Enter the Duke of Norfolk at one door; at the other, the
Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Abergavenny.

BUCKINGHAM
Good morrow, and well met. How have you done
Since last we saw in France?
NORFOLK I thank your Grace,
Healthful, and ever since a fresh admirer
Of what I saw there.
BUCKINGHAM An untimely ague
Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber when
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Andren.
NORFOLK ’Twixt Guynes and Arde.
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback,
Beheld them when they lighted, how they clung
In their embracement, as they grew together—
Which had they, what four throned ones could have
weighed
Such a compounded one?
BUCKINGHAM All the whole time
I was my chamber’s prisoner.
NORFOLK Then you lost
The view of earthly glory. Men might say
Till this time pomp was single, but now married
To one above itself. Each following day

---

Became the next day’s master, till the last
Made former wonders its. Today the French,
All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
Shone down the English, and tomorrow they
Made Britain India: every man that stood
Showed like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt. The madams too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labor
Was to them as a painting. Now this masque
Was cried incomparable; and th’ ensuing night
Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings,
Equal in luster, were now best, now worst,
As presence did present them: him in eye
Still him in praise; and being present both,
’Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner
Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these suns—
For so they phrase ’em—by their heralds challenged
The noble spirits to arms, they did perform
Beyond thought’s compass, that former fabulous story,
Being now seen possible enough, got credit
That Bevis was believed.
BUCKINGHAM O, you go far.
NORFOLK
As I belong to worship, and affect
In honor honesty, the tract of everything
Would by a good discourser lose some life
Which action’s self was tongue to. All was royal;
To the disposing of it naught rebelled.
Order gave each thing view. The office did
Distinctly his full function.
BUCKINGHAM Who did guide,
I mean who set the body and the limbs
Of this great sport together, as you guess?
NORFOLK
One, certes, that promises no element
In such a business.

---

BUCKINGHAM I pray you who, my lord?
NORFOLK
All this was ordered by the good discretion
Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.
BUCKINGHAM
The devil speed him! No man’s pie is freed
From his ambitious finger. What had he
To do in these fierce vanities? I wonder
That such a keech can with his very bulk
Take up the rays o’ th’ beneficial sun
And keep it from the Earth.
NORFOLK Surely, sir,
There’s in him stuff that puts him to these ends;
For, being not propped by ancestry, whose grace
Chalks successors their way, nor called upon
For high feats done to th’ crown, neither allied
To eminent assistants, but spiderlike,
Out of his self-drawing web,From her shall read the perfect he gives us note
The force of his own merit makes his way—
A gift that heaven gives for him which buys
A place next to the King.
ABERGAVENNY I cannot tell
What heaven hath given him—let some graver eye
Pierce into that—but I can see his pride
Peep through each part of him. Whence has he that?
If not from hell, the devil is a niggard,
Or has given all before, and he begins
A new hell in himself.
BUCKINGHAM Why the devil,
Upon this French going-out, took he upon him,
Without the privity o’ th’ King, t’ appoint
Who should attend on him? He makes up the file
Of all the gentry, for the most part such
To whom as great a charge as little honor
He meant to lay upon; and his own letter,
The honorable board of council out,
Must fetch him in he papers.

---

ABERGAVENNY I do know
Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have
By this so sickened their estates that never
They shall abound as formerly.
BUCKINGHAM O, many
Have broke their backs with laying manors on ’em
For this great journey. What did this vanity
But minister communication of
A most poor issue?
NORFOLK Grievingly I think
The peace between the French and us not values
The cost that did conclude it.
BUCKINGHAM Every man,
After the hideous storm that followed, was
A thing inspired and, not consulting, broke
Into a general prophecy: that this tempest,
Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded
The sudden breach on ’t.
NORFOLK Which is budded out,
For France hath flawed the league and hath attached
Our merchants’ goods at Bordeaux.
ABERGAVENNY Is it therefore
Th’ ambassador is silenced?
NORFOLK Marry, is ’t.
ABERGAVENNY
A proper title of a peace, and purchased
At a superfluous rate!
BUCKINGHAM Why, all this business
Our reverend cardinal carried.
NORFOLK Like it your Grace,
The state takes notice of the private difference
Betwixt you and the Cardinal. I advise you—
And take it from a heart that wishes towards you
Honor and plenteous safety—that you read
The Cardinal’s malice and his potency
Together; to consider further that

---

What his high hatred would effect wants not
A minister in his power. You know his nature,
That he’s revengeful, and I know his sword
Hath a sharp edge; it’s long, and ’t may be said
It reaches far, and where ’twill not extend,
Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel;
You’ll find it wholesome. 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.

WOLSEY , aside to a Secretary
The Duke of Buckingham’s surveyor, ha?
Where’s his examination?
SECRETARY Here, so please you.
He hands Wolsey a paper.
WOLSEY
Is he in person ready?
SECRETARY Ay, please your Grace.
WOLSEY
Well, we shall then know more, and Buckingham
Shall lessen this big look.
Cardinal Wolsey and his train exit.
BUCKINGHAM
This butcher’s cur is venomed-mouthed, and I
Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best
Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar’s book
Outworths a noble’s blood.
NORFOLK What, are you chafed?
Ask God for temp’rance. That’s th’ appliance only
Which your disease requires.
BUCKINGHAM I read in ’s looks
Matter against me, and his eye reviled
Me as his abject object. At this instant

---

He bores me with some trick. He’s gone to th’ King.
I’ll follow and outstare him.
NORFOLK Stay, my lord,
And let your reason with your choler question
What ’tis you go about. To climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like
A full hot horse who, being allowed his way,
Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England
Can advise me like you; be to yourself
As you would to your friend.
BUCKINGHAM I’ll to the King,
And from a mouth of honor quite cry down
This Ipswich fellow’s insolence, or proclaim
There’s difference in no persons.
NORFOLK Be advised.
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
And lose by overrunning. Know you not
The fire that mounts 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,
If with the sap of reason you would quench
Or but allay the fire of passion.
BUCKINGHAM Sir,
I am thankful to you, and I’ll go along
By your prescription. But this top-proud fellow—
Whom from the flow of gall I name not, but
From sincere motions—by intelligence,
And proofs as clear as founts in July when
We see each grain of gravel, I do know
To be corrupt and treasonous.
NORFOLK Say not “treasonous.”
BUCKINGHAM
To th’ King I’ll say ’t, and make my vouch as strong

---

As shore of rock. Attend. This holy fox,
Or wolf, or both—for he is equal rav’nous
As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief
As able to perform ’t, his mind and place
Infecting one another, yea reciprocally—
Only to show his pomp as well in France
As here at home, suggests the King our master
To this last costly treaty, th’ interview
That swallowed so much treasure and like a glass
Did break i’ th’ rinsing.
NORFOLK Faith, and so it did.
BUCKINGHAM
Pray give me favor, sir. This cunning cardinal
The articles o’ th’ combination drew
As himself pleased; and they were ratified
As he cried “Thus let be,” to as much end
As give a crutch to th’ dead. But our Count Cardinal
Has done this, and ’tis well, for worthy Wolsey,
Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows—
Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy
To th’ old dam treason: Charles the Emperor,
Under pretense to see the Queen his aunt—
For ’twas indeed his color, but he came
To whisper Wolsey—here makes visitation;
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; privily
Deals with our cardinal and, as I trow—
Which I do well, for I am sure the Emperor
Paid ere he promised, whereby his suit was granted
Ere it was asked. But when the way was made
And paved with gold, the Emperor thus desired
That he would please to alter the King’s course
And break the foresaid peace. Let the King know—
As soon he shall by me—that thus the Cardinal

---

Does buy and sell his honor as he pleases
And for his own advantage.
NORFOLK I am sorry
To hear this of him, and could wish he were
Something mistaken in ’t.
BUCKINGHAM No, not a syllable.
I do pronounce him in that very shape
He shall appear in proof.

Enter Brandon, a Sergeant-at-Arms before him, and two
or three of the Guard.

BRANDON
Your office, Sergeant: execute it.
SERGEANT , to Buckingham Sir,
My lord the Duke of Buckingham and Earl
Of Hertford, Stafford, and Northampton, I
Arrest thee of high treason, in the name
Of our most sovereign king.
BUCKINGHAM , to Norfolk Lo you, my lord,
The net has fall’n upon me. I shall perish
Under device and practice.
BRANDON I am sorry
To see you ta’en from liberty, to look on
The business present. ’Tis his Highness’ pleasure
You shall to th’ Tower.
BUCKINGHAM It will help me nothing
To plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me
Which makes my whit’st part black. The will of heaven
Be done in this and all things. I obey.
O my Lord Abergavenny, fare you well.
BRANDON
Nay, he must bear you company.—The King
Is pleased you shall to th’ Tower, till you know
How he determines further.
ABERGAVENNY As the Duke said,
The will of heaven be done, and the King’s pleasure
By me obeyed.

---

BRANDON Here is a warrant from
The King t’ attach Lord Mountacute, and the bodies
Of the Duke’s confessor, John de la Car,
One Gilbert Peck, his counselor—
BUCKINGHAM So, so;
These are the limbs o’ th’ plot. No more, I hope.
BRANDON
A monk o’ th’ Chartreux.
BUCKINGHAM O, Michael Hopkins?
BRANDON He.
BUCKINGHAM
My surveyor is false. The o’ergreat cardinal
Hath showed him gold. My life is spanned already.
I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,
Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on
By dark’ning my clear sun. My lord , To Norfolk.
farewell.
They exit.

