Eighth but on Shakespeare’s whole sequence of English history plays: on his stage, the people of England became intimately familiar for the first time with the story of their great ones, and at the same time they learned—through laughter and through debate—to respect the structures of greatness just a little less. Having witnessed the fall of lords and even monarchs on the boards of the Globe, they were ready some forty years later to erect a scaffold in Whitehall and witness the fall of an axe on the head of a real king, Charles I.
AUTHORSHIP: A collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Neither the First Folio nor any contemporary reference mentions joint authorship, but many stylistic studies, the first of them published in 1850, have decisively revealed two hands in the composition. Alfred Lord Tennyson was apparently the first to realize that the coauthor was Fletcher. The different tests of verbal preferences (e.g., you versus ye, them versus ’em) and poetic techniques (e.g., pause patterns, feminine endings, extra monosyllables in pentameter lines) have shown remarkable unanimity in dividing the scenes in the following clear pattern of alternation:
| 1.1, 1.2 | Shakespeare |
| 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2 | Fletcher |
| 2.3, 2.4 | Shakespeare |
| 3.1 | Fletcher |
| 3.2.1–250 | Shakespeare |
| 3.2.251–533, 4.1, 4.2 | Fletcher |
| 5.1 | Shakespeare |
| 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 | Fletcher |
Prologue and Epilogue: probably Fletcher, but too short for statistically reliable analysis.
Some scholars have argued that 2.1, 2.2, the second half of 3.2, 4.1 and 4.2 were originally by Shakespeare, but touched up by Fletcher.
TITLE: Three contemporary accounts of the early performance when the Globe caught fire (see “Date,” below) refer to the play as All is True; another calls it “the play of Hen: 8.” This suggests that it was originally advertised along the lines of “All is True: The Famous History of King Henry the Eighth,” but the Folio editors opted for simply The Famous History of the Life of King HENRY the Eight.
PLOT: The Duke of Norfolk tells Buckingham of the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. On the instigation of Cardinal Wolsey, Buckingham is arrested for high treason. The Queen interrupts the indictment of Buckingham to demand that the king rescind a tax imposed by Wolsey to finance the French war. At a party held by Wolsey, Henry meets Anne Bullen and falls in love with her. Buckingham is tried and executed. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk fail to turn the king against Wolsey. Henry, questioning the legality of his marriage to Katherine, sets up a tribunal, presided over by Wolsey and the papal representative Cardinal Campeius. Anne Bullen is made Marchioness of Pembroke. Katherine walks out of the tribunal, and demands that the case be decided in Rome. Wolsey and Campeius fail to convince the queen to throw herself on the king’s mercy. Anne secretly marries Henry. A conspiracy by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to disgrace Wolsey is successful, and Wolsey falls. Cranmer is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Katherine is divorced, Anne is crowned queen. Katherine is told of Wolsey’s death, and she herself dies. Anne gives birth to a girl, who will grow up to become Queen Elizabeth. Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, attempts to indict Cranmer for heresy. He fails through Henry’s intervention. Elizabeth is christened and Cranmer predicts the glory of her reign.
MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Henry VIII (14%/ 81/9), Cardinal Wolsey (14%/79/7), Queen Katherine (12%/50/4), Duke of Norfolk (7%/48/5), Duke of Buckingham (6%/26/2), Lord Chamberlain (5%/38/7), Thomas Cranmer (4%/21/4), Duke of Suffolk (3%/30/4), Gardiner (3%/22/3), Earl of Surrey (3%/24/2), Sir Thomas Lovell (2%/21/4), Old Lady (2%/14/2), Surveyor (2%/9/1), Griffith (2%/13/2), Anne Bullen (2%/18/2), Cardinal Campeius (2%/14/3), Thomas Cromwell (2%/21/2), Lord Sands (2%/17/2).
LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 98% verse, 2% prose.
DATE: 1613. The first Globe theater burned down in a fire that started during a performance of the play on June 29, 1613. A letter by Sir Henry Wotton describes it as “a new play” at this time.
SOURCES: Principally based on the third volume of Holinshed’s Chronicles, probably in the 1587 edition; the Stephen Gardiner sequence in Act 5 draws on John Foxe’s virulently anti-Catholic Actes and Monuments (perhaps in 1583 edition); John Stow’s Annals (1592) and John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain (1611) also seem to have been consulted and there may be some influence from an earlier play in celebration of the birth of one of Henry VIII’s children, Samuel Rowley’s When you see me, You know me. Or the famous Chronicle Historie of king Henrie the eighth, with the birth and vertuous life of Edward Prince of Wales (1605).
TEXT: First Folio is only early text. Good quality of printing, probably set from a scribal transcript of the authorial manuscript.
GENEALOGY: See this page.
PROLOGUE/EPILOGUE
KING HENRY VIII
QUEEN KATHERINE (of Aragon), Henry’s first wife, later Princess Dowager
CARDINAL WOLSEY, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York
ANNE Bullen, later Queen, Henry’s second wife
CARDINAL CAMPEIUS, legate from the Pope
Thomas CRANMER, later Archbishop of Canterbury
Stephen GARDINER, the king’s secretary, later Bishop of Winchester
Bishop of LINCOLN
Lord CHAMBERLAIN
Lord CHANCELLOR,* after Wolsey’s fall
Thomas CROMWELL, Wolsey’s servant and later secretary to the King’s Council
Duke of BUCKINGHAM
Duke of NORFOLK
Duke of SUFFOLK
Earl of SURREY, Buckingham’s son-in-law
Lord ABERGAVENNY, Buckingham’s son-in-law
Lord SANDS
Sir Thomas LOVELL
Sir Henry (Harry) GUILDFORD
Sir Nicholas VAUX
Sir Anthony DENNY
GRIFFITH, Gentleman-usher to Katherine
WOMAN (who sings), attendant on Katherine
PATIENCE, attendant on Katherine
OLD LADY, friend to Anne
SECRETARY to Wolsey
BRANDON
SERGEANT-at-Arms
SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham
THREE GENTLEMEN
SCRIBE to the court
CRIER to the court
KEEPER of the door of the Council Chamber
MESSENGER at Kimbolton
PAGE to Gardiner
DR. BUTTS, the king’s physician
PORTER and his MAN
GARTER King-at-Arms
Lord Mayor of London
Marquis of Dorset
Marchioness of Dorset
Old Duchess of Norfolk
Guards, Tipstaves, Halberds, Secretaries, Scribes, Bishops, Priests, Gentlemen, Vergers, Aldermen, Lords, Ladies, Women, Spirits, Attendants
[Enter Prologue]
I come no more to make you laugh: things now
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad,3 high, and working, full of state and woe:
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow
5 We now present. Those that can pity here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
10 Only a show10 or two, and so agree
The play may pass,11 if they be still, and willing,
I’ll undertake may see away their shilling12
Richly in two short hours.13 Only they
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
15 A noise of targets,15 or to see a fellow
In a long16 motley coat guarded with yellow,
Will be deceived.17 For, gentle hearers, know
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting19
20 Our own brains, and the opinion20 that we bring
To make that only true we now intend,
Will leave us never an understanding22 friend.
Therefore, for goodness’ sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest24 hearers of the town,
25 Be sad,25 as we would make ye. Think ye see
The very persons of our noble story
As27 they were living: think you see them great,
And followed with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends: then, in a moment, see
30 How soon this mightiness meets misery:
And if you can be merry then, I’ll say
A man may weep upon his wedding day.
[Exit]
Enter the Duke of Norfolk at one door. At the other, the Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Abergavenny
Since last we saw2 in France?
Healthful, and ever since a fresh4 admirer
5 Of what5 I saw there.
Stayed7 me a prisoner in my chamber when
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Andres.
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback,
Beheld them when they lighted,12 how they clung
In their embracement as13 they grew together,
Which had they,14 what four throned ones could have weighed
15 Such a compounded one?
I was my chamber’s prisoner.
The view of earthly glory: men might say
20 Till this time pomp20 was single, but now married
To one above itself. Each21 following day
Became the next day’s master, till the last
Made former wonders its.23 Today the French,
All clinquant,24 all in gold, like heathen gods
25 Shone down25 the English; and tomorrow they
Made Britain India:26 every man that stood
Showed27 like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins,28 all gilt: the madams too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
30 The pride30 upon them, that their very labour
Was to them as a painting. Now this masque31
Was cried32 incomparable, and th’ensuing night
Made33 it a fool and beggar. The two kings,
Equal in lustre, were34 now best, now worst,
35 As presence did present them: him35 in eye,
Still him in praise, and being36 present both,
’Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner37
Durst38 wag his tongue in censure. When these suns —
For so they phrase39 ’em — by their heralds challenged
40 The noble spirits to arms, they did perform40
Beyond thought’s compass, that41 former fabulous story,
Being now seen possible enough, got credit,
That Bevis43 was believed.
In honour honesty, the tract46 of ev’rything
Would by a good discourser47 lose some life,
Which action’s self was tongue to. All was royal:
To49 the disposing of it nought rebelled:
50 Order50 gave each thing view. The office did
Distinctly his full function.
I mean, who set the body and the limbs
Of this great sport54 together, as you guess?
In such a business.
Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.59
From his ambitious finger. What had he
To do in these fierce62 vanities? I wonder
That such a keech63 can with his very bulk
Take64 up the rays o’th’beneficial sun
65 And keep it from the earth.
There’s in him stuff67 that puts him to these ends:
For being not propped by ancestry,68 whose grace
Chalks69 successors their way, nor called upon
70 For high70 feats done to th’crown, neither allied
To eminent assistants,71 but spider-like,
Out of his self-drawing72 web, a gives us note,
The force of his own merit makes his way
A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys
75 A place next75 to the king.
What heaven hath given him — let some graver77 eye
Pierce into that — but I can see his pride
Peep through each part of him: whence has he that,
80 If not from hell? The devil is a niggard,80
Or has given all before, and he81 begins
A new hell in himself.
Upon this French going out,84 took he upon him,
85 Without the privity85 o’th’king, t’appoint
Who should attend on him?86 He makes up the file
Of all the gentry: for the most part such87
To whom as great a charge as little honour
He meant to lay upon: and his own letter,89
90 The honourable board of council90 out,
Must fetch91 him in, he papers.
Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have
By this so sickened94 their estates, that never
95 They shall abound95 as formerly.
Have broke their backs with laying97 manors on ’em
For this great journey. What did this vanity98
But minister99 communication of
100 A most poor issue?
The peace between the French and us not102 values
The cost that did conclude it.
105 After the hideous storm that followed, was
A thing inspired,106 and, not consulting, broke
Into a general107 prophecy: that this tempest,
Dashing108 the garment of this peace, aboded
The sudden breach on’t.109
For France hath flawed111 the league, and hath attached
Our merchants’ goods at Bordeaux.
Th’ambassador is silenced?114
At a superfluous rate.117
Our reverend cardinal carried.119
The state121 takes notice of the private difference
Betwixt you and the cardinal. I advise you —
And take it from a heart that wishes towards you
Honour and plenteous safety — that you read124
125 The cardinal’s malice and his potency125
Together: to consider further that
What his high hatred would127 effect wants not
A minister128 in his power. You know his nature,
That he’s revengeful: and I know his sword
130 Hath a sharp edge: it’s long and’t may be said,
It reaches far, and where ’twill not extend,
Thither he darts132 it. Bosom up my counsel,
You’ll find it wholesome.133 Lo, where comes that rock
That I advise your shunning.
Enter Cardinal Wolsey, the purse borne before him, certain of the Guard, and two Secretaries with papers. The Cardinal in his passage fixeth his eye on Buckingham, and Buckingham on him, both full of disdain
Where’s his examination?136
Shall lessen this big141 look.
Exeunt Cardinal and his train
Have not the power to muzzle him: therefore best
Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar’s144 book
145 Outworths a noble’s blood.
Ask God for temp’rance:147 that’s th’appliance only
Which your disease requires.
150 Matter150 against me, and his eye reviled
Me as his abject object:151 at this instant
He bores152 me with some trick: he’s gone to th’king:
I’ll follow, and outstare him.
155 And let your reason with your choler155 question
What ’tis you go about: to climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like
A full hot158 horse, who being allowed his way,
Self-mettle159 tires him: not a man in England
160 Can advise me like you: be to yourself
As you would to your friend.
And from a mouth of honour163 quite cry down
This Ipswich164 fellow’s insolence, or proclaim
165 There’s difference165 in no persons.
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself. We may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
170 And lose by overrunning:170 know you not
The fire that mounts171 the liquor till’t run o’er,
In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advised:
I say again there is no English soul
More stronger to direct you than yourself,
175 If with the sap of reason you would quench
Or but allay176 the fire of passion.
I am thankful to you, and I’ll go along
By your prescription:179 but this top-proud fellow —
180 Whom from the flow of gall180 I name not, but
From sincere motions181 — by intelligence,
And proofs as clear as founts182 in July when
We see each grain of gravel, I do know
To be corrupt and treasonous.
