Complete Plays, The (289 page)

Cardinal Wolsey

If your grace
Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
You’ld 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, peace-makers, friends, and servants.

Cardinal 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 Katharine

Do what ye 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.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. A
NTE
-
CHAMBER
TO
K
ING
H
ENRY
VIII’
S
APARTMENT
.

Enter Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, and 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 moe 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 uncontemn’d 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 the king, never attempt
Any thing 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 for ever 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 practises to light?

Suffolk

Most strangely.

Surrey

O, how, how?

Suffolk

The cardinal’s letters to the pope miscarried,
And came to the eye o’ the king: wherein was read,
How that the cardinal did entreat his holiness
To stay the judgment o’ the 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 memorised.

Surrey

But, will the king
Digest this letter of the cardinal’s?
The Lord forbid!

Norfolk

 
Marry, amen!

Suffolk

No, no;
There be moe 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’ the 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 return’d 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 publish’d, and
Her coronation. Katharine no more
Shall be call’d 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.
The cardinal!

Enter Cardinal Wolsey and Cromwell

Norfolk

 
Observe, observe, he’s moody.

Cardinal Wolsey

The packet, Cromwell.
Gave’t you the king?

Cromwell

To his own hand, in’s bedchamber.

Cardinal Wolsey

Look’d he o’ the inside of the paper?

Cromwell

Presently
He did unseal them: and the first he view’d,
He did it with a serious mind; a heed
Was in his countenance. You he bade
Attend him here this morning.

Cardinal Wolsey

Is he ready
To come abroad?

Cromwell

 
I think, by this he is.

Cardinal Wolsey

Leave me awhile.

Exit Cromwell

Aside

It shall be to the Duchess of Alencon,
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

 
May be, he hears the king
Does whet his anger to him.

Surrey

Sharp enough,
Lord, for thy justice!

Cardinal 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’ the bosom of
Our hard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up
An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one
Hath crawl’d into the favour of the king,
And is his oracle.

Norfolk

 
He is vex’d at something.

Surrey

I would ’twere something that would fret the string,
The master-cord on’s heart!

Enter King Henry VIII, reading of a schedule, and Lovell

Suffolk

The king, the king!

King Henry VIII

What piles of wealth hath he accumulated
To his own portion! and what expense by the hour
Seems to flow from him! How, i’ the name of thrift,
Does he rake this together! Now, my lords,
Saw you the cardinal?

Norfolk

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 Henry VIII

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 out-speaks
Possession of a subject.

Norfolk

It’s heaven’s will:
Some spirit put this paper in the packet,
To bless your eye withal.

King Henry VIII

If we did think
His contemplation were above the earth,
And fix’d 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 Henry VIII takes his seat; whispers Lovell, who goes to Cardinal Wolsey

Cardinal Wolsey

Heaven forgive me!
Ever God bless your highness!

King Henry VIII

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.

Cardinal Wolsey

Sir,
For holy offices I have a time; a time
To think upon the part of business which
I bear i’ the state; and nature does require
Her times of preservation, which perforce
I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
Must give my tendence to.

King Henry VIII

You have said well.

Cardinal Wolsey

And ever may your highness yoke together,
As I will lend you cause, my doing well
With my well saying!

King Henry VIII

’Tis well said again;
And ’tis a kind of good deed to say well:
And yet words are no deeds. My father loved you:
His 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
Employ’d you where high profits might come home,
But pared my present havings, to bestow
My bounties upon you.

Cardinal Wolsey

[Aside]
 
What should this mean?

Surrey

[Aside]
 
The Lord increase this business!

King Henry VIII

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?

Cardinal Wolsey

My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,
Shower’d on me daily, have been more than could
My studied purposes requite; which went
Beyond all man’s endeavours: my endeavours
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 the good of your most sacred person and
The profit of the state. For your great graces
Heap’d 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 Henry VIII

Fairly answer’d;
A loyal and obedient subject is
Therein illustrated: the honour of it
Does pay the act of it; as, i’ the contrary,
The foulness is the punishment. I presume
That, as my hand has open’d bounty to you,
My heart dropp’d love, my power rain’d honour, 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.

Cardinal Wolsey

I do profess
That for your highness’ good I ever labour’d
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 Henry VIII

’Tis nobly spoken:
Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,
For you have seen him open’t. Read o’er this;

Giving him papers

And after, this: and then to breakfast with
What appetite you have.

Exit King Henry VIII, frowning upon Cardinal Wolsey: the Nobles throng after him, smiling and whispering

Cardinal Wolsey