Cornets. Enter King Henry, leaning on the Cardinal’s
shoulder, with the Nobles, Sir Thomas Lovell, and
Attendants , including a Secretary of the Cardinal.
The Cardinal places himself under the King’s feet on
his right side.

KING , to Wolsey
My life itself, and the best heart of it,
Thanks you for this great care. I stood i’ th’ level
Of a full-charged confederacy, and give thanks
To you that choked it.—Let be called before us
That gentleman of Buckingham’s; in person
I’ll hear him his confessions justify,
And point by point the treasons of his master
He shall again relate.

---

A noise within crying “Room for the Queen!” Enter the
Queen Katherine , ushered by the Duke of Norfolk, and
the Duke of Suffolk. She kneels. The King riseth from
his state.

QUEEN KATHERINE
Nay, we must longer kneel; I am a suitor.
KING
Arise, and take place by us.
He takes her up, kisses and placeth her by him.
Half your suit
Never name to us; you have half our power.
The other moiety ere you ask is given;
Repeat your will, and take it.
QUEEN KATHERINE Thank your Majesty.
That you would love yourself, and in that love
Not unconsidered leave your honor nor
The dignity of your office, is the point
Of my petition.
KING Lady mine, proceed.
QUEEN KATHERINE
I am solicited, not by a few,
And those of true condition, that your subjects
Are in great grievance. There have been commissions
Sent down among ’em which hath flawed the heart
Of all their loyalties, wherein, although
My good Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches
Most bitterly on you as putter-on
Of these exactions, yet the King our master,
Whose honor heaven shield from soil, even he
escapes not
Language unmannerly—yea, such which breaks
The sides of loyalty and almost appears
In loud rebellion.
NORFOLK Not “almost appears”—
It doth appear. For, upon these taxations,
The clothiers all, not able to maintain

---

The many to them longing, have put off
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who,
Unfit for other life, compelled by hunger
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring th’ event to th’ teeth, are all in uproar,
And danger serves among them.
KING Taxation?
Wherein? And what taxation? My Lord Cardinal,
You that are blamed for it alike with us,
Know you of this taxation?
WOLSEY Please you, sir,
I know but of a single part in aught
Pertains to th’ state, and front but in that file
Where others tell steps with me.
QUEEN KATHERINE No, my lord?
You 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, they are
Most pestilent to th’ hearing, and to bear ’em
The back is sacrifice to th’ load. They say
They are devised by you, or else you suffer
Too hard an exclamation.
KING Still exaction!
The nature of it? In what kind, let’s know,
Is this exaction?
QUEEN KATHERINE I am much too venturous
In tempting of your patience, but am boldened
Under your promised pardon. The subjects’ grief
Comes through commissions which compels from
each
The sixth part of his substance, to be levied
Without delay, and the pretense for this
Is named your wars in France. This makes bold
mouths.

---

Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze
Allegiance in them. Their curses now
Live where their prayers did; and it’s come to pass
This tractable obedience is a slave
To each incensèd will. I would your Highness
Would give it quick consideration, for
There is no primer baseness.
KING By my life,
This is against our pleasure.
WOLSEY And for me,
I have no further gone in this than by
A single voice, and that not passed me but
By learnèd approbation of the judges. If I am
Traduced by ignorant tongues, which neither know
My faculties nor person, yet will be
The chronicles of my doing, let me say
’Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
That virtue must go through. We must not stint
Our necessary actions in the fear
To cope malicious censurers, which ever,
As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow
That is new trimmed, but benefit no further
Than vainly longing. What we oft do best,
By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is
Not ours or not allowed; what worst, as oft,
Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up
For our best act. If we shall stand still
In fear our motion will be mocked or carped at,
We should take root here where we sit,
Or sit state-statues only.
KING Things done well,
And with a care, exempt themselves from fear;
Things done without example, in their issue
Are to be feared. Have you a precedent
Of this commission? I believe, not any.
We must not rend our subjects from our laws

---

And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?
A trembling contribution! Why, we take
From every tree lop, bark, and part o’ th’ timber,
And though we leave it with a root, thus hacked,
The air will drink the sap. To every county
Where this is questioned 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.
WOLSEY , aside to his Secretary A word with you.
Let there be letters writ to every shire
Of the King’s grace and pardon. The grievèd commons
Hardly conceive of me. Let it be noised
That through our intercession this revokement
And pardon comes. I shall anon advise you
Further in the proceeding. Secretary exits.

Enter Buckingham’s Surveyor.

QUEEN KATHERINE , to the King
I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham
Is run in your displeasure.
KING It grieves many.
The gentleman is learnèd and a most rare speaker;
To nature none more bound; his training such
That he may furnish and instruct great teachers
And never seek for aid out of himself. Yet see,
When these so noble benefits shall prove
Not well disposed, the mind growing once corrupt,
They turn to vicious forms ten times more ugly
Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,
Who was enrolled ’mongst wonders, and when we
Almost with ravished list’ning could not find
His hour of speech a minute—he, my lady,
Hath into monstrous 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 trust—of him
Things to strike honor sad.—Bid him recount
The fore-recited practices, whereof
We cannot feel too little, hear too much.
WOLSEY
Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you
Most like a careful subject have collected
Out of the Duke of Buckingham.
KING Speak freely.
SURVEYOR
First, it was usual with him—every day
It would infect his speech—that if the King
Should without issue die, he’ll carry it so
To make the scepter his. These very words
I’ve heard him utter to his son-in-law,
Lord Abergavenny, to whom by oath he menaced
Revenge upon the Cardinal.
WOLSEY Please your Highness, note
This dangerous conception in this point:
Not friended by his wish to your high person,
His will is most malignant, and it stretches
Beyond you to your friends.
QUEEN KATHERINE My learnèd Lord Cardinal,
Deliver all with charity.
KING , to Surveyor Speak on.
How grounded he his title to the crown
Upon our fail? To this point hast thou heard him
At any time speak aught?
SURVEYOR He was brought to this
By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Henton.
KING
What was that Henton?
SURVEYOR Sir, a Chartreux friar,
His confessor, who fed him every minute
With words of sovereignty.

---

KING How know’st thou this?
SURVEYOR
Not long before your Highness sped to France,
The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish
Saint Laurence Poultney, did of me demand
What was the speech among the Londoners
Concerning the French journey. I replied
Men fear the French would prove perfidious,
To the King’s danger. Presently the Duke
Said ’twas the fear indeed, and that he doubted
’Twould prove the verity of certain words
Spoke by a holy monk “that oft,” says he,
“Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit
John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice hour
To hear from him a matter of some moment;
Whom after under the confession’s seal
He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke
My chaplain to no creature living but
To me should utter, with demure confidence
This pausingly ensued: ‘Neither the King, nor ’s heirs—
Tell you the Duke—shall prosper. Bid him strive
To gain the love o’ th’ commonalty; the Duke
Shall govern England.’”
QUEEN KATHERINE If I know you well,
You were the Duke’s surveyor, and lost your office
On the complaint o’ th’ tenants. Take good heed
You charge not in your spleen a noble person
And spoil your nobler soul. I say, take heed—
Yes, heartily beseech you.
KING Let him on.—
Go forward.
SURVEYOR On my soul, I’ll speak but truth.
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 forged him some design, which, being believed,

---

It was much like to do. He answered “Tush,
It can do me no damage,” adding further
That had the King in his last sickness failed,
The Cardinal’s and Sir Thomas Lovell’s heads
Should have gone off.
KING Ha! What, so rank? Ah ha!
There’s mischief in this man! Canst thou say further?
SURVEYOR
I can, my liege.
KING Proceed.
SURVEYOR Being at Greenwich,
After your Highness had reproved the Duke
About Sir William Blumer—
KING
I remember of such a time, being my sworn servant,
The Duke retained him his. But on. What hence?
SURVEYOR
“If,” quoth he, “I for this had been committed,”
As to the Tower, I thought, “I would have played
The part my father meant to act upon
Th’ usurper Richard, who, being at Salisbury,
Made suit to come in ’s presence; which if granted,
As he made semblance of his duty, would
Have put his knife into him.”
KING A giant traitor!
WOLSEY
Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom
And this man out of prison?
QUEEN KATHERINE God mend all.
KING , to Surveyor
There’s something more would out of thee. What sayst?
SURVEYOR
After “the Duke his father” with “the knife,”
He stretched him, and with one hand on his dagger,
Another spread on ’s breast, mounting his eyes,
He did discharge a horrible oath whose tenor

---

Was, were he evil used, he would outgo
His father by as much as a performance
Does an irresolute purpose.
KING There’s his period,
To sheathe his knife in us! He is attached.
Call him to present 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!
They exit.

Enter Lord Chamberlain and Lord Sands.

CHAMBERLAIN
Is ’t possible the spells of France should juggle
Men into such strange mysteries?
SANDS New customs,
Though they be never so ridiculous—
Nay, let ’em be unmanly—yet are followed.
CHAMBERLAIN
As far as I see, all the good our English
Have got by the late voyage is but merely
A fit or two o’ th’ face; but they are shrewd ones,
For when they hold ’em, you would swear directly
Their very noses had been counselors
To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so.
SANDS
They have all new legs and lame ones; one would
take it,
That never see ’em pace before, the spavin
Or springhalt reigned among ’em.
CHAMBERLAIN Death! My lord,
Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to ’t,
That, sure, they’ve worn out Christendom.

---

Enter Sir Thomas Lovell.