As shore of rock: attend. This holy fox,
Or wolf, or both — for he is equal188 rav’nous
As he is subtle,189 and as prone to mischief
190 As able to perform’t, his mind and place190
Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally —
Only to show his pomp192 as well in France
As here at home, suggests193 the king our master
To this last194 costly treaty, th’interview
195 That swallowed so much treasure,195 and like a glass
Did break i’th’wrenching.196
The articles199 o’th’combination drew
200 As himself pleased: and they were ratified
As he cried ‘Thus let be’, to as much end201
As give a crutch to th’dead. But our count-cardinal202
Has done this, and ’tis well: for worthy Wolsey,
Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows —
205 Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy
To th’old dam206 treason — Charles the Emperor,
Under pretence to see the queen his aunt —
For ’twas indeed his colour,208 but he came
To whisper209 Wolsey — here makes visitation:
210 His fears were that the interview betwixt
England and France might through their amity
Breed him some prejudice, for from this league
Peeped harms that menaced him. He privily213
Deals with our cardinal, and as I trow214 —
215 Which I do well, for I am sure the emperor
Paid ere216 he promised, whereby his suit was granted
Ere it was asked — but217 when the way was made
And paved with gold, the emperor thus desired
That he219 would please to alter the king’s course,
220 And break the foresaid peace. Let the king know,
As soon he shall by me, that thus the cardinal
Does buy and sell his222 honour as he pleases,
And for his own advantage.
225 To hear this of him, and could wish he were
Something226 mistaken in’t.
I do pronounce him in that very shape
He shall appear in proof.229
Enter Brandon, a Sergeant-at-Arms before him, and two or three of the Guard
My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl
Of Hertford,233 Stafford and Northampton, I
Arrest thee of high treason, in the name
235 Of our most sovereign king.
The net has fall’n upon me: I shall perish
Under device and practice.238
240 To see you ta’en from liberty, to look on240
The business present. ’Tis his highness’ pleasure241
You shall to th’Tower.242
To plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me
245 Which makes my whit’st part black. The will of heav’n
Be done in this and all things: I obey.
O my Lord Aberga’nny, fare you well.
Is pleased you shall to th’Tower, till you know
250 How he determines further.
The will of heaven be done, and the king’s pleasure
By me obeyed.
255 The king t’attach255 Lord Montague and the bodies
Of the duke’s confessor, John de la Car,
One Gilbert Perk, his chancellor—
These are the limbs o’th’plot: no more, I hope.
Hath showed him gold:264 my life is spanned already:
265 I am the shadow265 of poor Buckingham,
Whose266 figure even this instant cloud puts on,
By dark’ning my clear sun. My lord, farewell.
Exeunt
Cornets.* Enter King Henry [VIII], leaning on the Cardinal [Wolsey]’s shoulder, the Nobles, [Wolsey’s Secretary] and Sir Thomas Lovell: the Cardinal places himself under the King’s feet on his right side
Thanks you for this great care: I stood i’th’level2
Of a full-charged3 confederacy, and give thanks
To you that choked it. Let be called before us
5 That gentleman of Buckingham’s: in person
I’ll hear him his confessions justify,6
And point by point the treasons of his master
He shall again relate.
A noise within crying ‘Room for the Queen, ushered by the Duke of Norfolk’. Enter the Queen [Katherine], Norfolk and Suffolk: she kneels. [The] King riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by him
Never name to us: you have half our power:
The other moiety12 ere you ask is given:
Repeat your will13 and take it.
15 That you would love yourself, and in that love
Not unconsidered leave your honour, nor
The dignity17 of your office, is the point
Of my petition.
And those of true condition,21 that your subjects
Are in great grievance:22 there have been commissions
Sent down among ’em which hath flawed23 the heart
Of all their loyalties: wherein, although,
25 My good lord cardinal, they vent reproaches
Most bitterly on you, as putter-on26
Of these exactions,27 yet the king our master —
Whose honour heaven shield from soil28 — even he escapes not
Language unmannerly, yea, such which breaks
30 The sides of loyalty, and almost appears
In loud rebellion.
It doth appear: for, upon these taxations,
The clothiers34 all, not able to maintain
35 The many to them longing,35 have put off
The spinsters,36 carders, fullers, weavers, who,
Unfit for other life,37 compelled by hunger
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring39 th’event to th’teeth, are all in uproar,
40 And danger40 serves among them.
Wherein, and what taxation? My lord cardinal,
You that are blamed for it alike with us,
Know you of this taxation?
I know but of a single part46 in aught
Pertains to th’state, and front47 but in that file
Where others tell steps with me.
50 You50 know no more than others? But you frame
Things that are known alike, which are not wholesome
To those which would not know them, and yet must
Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,
Whereof my sovereign would have note,54 they are
55 Most pestilent to th’hearing, and to bear55 ’em
The back is56 sacrifice to th’load. They say
They are devised by you, or else you suffer
Too hard an exclamation.58
60 The nature of it? In what kind,60 let’s know,
Is this exaction?
In tempting of63 your patience, but am boldened
Under your promised pardon. The subjects’ grief64
65 Comes through commissions, which compels from each
The sixth part of his substance,66 to be levied
Without delay, and the pretence67 for this
Is named your wars in France: this makes bold mouths:
Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze
70 Allegiance in them: their curses now
Live where their prayers71 did: and it’s come to pass
This tractable72 obedience is a slave
To each incensèd will. I would73 your highness
Would give it quick consideration, for
75 There is no primer baseness.75
This is against our pleasure.77
I have no further gone in this than by
80 A single voice,80 and that not passed me but
By learnèd approbation81 of the judges: if I am
Traduced82 by ignorant tongues, which neither know
My faculties83 nor person, yet will be
The chronicles of my doing, let me say
’Tis but the fate of place,85 and the rough brake
That virtue must go through: we must not stint86
Our necessary actions, in the fear
To cope88 malicious censurers, which ever,
As rav’nous fishes, do a vessel follow
90 That is new trimmed,90 but benefit no further
Than vainly longing.91 What we oft do best,
By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is
Not ours, or not allowed: what93 worst, as oft,
Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up
95 For our best act: if we shall stand still,
In96 fear our motion will be mocked or carped at,
We should take root here where we sit,
Or sit state-statues98 only.
100 And with a care, exempt themselves from fear:
Things done without example,101 in their issue
Are to be feared. Have you a precedent
Of103 this commission? I believe not any.
We must not rend104 our subjects from our laws,
105 And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?
A trembling106 contribution; why, we take
From every tree lop,107 bark, and part o’th’timber:
And though we leave it with a root, thus hacked
The109 air will drink the sap. To every county
110 Where this is questioned110 send our letters, with
Free pardon to each man that has denied
The force of this commission: pray, look to’t;
I put it to your care.
115 Let there be letters writ to every shire,
Of the king’s grace116 and pardon.— The grievèd commons Aside to Secretary
Hardly conceive117 of me. Let it be noised
That through our118 intercession this revokement
And pardon comes: I shall anon119 advise you
120 Further in the proceeding.
Exit Secretary
Enter Surveyor
Is run in122 your displeasure.
The gentleman is learnèd, and a most rare124 speaker,
125 To125 nature none more bound: his training such
That he may furnish and instruct great teachers,
And never seek for aid out of127 himself: yet see,
When these so noble benefits shall prove
Not well disposed,129 the mind growing once corrupt,
130 They turn to vicious130 forms, ten times more ugly
Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,131
Who was enrolled ’mongst wonders — and when we,
Almost with ravished133 listening, could not find
His hour of speech a minute — he, my lady,
135 Hath into monstrous135 habits put the graces
That once were his, and is become as black
As if besmeared in hell. Sit by us: you shall hear —
This was his gentleman in trust138 — of him
Things to strike honour sad.— Bid him recount To Wolsey
140 The fore-recited practices,140 whereof
We cannot feel too little, hear too much.141
Most like a careful143 subject have collected
Out of the Duke of Buckingham.
It would infect his speech — that if the king
Should without issue148 die, he’ll carry it so
To make the sceptre149 his. These very words
150 I’ve heard him utter to his son-in-law,
Lord Aberga’nny, to whom by oath he menaced151
Revenge upon the cardinal.
His dangerous conception154 in this point,
155 Not155 friended by his wish to your high person:
His will is most malignant, and it stretches
Beyond you to your friends.157
Deliver159 all with charity.
How161 grounded he his title to the crown
Upon our fail? To this point162 hast thou heard him
At any time speak aught?
165 By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Hopkins.
His confessor, who fed him every minute
With words of sovereignty.
The Duke being at the Rose,172 within the parish
St Lawrence Poultney,173 did of me demand
What was the speech174 among the Londoners
175 Concerning the French journey. I replied
Men feared the French would prove perfidious176
To177 the king’s danger: presently the duke
Said ’twas the fear indeed and that he doubted178
’Twould prove the verity of certain words
180 Spoke by a holy monk that oft, says he,
‘Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit
John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice182 hour
To hear from him a matter of some moment:183
Whom after under the confession’s seal
185 He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke
My chaplain to no creature living but
To me should utter, with demure confidence187
This pausingly ensued: “Neither the king nor’s heirs,
Tell you the duke, shall prosper: bid him strive
190 To gain the love o’th’commonalty:190 the duke
Shall govern England.’ ”
You were the duke’s surveyor, and lost your office
On the complaint o’th’tenants: take good heed
195 You charge not in your spleen195 a noble person
And spoil your nobler196 soul: I say, take heed:
Yes, heartily beseech you.
Go forward. To the Surveyor
I told my lord the duke, by th’devil’s illusions
The monk might be deceived, and that ’twas dangerous
For him to ruminate on this so far, until
It forged204 him some design, which being believed,
205 It was much205 like to do: he answered, ‘Tush,
It can do me no damage’, adding further,
That had the king in his last sickness failed,207
The cardinal’s and Sir Thomas Lovell’s heads
Should have gone off.
There’s mischief in this man: canst thou say further?
215 After your highness had reproved the duke
About Sir William Bulmer—
Of such a time: being my sworn servant,
The duke retained him his.219 But on: what hence?
As to the Tower, I thought, — ‘I would have played
The part my father meant to act upon
Th’usurper Richard,223 who, being at Salisbury,
Made suit224 to come in’s presence: which if granted,
225 As he made225 semblance of his duty, would
Have put his knife to him.’
And this man out of prison?
He stretched him,233 and with one hand on his dagger,
Another spread on’s breast, mounting234 his eyes,
235 He did discharge a horrible oath, whose tenor
Was, were he evil used,236 he would outgo
His father by as much as a performance
Does an irresolute238 purpose.
240 To sheathe his knife in us: he is attached:240
Call him to present241 trial: if he may
Find mercy in the law, ’tis his: if none,
Let him not seek’t of us: by day and night,
He’s traitor to th’height.244
Exeunt
Enter [the] Lord Chamberlain and Lord Sands
Men into such strange mysteries?2
Though they be never so ridiculous,
5 Nay, let ’em be5 unmanly, yet are followed.
Have got by the late7 voyage is but merely
A fit8 or two o’th’face: but they are shrewd ones,
For when they hold ’em,9 you would swear directly
10 Their very noses had been counsellors
To Pepin or Clotharius,11 they keep state so.
That never see ’em pace before, the spavin13
Or springhalt14 reigned among ’em.
Their clothes are after16 such a pagan cut to’t
That sure they’ve worn out17 Christendom.
Enter Sir Thomas Lovell
How now?
What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?
20 I hear of none, but the new proclamation
That’s clapped21 upon the court gate.
That fill the court with quarrels, talk and tailors.
To think an English courtier may be wise,
And never see the Louvre.27
For so run the conditions, leave those remnants
30 Of fool and feather30 that they got in France,
With all their honourable31 points of ignorance
Pertaining thereunto — as32 fights and fireworks,
Abusing33 better men than they can be
Out34 of a foreign wisdom, renouncing clean
35 The faith they have in tennis and tall35 stockings,
Short blistered breeches, and those types36 of travel —
And understand37 again like honest men,
Or pack38 to their old playfellows: there, I take it,
They may cum privilegio39 ‘oui’ away
40 The lag end40 of their lewdness and be laughed at.
Are grown so catching.
Will have of these trim vanities!44
There will be woe indeed, lords: the sly whoresons46
Have got a speeding47 trick to lay down ladies:
A French song and a fiddle48 has no fellow.
50 For sure there’s no converting of ’em:50 now
An honest country lord, as I am, beaten
A long time out of play,52 may bring his plainsong
And have an hour of hearing,53 and, by’r lady,
Held54 current music too.
Your colt’s tooth56 is not cast yet?
Nor shall not, while I have a stump.58
60 Whither were you a-going?
Your lordship is a guest too.
This night he makes64 a supper, and a great one,
65 To many lords and ladies: there will be
The beauty of this kingdom, I’ll assure you.
A hand as fruitful68 as the land that feeds us:
His dews69 fall everywhere.
He had a black71 mouth that said other of him.
Sparing73 would show a worse sin than ill doctrine:
Men of his way74 should be most liberal:
75 They are set here for examples.
But few now give so great ones.77 My barge stays:
Your lordship shall along.78 Come, good Sir Thomas, To Lovell
We shall be late else, which I would not be,
80 For I was spoke to,80 with Sir Henry Guildford,
This night to be comptrollers.81
Exeunt
Hautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal, a longer table for the guests. Then enter Anne Bullen, and divers other Ladies and Gentlemen, as guests at one door; at another door enter Sir Henry Guildford
Salutes ye all: this night he dedicates
To fair content and you: none here, he hopes,
In all this noble bevy,4 has brought with her
5 One care abroad:5 he would have all as merry
As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome,
Can make good people.
Enter Lord Chamberlain, Lords Sands and Lovell
O, my lord, you’re tardy:7 To Chamberlain
The very thought of this fair company
Clapped9 wings to me.
But half my lay12 thoughts in him, some of these
Should find a running banquet13 ere they rested
I think would better please ’em: by my life,
15 They are a sweet society15 of fair ones.
To one or two of these.
They should find easy19 penance.
Place you23 that side, I’ll take the charge of this:
His grace is ent’ring. Nay, you must not freeze:
25 Two women placed together makes cold25 weather:
My lord Sands, you are one will keep ’em waking:26
Pray sit between these ladies.
And thank29 your lordship.— He sits between Anne and another lady
30 If I chance to talk a little wild,30 forgive me:
I had it from my father.
But he would bite34 none: just as I do now,
35 He would kiss you twenty35 with a breath. He kisses her
So now you’re fairly37 seated: gentlemen,
The penance lies on you, if these fair ladies
Pass away39 frowning.
Let me alone.41
Hautboys. Enter Cardinal Wolsey, and takes his state
Or gentleman that is not freely merry,
Is not my friend. This, to confirm my welcome,
45 And to you all, good health. He drinks
Let me have such a bowl47 may hold my thanks,
And save me so much talking.
50 I am beholding50 to you: cheer your neighbours:
Ladies, you are not merry: gentlemen,
Whose fault is this?
In their fair cheeks, my lord, then we shall have ’em
55 Talk us to silence.
My lord Sands.
Here’s to your ladyship: and pledge it,59 madam,
60 For ’tis to such a thing60—
Drum and Trumpet: chambers discharged
Exit Servants
And to what end is this? Nay, ladies, fear not:
By all the laws of war you’re privileged.67
Enter a Servant
70 For so they seem: they’ve left their barge and landed,
And hither make,71 as great ambassadors
From foreign princes.
Go, give ’em welcome: you can speak the French tongue:
75 And pray receive ’em nobly, and conduct ’em
Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty76
Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.
[Exit Chamberlain, attended]
You have now a broken78 banquet, but we’ll mend it.
A good digestion to you all: and once more
80 I shower a welcome on ye: welcome all.
Hautboys. Enter King [Henry] and others as Masquers, habited like shepherds, ushered by the Lord Chamberlain. They pass directly before the Cardinal, and gracefully salute him
A noble company: what are their pleasures?81
To tell your grace: that having heard by fame83
Of this so noble and so fair assembly
85 This night to meet here, they could do no less,
Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,
But leave their flocks, and under your fair conduct,87
Crave leave to view these ladies, and entreat
An hour of revels89 with ’em.
They have done my poor house grace; for which I pay ’em
A thousand thanks, and pray ’em take their pleasures.
[The Masquers] choose Ladies [for the dance]. [The] King [chooses] Anne Bullen
Till now I never knew thee!
Music. [They] dance
There should be one amongst ’em, by his person,
More worthy this99 place than myself, to whom,
100 If I but100 knew him, with my love and duty
I would surrender it.
[He talks in a] whisper [to the Masquers]
105 There is indeed, which they would have your grace
Find out, and he will take it.106
By all your good leaves, gentlemen, here I’ll make
My royal choice.
You hold a fair111 assembly: you do well, lord.
You112 are a churchman, or I’ll tell you, cardinal,
I should judge now unhappily.
115 Your grace is grown so pleasant.115
Prithee117 come hither: what fair lady’s that?
The Viscount Rochford — one of her highness’ women.119
I were unmannerly to take you out121
And not to kiss you. A health,122 gentlemen: He drinks
Let it go round.
125 I’th’privy chamber?125
I fear, with dancing is a little heated.128
In the next chamber.
I must not yet forsake133 you:— let’s be merry, To Cardinal Wolsey
Good my lord cardinal: I have half a dozen healths
135 To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure135
To lead ’em once again, and then let’s dream136
Who’s best in favour.137 Let the music knock it.
Exeunt with Trumpets
Enter two Gentlemen at several doors
Ev’n to the hall,3 to hear what shall become
Of the great Duke of Buckingham.
That labour, sir. All’s now done but the ceremony
Of bringing back the prisoner.
Came to the bar, where to his accusations18
He pleaded still19 not guilty, and alleged
20 Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.20
The king’s attorney, on the contrary,
Urged on the examinations,22 proofs, confessions
Of divers23 witnesses, which the duke desired
To him brought24 viva voce to his face:
25 At which appeared against him his surveyor,
Sir Gilbert Perk his chancellor, and John Car,
Confessor to him, with that devil monk,
Hopkins, that made this mischief.
30 That fed him with his prophecies.
All these accused him strongly, which he fain32
Would have flung from him, but indeed he could not:
And so his peers, upon this evidence,
35 Have found him guilty of high treason. Much
He spoke, and learnedly, for life, but all
Was either pitied in him37 or forgotten.
40 His knell40 rung out, his judgement, he was stirred
With such an agony, he sweat41 extremely,
And something spoke in choler,42 ill and hasty:
But he fell43 to himself again, and sweetly
In all the rest showed a most noble patience.
He never was so womanish: the cause
He may a little grieve at.
50 The cardinal is the end50 of this.
By all conjectures: first, Kildare’s attainder,52
Then deputy53 of Ireland, who, removed,
Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,
55 Lest he should help his father.55
Was a deep envious57 one.
No doubt he will requite59 it: this is noted,
60 And generally,60 whoever the king favours,
The card’nal instantly will find employment,
And far enough from court too.
Hate him perniciously64 and, o’my conscience,
65 Wish him ten fathom deep: this duke as much
They love and dote on, call him ‘bounteous Buckingham,
The mirror67 of all courtesy’—
Enter Buckingham from his arraignment, Tipstaves before him, the axe with the edge towards him, Halberds on each side, accompanied with Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Nicholas Vaux, Sir William Sands, and Common People etc.
And see the noble ruined man you speak of.
You that thus far have come to pity me:
Hear what I say, and then go home and lose73 me.
I have this day received a traitor’s judgement,74
75 And by that name must die: yet heaven bear witness,
And if I have a conscience, let it sink76 me,
Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful.
The law I bear no malice for my death,
’T has done upon the premises,79 but justice:
80 But those that sought it I could wish more80 Christians:
Be what they will, I heartily forgive ’em:
Yet let ’em look82 they glory not in mischief,
Nor build their evils83 on the graves of great men,
For then my guiltless blood must cry against ’em.
85 For further life in this world I ne’er hope,
Nor will I sue,86 although the king have mercies
More87 than I dare make faults. You few that loved me,
And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,
His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave
90 Is only90 bitter to him, only dying:
Go with me like good angels to my end,
And as the long divorce92 of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,93
And lift my soul to heaven.— Lead on, i’God’s name. To Lovell
If ever any malice in your heart
Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.
As I would be forgiven: I forgive all.
100 There cannot be those numberless offences
Gainst me that I cannot take101 peace with: no black envy
Shall make my grave. Commend me to his grace:
And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him
You met him half in heaven: my vows and prayers
105 Yet105 are the king’s, and, till my soul forsake,
Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live
Longer than I have time to tell107 his years:
Ever beloved and loving may his rule be:
And when old109 time shall lead him to his end,
110 Goodness and he fill up one monument.110
Then give my charge112 up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,
Who undertakes113 you to your end.
115 The duke is coming: see the barge be ready,
And fit it with such furniture116 as suits
The greatness of his person.
Let it alone: my state119 now will but mock me.
120 When I came hither, I was Lord High Constable
And Duke of Buckingham: now, poor Edward Bohun:
Yet I am richer than my base122 accusers,
That never knew what truth123 meant. I now seal it,
And with that blood will make ’em one day groan for’t.
125 My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,
Who first raised head126 against usurping Richard,
Flying for succour to his servant Banister,
Being distressed, was by that wretch betrayed,
And without trial fell: God’s peace be with him.
130 Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying
My father’s loss, like a most royal prince,
Restored me to my honours, and out of ruins
Made my name once more noble. Now his son,
Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name and all
135 That made me happy, at one stroke135 has taken
For ever from the world. I had my trial,
And must needs say a noble one, which makes me
A little happier138 than my wretched father:
Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both
140 Fell by our servants, by those men we loved most:
A most unnatural and faithless service.
Heaven has an end142 in all: yet, you that hear me,
This from143 a dying man receive as certain:
Where you are liberal of144 your loves and counsels,
145 Be sure you be not loose:145 for those you make friends
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub147 in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again
But149 where they mean to sink ye. All good people,
150 Pray for me. I must now forsake ye: the last hour
Of my long weary life is come upon me. Farewell:
And when you would say something that is sad,
Speak how I fell. I have done, and God forgive me.
Exeunt Duke and train
155 I fear, too many curses on their heads
That were the authors.156
’Tis full of woe: yet I can give you inkling
Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,159
160 Greater than this.
What may it be? You do not doubt my faith,162 sir?
A strong faith to conceal it.
I do not talk much.
You shall,168 sir: did you not of late days hear
A buzzing169 of a separation
170 Between the king and Katherine?
For when the king once heard it, out of anger
He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight173
To stop the rumour, and allay174 those tongues
175 That durst disperse it.
Is found a truth now: for it grows again
Fresher than e’er it was, and held for178 certain
The king will venture at it.179 Either the cardinal,
180 Or some about him near,180 have, out of malice
To the good queen, possessed181 him with a scruple
That will undo her: to confirm this too,
Cardinal Campeius183 is arrived, and lately,
As all think, for this business.
And merely to revenge him on the emperor186
For not bestowing on him at his asking
The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purposed.188
190 That she should feel the smart190 of this? The cardinal
Will have his will, and she must fall.
We are too open193 here to argue this:
Let’s think in private more.
Exeunt
Enter Lord Chamberlain, reading this letter
Enter to the Lord Chamberlain the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk
Full of sad12 thoughts and troubles.
15 Has crept too near his conscience.
Has crept too near another lady.
This is the cardinal’s doing: the king-cardinal,
20 That blind20 priest, like the eldest son of fortune,
Turns what he list.21 The king will know him one day.
And with what zeal! For now he has cracked the league
25 Between us and the emperor, the queen’s great-nephew,
He dives into the king’s soul, and there scatters
Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,
Fears, and despairs, and all these for his marriage.
And out of all these, to restore the king,
30 He counsels a divorce, a loss of her
That like a jewel has hung twenty years
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre:
Of her that loves him with that excellence
That angels love good men with: even of her
35 That when the greatest stroke of fortune falls
Will bless the king: and is not this course pious?
These news are everywhere, every tongue speaks ’em,
And every true heart weeps for’t. All that dare
40 Look into these affairs see this main end:40
The French king’s sister.41 Heaven will one day open
The king’s eyes, that so long have slept upon42
This bold43 bad man.
And heartily, for our deliverance,
Or this imperious man will work us all
From princes into pages: all men’s honours
Lie like one lump49 before him, to be fashioned
50 Into what pitch50 he please.
I love him not, nor fear him: there’s my creed:
As I am made53 without him, so I’ll stand,
If the king please: his curses and his blessings
55 Touch me alike: they’re breath55 I not believe in.
I knew him, and I know him: so I leave him
To him that made him proud: the Pope.
And with some other business put the king
60 From these sad thoughts, that work too much upon him:
My lord, you’ll bear us company?
The king has sent me otherwhere:63 besides,
You’ll find a most unfit time to disturb him:
65 Health to your lordships.
Exit Lord Chamberlain, and the King [Henry] draws the curtain and sits reading pensively
Into my private meditations?
Who am I? Ha?
Malice ne’er meant: our breach of duty this way74
75 Is business of estate,75 in which we come
To know your royal pleasure.
Go to:78 I’ll make ye know your times of business:
Is this an hour for temporal79 affairs? Ha?
Enter [Cardinal] Wolsey and [Cardinal] Campeius with a commission
80 Who’s there? My good lord cardinal? O my Wolsey,
The quiet81 of my wounded conscience:
Thou art a cure82 fit for a king.— You’re welcome, To Cardinal Campeius
Most learnèd reverend sir, into our kingdom:
Use us and it.— My good lord, have great care To Cardinal Wolsey
85 I be not found a talker.85
I would your grace would give us but an hour
Of private conference.
I would not be so sick92 though for his place:
But this cannot continue.
95 I’ll venture one have-at-him.95
Exeunt Norfolk and Suffolk
Above all princes, in committing freely
Your scruple99 to the voice of Christendom:
100 Who can be angry now? What envy100 reach you?
The Spaniard,101 tied by blood and favour to her,
Must now confess,102 if they have any goodness,
The trial just and noble. All the clerks,103
I mean the learnèd ones in Christian kingdoms,
105 Have105 their free voices. Rome, the nurse of judgement,
Invited by your noble self, hath sent
One general tongue107 unto us: this good man,
This just and learnèd priest, Card’nal Campeius,
Whom once more I present unto your highness.
And thank the holy conclave111 for their loves:
They have sent me such a man I would have wished for.
You are so noble: to your highness’ hand
115 I tender115 my commission, by whose virtue,
The court of Rome commanding, you my lord
Cardinal of York, are joined with me their servant
In the unpartial118 judging of this business.
120 Forthwith for what you come. Where’s Gardiner?
So dear in heart, not to deny her that122
A woman of less place123 might ask by law:
Scholars allowed freely to argue for her.
To him that does best, God forbid else. Cardinal,
Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary.
I find him a fit128 fellow. Cardinal Wolsey calls Gardiner
Enter Gardiner
130 You are the king’s now. Aside to Gardiner
For ever by your grace, whose hand has raised me.
[The King] walks and whispers [with Gardiner]
135 In this man’s place before him?
140 Even of yourself, lord cardinal.
And fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,
Kept144 him a foreign man still, which so grieved him,
145 That he ran mad and died.
That’s Christian care enough: for living murmurers147
There’s places of rebuke. He was a fool,
For he would needs be virtuous. That good fellow,
150 If I command him, follows my appointment:150
I will have none151 so near else. Learn this, brother,
We live not to be griped152 by meaner persons.