How now?
What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?
LOVELL Faith, my lord,
I hear of none but the new proclamation
That’s clapped upon the court gate.
CHAMBERLAIN What is ’t for?
LOVELL
The reformation of our traveled gallants
That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors.
CHAMBERLAIN
I’m glad ’tis there; now I would pray our monsieurs
To think an English courtier may be wise
And never see the Louvre.
LOVELL They must either—
For so run the conditions—leave those remnants
Of fool and feather that they got in France,
With all their honorable points of ignorance
Pertaining thereunto, as fights and fireworks,
Abusing better men than they can be
Out of a foreign wisdom, renouncing clean
The faith they have in tennis and tall stockings,
Short blistered breeches, and those types of travel,
And understand again like honest men,
Or pack to their old playfellows. There, I take it,
They may cum privilegio “oui” away
The lag end of their lewdness and be laughed at.
SANDS
’Tis time to give ’em physic, their diseases
Are grown so catching.
CHAMBERLAIN What a loss our ladies
Will have of these trim vanities!
LOVELL Ay, marry,
There will be woe indeed, lords. The sly whoresons

---

Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies.
A French song and a fiddle has no fellow.
SANDS
The devil fiddle ’em! I am glad they are going,
For sure there’s no converting of ’em. Now
An honest country lord, as I am, beaten
A long time out of play, may bring his plainsong,
And have an hour of hearing, and, by ’r Lady,
Held current music too.
CHAMBERLAIN Well said, Lord Sands.
Your colt’s tooth is not cast yet?
SANDS No, my lord,
Nor shall not while I have a stump.
CHAMBERLAIN Sir Thomas,
Whither were you a-going?
LOVELL To the Cardinal’s.
Your Lordship is a guest too.
CHAMBERLAIN O, ’tis true.
This night he makes a supper, and a great one,
To many lords and ladies. There will be
The beauty of this kingdom, I’ll assure you.
LOVELL
That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed,
A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us.
His dews fall everywhere.
CHAMBERLAIN No doubt he’s noble;
He had a black mouth that said other of him.
SANDS
He may, my lord. ’Has wherewithal. In him,
Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine.
Men of his way should be most liberal;
They are set here for examples.
CHAMBERLAIN True, they are so,
But few now give so great ones. My barge stays.
Your Lordship shall along.—Come, good Sir Thomas,
We shall be late else, which I would not be,

---

For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guilford
This night to be comptrollers.
SANDS I am your Lordship’s.
They exit.

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 Guilford.

GUILFORD
Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace
Salutes you all. This night he dedicates
To fair content and you. None here, he hopes,
In all this noble bevy has brought with her
One care abroad. He would have all as merry
As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome
Can make good people.

Enter Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sands, and
Sir Thomas Lovell.

O, my lord, you’re tardy!
The very thought of this fair company
Clapped wings to me.
CHAMBERLAIN You are young, Sir Harry Guilford.
SANDS
Sir Thomas Lovell, had the Cardinal
But half my lay thoughts in him, some of these
Should find a running banquet, ere they rested,
I think would better please ’em. By my life,
They are a sweet society of fair ones.
LOVELL
O, that your Lordship were but now confessor
To one or two of these!

---

SANDS I would I were.
They should find easy penance.
LOVELL Faith, how easy?
SANDS
As easy as a down bed would afford it.
CHAMBERLAIN
Sweet ladies, will it please you sit?—Sir Harry,
Place you that side; I’ll take the charge of this.
The guests are seated.
His Grace is ent’ring. Nay, you must not freeze;
Two women placed together makes cold weather.
My Lord Sands, you are one will keep ’em waking.
Pray sit between these ladies.
SANDS By my faith,
And thank your Lordship.—By your leave, sweet ladies.
He sits between Anne Bullen and another lady.
If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.
ANNE Was he mad, sir?
SANDS
O, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too;
But he would bite none. Just as I do now,
He would kiss you twenty with a breath.
He kisses Anne.
CHAMBERLAIN Well said,
my lord.
So, now you’re fairly seated, gentlemen,
The penance lies on you if these fair ladies
Pass away frowning.
SANDS For my little cure,
Let me alone.

Hautboys. Enter Cardinal Wolsey, with Attendants and
Servants, and takes his state.

WOLSEY
You’re welcome, my fair guests. That noble lady

---

Or gentleman that is not freely merry
Is not my friend. This to confirm my welcome,
And to you all good health. He drinks to them.
SANDS Your Grace is noble.
Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks
And save me so much talking.
WOLSEY My Lord Sands,
I am beholding to you. Cheer your neighbors.—
Ladies, you are not merry.—Gentlemen,
Whose fault is this?
SANDS The red wine first must rise
In their fair cheeks, my lord. Then we shall have ’em
Talk us to silence.
ANNE You are a merry gamester,
My Lord Sands.
SANDS Yes, if I make my play.
Here’s to your Ladyship, and pledge it, madam,
He drinks to her.
For ’tis to such a thing—
ANNE You cannot show me.
SANDS
I told your Grace they would talk anon.
Drum and Trumpet. Chambers discharged.
WOLSEY What’s that?
CHAMBERLAIN
Look out there, some of you. Servants exit.
WOLSEY What warlike voice,
And to what end, is this?—Nay, ladies, fear not.
By all the laws of war you’re privileged.

Enter a Servant.

CHAMBERLAIN
How now, what is ’t?
SERVANT A noble troop of strangers,
For so they seem. They’ve left their barge and landed,
And hither make, as great ambassadors
From foreign princes.

---

WOLSEY Good Lord Chamberlain,
Go, give ’em welcome—you can speak the French
tongue—
And pray receive ’em nobly, and conduct ’em
Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty
Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.
Lord Chamberlain exits, with Attendants.
All rise, and tables removed.
You have now a broken banquet, but we’ll mend it.
A good digestion to you all; and once more
I shower a welcome on you. Welcome all!

Hautboys. Enter King 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?
CHAMBERLAIN
Because they speak no English, thus they prayed
To tell your Grace: that, having heard by fame
Of this so noble and so fair assembly
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,
Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat
An hour of revels with ’em.
WOLSEY Say, Lord Chamberlain,
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. The
King chooses Anne Bullen.
KING
The fairest hand I ever touched! O beauty,
Till now I never knew thee.
Music, Dance.
WOLSEY
My lord!

---

CHAMBERLAIN Your Grace?
WOLSEY Pray tell ’em thus much
from me:
There should be one amongst ’em by his person
More worthy this place than myself, to whom,
If I but knew him, with my love and duty
I would surrender it.
CHAMBERLAIN I will, my lord.
Whisper with the masquers.
WOLSEY
What say they?
CHAMBERLAIN Such a one they all confess
There is indeed, which they would have your Grace
Find out, and he will take it.
WOLSEY Let me see, then.
He leaves his state.
By all your good leaves, gentlemen.
He bows before the King.
Here I’ll make
My royal choice.
KING , unmasking You have found him, cardinal.
You hold a fair assembly; you do well, lord.
You are a churchman, or I’ll tell you, cardinal,
I should judge now unhappily.
WOLSEY I am glad
Your Grace is grown so pleasant.
KING My Lord Chamberlain,
Prithee come hither. What fair lady’s that?
CHAMBERLAIN
An ’t please your Grace, Sir Thomas Bullen’s daughter,
The Viscount Rochford, one of her Highness’ women.
KING
By heaven, she is a dainty one.—Sweetheart,
I were unmannerly to take you out
And not to kiss you. He kisses Anne. A health,
gentlemen!
Let it go round. He drinks a toast.

---

WOLSEY
Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready
I’ th’ privy chamber?
LOVELL Yes, my lord.
WOLSEY Your Grace,
I fear, with dancing is a little heated.
KING
I fear, too much.
WOLSEY There’s fresher air, my lord,
In the next chamber.
KING
Lead in your ladies ev’ry one.—Sweet partner,
I must not yet forsake you.—Let’s be merry,
Good my Lord Cardinal. I have half a dozen healths
To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure
To lead ’em once again, and then let’s dream
Who’s best in favor. Let the music knock it.
They exit, with Trumpets.

Enter two Gentlemen at several doors.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
Whither away so fast?
SECOND GENTLEMAN O, God save you.
E’en to the Hall to hear what shall become
Of the great Duke of Buckingham.
FIRST GENTLEMAN I’ll save you
That labor, sir. All’s now done but the ceremony
Of bringing back the prisoner.
SECOND GENTLEMAN Were you there?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Yes, indeed was I.
SECOND GENTLEMAN Pray speak what has happened.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
You may guess quickly what.
SECOND GENTLEMAN Is he found guilty?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Yes, truly, is he, and condemned upon ’t.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
I am sorry for ’t.
FIRST GENTLEMAN So are a number more.
SECOND GENTLEMAN But pray, how passed it?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
I’ll tell you in a little. The great duke
Came to the bar, where to his accusations

---

He pleaded still not guilty and alleged
Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.
The King’s attorney on the contrary
Urged on the examinations, proofs, confessions
Of divers witnesses, which the Duke desired
To him brought viva voce to his face;
At which appeared against him his surveyor,
Sir Gilbert Peck his chancellor, and John Car,
Confessor to him, with that devil monk,
Hopkins, that made this mischief.
SECOND GENTLEMAN That was he
That fed him with his prophecies?
FIRST GENTLEMAN The same.
All these accused him strongly, which he fain
Would have flung from him, but indeed he could not.
And so his peers upon this evidence
Have found him guilty of high treason. Much
He spoke, and learnèdly, for life, but all
Was either pitied in him or forgotten.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
After all this, how did he bear himself?
FIRST GENTLEMAN
When he was brought again to th’ bar to hear
His knell rung out, his judgment, he was stirred
With such an agony he sweat extremely
And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty.
But he fell to himself again, and sweetly
In all the rest showed a most noble patience.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
I do not think he fears death.
FIRST GENTLEMAN Sure he does not;
He never was so womanish. The cause
He may a little grieve at.
SECOND GENTLEMAN Certainly
The Cardinal is the end of this.
FIRST GENTLEMAN ’Tis likely,

---

By all conjectures; first, Kildare’s attainder,
Then Deputy of Ireland, who, removed,
Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,
Lest he should help his father.
SECOND GENTLEMAN That trick of state
Was a deep envious one.
FIRST GENTLEMAN At his return
No doubt he will requite it. This is noted,
And generally: whoever the King favors,
The Card’nal instantly will find employment,
And far enough from court too.
SECOND GENTLEMAN All the commons
Hate him perniciously and, o’ my conscience,
Wish him ten fathom deep. This duke as much
They love and dote on, call him bounteous
Buckingham,
The mirror of all courtesy.
FIRST GENTLEMAN Stay there, sir,
And see the noble ruined man you speak of.