Exit Gardiner
The most convenient place that I can think of
155 For155 such receipt of learning is Blackfriars:
There ye shall meet about this weighty business.
My Wolsey, see it furnished.157 O, my lord,
Would it not grieve an able158 man to leave
So sweet a bedfellow?159 But, conscience, conscience:
160 O, ’tis a tender place, and I must leave her.
Exeunt
Enter Anne Bullen and an Old Lady
His highness having lived so long with her, and she
So good a lady that no tongue could ever
Pronounce4 dishonour of her — by my life,
5 She never knew harm-doing — O, now, after
So many courses6 of the sun enthroned,
Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which
To leave a thousandfold more bitter than
’Tis sweet at first to acquire — after this process,9
10 To give her the avaunt,10 it is a pity
Would move a monster.
Melt and lament for her.
15 She ne’er had known pomp: though’t be temporal,15
Yet, if that quarrel,16 fortune, do divorce
It from the bearer, ’tis a sufferance panging17
As soul and body’s severing.
20 She’s a stranger20 now again.
Must pity drop upon her: verily,
I swear, ’tis better to be lowly born,
And range24 with humble livers in content,
25 Than to be perked up25 in a glist’ring grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
Is our best having.28
30 I would not be a queen.
And venture maidenhead for’t, and so would you,
For all this spice33 of your hypocrisy:
You, that have so fair parts34 of woman on you,
35 Have, too, a woman’s heart, which ever yet
Affected36 eminence, wealth, sovereignty:
Which, to say sooth,37 are blessings: and which gifts,
Saving38 your mincing, the capacity
Of your soft cheverel39 conscience would receive,
40 If you might please to stretch it.
45 Old as I am, to queen it:45 but, I pray you,
What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs
To bear47 that load of title?
50 I would not be a young count50 in your way,
For51 more than blushing comes to: if your back
Cannot vouchsafe52 this burden, ’tis too weak
Ever to get53 a boy.
55 I swear again, I would not be a queen
For all the world.
You’d venture an emballing:58 I myself
Would for Caernarvonshire,59 although there longed
60 No more to th’crown but that. Lo, who comes here?
Enter Lord Chamberlain
The secret of your conference?62
Not your demand: it values not64 your asking:
65 Our mistress’ sorrows we were pitying.
The action of good women: there is hope
All will be well.
Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,
Perceive I speak sincerely, and high note’s
Ta’en of your many virtues: the king’s majesty
Commends74 his good opinion of you, and
75 Does purpose75 honour to you no less flowing
Than Marchioness of Pembroke: to which title
A thousand pound a year, annual support,
Out of his grace78 he adds.
80 What kind80 of my obedience I should tender:
More81 than my all is nothing: nor my prayers
Are not words duly hallowed,82 nor my wishes
More83 worth than empty vanities: yet prayers and wishes
Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,
85 Vouchsafe85 to speak my thanks and my obedience,
As from a blushing handmaid to his highness,
Whose health and royalty I pray for.
I shall not fail t’approve89 the fair conceit
90 The king hath of you.— I have perused90 her well: Aside
Beauty and honour in her are so mingled
That they have caught the king: and who knows yet
But from this lady may proceed a gem93
To lighten94 all this isle.— I’ll to the king To Anne
95 And say I spoke with you.
Exit Lord Chamberlain
I have been begging sixteen years in court,
Am yet a courtier beggarly,99 nor could
100 Come100 pat betwixt too early and too late
For any suit of pounds,101 and you — O fate! —
A very fresh102 fish here — fie, fie, fie upon
This compelled103 fortune! — have your mouth filled up
Before you open it.
There was a lady once, ’tis an old story,
That would not be a queen,108 that would she not
For all the mud109 in Egypt: have you heard it?
O’ermount112 the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke?
A thousand pounds a year for pure respect?
No other obligation? By my life,
115 That promises more thousands: honour’s115 train
Is longer than his foreskirt: by this time
I know your117 back will bear a duchess. Say,
Are you not stronger than you were?
120 Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,120
And leave me out on’t.121 Would I had no being
If this salute122 my blood a jot: it faints me,
To think what follows.
The queen is comfortless, and we forgetful
125 In our long absence: pray, do not deliver125
What here you’ve heard to her.
Exeunt
Trumpets, sennet and cornets. Enter two Vergers, with short silver wands; next them two Scribes in the habit of doctors [and a Crier]: after them, the [Arch]bishop of Canterbury alone: after him, the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Rochester and St Asaph: next them, with some small distance, follows a Gentleman bearing the purse, with the great seal, and a cardinal’s hat: then two Priests, bearing each a silver cross: then a Gentleman-usher bare-headed, accompanied with a Sergeant-at-arms, bearing a silver mace: then two Gentlemen bearing two great silver pillars: after them, side by side, the two Cardinals [Wolsey and Campeius], two Noblemen, with the sword and mace. The King [Henry] takes place under the cloth of state. The two Cardinals sit under him as judges. The Queen [Katherine, attended by Griffith] takes place some distance from the King. The Bishops place themselves on each side the court in manner of a consistory: below them, the Scribes. The Lords sit next the Bishops. The rest of the Attendants stand in convenient order about the stage
Let silence be commanded.
It hath already publicly been read,
5 And on all sides th’authority allowed:5
You may then spare that time.
The Queen makes no answer, rises out of her chair, goes about the court, comes to the King, and kneels at his feet: then speaks
And to bestow your pity on me, for
15 I am a most poor woman, and a stranger,15
Born out of your dominions, having here
No judge indifferent,17 nor no more assurance
Of equal18 friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,
In what have I offended you? What cause
20 Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure,
That thus you should proceed21 to put me off,
And take your good grace22 from me? Heaven witness,
I have been to you a true and humble wife,
At all times to your will conformable,24
25 Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,25
Yea, subject to your countenance,26 glad or sorry,
As I saw it inclined. When was the hour
I ever contradicted your desire,
Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends
30 Have I not strove to love, although I knew
He were mine enemy? What friend of mine,
That had to him derived32 your anger, did I
Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice
He was from thence discharged? Sir, call to mind
35 That I have been your wife, in this obedience,
Upward of twenty years, and have been blessed
With many children37 by you. If, in the course
And process of this time, you can report,
And prove it too, against mine honour39 aught,
40 My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty
Against41 your sacred person, in God’s name,
Turn me away, and let the foul’st contempt
Shut door upon me, and so give me up
To the sharp’st kind of justice. Please you, sir,
45 The king your father was reputed for
A prince most prudent, of an excellent
And unmatched wit47 and judgement. Ferdinand
My father, King of Spain, was reckoned one
The wisest48 prince that there had reigned by many
50 A year before. It is not to be questioned
That they had gathered a wise council to them
Of every realm, that did debate this business,
Who deemed our marriage lawful. Wherefore53 I humbly
Beseech you, sir, to spare me, till I may
55 Be by my friends in Spain advised, whose counsel
I will implore. If not, i’th’name of God,
Your pleasure be fulfilled.
And of your choice, these reverend fathers,59 men
60 Of singular integrity and learning,
Yea, the elect61 o’th’land, who are assembled
To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless62
That longer63 you desire the court, as well
For your own quiet,64 as to rectify
65 What is unsettled in the king.
Hath spoken well and justly: therefore, madam,
It’s fit this royal session68 do proceed,
And that, without delay, their arguments
70 Be now produced and heard.
To you I speak.
75 I am about to weep: but, thinking that
We are a queen, or long have dreamed so, certain76
The daughter of a king, my drops of tears
I’ll turn to sparks of fire.
Or God will punish me. I do believe,
Induced by potent circumstances, that
You are mine enemy, and make my challenge83
You shall not be my judge. For it is you
85 Have blown this coal85 betwixt my lord and me,
Which God’s dew quench. Therefore, I say again,
I utterly abhor,87 yea, from my soul,
Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more
I hold my most malicious foe, and think not
90 At all a friend to truth.
You speak not like yourself, who ever yet
Have stood to93 charity, and displayed th’effects
Of disposition gentle, and of wisdom
95 O’ertopping woman’s power. Madam, you do me wrong:
I have no spleen96 against you, nor injustice
For you or any: how far I have proceeded,
Or how far further shall, is warranted
By a commission from the consistory,
100 Yea, the whole consistory of Rome. You charge me
That I have blown this coal: I do deny it:
The king is present: if it be known to him
That I gainsay103 my deed, how may he wound,
And worthily,104 my falsehood: yea, as much
105 As you have done my truth. If he know
That I am free106 of your report, he knows
I am not of your wrong.107 Therefore in him
It lies to cure me, and the cure is to
Remove these thoughts from you: the which before
110 His highness shall speak in,110 I do beseech
You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking
And to say so no more.
I am a simple woman, much too weak
115 T’oppose your cunning. You’re meek and humble-mouthed:
You sign116 your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility: but your heart
Is crammed with arrogancy, spleen and pride.
You have by fortune and his highness’ favours,
120 Gone slightly120 o’er low steps, and now are mounted
Where powers121 are your retainers, and your words,
Domestics122 to you, serve your will as’t please
Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you,
You tender124 more your person’s honour than
125 Your high profession spiritual, that125 again
I do refuse you for my judge, and here,
Before you all, appeal unto the Pope,
To bring my whole cause128 ’fore his holiness,
And to be judged by him.
She curtsies to the King, and offers to depart
Stubborn131 to justice, apt to accuse it, and
Disdainful to be tried by’t: ’tis not well.
She’s going away.
When you are called, return. Now the Lord help:
They vex me past my patience. Pray you, pass on:
140 I will not tarry:140 no, nor ever more
Upon this business my appearance make
In any of their courts.
Exeunt Queen and her Attendants
That man i’th’world who shall report he has
145 A better wife, let him in naught be trusted
For speaking false in that: thou art alone —
If thy rare147 qualities, sweet gentleness,
Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,148
Obeying in commanding,149 and thy parts
150 Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out150 —
The queen of earthly queens: she’s noble born:
And like her true nobility, she has
Carried153 herself towards me.
155 In humblest manner I require155 your highness,
That it shall please you to declare in hearing
Of all these ears — for where I am robbed and bound,
There must I be unloosed, although not there
At once and fully satisfied159 — whether ever I
160 Did broach this business to your highness, or
Laid any scruple in your way, which might
Induce you to the question on’t, or ever
Have to you, but with thanks to God for such
A royal lady, spake one the least word that might
165 Be to the prejudice165 of her present state,
Or touch166 of her good person?
I do excuse168 you: yea, upon mine honour,
I free you169 from’t: you are not to be taught
170 That you have many enemies, that know not
Why they are so, but like to village curs,171
Bark when their fellows do. By some of these
The queen is put in anger. You’re excused:
But will you be more justified? You ever
175 Have wished the sleeping of this business, never desired
It to be stirred, but oft have hindered, oft,
The passages177 made toward it: on my honour,
I speak178 my good lord card’nal to this point,
And thus far clear him. Now, what moved me to’t,
180 I will be bold with time and your attention:
Then mark th’inducement.181 Thus it came: give heed to’t:
My conscience first received a tenderness,182
Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches uttered
By th’Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,
185 Who had been hither sent on the debating
A marriage ’twixt186 the Duke of Orléans and
Our daughter Mary: i’th’progress of this business,
Ere a determinate resolution,188 he,
I mean the bishop, did require a respite,
190 Wherein he might the king his lord advertise190
Whether our daughter were legitimate,
Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,192
Sometimes193 our brother’s wife. This respite shook
The bosom of my conscience, entered me,
195 Yea, with a spitting195 power, and made to tremble
The region of my breast, which forced such way,
That many mazed considerings197 did throng
And pressed in with this caution. First, methought
I stood not in the smile199 of heaven, who had
200 Commanded nature that my lady’s womb,
If it conceived a male child by me, should
Do no more offices202 of life to’t than
The grave does to th’dead: for her male issue
Or204 died where they were made, or shortly after
205 This205 world had aired them. Hence I took a thought,
This was a judgement on me, that my kingdom,
Well worthy the best heir o’th’world, should not
Be gladded208 in’t by me. Then follows that
I weighed the danger which my realms stood in
210 By this my issue’s210 fail, and that gave to me
Many a groaning throe:211 thus hulling in
The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer
Toward this remedy, whereupon we are
Now present here together: that’s to say,
215 I meant to rectify my conscience, which
I then did feel full216 sick, and yet not well,
By all the reverend fathers of the land
And doctors218 learned. First I began in private
With you, my lord of Lincoln: you remember
220 How under my oppression220 I did reek
When I first moved221 you.
How far you satisfied224 me.
The question did at first so stagger me,
Bearing227 a state of mighty moment in’t
And consequence of dread, that I committed228
The daring’st counsel which I had to doubt,
230 And did entreat your highness to this course
Which you are running here.
My lord of Canterbury, and got your leave
To make this present summons: unsolicited
235 I left no reverend person in this court,
But by particular236 consent proceeded
Under237 your hands and seals: therefore, go on:
For no dislike i’th’world against the person
Of the good queen, but the sharp thorny points
240 Of my alleged reasons, drives this forward:
Prove but241 our marriage lawful, by my life
And kingly dignity, we are contented
To wear243 our mortal state to come with her,
Katherine our queen, before the primest244 creature
245 That’s paragoned245 o’th’world.
The queen being absent, ’tis a needful fitness247
That we adjourn this court till further248 day:
Meanwhile must be an earnest motion249
250 Made to the queen, to call back her appeal
She intends unto his holiness.251
These cardinals trifle with me: I abhor
This dilatory254 sloth and tricks of Rome.