Enter Buckingham from his arraignment, Tipstaves before
him, the ax with the edge towards him, Halberds on each
side, accompanied with Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Nicholas
Vaux, Sir Walter Sands, and Common People, etc.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Let’s stand close and behold him.
BUCKINGHAM All good people,
You that thus far have come to pity me,
Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me.
I have this day received a traitor’s judgment,
And by that name must die. Yet heaven bear witness,
And if I have a conscience, let it sink me
Even as the ax falls, if I be not faithful!
The law I bear no malice for my death;
’T has done, upon the premises, but justice.
But those that sought it I could wish more Christian .

---

Be what they will, I heartily forgive ’em.
Yet let ’em look they glory not in mischief,
Nor build their evils on the graves of great men,
For then my guiltless blood must cry against ’em.
For further life in this world I ne’er hope,
Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies
More 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
Is only bitter to him, only dying,
Go with me like good angels to my end,
And as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven.—Lead on, a’ God’s name.
LOVELL
I do beseech your Grace, for charity,
If ever any malice in your heart
Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.
BUCKINGHAM
Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you
As I would be forgiven. I forgive all.
There cannot be those numberless offenses
’Gainst me that I cannot take 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
Yet are the King’s and, till my soul forsake,
Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live
Longer than I have time to tell his years.
Ever beloved and loving may his rule be;
And when old Time shall lead him to his end,
Goodness and he fill up one monument!
LOVELL
To th’ waterside I must conduct your Grace,
Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,
Who undertakes you to your end.

---

VAUX , calling as to Officers offstage Prepare there!
The Duke is coming. See the barge be ready,
And fit it with such furniture as suits
The greatness of his person.
BUCKINGHAM Nay, Sir Nicholas,
Let it alone. My state now will but mock me.
When I came hither, I was Lord High Constable
And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun.
Yet I am richer than my base accusers,
That never knew what truth meant. I now seal it,
And with that blood will make ’em one day groan for ’t.
My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,
Who first raised head against usurping Richard,
Flying for succor to his servant Banister,
Being distressed, was by that wretch betrayed,
And, without trial, fell. God’s peace be with him.
Henry the Seventh, succeeding, truly pitying
My father’s loss, like a most royal prince
Restored me to my honors and out of ruins
Made my name once more noble. Now his son,
Henry the Eighth, life, honor, name, and all
That made me happy at one stroke has taken
Forever from the world. I had my trial,
And must needs say a noble one, which makes me
A little happier than my wretched father.
Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both
Fell by our servants, by those men we loved most—
A most unnatural and faithless service.
Heaven has an end in all; yet, you that hear me,
This from a dying man receive as certain:
Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels
Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from you, never found again

---

But where they mean to sink you. All good people,
Pray for me. I must now forsake you. 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.
Duke and train exit.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
O, this is full of pity, sir! It calls,
I fear, too many curses on their heads
That were the authors.
SECOND GENTLEMAN If the Duke be guiltless,
’Tis full of woe. Yet I can give you inkling
Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,
Greater than this.
FIRST GENTLEMAN Good angels keep it from us!
What may it be? You do not doubt my faith, sir?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
This secret is so weighty ’twill require
A strong faith to conceal it.
FIRST GENTLEMAN Let me have it.
I do not talk much.
SECOND GENTLEMAN I am confident;
You shall, sir. Did you not of late days hear
A buzzing of a separation
Between the King and Katherine?
FIRST GENTLEMAN Yes, but it held not;
For when the King once heard it, out of anger
He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight
To stop the rumor and allay those tongues
That durst disperse it.
SECOND GENTLEMAN But that slander, sir,
Is found a truth now, for it grows again
Fresher than e’er it was, and held for certain
The King will venture at it. Either the Cardinal,
Or some about him near, have, out of malice

---

To the good queen, possessed him with a scruple
That will undo her. To confirm this too,
Cardinal Campeius is arrived, and lately,
As all think, for this business.
FIRST GENTLEMAN ’Tis the Cardinal;
And merely to revenge him on the Emperor
For not bestowing on him at his asking
The archbishopric of Toledo this is purposed.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
I think you have hit the mark. But is ’t not cruel
That she should feel the smart of this? The Cardinal
Will have his will, and she must fall.
FIRST GENTLEMAN ’Tis woeful.
We are too open here to argue this.
Let’s think in private more.
They exit.

Enter Lord Chamberlain, reading this letter.

CHAMBERLAIN My lord, the horses your Lordship sent
for, with all the care I had I saw well chosen, ridden,
and furnished. They were young and handsome and
of the best breed in the north. When they were ready
to set out for London, a man of my Lord Cardinal’s,
by commission and main power, took ’em from me
with this reason: his master would be served before
a subject, if not before the King, which stopped our
mouths, sir.
I fear he will indeed; well, let him have them.
He will have all, I think.

Enter to the Lord Chamberlain, the Dukes
of Norfolk and Suffolk.

NORFOLK Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.
CHAMBERLAIN Good day to both your Graces.

---

SUFFOLK
How is the King employed?
CHAMBERLAIN I left him private,
Full of sad thoughts and troubles.
NORFOLK What’s the cause?
CHAMBERLAIN
It seems the marriage with his brother’s wife
Has crept too near his conscience.
SUFFOLK No, his conscience
Has crept too near another lady.
NORFOLK ’Tis so;
This is the Cardinal’s doing. The king-cardinal,
That blind priest, like the eldest son of Fortune,
Turns what he list. The King will know him one day.
SUFFOLK
Pray God he do! He’ll never know himself else.
NORFOLK
How holily he works in all his business,
And with what zeal! For, now he has cracked the
league
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,
He counsels a divorce, a loss of her
That like a jewel has hung twenty years
About his neck, yet never lost her luster;
Of her that loves him with that excellence
That angels love good men with; even of her
That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
Will bless the King. And is not this course pious?
CHAMBERLAIN
Heaven keep me from such counsel! ’Tis most true:
These news are everywhere, every tongue speaks ’em,

---

And every true heart weeps for ’t. All that dare
Look into these affairs see this main end,
The French king’s sister. Heaven will one day open
The King’s eyes, that so long have slept upon
This bold bad man.
SUFFOLK And free us from his slavery.
NORFOLK We had need pray,
And heartily, for our deliverance,
Or this imperious man will work us all
From princes into pages. All men’s honors
Lie like one lump before him, to be fashioned
Into what pitch he please.
SUFFOLK For me, my lords,
I love him not nor fear him; there’s my creed.
As I am made without him, so I’ll stand,
If the King please. His curses and his blessings
Touch me alike: they’re breath I not believe in.
I knew him and I know him; so I leave him
To him that made him proud, the Pope.
NORFOLK Let’s in,
And with some other business put the King
From these sad thoughts that work too much upon
him.—
My lord, you’ll bear us company?
CHAMBERLAIN Excuse me;
The King has sent me otherwhere. Besides,
You’ll find a most unfit time to disturb him.
Health to your Lordships.
NORFOLK Thanks, my good Lord
Chamberlain.
Lord Chamberlain exits; and the King draws
the curtain and sits reading pensively.
SUFFOLK , to Norfolk
How sad he looks! Sure he is much afflicted.
KING
Who’s there? Ha?

---

NORFOLK , to Suffolk Pray God he be not angry.
KING
Who’s there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves
Into my private meditations? Who am I, ha?
NORFOLK
A gracious king that pardons all offenses
Malice ne’er meant. Our breach of duty this way
Is business of estate, in which we come
To know your royal pleasure.
KING You are too bold.
Go to; I’ll make you know your times of business.
Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha?

Enter Wolsey and Campeius, with a commission.

Who’s there? My good Lord Cardinal? O my Wolsey,
The quiet of my wounded conscience,
Thou art a cure fit for a king. To Campeius. You’re
welcome,
Most learnèd reverend sir, into our kingdom.
Use us and it.—My good lord, have great care
I be not found a talker.
WOLSEY Sir, you cannot.
I would your Grace would give us but an hour
Of private conference.
KING , to Norfolk and Suffolk We are busy. Go.
NORFOLK , aside to Suffolk
This priest has no pride in him?
SUFFOLK , aside to Norfolk Not to speak of.
I would not be so sick, though for his place.
But this cannot continue.
NORFOLK , aside to Suffolk If it do,
I’ll venture one have-at-him.
SUFFOLK , aside to Norfolk I another.
Norfolk and Suffolk exit.
WOLSEY
Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom

---

Above all princes in committing freely
Your scruple to the voice of Christendom.
Who can be angry now? What envy reach you?
The Spaniard, tied by blood and favor to her,
Must now confess, if they have any goodness,
The trial just and noble; all the clerks—
I mean the learnèd ones in Christian kingdoms—
Have their free voices; Rome, the nurse of judgment,
Invited by your noble self, hath sent
One general tongue unto us, this good man,
This just and learnèd priest, Cardinal Campeius,
Whom once more I present unto your Highness.
KING
And once more in mine arms I bid him welcome,
And thank the holy conclave for their loves.
They have sent me such a man I would have wished
for. He embraces Campeius.
CAMPEIUS , handing the King a paper
Your Grace must needs deserve all strangers’ loves,
You are so noble. To your Highness’ hand
I tender my commission—by whose virtue,
The court of Rome commanding, you, my Lord
Cardinal of York, are joined with me their servant
In the unpartial judging of this business.
KING
Two equal men. The Queen shall be acquainted
Forthwith for what you come. Where’s Gardiner?
WOLSEY
I know your Majesty has always loved her
So dear in heart not to deny her that
A woman of less place might ask by law:
Scholars allowed freely to argue for her.
KING
Ay, and the best she shall have, and my favor
To him that does best. God forbid else. Cardinal,

---

Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary.
I find him a fit fellow. Wolsey goes to the door.

Enter Gardiner to Wolsey.

WOLSEY , aside to Gardiner
Give me your hand. Much joy and favor to you.
You are the King’s now.
GARDINER , aside to Wolsey But to be commanded
Forever by your Grace, whose hand has raised me.
KING Come hither, Gardiner.
The King and Gardiner walk and whisper.
CAMPEIUS
My lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace
In this man’s place before him?
WOLSEY Yes, he was.
CAMPEIUS
Was he not held a learnèd man?
WOLSEY Yes, surely.
CAMPEIUS
Believe me, there’s an ill opinion spread, then,
Even of yourself, Lord Cardinal.
WOLSEY How? Of me?
CAMPEIUS
They will not stick to say you envied him
And, fearing he would rise—he was so virtuous—
Kept him a foreign man still, which so grieved him
That he ran mad and died.
WOLSEY Heav’n’s peace be with him!
That’s Christian care enough. For living murmurers,
There’s places of rebuke. He was a fool,
For he would needs be virtuous. That good fellow
If I command him follows my appointment.
I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother:
We live not to be griped by meaner persons.

---

KING , to Gardiner
Deliver this with modesty to th’ Queen.
Gardiner exits.
The most convenient place that I can think of
For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars.
There you shall meet about this weighty business.
My Wolsey, see it furnished. O, my lord,
Would it not grieve an able man to leave
So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience!
O, ’tis a tender place, and I must leave her.
They exit.

Enter Anne Bullen and an old Lady.

ANNE
Not for that neither. Here’s the pang that pinches:
His Highness having lived so long with her, and she
So good a lady that no tongue could ever
Pronounce dishonor of her—by my life,
She never knew harm-doing!—O, now, after
So many courses of the sun enthroned,
Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which
To leave a thousandfold more bitter than
’Tis sweet at first t’ acquire—after this process,
To give her the avaunt! It is a pity
Would move a monster.
OLD LADY Hearts of most hard temper
Melt and lament for her.
ANNE O, God’s will! Much better
She ne’er had known pomp; though ’t be temporal,
Yet if that quarrel, Fortune, do divorce
It from the bearer, ’tis a sufferance panging
As soul and body’s severing.
OLD LADY Alas, poor lady,
She’s a stranger now again!

---

ANNE So much the more
Must pity drop upon her. Verily,
I swear, ’tis better to be lowly born
And range with humble livers in content
Than to be perked up in a glist’ring grief
And wear a golden sorrow.
OLD LADY Our content
Is our best having.
ANNE By my troth and maidenhead,
I would not be a queen.
OLD LADY Beshrew me, I would,
And venture maidenhead for ’t; and so would you,
For all this spice of your hypocrisy.
You, that have so fair parts of woman on you,
Have too a woman’s heart, which ever yet
Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;
Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,
Saving your mincing, the capacity
Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive
If you might please to stretch it.
ANNE Nay, good troth.
OLD LADY
Yes, troth, and troth. You would not be a queen?
ANNE
No, not for all the riches under heaven.
OLD LADY
’Tis strange. A threepence bowed would hire me,
Old as I am, to queen it. But I pray you,
What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs
To bear that load of title?
ANNE No, in truth.
OLD LADY
Then you are weakly made. Pluck off a little.
I would not be a young count in your way
For more than blushing comes to. If your back

---

Cannot vouchsafe this burden, ’tis too weak
Ever to get a boy.
ANNE How you do talk!
I swear again, I would not be a queen
For all the world.
OLD LADY In faith, for little England
You’d venture an emballing. I myself
Would for Carnarvanshire, although there longed
No more to th’ crown but that. Lo, who comes here?

Enter Lord Chamberlain.

CHAMBERLAIN
Good morrow, ladies. What were ’t worth to know
The secret of your conference?
ANNE My good lord,
Not your demand; it values not your asking.
Our mistress’ sorrows we were pitying.
CHAMBERLAIN
It was a gentle business, and becoming
The action of good women. There is hope
All will be well.
ANNE Now, I pray God, amen!
CHAMBERLAIN
You bear a gentle mind, and heav’nly blessings
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
Commends his good opinion of you to you, and
Does purpose honor to you no less flowing
Than Marchioness of Pembroke, to which title
A thousand pound a year annual support
Out of his grace he adds.
ANNE I do not know
What kind of my obedience I should tender.
More than my all is nothing, nor my prayers
Are not words duly hallowed, nor my wishes

---

More worth than empty vanities. Yet prayers and
wishes
Are all I can return. ’Beseech your Lordship,
Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,
As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness,
Whose health and royalty I pray for.
CHAMBERLAIN Lady,
I shall not fail t’ approve the fair conceit
The King hath of you. ( Aside . ) I have perused her
well.
Beauty and honor in her are so mingled
That they have caught the King. And who knows yet
But from this lady may proceed a gem
To lighten all this isle?—I’ll to the King
And say I spoke with you.
ANNE My honored lord.
Lord Chamberlain exits.
OLD LADY Why, this it is! See, see!
I have been begging sixteen years in court,
Am yet a courtier beggarly, nor could
Come pat betwixt too early and too late
For any suit of pounds; and you—O, fate!—
A very fresh fish here—fie, fie, fie upon
This compelled fortune!—have your mouth filled up
Before you open it.
ANNE This is strange to me.
OLD LADY
How tastes it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no.
There was a lady once—’tis an old story—
That would not be a queen, that would she not,
For all the mud in Egypt. Have you heard it?
ANNE
Come, you are pleasant.
OLD LADY With your theme, I could
O’ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke?
A thousand pounds a year for pure respect?
No other obligation? By my life,

---

That promises more thousands; honor’s train
Is longer than his foreskirt. By this time
I know your back will bear a duchess. Say,
Are you not stronger than you were?
ANNE Good lady,
Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,
And leave me out on ’t. Would I had no being
If this salute my blood a jot. It faints me
To think what follows.
The Queen is comfortless and we forgetful
In our long absence. Pray do not deliver
What here you’ve heard to her.
OLD LADY What do you think me?
They exit.

Trumpets, sennet, and cornets. Enter two Vergers, with
short silver wands; next them, two Scribes, in the habit of
doctors; after them, the Bishop of Canterbury alone; after
him, the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Rochester, and Saint
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, and two Noblemen with
the sword and mace. The King takes place under the cloth
of state. The two Cardinals sit under him as judges. The
Queen 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
including a Crier and the Queen’s Gentleman Usher
stand in convenient order about the stage.

---

WOLSEY
Whilst our commission from Rome is read,
Let silence be commanded.
KING What’s the need?
It hath already publicly been read,
And on all sides th’ authority allowed.
You may then spare that time.
WOLSEY Be ’t so. Proceed.
SCRIBE Say “Henry King of England, come into the
court.”
CRIER Henry King of England, come into the court.
KING Here.
SCRIBE Say “Katherine Queen of England, come into
the court.”
CRIER Katherine Queen of England, come into the
court.
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.
QUEEN KATHERINE
Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,
And to bestow your pity on me; for
I am a most poor woman and a stranger,
Born out of your dominions, having here
No judge indifferent nor no more assurance
Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,
In what have I offended you? What cause
Hath my behavior given to your displeasure
That thus you should proceed to put me off
And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness
I have been to you a true and humble wife,
At all times to your will conformable,
Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,
Yea, subject to your countenance, 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
Have I not strove to love, although I knew
He were mine enemy? What friend of mine
That had to him derived your anger did I
Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice
He was from thence discharged? Sir, call to mind
That I have been your wife in this obedience
Upward of twenty years, and have been blessed
With many children by you. If, in the course
And process of this time, you can report,
And prove it too, against mine honor aught,
My bond to wedlock or my love and duty
Against 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,
The King your father was reputed for
A prince most prudent, of an excellent
And unmatched wit and judgment. Ferdinand,
My father, King of Spain, was reckoned one
The wisest prince that there had reigned by many
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. Wherefore I humbly
Beseech you, sir, to spare me till I may
Be by my friends in Spain advised, whose counsel
I will implore. If not, i’ th’ name of God,
Your pleasure be fulfilled.
WOLSEY You have here, lady,
And of your choice, these reverend fathers, men
Of singular integrity and learning,
Yea, the elect o’ th’ land, who are assembled
To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless
That longer you desire the court, as well