255 My learned and well-belovèd servant, Cranmer,
Prithee return:256 with thy approach, I know,
My comfort comes along.— Break up the court: Aloud
I say, set258 on.
Exeunt in manner as they entered
Enter Queen [Katherine] and her Women, as at work One with a lute
Sing, and disperse ’em, if thou canst: leave2 working.
And the mountain tops that freeze,
5 Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as7 sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
10 Even the billows10 of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay11 by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing13 care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
Enter [Griffith] a Gentleman
Wait in the presence.17
To come near.
[Exit Griffith]
What can be their business
With me, a poor weak woman, fall’n from favour?
I do not like their coming: now I think on’t,
They should be good men, their affairs as righteous:24
25 But all hoods make not monks.
Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius
I would be all,28 against the worst may happen.
What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?
Into your private chamber: we shall give you
The full cause of our coming.
There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,
35 Deserves a corner:35 would all other women
Could speak this with as free36 a soul as I do.
My lords, I care not, so much I am happy37
Above a number,38 if my actions
Were tried by ev’ry tongue, ev’ry eye saw ’em,
40 Envy40 and base opinion set against ’em,
I know my life so even.41 If your business
Seek me out, and that42 way I am wife in,
Out with it boldly: truth loves open dealing.
I am not such a truant46 since my coming,
As not to know the language I have lived in:
A strange48 tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious:
Pray, speak in English: here are some will thank you,
50 If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake:
Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord cardinal,
The willing’st52 sin I ever yet committed
May be absolved in English.
55 I am sorry my integrity should breed,
And service to his majesty and you,
So deep suspicion, where all57 faith was meant:
We come not by the way58 of accusation,
To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,
60 Nor to betray you any way to sorrow:
You have too much, good lady: but to know
How you stand minded62 in the weighty difference
Between the king and you, and to deliver,
Like free64 and honest men, our just opinions
65 And comforts to your cause.
My lord of York, out of his noble nature,
Zeal and obedience he still bore your grace,
Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure
70 Both of his truth and him, which was too far,
Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
His service and his counsel.
My lords, I thank you both for your good wills: Aloud
75 Ye speak like honest men:— pray God ye prove so. Aside?
But how to make ye suddenly76 an answer
In such a point of weight, so near mine honour —
More near my life, I fear — with my weak wit,78
And to such men of gravity and learning:
80 In truth I know not. I was set80 at work
Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking81
Either for such men or such business:
For her83 sake that I have been — for I feel
The last fit84 of my greatness — good your graces,
85 Let me have time and counsel for my cause:
Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless.
Your hopes and friends are infinite.
90 But little for my profit:90 can you think, lords,
That any Englishman dare give me counsel?
Or be a known friend gainst his highness’ pleasure,
Though he be grown so desperate93 to be honest,
And live94 a subject? Nay forsooth, my friends,
95 They that must weigh out95 my afflictions,
They that my trust must grow to, live not here:
They are, as all my other comforts, far hence
In mine own country, lords.
100 Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.
He’s loving and most gracious. ’Twill be much
Both for your honour better and your cause:
105 For if the trial of the law o’ertake ye,
You’ll part away106 disgraced.
Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye.109
110 Heaven is above all yet: there sits a judge
That no king can corrupt.
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues:114
115 But cardinal115 sins and hollow hearts I fear ye:
Mend ’em for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?
The cordial117 that ye bring a wretched lady?
A woman lost among ye, laughed at, scorned?
I will not wish ye half my miseries:
120 I have more charity. But say I warned ye:
Take heed, for heaven’s sake, take heed, lest at121 once
The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.
You turn the good we offer into envy.124
And all such false professors.126 Would you have me —
If you have any justice, any pity,
If ye be anything but churchmen’s habits128 —
Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
130 Alas, he’s banished me his130 bed already,
His love, too long ago. I am old, my lords,
And all the fellowship132 I hold now with him
Is only my obedience. What can happen
To me above134 this wretchedness? All your studies
135 Make me a curse like this.
Since virtue finds no friends — a wife, a true one?
A woman, I dare say without vainglory,139
140 Never yet branded with suspicion?
Have I with all my full141 affections
Still142 met the king? Loved him next heaven? Obeyed him?
Been, out of fondness,143 superstitious to him?
Almost forgot my prayers to content him?
145 And am I thus rewarded? ’Tis not well, lords.
Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
One that ne’er dreamed a joy beyond his pleasure,
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honour, a great patience.
To give up willingly that noble title
Your master wed me to: nothing but death
Shall e’er divorce my dignities.154
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it:
Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
What will become of me now, wretched lady?
160 I am the most unhappy woman living.
Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes?
Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me?
Almost no grave allowed me? Like the lily
165 That once was mistress of the field and flourished,
I’ll hang my head and perish.
Could but be brought to know our ends168 are honest,
You’d feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
170 Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,170
The way of our profession is against it:
We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em.
For goodness’ sake, consider what you do,
How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly
175 Grow from the king’s acquaintance, by this carriage.175
The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
So much they love it, but to stubborn spirits
They swell and grow as terrible as storms.
I know you have a gentle, noble temper,179
180 A soul as even180 as a calm: pray think us
Those we profess: peacemakers, friends and servants.
With these weak women’s fears. A noble spirit,
As yours was put into you, ever casts184
185 Such doubts as false coin from it. The king loves you:
Beware you lose it not: for us, if you please
To trust us in your business, we are ready
To use our utmost studies188 in your service.
190 If I have used190 myself unmannerly.
You know I am a woman, lacking wit
To make a seemly answer to such persons.
Pray do my service193 to his majesty:
He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers
195 While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
Bestow your counsels on me. She now begs,
That197 little thought, when she set footing here,
She should have bought her dignities so dear.
Exeunt
Enter the Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Suffolk, Lord Surrey and Lord Chamberlain
And force2 them with a constancy, the cardinal
Cannot stand under them. If you omit3
The offer of this time, I cannot promise
5 But that you shall sustain more new disgraces,
With these you bear already.
To meet the least occasion that may give me
Remembrance of my father-in-law the duke,9
10 To be revenged on him.10
Have uncontemned12 gone by him, or at least
Strangely neglected?13 When did he regard
The stamp of nobleness in any person
15 Out15 of himself?
What he deserves of you and me I know:
What we can do to him, though now the time
Gives way19 to us, I much fear. If you cannot
20 Bar his access to th’king, never attempt
Anything on him: for he hath a witchcraft
Over the king in’s22 tongue.
His spell in that is out:24 the king hath found
25 Matter against him that forever mars
The honey of his language. No, he’s26 settled,
Not to come off,27 in his displeasure.
I should be glad to hear such news as this
30 Once every hour.
In the divorce his contrary32 proceedings
Are all unfolded,33 wherein he appears
As I would wish mine enemy.
His practices36 to light?
40 And came to th’eye o’th’king, wherein was read
How that the cardinal did entreat his holiness
To stay42 the judgment o’th’divorce, for if
It did take place, ‘I do’, quoth he, ‘perceive
My king is tangled in affection to
45 A creature45 of the queen’s, Lady Anne Bullen.’
50 And hedges his own way. But in this point
All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic51
After his patient’s death: the king already
Hath married the fair lady.
For I profess you have it.
Trace the conjunction.58
Marry,62 this is yet but young, and may be left
To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,
She is a gallant64 creature, and complete
65 In mind and feature. I persuade me,65 from her
Will fall66 some blessing to this land, which shall
In it be memorized.67
Digest69 this letter of the cardinal’s?
70 The Lord forbid!
There be more wasps that buzz about his nose
Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius
75 Is stol’n away to Rome: hath ta’en no leave:
Has left the cause76 o’th’king unhandled, and
Is posted77 as the agent of our cardinal
To second all his plot. I do assure you
The king cried ‘Ha!’ at this.
And let him cry ‘Ha!’ louder.
When returns Cranmer?
85 Have satisfied the king for his divorce,
Together with all famous colleges
Almost in Christendom: shortly, I believe,
His second marriage shall be published,88 and
Her coronation. Katherine no more
90 Shall be called ‘Queen’, but ‘Princess Dowager’
And ‘widow to Prince Arthur’.
A worthy fellow, and hath ta’en much pain
In the king’s business.
For it an archbishop.
Enter [Cardinal] Wolsey and Cromwell
The cardinal.
O’th’inside of the paper?
He did unseal them, and the first he viewed,
He did it with a serious mind: a heed107
Was in his countenance. You he bade
Attend him here this morning.
To come abroad?111
Exit Cromwell
It shall be to the Duchess of Alençon, Aside
115 The French king’s sister: he shall marry her.
Anne Bullen? No, I’ll no Anne Bullens for him:
There’s more in’t than fair visage.117 Bullen?
No, we’ll no Bullens. Speedily I wish
To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke?
Does whet his anger to him.
Lord, for thy justice.
To be her mistress’ mistress? The queen’s queen?
This candle burns not clear:127 ’tis I must snuff it,
Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous
And well deserving? Yet I know her for
130 A spleeny Lutheran,130 and not wholesome to
Our cause, that she should lie i’th’bosom of131
Our hard-ruled132 king. Again, there is sprung up
An heretic, an arch-one:133 Cranmer, one
Hath134 crawled into the favour of the king,
135 And is his oracle.
Enter King [Henry], reading of a schedule [and Lovell]
The master-cord138 on’s heart!
To his own portion?141 And what expense by th’hour
Seems to flow from him? How i’th’name of thrift
Does he rake this together?— Now, my lords, Aloud
Saw you the cardinal?
Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion146
Is in his brain: he bites his lip, and starts,
Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,
Then lays his finger on his temple, straight149
150 Springs out into fast gait, then stops again,
Strikes his breast hard, and anon he casts
His eye against152 the moon: in most strange postures
We have seen him set himself.
155 There is a mutiny in’s mind. This morning
Papers of state he sent me to peruse,
As I required: and wot157 you what I found
There, on my conscience put unwittingly?
Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing159
160 The several parcels160 of his plate, his treasure,
Rich stuffs161 and ornaments of household, which
I find at such proud rate,162 that it outspeaks
Possession of a subject.
165 Some spirit put this paper in the packet,
To bless your eye withal.166
His contemplation168 were above the earth,
And fixed on spiritual object, he should169 still
170 Dwell in his musings: but I am afraid
His thinkings are below171 the moon, not worth
His serious considering.
King takes his seat; [and] whispers [with] Lovell, who goes to the Cardinal
Ever God bless your highness. To the King
You are full of heavenly stuff,176 and bear the inventory
Of your best graces177 in your mind, the which
You were now running o’er: you have scarce time
To steal from spiritual leisure179 a brief span
180 To keep180 your earthly audit: sure, in that
I deem you an ill husband,181 and am glad
To have you therein my companion.
For holy offices I have a time: a time
185 To think upon the part of business which
I bear i’th’state: and nature does require
Her times of preservation,187 which perforce
I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
Must give my tendance189 to.
As I will lend you cause, my doing well
With my well saying.
195 And ’tis a kind of good deed to say well:
And yet words are no deeds. My father loved you:
He said he did, and with his deed did crown197
His word upon you. Since I had my office,
I have kept you next my heart, have not alone199
200 Employed you where high profits might come home,
But pared201 my present havings, to bestow
My bounties upon you.
The prime206 man of the state? I pray you tell me
If what I now pronounce207 you have found true:
And if you may confess it, say withal208
If you are bound to us or no. What say you?
Showered on me daily, have been more than could211
My studied purposes requite, which went
Beyond all man’s endeavours. My endeavours
Have ever come too short of my desires,
215 Yet filed215 with my abilities: mine own ends
Have been mine so216 that evermore they pointed
To th’good of your most sacred person and
The profit of the state. For your great graces
Heaped upon me, poor undeserver, I
220 Can nothing render but allegiant220 thanks,
My prayers to heaven for you, my loyalty,
Which ever has and ever shall be growing,
Till death, that winter, kill it.
225 A loyal and obedient subject is
The rein illustrated: the226 honour of it
Does pay the act of it, as i’th’contrary
The foulness228 is the punishment. I presume
That as my hand has opened bounty to you,
230 My heart dropped love, my power rained honour, more
On you than any: so your hand and heart,
Your brain, and every function of your power,232
Should, notwithstanding233 that your bond of duty,
As ’twere in love’s particular,234 be more
235 To me, your friend, than any.
That for your highness’ good I ever laboured
More than mine own: that238 am, have and will be —
Though all the world should crack239 their duty to you,
240 And throw it from their soul: though perils did
Abound, as thick as thought could make ’em, and
Appear in forms more horrid242 — yet my duty,
As doth a rock against the chiding243 flood,
Should the approach of this wild river break,244
245 And stand unshaken yours.
Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,
For you have seen him open’t. Read o’er this, Gives Wolsey a paper
And after, this, and then to breakfast with Gives him another paper
250 What appetite you have.
Exit King, frowning upon the Cardinal, the Nobles throng
after him, smiling and whispering
What sudden anger’s this? How have I reaped it?
He parted frowning from me, as if ruin
Leaped from his eyes. So looks the chafèd254 lion
255 Upon the daring huntsman that has galled255 him:
Then makes him nothing.256 I must read this paper:
I fear the story257 of his anger.— ’Tis so: He reads one of the papers
This paper has undone258 me: ’tis the account
Of all that world259 of wealth I have drawn together
260 For mine own ends — indeed, to gain the popedom,
And fee261 my friends in Rome. O negligence,
Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross262 devil
Made me put this main263 secret in the packet
I sent the king? Is there no way to cure this?
265 No new device265 to beat this from his brains?
I know ’twill stir266 him strongly. Yet I know
A way, if it take right,267 in spite of fortune
Will bring me off268 again. What’s this? ‘To th’Pope’?
The letter, as I live, with all the business
270 I writ to’s holiness. Nay then, farewell:
I have touched the highest point of all my greatness,
And from that full meridian272 of my glory,
I haste now to my setting.273 I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation274 in the evening,
275 And no man see me more.
Enter to Wolsey, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlain
To render up the great seal presently277
Into our hands, and to confine yourself
To Asher279 House, my lord of Winchester’s,
280 Till you hear further from his highness.
Where’s your commission,282 lords? Words cannot carry
Authority so weighty.
285 Bearing the king’s will from his mouth expressly?
I mean your malice — know, officious lords,
I dare and must deny it. Now I feel
Of what coarse metal289 ye are moulded: envy.
290 How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,
As if it fed ye, and how sleek291 and wanton
Ye appear in everything may bring my ruin!
Follow your envious courses, men of malice:
You have Christian warrant for ’em, and no doubt
295 In time will find their fit rewards.295 That seal
You ask with such a violence, the king,
Mine and your master, with his own hand gave me:
Bade me enjoy298 it, with the place and honours,
During my life: and to confirm his goodness,
300 Tied300 it by letters patents. Now, who’ll take it?
305 Within these forty hours305 Surrey durst better
Have burnt that tongue than said so.
Thou scarlet sin,308 robbed this bewailing land
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law:
310 The heads of all thy brother cardinals,
With thee, and all thy best parts311 bound together,
Weighed312 not a hair of his. Plague of your policy,
You sent me deputy for Ireland,
Far from his succour,314 from the king, from all
315 That might have mercy on the fault315 thou gav’st him:
Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Absolved him with an axe.
This talking lord can lay upon my credit,319
320 I answer is most false. The duke by law
Found his deserts. How innocent I was
From322 any private malice in his end,
His noble jury and foul cause323 can witness.
If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you
325 You have as little honesty as honour,
That326 in the way of loyalty and truth
Toward the king, my ever royal master,
Dare mate328 a sounder man than Surrey can be,
And all that love his follies.
Your long coat, priest, protects you: thou shouldst feel
My sword i’th’life-blood of thee else. My lords,
Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?
And from this fellow?334 If we live thus tamely,
335 To be thus jaded335 by a piece of scarlet,
Farewell nobility: let his grace go forward,
And dare337 us with his cap, like larks.
Is poison to thy stomach.
Of gleaning all the land’s wealth into one,
Into your own hands, Card’nal, by extortion:
The goodness of your intercepted packets
You writ to th’Pope against the king: your goodness,
345 Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.
My lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,
As you respect the common good, the state
Of our despised nobility, our issues,348
Whom if he349 live will scarce be gentlemen,
350 Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles350
Collected from his life. I’ll startle you
Worse than the sacring bell,352 when the brown wench
Lay kissing in your arms, lord cardinal.
355 But that I am bound in charity against it.
But thus much:357 they are foul ones.
And spotless shall mine innocence arise,
360 When the king knows my truth.
I thank my memory, I yet remember
Some of these articles, and out363 they shall.
Now, if you can blush and cry ‘Guilty’, cardinal,
365 You’ll show a little honesty.
I dare367 your worst objections: if I blush,
It is to see a nobleman want368 manners.
370 First, that without the king’s assent or knowledge,
You wrought371 to be a legate, by which power
You maimed the jurisdiction of all bishops.
To foreign princes, ‘Ego374 et Rex meus’
375 Was still375 inscribed, in which you brought the king
To be your servant.
Either of king or council, when you went
Ambassador379 to the emperor, you made bold
380 To carry380 into Flanders the great seal.
To Gregory382 de Cassado, to conclude
Without the king’s will or the state’s allowance,383
A league between his highness and Ferrara.384
Your holy hat to be stamped on the king’s coin.
By what means got, I leave to your own conscience —
To furnish389 Rome, and to prepare the ways
390 You have for dignities, to390 the mere undoing
Of all the kingdom. Many more391 there are,
Which since they are of you, and odious,
I will not taint my mouth with.
395 Press not a falling man too far. ’Tis virtue:395
His faults lie open396 to the laws, let them,
Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him
So little of his great self.
Because all those things you have done of late
By your power legative402 within this kingdom,
Fall into th’compass of a praemunire,403
That therefore such a writ be sued404 against you,
405 To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,405
Castles,406 and whatsoever, and to be
Out of the king’s protection. This is my charge.407
How to live better. For409 your stubborn answer
410 About the giving back the great seal to us,
The king shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.
So fare you well, my little good lord cardinal.
Exeunt all but Wolsey
Farewell? A long farewell to all my greatness.
415 This is the state of man: today he puts forth
The tender416 leaves of hopes: tomorrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing417 honours thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy419 man, full surely
420 His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton422 boys that swim on bladders,
This423 many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown424 pride
425 At length broke under me, and now has left me
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream,427 that must for ever hide me.
Vain428 pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched
430 Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours?
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect432 of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs433 and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,434
435 Never to hope again.
Enter Cromwell, standing amazed
Why, how now, Cromwell?
At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder
A great man should decline?439 Nay, an you weep
440 I am fall’n indeed.
Never so truly happy,443 my good Cromwell.
I know myself now, and I feel within me
445 A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me,
I humbly thank his grace, and from these shoulders,
These ruined pillars,448 out of pity, taken
A load would sink a navy: too much honour.
450 O, ’tis a burden, Cromwell, ’tis a burden
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.
Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,
455 To endure more miseries and greater far
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
What news abroad?
Is your displeasure459 with the king.
Lord Chancellor in your place.
But he’s a learned man. May he continue
465 Long in his highness’ favour, and do justice
For truth’s sake and his conscience, that466 his bones,
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans’468 tears wept on him.
What more?
Installed Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
Whom the king hath in secrecy long married,
475 This day was viewed in open475 as his queen,
Going to chapel, and the voice476 is now
Only about her coronation.
O Cromwell,
480 The king has gone beyond480 me: all my glories
In481 that one woman I have lost for ever.
No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,
Or gild again the noble troops483 that waited
Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell:
485 I am a poor fall’n man, unworthy now
To be thy lord and master. Seek the king —
That sun I pray may never set — I have told him
What and how true thou art: he will advance thee:
Some little memory of me will stir him —
490 I know his noble nature — not to let
Thy hopeful491 service perish too. Good Cromwell,
Neglect him not: make use492 now, and provide
For thine own future safety.
495 Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo495
So good, so noble and so true a master?
Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.
The king shall have my service: but my prayers
500 For ever and for ever shall be yours.
In all my miseries: but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth,503 to play the woman.
Let’s dry our eyes: and thus far hear me Cromwell,
505 And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull506 cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee:
Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded509 all the depths and shoals of honour,
510 Found thee a way, out of his wreck,510 to rise in:
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark512 but my fall, and that that ruined me:
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,
515 The image of his maker, hope to win by it?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee:
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still518 in thy right hand carry gentle peace
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
520 Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s. Then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall’st a blessèd martyr.
Serve the king: and prithee lead me in:
There take an inventory of all I have:
525 To the last penny ’tis the king’s. My robe,
And my integrity to heaven, is all
I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
530 Have left me naked530 to mine enemies.
The hopes of court: my hopes in heaven do dwell.
Exeunt
Enter two Gentlemen, meeting one another [the First holding a paper]
The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?
The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.
This, general8 joy.
10 I am sure, have shown at full their royal10 minds —
As, let11 ’em have their rights, they are ever forward —
In celebration of this day with shows,
Pageants and sights of honour.
15 Nor, I’ll assure you, better taken,15 sir.
That paper in your hand?
Of those that claim their offices this day
20 By custom of the coronation.
The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims
To be High Steward:22 next, the Duke of Norfolk,
He to be Earl Marshal:23 you may read the rest.
25 I should have been beholding25 to your paper:
But I beseech you, what’s become of Katherine,
The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?
Of Canterbury, accompanied with other
30 Learnèd and reverend fathers of his order,30
Held a late31 court at Dunstable, six miles off
From Ampthill,32 where the princess lay: to which
She was often cited33 by them, but appeared not:
And, to be short,34 for not appearance and
35 The king’s late scruple,35 by the main assent
Of all these learnèd men she was divorced,
And the late marriage made of none effect,37
Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,38
Where she remains now sick.
The trumpets sound: stand close,41 the queen is coming. Hautboys
The Order of the Coronation
1. A lively flourish of Trumpets.
2. Then, [enter] two Judges.
3. Lord Chancellor, with purse and mace before him.
4. Choristers, singing. Music [being played by musicians].
5. Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then Garter, in his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper crown.
6. Marquis Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a demi-coronal of gold. With him, the Earl of Surrey, bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl’s coronet. Collars of esses.
7. Duke of Suffolk, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward. With him, the Duke of Norfolk, with the rod of marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of esses.
8. A canopy, borne by four [Barons] of the Cinque Ports, under it the Queen [Anne] in her robe, in her hair, richly adorned with pearl, crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London and Winchester.
9. The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold, wrought with flowers, bearing the Queen’s train.
10. Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets of gold without flowers.
Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state [while being discussed by the Gentlemen]
Who’s that that bears the sceptre?
45 And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.
The Duke of Suffolk?
Thou hast the sweetest face I ever looked on.—
Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel:
Our king has all the Indies54 in his arms,
55 And more, and richer, when he strains55 that lady:
I cannot blame his conscience.56
The cloth of honour58 over her, are four barons
Of the Cinque Ports.59
And so are all are near her.
I take it she that carries up the train
Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.
And sometimes falling66 ones.
[Exit the end of the procession,] and then a great flourish of Trumpets
Enter a Third Gentleman
70 Could not be wedged in more: I am stifled
With the mere71 rankness of their joy.
The ceremony?
Of lords and ladies, having brought the queen
80 To a prepared place in the choir, fell off80
A distance from her, while her grace sat down
To rest a while, some half an hour or so,
In a rich chair of state, opposing83 freely
The beauty of her person to the people.
85 Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest85 woman
That ever lay by man: which when the people
Had the full view of, such a noise arose87
As the shrouds88 make at sea in a stiff tempest,
As loud, and to as many tunes. Hats, cloaks —
90 Doublets,90 I think — flew up, and had their faces
Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy
I never saw before. Great-bellied92 women,
That had not half a week to go, like rams93
In the old time of war, would shake the press94
95 And make ’em reel before ’em. No man living
Could say ‘This is my wife’ there, all were woven
So strangely in one piece.
100 Came to the altar, where she kneeled, and saint-like
Cast her fair eyes to heaven and prayed devoutly.
Then rose again and bowed her to the people:
When by the Archbishop of Canterbury
She had all the royal makings104 of a queen,
105 As105 holy oil, Edward Confessor’s crown,
The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
Laid nobly on her: which performed, the choir,
With all the choicest music108 of the kingdom,
Together sung Te Deum.109 So she parted,
110 And with the same full state110 paced back again
To York Place, where the feast is held.
You must no more call it York Place, that’s past:
For, since the cardinal fell, that title’s lost:
115 ’Tis now the king’s, and called Whitehall.
But ’tis so lately117 altered, that the old name
Is fresh about me.
120 Were those that went on each side of the queen?
Newly preferred122 from the king’s secretary:
The other, London.
125 Is held no great good lover of the archbishop’s,
The virtuous Cranmer.
However, yet there is no great breach: when it comes,
Cranmer will129 find a friend will not shrink from him.
A man in much esteem with th’king, and truly
A worthy friend. The king has made him
Master o’th’Jewel House,134
135 And one already of the Privy Council.
Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way,
Which is to th’court, and there ye shall be my guests:
140 Something140 I can command. As I walk thither,
I’ll tell ye more.
Exeunt
Enter Katherine Dowager, sick, led between Griffith, her Gentleman-usher, and Patience, her Woman
My legs like loaden3 branches, bow to th’earth,
Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair: She sits
5 So now, methinks, I feel a little ease.
Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led’st me,
That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey, was dead?
Out of the pain you suffered, gave no ear to’t.
If well, he stepped before me happily11
For my example.
For after the stout14 Earl Northumberland
15 Arrested him at York, and brought him forward,15
As a man sorely tainted,16 to his answer,
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill
He could not sit18 his mule.
Lodged in the abbey, where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent,22 honourably received him,
To whom he gave these words: ‘O father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
25 Is come to lay his weary bones among ye:
Give him a little earth26 for charity.’
So went to bed, where eagerly27 his sickness
Pursued him still: and three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, which he himself
30 Foretold should be his last, full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessèd part33 to heaven, and slept in peace.
35 Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak35 him,
And yet with charity. He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach,37 ever ranking
Himself with princes: one that by suggestion38
Tied39 all the kingdom. Simony was fair play:
40 His own opinion was his law. I’th’presence40
He would say untruths, and be ever double41
Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.43
His promises were, as he then was, mighty:
45 But his performance, as he is now, nothing:
Of his own body46 he was ill, and gave
The clergy ill example.
Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues
50 We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good51 now?
I were malicious else.
55 Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashioned to56 much honour. From his cradle
He was a scholar, and a ripe57 and good one:
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading:
Lofty59 and sour to them that loved him not:
60 But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting,61
Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely: ever witness for him
Those twins of learning that he raised in you,64
65 Ipswich and Oxford:65 one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did66 it:
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
So excellent in art,68 and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
70 His overthrow heaped happiness upon him:
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little.72
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
Whom79 I most hated living, thou hast made me,
80 With thy religious80 truth and modesty,
Now in his ashes honour: peace be with him.