---

For your own quiet as to rectify
What is unsettled in the King.
CAMPEIUS His Grace
Hath spoken well and justly. Therefore, madam,
It’s fit this royal session do proceed
And that without delay their arguments
Be now produced and heard.
QUEEN KATHERINE Lord Cardinal,
To you I speak.
WOLSEY Your pleasure, madam.
QUEEN KATHERINE Sir,
I am about to weep; but thinking that
We are a queen, or long have dreamed so, certain
The daughter of a king, my drops of tears
I’ll turn to sparks of fire.
WOLSEY Be patient yet.
QUEEN KATHERINE
I will, when you are humble; nay, before,
Or God will punish me. I do believe,
Induced by potent circumstances, that
You are mine enemy, and make my challenge
You shall not be my judge; for it is you
Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me—
Which God’s dew quench! Therefore I say again,
I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul
Refuse you for my judge, whom, yet once more,
I hold my most malicious foe and think not
At all a friend to truth.
WOLSEY I do profess
You speak not like yourself, who ever yet
Have stood to charity and displayed th’ effects
Of disposition gentle and of wisdom
O’ertopping woman’s power. Madam, you do me
wrong.
I have no spleen 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,
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 gainsay my deed, how may he wound,
And worthily, my falsehood, yea, as much
As you have done my truth. If he know
That I am free of your report, he knows
I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him
It lies to cure me, and the cure is to
Remove these thoughts from you, the which before
His Highness shall speak in, I do beseech
You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking
And to say so no more.
QUEEN KATHERINE My lord, my lord,
I am a simple woman, much too weak
T’ oppose your cunning. You’re meek and
humble-mouthed;
You sign 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’ favors
Gone slightly o’er low steps, and now are mounted
Where powers are your retainers, and your words,
Domestics to you, serve your will as ’t please
Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you,
You tender more your person’s honor than
Your high profession spiritual, that again
I do refuse you for my judge, and here,
Before you all, appeal unto the Pope
To bring my whole cause ’fore his Holiness,
And to be judged by him.
She curtsies to the King, and offers to depart.
CAMPEIUS The Queen is obstinate,
Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and

---

Disdainful to be tried by ’t. ’Tis not well.
She’s going away.
KING Call her again.
CRIER Katherine, Queen of England, come into the
court.
GENTLEMAN USHER Madam, you are called back.
QUEEN KATHERINE
What need you note it? Pray you, keep your way.
When you are called, return. Now, the Lord help!
They vex me past my patience. Pray you, pass on.
I will not tarry; no, nor ever more
Upon this business my appearance make
In any of their courts.
Queen and her Attendants exit.
KING Go thy ways, Kate.
That man i’ th’ world who shall report he has
A better wife, let him in naught be trusted,
For speaking false in that. Thou art, alone—
If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
Thy meekness saintlike, wifelike government,
Obeying in commanding, and thy parts
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out—
The queen of earthly queens. She’s noble born,
And like her true nobility she has
Carried herself towards me.
WOLSEY Most gracious sir,
In humblest manner I require 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 satisfied—whether ever I
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
Be to the prejudice of her present state,
Or touch of her good person?
KING My Lord Cardinal,
I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honor,
I free you from ’t. You are not to be taught
That you have many enemies that know not
Why they are so but, like to village curs,
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
Have wished the sleeping of this business, never
desired
It to be stirred, but oft have hindered, oft,
The passages made toward it. On my honor
I speak my good Lord Cardinal to this point
And thus far clear him. Now, what moved me to ’t,
I will be bold with time and your attention.
Then mark th’ inducement. Thus it came; give heed
to ’t:
My conscience first received a tenderness,
Scruple, and prick on certain speeches uttered
By th’ Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,
Who had been hither sent on the debating
A marriage ’twixt the Duke of Orleans and
Our daughter Mary. I’ th’ progress of this business,
Ere a determinate resolution, he,
I mean the Bishop, did require a respite
Wherein he might the King his lord advertise
Whether our daughter were legitimate,
Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,
Sometime our brother’s wife. This respite shook
The bosom of my conscience, entered me,
Yea, with a spitting power, and made to tremble
The region of my breast; which forced such way
That many mazed considerings did throng

---

And pressed in with this caution. First, methought
I stood not in the smile of heaven, who had
Commanded nature that my lady’s womb,
If it conceived a male child by me, should
Do no more offices of life to ’t than
The grave does to th’ dead, for her male issue
Or died where they were made, or shortly after
This world had aired them. Hence I took a thought
This was a judgment on me, that my kingdom,
Well worthy the best heir o’ th’ world, should not
Be gladded in ’t by me. Then follows that
I weighed the danger which my realms stood in
By this my issue’s fail, and that gave to me
Many a groaning throe. 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,
I meant to rectify my conscience, which
I then did feel full sick, and yet not well,
By all the reverend fathers of the land
And doctors learnèd. First, I began in private
With you, my Lord of Lincoln. You remember
How under my oppression I did reek
When I first moved you.
LINCOLN Very well, my liege.
KING
I have spoke long. Be pleased yourself to say
How far you satisfied me.
LINCOLN So please your Highness,
The question did at first so stagger me,
Bearing a state of mighty moment in ’t
And consequence of dread, that I committed
The daring’st counsel which I had to doubt,
And did entreat your Highness to this course
Which you are running here.
KING I then moved you,

---

My Lord of Canterbury, and got your leave
To make this present summons. Unsolicited
I left no reverend person in this court,
But by particular consent proceeded
Under 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
Of my allegèd reasons drives this forward.
Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life
And kingly dignity, we are contented
To wear our mortal state to come with her,
Katherine our queen, before the primest creature
That’s paragoned o’ th’ world.
CAMPEIUS So please your Highness,
The Queen being absent, ’tis a needful fitness
That we adjourn this court till further day.
Meanwhile must be an earnest motion
Made to the Queen to call back her appeal
She intends unto his Holiness.
KING , aside I may perceive
These cardinals trifle with me. I abhor
This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.
My learnèd and well-belovèd servant Cranmer,
Prithee return. With thy approach, I know,
My comfort comes along.—Break up the court.
I say, set on.
They exit, in manner as they entered.

Enter Queen and her Women, as at work.

QUEEN KATHERINE
Take thy lute, wench. My soul grows sad with troubles.
Sing, and disperse ’em if thou canst. Leave working.
WOMAN sings song.

Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountaintops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep or, hearing, die.

Enter a Gentleman.

QUEEN KATHERINE How now?
GENTLEMAN
An ’t please your Grace, the two great cardinals
Wait in the presence.
QUEEN KATHERINE Would they speak with me?

---

GENTLEMAN
They willed me say so, madam.
QUEEN KATHERINE Pray their Graces
To come near. Gentleman exits.
What can be their business
With me, a poor weak woman, fall’n from favor?
I do not like their coming, now I think on ’t.
They should be good men, their affairs as righteous.
But all hoods make not monks.

Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius.

WOLSEY Peace to your Highness.
QUEEN KATHERINE
Your Graces find me here part of a housewife;
I would be all, against the worst may happen.
What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?
WOLSEY
May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw
Into your private chamber, we shall give you
The full cause of our coming.
QUEEN KATHERINE Speak it here.
There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,
Deserves a corner. Would all other women
Could speak this with as free a soul as I do.
My lords, I care not, so much I am happy
Above a number, if my actions
Were tried by ev’ry tongue, ev’ry eye saw ’em,
Envy and base opinion set against ’em,
I know my life so even. If your business
Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,
Out with it boldly. Truth loves open dealing.
WOLSEY Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina
serenissima—
QUEEN KATHERINE O, good my lord, no Latin!
I am not such a truant since my coming

---

As not to know the language I have lived in.
A strange tongue makes my cause more strange,
suspicious.
Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,
If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake.
Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,
The willing’st sin I ever yet committed
May be absolved in English.
WOLSEY Noble lady,
I am sorry my integrity should breed—
And service to his Majesty and you—
So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant.
We come not by the way of accusation,
To taint that honor every good tongue blesses,
Nor to betray you any way to sorrow—
You have too much, good lady—but to know
How you stand minded in the weighty difference
Between the King and you, and to deliver,
Like free and honest men, our just opinions
And comforts to your cause.
CAMPEIUS Most honored madam,
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
Both of his truth and him—which was too far—
Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
His service and his counsel.
QUEEN KATHERINE , aside To betray me.—
My lords, I thank you both for your good wills.
You speak like honest men; pray God you prove so.
But how to make you suddenly an answer
In such a point of weight, so near mine honor—
More near my life, I fear—with my weak wit,
And to such men of gravity and learning,
In truth I know not. I was set at work

---

Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking
Either for such men or such business.
For her sake that I have been—for I feel
The last fit of my greatness—good your Graces,
Let me have time and counsel for my cause.
Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless.
WOLSEY
Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears;
Your hopes and friends are infinite.
QUEEN KATHERINE In England
But little for my profit. 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 desperate to be honest,
And live a subject? Nay, forsooth. My friends,
They that must weigh out 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.
CAMPEIUS I would your Grace
Would leave your griefs and take my counsel.
QUEEN KATHERINE How, sir?
CAMPEIUS
Put your main cause into the King’s protection.
He’s loving and most gracious. ’Twill be much
Both for your honor better and your cause,
For if the trial of the law o’ertake you,
You’ll part away disgraced.
WOLSEY He tells you rightly.
QUEEN KATHERINE
You tell me what you wish for both: my ruin.
Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon you!
Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge
That no king can corrupt.
CAMPEIUS Your rage mistakes us.