Patience, be near me still, and set me lower:82 To Patience
I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,
Cause the musicians play me that sad note84
85 I named my knell,85 whilst I sit meditating
On that celestial harmony86 I go to. She sleeps
Sad and solemn music
For fear we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience.
The Vision
Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces, branches of bays or palm in their hands. They first congee unto her, then dance: and at certain changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head, at which the other four make reverent curtsies. Then the two that held the garland deliver the same to the other next two, who observe the same order in their changes, and holding the garland over her head. Which done, they deliver the same garland to the last two, who likewise observe the same order. At which, as it were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her hands to heaven. And so, in their dancing vanish, carrying the garland with them. The music continues
90 And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?
Saw ye none enter since I slept?
Invite me to a banquet, whose bright faces
Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
They promised me eternal happiness,
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
100 I am not worthy yet to wear: I shall, assuredly.
Possess your fancy.102
They are harsh and heavy104 to me.
Music ceases
How much her grace is altered on the sudden?
How long her face is drawn? How pale she looks,
And of an earthy cold? Mark her eyes!
Enter a Messenger
Deserve we no more reverence?
115 Knowing she will not lose115 her wonted greatness,
To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.
My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying118
A gentleman sent from the king to see you.
Let me ne’er see again.
Exit Messenger
Enter Lord Caputius [ushered by Griffith]
If my sight fail not,
You should be lord ambassador from the emperor,122
My royal nephew, and your name Caputius.
The times and titles now are altered strangely
With me since first you knew me. But I pray you,
What is your pleasure with me?
130 First mine own service to your grace: the next,
The king’s request that I would visit you,
Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me
Sends you his princely commendations,
And heartily entreats you take good comfort.
’Tis like a pardon after execution:
That gentle physic137 given in time had cured me,
But now I am past all comforts here but prayers.
How does his highness?
When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name
Banished the kingdom. Patience, is that letter
I caused you write yet sent away?
This to my lord the king. Gives the letter to Caputius
150 The model150 of our chaste loves, his young daughter —
The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her —
Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding.152
She is young, and of a noble modest nature:
I hope she will deserve well — and a little
155 To love her for her mother’s sake, that loved him,
Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition
Is that his noble grace would have some pity
Upon my wretched women, that so long
Have followed both my fortunes159 faithfully:
160 Of which there is not one, I dare avow,
And now I should not lie, but will deserve
For virtue and true beauty of the soul,
For honesty163 and decent carriage,
A right good husband — let him be a noble —
165 And sure those men are happy165 that shall have ’em.
The last is for my men — they are the poorest,
But poverty could never draw ’em from me —
That they may have their wages duly paid ’em,
And something over169 to remember me by.
170 If heaven had pleased to have given me longer life
And able171 means, we had not parted thus.
These are the whole contents, and, good my lord,
By that you love the dearest in this world,
As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,
175 Stand these poor people’s friend, and urge the king
To do me this last right.
Or let me lose the fashion178 of a man.
180 In all humility unto his highness:
Say his long trouble now is passing
Out of this world. Tell him in death I blessed him,
For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,
My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,
185 You must not leave me yet. I must to bed:
Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,
Let me be used187 with honour: strew me over
With maiden flowers,188 that all the world may know
I was a chaste wife to my grave: embalm me,
190 Then lay me forth:190 although unqueened, yet like
A queen and daughter to a king inter me.
I can192 no more.
Exeunt leading Katherine
Enter Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a Page with a torch before him, met by Sir Thomas Lovell
Not for delights: times to repair our nature
5 With comforting repose, and not for us
To waste these times. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas:
Whither7 so late?
10 With the Duke of Suffolk.
Before he go to bed. I’ll take my leave.
It seems you are in haste: an if14 there be
15 No great offence15 belongs to’t, give your friend
Some touch16 of your late business: affairs that walk,
As they say spirits do, at midnight, have
In them a wilder nature than the business
That seeks dispatch by day.
And durst commend21 a secret to your ear
Much weightier than this work.22 The queen’s in labour —
They say in great extremity — and feared23
She’ll with the labour end.
I pray for heartily, that it may find
Good time,27 and live: but for the stock, Sir Thomas,
I wish it grubbed up28 now.
30 Cry the amen,30 and yet my conscience says
She’s a good creature and, sweet lady, does
Deserve our better wishes.
Hear me, Sir Thomas: you’re a gentleman
35 Of mine own way.35 I know you wise, religious,
And let me tell you, it will ne’er be well —
’Twill not, Sir Thomas Lovell, take’t of me —
Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands,38 and she
Sleep in their graves.
The most remarked41 i’th’kingdom. As for Cromwell,
Beside that of the Jewel House, is made Master
O’th’Rolls42 and the king’s secretary. Further, sir,
Stands in the gap and trade44 of more preferments,
45 With which the time45 will load him. Th’archbishop
Is the king’s hand and tongue, and who dare speak
One syllable against him?
There are49 that dare, and I myself have ventured
50 To speak my mind of him: and indeed this day,
Sir, I may tell it you, I think I have
Incensed52 the lords o’th’council, that he is —
For so I know he is, they know he is —
A most arch-heretic,54 a pestilence
55 That does infect the land: with which they, moved,55
Have broken56 with the king, who hath so far
Given ear to our complaint, of his great grace
And princely care, foreseeing those fell58 mischiefs
Our reasons laid before him, hath commanded
60 Tomorrow morning to the council board
He be convented.61 He’s a rank weed, Sir Thomas,
And we must root him out. From your affairs
I hinder you too long. Goodnight, Sir Thomas.
Exeunt Gardiner and Page
Enter King [Henry] and Suffolk
My mind’s not on’t: you are too hard66 for me.
Nor shall not when my fancy’s69 on my play.
70 Now, Lovell, from the queen what is the news?
What you commanded me, but by her woman
I sent your message, who returned her thanks
In the great’st humbleness, and desired your highness
75 Most heartily to pray for her.
To pray for her? What, is she crying out?
Almost each pang a death.
With gentle travail,82 to the gladding of
Your highness with an heir!
85 Prithee to bed, and in thy prayers remember
Th’estate86 of my poor queen. Leave me alone,
For I must think of that which company
Would not be friendly to.
90 A quiet night, and my good mistress will
Remember in my prayers.
Exit Suffolk
Enter Sir Anthony Denny
Well, sir, what follows?
95 As you commanded me.
[Exit Denny]
I am happily102 come hither.
Enter Cranmer and Denny
Lovell seems to stay
Ha? I have said. Be gone.
Exeunt Lovell and Denny
What?
’Tis his aspect of terror.106 All’s not well.
Wherefore I sent for you.
110 T’attend your highness’ pleasure.
My good and gracious lord of Canterbury.
Come, you and I must walk a turn together:
I have news to tell you. Come, come, give me your hand. Cranmer stands. They walk
115 Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak,
And am right sorry to repeat what follows.
I have, and most unwillingly, of late
Heard many grievous118 — I do say, my lord,
Grievous — complaints of you, which, being considered,
120 Have moved120 us and our council, that you shall
This morning come before us, where I know
You cannot with such freedom122 purge yourself,
But that, till further trial in those charges
Which will require your answer, you must take124
125 Your patience to you, and be well contented
To make your house our Tower.126 You a brother of us,
It fits127 we thus proceed, or else no witness
Would come against you.
130 And am right glad to catch this good occasion
Most throughly131 to be winnowed, where my chaff
And corn shall fly asunder. For I know
There’s none stands under133 more calumnious tongues
Than I myself, poor man.
Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted
In us, thy friend. Give me thy hand, stand up:
Prithee, let’s walk. Now, by my halidom,138 Cranmer stands. They walk
What manner of man are you? My lord, I looked139
140 You would have given140 me your petition that
I should have ta’en some pains to bring together
Yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you
Without endurance further.143
145 The good I stand on is my truth and honesty:
If they shall fail, I with mine enemies
Will triumph147 o’er my person, which I weigh not,
Being148 of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing
What can be said against me.
How your state stands i’th’world, with the whole world?
Your enemies are many, and not small:152 their practices
Must bear153 the same proportion, and not ever
The justice and the truth o’th’question carries
155 The dew o’th’verdict155 with it: at what ease
Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt
To swear157 against you? Such things have been done.
You are potently opposed, and with a malice
Of as great size. Ween you of159 better luck —
160 I mean in perjured witness160 — than your master,
Whose minister you are, whiles here he lived
Upon this naughty162 earth? Go to, go to:
You take163 a precipice for no leap of danger,
And woo164 your own destruction.
Protect mine innocence, or I fall into
The trap is167 laid for me.
They shall no more prevail than we give way169 to.
170 Keep comfort to you, and this morning see
You do appear before them. If they shall chance,171
In charging you with matters, to commit172 you,
The best persuasions to the contrary
Fail not to use, and with what vehemency
175 Th’occasion shall instruct you. If entreaties
Will render you no remedy, this ring
Deliver them, and your appeal to us
There make before them. Look, the good man weeps: Cranmer weeps
He’s honest, on mine honour. God’s blest mother,
180 I swear he is true-hearted, and a soul
None better in my kingdom. Get you gone,
And do as I have bid you.
Exit Cranmer
He has strangled
His language in his tears.
Enter Old Lady
Will make my boldness manners.— Now186 good angels To the King
Fly o’er thy royal head, and shade thy person
Under their blessèd wings.
190 I guess thy message. Is190 the queen delivered?
Say, ‘Ay, and of a boy.’
And of a lovely boy: the God of heaven
Both now and ever bless her. ’Tis a girl194
195 Promises195 boys hereafter. Sir, your queen
Desires your visitation, and196 to be
Acquainted with this stranger: ’tis as like you
As cherry is to cherry.
Exit King
An ordinary groom203 is for such payment.
I will have more, or scold it out of him.
205 Said I for this, the girl was like to him? I’ll
Have more, or else unsay’t: and now, while ’tis hot,206
I’ll put207 it to the issue.
Exit [Old] Lady [with Lovell]
Enter Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury
That was sent to me from the council prayed me
To make great haste. All fast?3 What means this? Ho!
Who waits there?
Enter [Door] Keeper
Sure4 you know me?
But yet I cannot help you.
Enter Doctor Butts [passing over the stage]
I came this way so happily.11 The king
Shall understand it presently.12
Exit [Doctor] Butts
The king’s physician: as he passed along
15 How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me:
Pray heaven he sound16 not my disgrace: for certain
This is of purpose laid17 by some that hate me —
God turn18 their hearts, I never sought their malice —
To quench mine honour: they would shame to make me
20 Wait else at door, a fellow councillor,
’Mong boys, grooms, and lackeys. But their pleasures
Must be fulfilled, and I attend22 with patience.
Enter the King [Henry] and [Doctor] Butts at a window above
The high promotion of his grace of Canterbury,
Who29 holds his state at door, ’mongst pursuivants,
30 Pages, and footboys.30
Is this the honour they do one another?
’Tis well there’s one above ’em33 yet: I had thought
They had parted34 so much honesty among ’em —
35 At least good manners — as not thus to suffer35
A man of his place,36 and so near our favour,
To dance attendance37 on their lordships’ pleasures —
And at the door, too, like a post38 with packets.
By holy Mary, Butts, there’s knavery:
40 Let ’em alone, and draw the curtain close:40
We shall hear more anon.
[Exeunt above]
A council table brought in with chairs and stools, and placed under the state. Enter Lord Chancellor, places himself at the upper end of the table, on the left hand: a seat being left void above him, as for Canterbury’s seat. Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Norfolk, Surrey, Lord Chamberlain, Gardiner, seat themselves in order on each side. Cromwell at lower end, as secretary
Why are we met in council?
45 The chief cause concerns his grace of Canterbury.
And has done half an hour to know your pleasures.
Cranmer [enters below and] approaches the council table
To sit here at this present,56 and behold
That chair57 stand empty: but we all are men,
In our own natures frail, and capable58
Of our flesh:59 few are angels: out of which frailty
60 And want60 of wisdom, you that best should teach us,
Have misdemeaned yourself,61 and not a little:
Toward the king first, then his laws, in filling
The whole realm, by your teaching and your chaplains —
For so we are informed — with new opinions,
65 Divers65 and dangerous, which are heresies,
And, not reformed, may prove pernicious.66
My noble lords, for those that tame wild horses
Pace69 ’em not in their hands to make ’em gentle,
70 But stop their mouths with stubborn70 bits and spur ’em
Till they obey the manage.71 If we suffer,
Out of our easiness72 and childish pity
To one man’s honour, this contagious sickness,
Farewell all physic:74 and what follows then?
75 Commotions, uproars, with a general taint75
Of the whole state, as of late days our neighbours,
The upper77 Germany, can dearly witness,
Yet freshly pitied in our memories.
80 Both of my life and office, I have laboured,
And with no little study, that my teaching
And the strong course82 of my authority
Might go one way, and safely: and the end
Was ever to do well: nor is there living —
85 I speak it with a single85 heart, my lords —
A man that more detests, more stirs against,
Both in his private conscience and his place,87
Defacers of a public peace than I do:
Pray heaven the king may never find a heart
90 With less allegiance in it. Men that make
Envy and crooked malice nourishment
Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships
That in this case of justice, my accusers,
Be what they will, may stand forth face to face,
95 And freely urge95 against me.
That cannot be: you are a councillor,
And by that virtue98 no man dare accuse you.
100 We will be short100 with you. ’Tis his highness’ pleasure
And our consent, for better trial of you,
From hence you be committed to the Tower,
Where being but a private103 man again,
You shall know many dare accuse you boldly,
105 More than, I fear, you are provided105 for.
You are always my good friend: if your will pass,107
I shall both find your lordship judge and juror,
You are so merciful. I see your end:109
110 ’Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord,
Become111 a churchman better than ambition:
Win straying souls with modesty again:
Cast none away. That I shall clear myself,
Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience,
115 I make as little doubt115 as you do conscience
In doing daily wrongs. I could say more,
But reverence to your calling makes me modest.
That’s the plain truth: your painted119 gloss discovers
120 To men that understand you words120 and weakness.
By122 your good favour, too sharp: men so noble,
However faulty, yet should find respect
For what they have been: ’tis a cruelty
125 To load a falling man.
I cry127 your honour mercy: you may worst
Of all this table say so.
Of this new sect? Ye are not sound.131
135 Men’s prayers then would seek you, not their fears.
Remember your bold life, too.
140 Forbear140 for shame, my lords.
I take it, by all voices, that forthwith
145 You be conveyed to th’Tower a prisoner,
There to remain till the king’s further pleasure
Be known unto us: are you all agreed, lords?
150 But I must needs to th’Tower, my lords?
Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome:
Let some o’th’guard be ready there.
Enter the Guard
155 Must I go like a traitor thither?
And see him safe157 i’th’Tower.
I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords, He shows the King’s ring
160 By virtue of that ring, I take my cause
Out of the gripes161 of cruel men, and give it
To a most noble judge, the king my master.
When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,
’Twould fall upon ourselves.
The king will suffer but the little finger
170 Of this man to be vexed?
How much more is his life in value with him?172
Would I were fairly out on’t.173
175 In seeking tales and informations175
Against this man, whose honesty the devil
And his disciples only envy at,
Ye blew the fire that burns ye: now have at ye!
Enter King [Henry] frowning on them: takes his seat
180 In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince,
Not only good and wise, but most religious:
One that, in all obedience, makes the Church
The chief aim183 of his honour and, to strengthen
That holy duty out of dear respect,184
185 His royal self in judgement comes to hear
The cause betwixt her and this great offender.
Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not
To hear such flattery now, and in my presence
190 They190 are too thin and base to hide offences:
To me you cannot reach. You play the spaniel,
And think with wagging of your tongue to win me:
But whatsoe’er thou tak’st me for, I’m sure
Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.194—
195 Good man, sit down.— Now let me see the proudest
He,196 that dares most, but wag his finger at thee. To Cranmer, who sits in vacant seat at head of table
By all that’s holy, he had better starve197
Than but once think his place becomes thee not.
I had thought I had had men of some understanding
And wisdom of my council, but I find none.
Was it discretion,203 lords, to let this man,
This good man — few of you deserve that title —
205 This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy
At chamber door? And one as great as you are?
Why, what a shame was this? Did my commission
Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye
Power as he was a councillor to try209 him,
210 Not as a groom. There’s some of ye, I see,
More out of malice than integrity,
Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean,212
Which ye shall never have while I live.
215 My most dread sovereign, may it like215 your grace
To let my tongue excuse all. What was purposed216
Concerning his imprisonment, was rather —
If there be faith in men — meant for his trial,
And fair purgation219 to the world than malice,
220 I’m sure, in me.
Take him, and use222 him well: he’s worthy of it.
I will say thus much for him: if a prince
May be beholding to a subject, I
225 Am for his love and service so to him.
Make me no more ado,226 but all embrace him:
Be friends, for shame, my lords.— My lord of Canterbury, To Cranmer
I have a suit which you must not deny me:
That is, a fair young maid that yet wants229 baptism:
230 You must be godfather, and answer for her.
In such an honour: how may I deserve it
That am a poor and humble subject to you?
235 noble partners with you: the old Duchess of Norfolk, and Lady Marquess Dorset:
will these please you?
Once more, my lord of Winchester, I charge you To Gardiner
Embrace and love this man.
240 And brother-love I do it.
Witness how dear I hold this confirmation.
The common voice,244 I see, is verified
245 Of thee, which says thus: ‘Do my lord of Canterbury
A shrewd246 turn, and he’s your friend for ever.’
Come, lords, we trifle time away: I long
To have this young one made a Christian.
As I have made ye one,249 lords, one remain:
250 So I grow stronger, you more honour gain.
Exeunt
Noise and tumult within: enter Porter [with a broken cudgel] and his Man
Fetch me a dozen crab-tree5 staves, and strong ones: To his Man these are but switches to ’em.— To those within I’ll scratch6 your heads: you must be seeing christenings? Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?
Unless we sweep ’em from the door with cannons,
10 To scatter ’em, as ’tis to make ’em sleep
On May-day morning,11 which will never be:
We may as well push against Paul’s,12 as stir ’em.
15 As much as one sound cudgel of four foot —
You see the poor remainder — could distribute, Holds up the cudgel
I made no spare,17 sir.
20 To mow ’em down before me: but if I spared any
That had a head to hit, either young or old,
He or she, cuckold22 or cuckold-maker,
Let me ne’er hope to see a chine23 again,
And that I would not for a cow,24 God save her!
Keep the door close,27 sirrah. To his Man
Enter Lord Chamberlain
They grow still, too: from all parts they are coming,
55 As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters,
These lazy knaves?— You’ve made56 a fine hand, fellows: To the Porter and his Man
There’s a trim57 rabble let in: are all these
Your faithful friends58 o’th’suburbs? We shall have
Great59 store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies,
60 When they pass back from the christening!
We are but men, and what so many may do,
Not being torn a-pieces, we have done:
An army cannot rule64 ’em.
If the king blame me for’t, I’ll lay66 ye all
By th’heels, and suddenly,67 and on your heads
Clap round68 fines for neglect: you’re lazy knaves,
And here ye lie baiting of bombards,69 when
70 Ye should do service.70 Hark, the trumpets sound: Trumpet
They’re come already from the christening:
Go break among72 the press, and find a way out
To let the troop73 pass fairly, or I’ll find
A Marshalsea74 shall hold ye play these two months.
Stand close up,77 or I’ll make your head ache.
I’ll peck79 you o’er the pales else.
Exeunt
Enter Trumpets* sounding: then two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, Cranmer, Duke of Norfolk with his Marshal’s staff, Duke of Suffolk, two Noblemen bearing great standing bowls for the christening gifts: then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of Norfolk, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, etc., train borne by a Lady: then follows the Marchioness Dorset, the other godmother, and Ladies. The troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks
happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth.
Flourish. Enter King [Henry] and Guard
My noble partners4 and myself thus pray
5 All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,
Heaven ever laid6 up to make parents happy,
May hourly fall upon ye.
What is her name?
With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee, He kisses the child
Into whose hand I give thy life.
I thank ye heartily: so shall this lady,
When she has so much English.
For heaven now bids me: and the words I utter
20 Let none think flattery, for they’ll find ’em truth.
This royal infant — heaven21 still move about her —
Though in her cradle, yet now promises
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be —
25 But few now living can behold that goodness —
A pattern26 to all princes living with her,
And all that shall succeed: Saba27 was never
More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
Than this pure soul shall be. All princely graces
30 That mould up30 such a mighty piece as this is,
With all the virtues that attend the good,
Shall still32 be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her:
She shall be loved and feared. Her own34 shall bless her:
35 Her foes shake like a field of beaten35 corn,
And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with her.
In her days, every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.
40 God40 shall be truly known, and those about her
From her shall read41 the perfect ways of honour,
And by those claim their greatness,42 not by blood.
Nor shall this peace sleep43 with her: but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,44
45 Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration46 as herself.
So shall she leave her blessedness to one,47
When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,48
Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
50 Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,
And so stand fixed.51 Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,
That were the servants to this chosen infant,
Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him:
Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
55 His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations. He shall flourish,
And like a mountain cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him: our children’s children
Shall see this, and bless heaven.
An agèd princess: many days shall see her,
And yet no day without a deed63 to crown it.
Would64 I had known no more: but she must die,
65 She must, the saints must have her: yet a virgin,
A most unspotted lily shall she pass
To th’ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
Thou hast made me now a man. Never before
70 This happy child did I get70 anything.
This oracle of comfort has so pleased me,
That when I am in heaven I shall desire
To see what this child does, and praise my maker.
I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,
75 And your good brethren, I am much beholding:75
I have received much honour by your presence,
And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords:
Ye must all see the queen, and she must thank ye:
She will be sick79 else. This day, no man think
80 H’as80 business at his house, for all shall stay:
This little one shall make it holiday.81
Exeunt
[Enter Epilogue]
’Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here: some come to take their ease,
And sleep an act or two: but those, we fear,
We’ve frighted with our trumpets: so ’tis clear,
5 They’ll say ’tis naught.5 Others to hear the city
Abused extremely, and to cry ‘That’s witty!’
Which we have not done neither: that,7 I fear
All the expected good we’re like to hear.
For this play at this time, is only in
10 The merciful construction10 of good women,
For such a one11 we showed ’em. If they smile,
And say ’twill do, I know within a while
All the best men are ours, for ’tis ill hap13
If they hold14 when their ladies bid ’em clap.
[Exit]
F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play
F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632
F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64
F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685
Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor
SD = stage direction
SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)
List of parts = Ed
THE…EIGHTH Various contemporary references suggest the play was performed as “All is True”
1.1.9 Andres = Ed. F = Andren. Ed = Ardres 10 Guînes = Ed. F = Guynes Ardres = Ed. F = Arde 28 cherubins = F. Ed = cherubim/cherubims madams = F. Ed = mesdames 48–51 All…function F assigns these lines to Buckingham who states he wasn’t present. This edition follows editorial tradition in reassigning them to Norfolk 54 as you guess this edition follows F4’s assignation of these words to Buckingham, whereas F places them at the beginning of Norfolk’s reply 72 a = Ed. F = O 142 venom-mouthed = Ed. F = venom’d-mouth’d 196 wrenching = F. Ed = rinsing 213 He privily = F2. F = Priuily. 255 Montague spelled Mountacute in F 257 Perk = Ed. F = Pecke. Emendation is based on Holinshed and Hall’s accounts chancellor = Ed. F = Councellour. The emendation is made in accordance with Holinshed’s account 261 Nicholas = Ed. F = Michaell. The emendation is made in accordance with Holinshed’s account 267 lord = Ed. F = Lords
1.2.75 baseness = F. Ed = business 154 His = Ed. F = This 165, 166 Hopkins = Ed. F = Henton. Henton was the name of Hopkins’ monastery 176 feared = Ed. F = feare 184 confession’s = Ed. F = Commissions 190 gain = F4. Not in F; other suggestions are win and purchase 203 him = Ed. F = this 216 Bulmer = Ed. F = Blumer
1.3.0 SD Sands spelled Sandys in F 13 see = F. Ed = saw 14 Or = Ed. F = A 17 SD Enter…Lovell = Ed. Two lines down in F 39 oui = Ed. F = wee. F2 = weare 72 he’s = Ed. F = Ha’s. Ed = ’has
1.4.6 first = F. Ed = feast
2.1.26 Perk = Ed. F = Pecke 67 SD William = Ed. F = Walter. Emendation in accordance with Holinshed 102 make = F. Ed = mark
2.2.1 SH CHAMBERLAIN = Ed. Not in F 95 one have-at-him = Ed. F = one; haue at him
2.3.74 you = Ed. F = you, to you. Omitted by editors because thought to be a compositorial error, copied prematurely from the following line 102 fie, fie, fie = F. Ed = fie, fie
2.4.136 SH GRIFFITH = Ed. F = Gent. Ush.
3.1.3 SH WOMAN = Ed. F reads “SONG” instead of using a speech heading, but the song must be sung by one of the Queen’s women 25 SD Campeius = F4. F = Campian 55 should = Ed. F = shoul 65 your = F2. F = our 130 he’s = Ed.F = ha’s 135 acurse = F. Ed = accursed
3.2.215 filed = Ed. F = fill’d 402 legative = F. Ed = legatine, legantine 406 Castles = F. Ed = chattels
4.1.24 SH SECOND GENTLEMAN = F4. F = I, i.e., First Gentleman 38 Kimbolton = F3. F = Kymmalton 66 And…ones some editors ascribe this line to the First Gentleman, allocating his line to the Second Gentleman 67 SH FIRST GENTLEMAN = Ed. F = 2 SD and … Trumpets moved from its original position at the end of “The Order of the Coronation” 121 Stokesley = F4. F = Stokely 142 SH FIRST…GENTLEMEN = Ed. F = Both
4.2.8 think = F2. F = thanke 22 convent = Ed. F = Couent 108 cold = F. Ed = color 114 to = Ed. F = too. Some editors retain F arguing it means “too blameworthy”
5.1.2 SH PAGE = Ed. F = Boy 45 time = F4. F = Lime 138 halidom spelled Holydame in F 145 good = F. Ed = ground 163 precipice = F2. F = Precepit 164 woo = Ed. F = woe 184 SH LOVELL = Ed. F = Gent.
5.2.10 piece = F2. F = Peere 16 sound = F. Ed = found 21 ’Mong…lackeys some editors direct the pursuivants, pages, footboys and grooms referred to in the text to enter with Cranmer at the beginning of this scene. However, it seems perfectly possible that these figures could also be imagined, hence the need for them to be “pointed out” by Cranmer and Butts 123 faulty = F2. F = faultly 139, 143 SH CHANCELLOR = Ed. F = Cham 190 base = F. Ed = bare 198 his = F. F4 = this 243 heart = F2. F = hearts
5.3.1 Paris = F4. F = Parish
5.4.41 ways = F4. F = way 75 your = Ed. F = you