---

QUEEN KATHERINE
The more shame for you! Holy men I thought you,
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;
But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear you.
Mend ’em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?
The cordial that you bring a wretched lady,
A woman lost among you, laughed at, scorned?
I will not wish you half my miseries;
I have more charity. But say I warned you:
Take heed, for heaven’s sake, take heed, lest at once
The burden of my sorrows fall upon you.
WOLSEY
Madam, this is a mere distraction.
You turn the good we offer into envy.
QUEEN KATHERINE
You turn me into nothing! Woe upon you
And all such false professors. Would you have me—
If you have any justice, any pity,
If you be anything but churchmen’s habits—
Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
Alas, has banished me his bed already,
His love, too, long ago. I am old, my lords,
And all the fellowship I hold now with him
Is only my obedience. What can happen
To me above this wretchedness? All your studies
Make me a curse like this.
CAMPEIUS Your fears are worse.
QUEEN KATHERINE
Have I lived thus long—let me speak myself,
Since virtue finds no friends—a wife, a true one—
A woman, I dare say without vainglory,
Never yet branded with suspicion—
Have I with all my full affections
Still met the King, loved him next heav’n, obeyed him,
Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him,
Almost forgot my prayers to content him,

---

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 honor: a great patience.
WOLSEY
Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.
QUEEN KATHERINE
My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty
To give up willingly that noble title
Your master wed me to. Nothing but death
Shall e’er divorce my dignities.
WOLSEY Pray hear me.
QUEEN KATHERINE
Would I had never trod this English earth
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
You have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
What will become of me now, wretched lady?
I am the most unhappy woman living.
To her Women. Alas, poor wenches, where are now
your fortunes?
Shipwracked upon a kingdom where no pity,
No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me,
Almost no grave allowed me, like the lily
That once was mistress of the field and flourished,
I’ll hang my head and perish.
WOLSEY If your Grace
Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
You’d feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,
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
Grow from the King’s acquaintance by this carriage.

---

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,
A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us
Those we profess: peacemakers, friends, and servants.
CAMPEIUS
Madam, you’ll find it so. You wrong your virtues
With these weak women’s fears. A noble spirit,
As yours was put into you, ever casts
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 studies in your service.
QUEEN KATHERINE
Do what you will, my lords, and pray forgive me
If I have used myself unmannerly.
You know I am a woman, lacking wit
To make a seemly answer to such persons.
Pray do my service to his Majesty.
He has my heart yet and shall have my prayers
While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
Bestow your counsels on me. She now begs
That little thought, when she set footing here,
She should have bought her dignities so dear.
They exit.

Enter the Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Suffolk, Lord Surrey,
and Lord Chamberlain.

NORFOLK
If you will now unite in your complaints
And force them with a constancy, the Cardinal

---

Cannot stand under them. If you omit
The offer of this time, I cannot promise
But that you shall sustain more new disgraces
With these you bear already.
SURREY I am joyful
To meet the least occasion that may give me
Remembrance of my father-in-law the Duke,
To be revenged on him.
SUFFOLK Which of the peers
Have uncontemned gone by him, or at least
Strangely neglected? When did he regard
The stamp of nobleness in any person
Out of himself?
CHAMBERLAIN My lords, you speak your pleasures;
What he deserves of you and me I know;
What we can do to him—though now the time
Gives way to us—I much fear. If you cannot
Bar his access to th’ King, never attempt
Anything on him, for he hath a witchcraft
Over the King in ’s tongue.
NORFOLK O, fear him not.
His spell in that is out. The King hath found
Matter against him that forever mars
The honey of his language. No, he’s settled,
Not to come off, in his displeasure.
SURREY Sir,
I should be glad to hear such news as this
Once every hour.
NORFOLK Believe it, this is true.
In the divorce his contrary proceedings
Are all unfolded, wherein he appears
As I would wish mine enemy.
SURREY How came
His practices to light?
SUFFOLK Most strangely.
SURREY O, how, how?

---

SUFFOLK
The Cardinal’s letters to the Pope miscarried
And came to th’ eye o’ th’ King, wherein was read
How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness
To stay the judgment o’ th’ divorce; for if
It did take place, “I do,” quoth he, “perceive
My king is tangled in affection to
A creature of the Queen’s, Lady Anne Bullen.”
SURREY
Has the King this?
SUFFOLK Believe it.
SURREY Will this work?
CHAMBERLAIN
The King in this perceives him how he coasts
And hedges his own way. But in this point
All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic
After his patient’s death: the King already
Hath married the fair lady.
SURREY Would he had!
SUFFOLK
May you be happy in your wish, my lord,
For I profess you have it.
SURREY Now, all my joy
Trace the conjunction!
SUFFOLK My amen to ’t.
NORFOLK All men’s.
SUFFOLK
There’s order given for her coronation.
Marry, this is yet but young and may be left
To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,
She is a gallant creature and complete
In mind and feature. I persuade me, from her
Will fall some blessing to this land which shall
In it be memorized.
SURREY But will the King
Digest this letter of the Cardinal’s?
The Lord forbid!

---

NORFOLK Marry, amen!
SUFFOLK No, no.
There be more wasps that buzz about his nose
Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius
Is stol’n away to Rome, hath ta’en no leave,
Has left the cause o’ th’ King unhandled, and
Is posted as the agent of our cardinal
To second all his plot. I do assure you
The King cried “Ha!” at this.
CHAMBERLAIN Now God incense him,
And let him cry “Ha!” louder.
NORFOLK But, my lord,
When returns Cranmer?
SUFFOLK
He is returned in his opinions, which
Have satisfied the King for his divorce,
Together with all famous colleges
Almost in Christendom. Shortly, I believe,
His second marriage shall be published, and
Her coronation. Katherine no more
Shall be called queen, but princess dowager
And widow to Prince Arthur.
NORFOLK This same Cranmer’s
A worthy fellow, and hath ta’en much pain
In the King’s business.
SUFFOLK He has, and we shall see him
For it an archbishop.
NORFOLK So I hear.
SUFFOLK ’Tis so.

Enter Wolsey and Cromwell, meeting .

The Cardinal!
NORFOLK
Observe, observe; he’s moody. They stand aside.
WOLSEY The packet, Cromwell;
Gave ’t you the King?

---

CROMWELL To his own hand, in ’s bedchamber.
WOLSEY
Looked he o’ th’ inside of the paper?
CROMWELL Presently
He did unseal them, and the first he viewed,
He did it with a serious mind; a heed
Was in his countenance. You he bade
Attend him here this morning.
WOLSEY Is he ready
To come abroad?
CROMWELL I think by this he is.
WOLSEY Leave me awhile. Cromwell exits.
Aside . It shall be to the Duchess of Alençon,
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. Bullen?
No, we’ll no Bullens. Speedily I wish
To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke!
NORFOLK
He’s discontented.
SUFFOLK Maybe he hears the King
Does whet his anger to him.
SURREY Sharp enough,
Lord, for thy justice!
WOLSEY , aside
The late queen’s gentlewoman, a knight’s daughter,
To be her mistress’ mistress? The Queen’s queen?
This candle burns not clear. ’Tis I must snuff it;
Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous
And well-deserving? Yet I know her for
A spleeny Lutheran, and not wholesome to
Our cause that she should lie i’ th’ bosom of
Our hard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up
An heretic, an arch-one, Cranmer, one

---

Hath crawled into the favor of the King
And is his oracle.
NORFOLK He is vexed at something.
SURREY
I would ’twere something that would fret the string,
The master-cord on ’s heart.
SUFFOLK The King, the King!

Enter King, reading of a schedule, with Lovell
and Attendants.

KING
What piles of wealth hath he accumulated
To his own portion! And what expense by th’ hour
Seems to flow from him! How i’ th’ name of thrift
Does he rake this together? Seeing the nobles. Now,
my lords,
Saw you the Cardinal?
NORFOLK , indicating Wolsey My lord, we have
Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion
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, straight
Springs out into fast gait, then stops again,
Strikes his breast hard, and anon he casts
His eye against the moon. In most strange postures
We have seen him set himself.
KING It may well be
There is a mutiny in ’s mind. This morning
Papers of state he sent me to peruse,
As I required, and wot you what I found?
There—on my conscience, put unwittingly—
Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing
The several parcels of his plate, his treasure,
Rich stuffs and ornaments of household, which
I find at such proud rate that it outspeaks
Possession of a subject.

---

NORFOLK It’s heaven’s will!
Some spirit put this paper in the packet
To bless your eye withal.
KING , studying Wolsey If we did think
His contemplation were above the Earth
And fixed on spiritual object, he should still
Dwell in his musings, but I am afraid
His thinkings are below the moon, not worth
His serious considering.
King takes his seat, whispers Lovell,
who goes to the Cardinal.
WOLSEY Heaven forgive me!
Ever God bless your Highness.
KING Good my lord,
You are full of heavenly stuff and bear the inventory
Of your best graces in your mind, the which
You were now running o’er. You have scarce time
To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span
To keep your earthly audit. Sure, in that
I deem you an ill husband, and am glad
To have you therein my companion.
WOLSEY Sir,
For holy offices I have a time; a time
To think upon the part of business which
I bear i’ th’ state; and Nature does require
Her times of preservation, which perforce
I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
Must give my tendance to.
KING You have said well.
WOLSEY
And ever may your Highness yoke together,
As I will lend you cause, my doing well
With my well saying.
KING ’Tis well said again,
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 crown
His word upon you. Since I had my office
I have kept you next my heart, have not alone
Employed you where high profits might come home,
But pared my present havings to bestow
My bounties upon you.
WOLSEY , aside What should this mean?
SURREY , aside
The Lord increase this business!
KING Have I not made you
The prime man of the state? I pray you tell me
If what I now pronounce you have found true;
And, if you may confess it, say withal
If you are bound to us or no. What say you?
WOLSEY
My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,
Showered on me daily, have been more than could
My studied purposes requite, which went
Beyond all man’s endeavors. My endeavors
Have ever come too short of my desires,
Yet filed with my abilities. Mine own ends
Have been mine so, 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
Can nothing render but allegiant thanks,
My prayers to heaven for you, my loyalty,
Which ever has and ever shall be growing
Till death—that winter—kill it.
KING Fairly answered.
A loyal and obedient subject is
Therein illustrated. The honor of it
Does pay the act of it, as, i’ th’ contrary,
The foulness is the punishment. I presume
That, as my hand has opened bounty to you,
My heart dropped love, my power rained honor, more

---

On you than any, so your hand and heart,
Your brain, and every function of your power
Should—notwithstanding that your bond of duty
As ’twere in love’s particular—be more
To me, your friend, than any.
WOLSEY I do profess
That for your Highness’ good I ever labored
More than mine own, that am, have, and will be—
Though all the world should crack their duty to you
And throw it from their soul, though perils did
Abound as thick as thought could make ’em, and
Appear in forms more horrid—yet my duty,
As doth a rock against the chiding flood,
Should the approach of this wild river break,
And stand unshaken yours.
KING ’Tis nobly spoken.—
Take notice, lords: he has a loyal breast,
For you have seen him open ’t.
He hands Wolsey papers.
Read o’er this,
And after, this; and then to breakfast with
What appetite you have.
King exits, frowning upon the Cardinal;
the nobles throng after him smiling
and whispering, and exit.
WOLSEY What should this mean?
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 chafèd lion
Upon the daring huntsman that has galled him,
Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper—
I fear, the story of his anger.
He reads one of the papers.
’Tis so.
This paper has undone me. ’Tis th’ accompt
Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together

---

For mine own ends—indeed, to gain the popedom
And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence,
Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross devil
Made me put this main secret in the packet
I sent the King? Is there no way to cure this?
No new device to beat this from his brains?
I know ’twill stir him strongly; yet I know
A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune
Will bring me off again. He looks at another paper.
What’s this? “To th’ Pope”?
The letter, as I live, with all the business
I writ to ’s Holiness. Nay then, farewell!
I have touched the highest point of all my greatness,
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.

Enter to Wolsey the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the
Earl of Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain.

NORFOLK
Hear the King’s pleasure, cardinal, who commands
you
To render up the great seal presently
Into our hands, and to confine yourself
To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester’s,
Till you hear further from his Highness.
WOLSEY Stay.
Where’s your commission, lords? Words cannot carry
Authority so weighty.
SUFFOLK Who dare cross ’em,
Bearing the King’s will from his mouth expressly?
WOLSEY
Till I find more than will or words to do it—
I mean your malice—know, officious lords,
I dare and must deny it. Now I feel

---

Of what coarse metal you are molded, envy;
How eagerly you follow my disgraces,
As if it fed you, and how sleek and wanton
You appear in everything may bring my ruin.
Follow your envious courses, men of malice;
You have Christian warrant for ’em, and no doubt
In time will find their fit rewards. That seal
You ask with such a violence, the King,
Mine and your master, with his own hand gave me;
Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honors,
During my life; and to confirm his goodness,
Tied it by letters patents. Now, who’ll take it?
SURREY
The King that gave it.
WOLSEY It must be himself, then.
SURREY
Thou art a proud traitor, priest.
WOLSEY Proud lord, thou liest.
Within these forty hours Surrey durst better
Have burnt that tongue than said so.
SURREY Thy ambition,
Thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law.
The heads of all thy brother cardinals,
With thee and all thy best parts bound together,
Weighed not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!
You sent me Deputy for Ireland,
Far from his succor, from the King, from all
That might have mercy on the fault thou gav’st him,
Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Absolved him with an ax.
WOLSEY This, and all else
This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
I answer, is most false. The Duke by law
Found his deserts. How innocent I was
From any private malice in his end,

---

His noble jury and foul cause can witness.—
If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you
You have as little honesty as honor,
That in the way of loyalty and truth
Toward the King, my ever royal master,
Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be,
And all that love his follies.
SURREY By my soul,
Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel
My sword i’ th’ life blood of thee else.—My lords,
Can you endure to hear this arrogance?
And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,
Farewell, nobility. Let his Grace go forward
And dare us with his cap, like larks.
WOLSEY All goodness
Is poison to thy stomach.
SURREY Yes, that goodness
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,
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,
Whom, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen,
Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles
Collected from his life.—I’ll startle you
Worse than the sacring bell when the brown wench
Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal.
WOLSEY
How much, methinks, I could despise this man,
But that I am bound in charity against it!
NORFOLK
Those articles, my lord, are in the King’s hand;
But thus much, they are foul ones.

---

WOLSEY So much fairer
And spotless shall mine innocence arise
When the King knows my truth.
SURREY This cannot save you.
I thank my memory I yet remember
Some of these articles, and out they shall.
Now, if you can blush and cry “Guilty,” cardinal,
You’ll show a little honesty.
WOLSEY Speak on, sir.
I dare your worst objections. If I blush,
It is to see a nobleman want manners.
SURREY
I had rather want those than my head. Have at you:
First, that without the King’s assent or knowledge,
You wrought to be a legate, by which power
You maimed the jurisdiction of all bishops.
NORFOLK
Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else
To foreign princes, “ego et rex meus”
Was still inscribed, in which you brought the King
To be your servant.
SUFFOLK Then, that without the knowledge
Either of king or council, when you went
Ambassador to the Emperor, you made bold
To carry into Flanders the great seal.
SURREY
Item, you sent a large commission
To Gregory de Cassado, to conclude,
Without the King’s will or the state’s allowance,
A league between his Highness and Ferrara.
SUFFOLK
That out of mere ambition you have caused
Your holy hat to be stamped on the King’s coin.
SURREY
Then, that you have sent innumerable substance—
By what means got I leave to your own conscience—

---

To furnish Rome and to prepare the ways
You have for dignities, to the mere undoing
Of all the kingdom. Many more there are
Which, since they are of you, and odious,
I will not taint my mouth with.
CHAMBERLAIN O, my lord,
Press not a falling man too far! ’Tis virtue.
His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him
So little of his great self.
SURREY I forgive him.
SUFFOLK
Lord Cardinal, the King’s further pleasure is—
Because all those things you have done of late
By your power legative within this kingdom
Fall into th’ compass of a praemunire —
That therefore such a writ be sued against you,
To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,
Chattels , and whatsoever, and to be
Out of the King’s protection. This is my charge.
NORFOLK
And so we’ll leave you to your meditations
How to live better. For your stubborn answer
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.
WOLSEY
So, farewell to the little good you bear me.
All but Wolsey exit.
Farewell? A long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; tomorrow blossoms
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely

---

His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you.
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favors!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

Enter Cromwell, standing amazed.

Why, how now, Cromwell?
CROMWELL
I have no power to speak, sir.
WOLSEY What, amazed
At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder
A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
I am fall’n indeed.
CROMWELL How does your Grace?
WOLSEY Why, well.
Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
I know myself now, and I feel within me
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, out of pity, taken
A load would sink a navy: too much honor.
O, ’tis a burden, Cromwell, ’tis a burden
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.

---

CROMWELL
I am glad your Grace has made that right use of it.
WOLSEY
I hope I have. I am able now, methinks,
Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,
To endure more miseries and greater far
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
What news abroad?
CROMWELL The heaviest and the worst
Is your displeasure with the King.
WOLSEY God bless him.
CROMWELL
The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen
Lord Chancellor in your place.
WOLSEY That’s somewhat sudden.
But he’s a learnèd man. May he continue
Long in his Highness’ favor 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.
What more?
CROMWELL That Cranmer is returned with welcome,
Installed Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
WOLSEY
That’s news indeed.
CROMWELL Last, that the Lady Anne,
Whom the King hath in secrecy long married,
This day was viewed in open as his queen,
Going to chapel, and the voice is now
Only about her coronation.
WOLSEY
There was the weight that pulled me down.
O Cromwell,
The King has gone beyond me. All my glories
In that one woman I have lost forever.

---

No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors,
Or gild again the noble troops that waited
Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell.
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—
I know his noble nature—not to let
Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,
Neglect him not. Make use now, and provide
For thine own future safety.
CROMWELL , weeping O, my lord,
Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo
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
Forever and forever shall be yours.
WOLSEY , weeping
Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries, but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let’s dry our eyes. And thus far hear me, Cromwell,
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull 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 sounded all the depths and shoals of honor,
Found thee a way, out of his wrack, to rise in,
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark 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,
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.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.
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
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
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
CROMWELL
Good sir, have patience.
WOLSEY So I have. Farewell,
The hopes of court! My hopes in heaven do dwell.
They exit.