yjm; ^^f % .^■^ "^*.. >>• '^ ^^ '^ A . 1 ' " 1 - xO°-. ii ^IIW^ ^\ Z^^.''. ; tJi^ \^ . > ^^•' ^*. '.' V % /' "-^^ i> : ,v'- ^^. ^c. ^ V •/>, <\v ^ o A 'r\ ^ K^^ '^-. "/^ A V^ x^^^ V '/>. :?^^ r?-^ ^0O ^^\ .^ >' ■^^ ^ •^^ i' o o\-^\'-i':-'>''''\^ ."-''-' ""''-- ■ 4< V « '■V'' ■i.--v// >) -^ T' ,4v '^ •^ \ ^^*^j(i>^?" -Tjr^ ■' « X ,^ ,■ " " '' /P o. ^' ^- .r ■%• •. ■^ aO^ ^^. A^" c: 0^ ^0■ '^7 ■ -. V ■\ Oi' <^. ,^^0 x\^ .^^^^ ^v ^ "rt^'5^0' x^ ^.. /' .Wt^^^ X * ^ "> 9 1 \ O .^'^ ?y'."^ .'\ .^■ •V ^ ., - King Henry VIII SHAKESPEARE'S HISTORY OF King Henry the Eighth EDITED, WITH NOTES BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D. FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK . :. CINCINNATI • :• CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received DEC 6 1904 Copyrifiiii Entry CLASS O^ XXc Not COPY B. Copyright, 1871, 1883, and 1898, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1899, by William J. Rolfe. Copyright, 1904, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE. henry VIII. w. p. I PREFACE This play, which I edited in 187 1, and revised in 1883, with the addition of line numbers, is now reissued with further and fuller revision on the same plan as the sixteen plays that have preceded it in the series. The notes credited to " Adee " were sent to me when I was at work on the play in 1883 by my good friend, Hon. Alvey A. Adee, of Washington, D.C., then, as now. First Assistant Secretary of State, and an accom- plished Shakespeare scholar and critic. The notes credited to "White " are from Mr. Richard Grant White's first and fully annotated edition of Shake- speare in twelve volumes, not from the later abridged " Riverside " edition, and were used with his permission and approval. CONTENTS Introduction to King Henry the Eighth The History of the Play . The Historical Sources of the Play Critical Comments on the Play King Henry the Eighth Act I Act II Act III Act IV Act V Notes . Appendix The Time-Analysis of the Play Historic Dates, in the Order of the Play List of Characters in the Play 9 9 i8 19 39 41 71 lOI 129 144 173 259 259 259 260 Index of Words and Phrases Explained. 263 The Tower of London INTRODUCTION TO KING HENRY THE EIGHTH The History of the Play Henry VIII, under the title of " The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight," was first pubHshed in the Folio of 1623, where it is printed with remarkable accuracy. The date of the play has been the subject of much discussion. The earlier editors and comm.entators, with the single exception of Chalmers, beUeved that it was 9 lo King Henry the Eighth written before the death of Elizabeth (March, 1603), and that the allusion to her successor, "■ Nor shall this peace sleep with her," etc. (v. 5), did not form a part of Cranmer's speech as originally composed, but was inter- polated by Ben Jonson after James had come to the throne. But, as White remarks, " the speech in question is homogeneous [though not, as he calls it, 'Shake- spearian '] ; the subsequent allusion to Elizabeth as ' an aged princess ' would not have been ventured during her life ; and the exhibition of Henry's selfish passion for Anne Bullen, and of her lightness of character, would have been hardly less offensive to the Virgin Queen, her daughter." In the Stationers' Registers, under date of February 12, 1604 [-5], we find the following memorandum: " Nath. Butter] Yf he get good allowance for the Enter- lude of K. Henry 8th before he begyn to print it, and then procure the wardens hands to yt for the entrance of yt, he is to have the same for his copy ; " and some editors have thought that this refers to Shakespeare's drama. It is more probable, however, that the reference is to a play of Samuel Rowley's, " When you See me you Know me, or the Famous Chronicle History of King Henry the Eighth," which was pubhshed in 1605.^ 1 This play is " a bluff, hearty, violently Protestant piece of work, the Protestant emphasis being indeed the most striking thing about it. The verse is formal, with one or two passages of somewhat heightened quality. The characters include a stage Harry, a very invertebrate Wolsey, a Will Sommers whose jokes are as thin as they are inveterate, a Queen Katherine of the doctrinal and magnanimous order, a modest Introduction ii Most of the recent editors believe that the play was written in 1612 or 1613, and that it was the poet's last work. The evidence drawn from the play itself tends to confirm this view of its date. In the prophecy of Cran- mer, the lines, — " Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine. His hopour, and the greatness of his name. Shall be, and make new nations," — allude, we can hardly doubt, to the colonization of Vir- ginia, and, if so, could not have been written earlier than 1607. The style and the versification of the play, more- over, indicate that it was one of the last productions of the poet. As White has remarked, " the excessively ellip- tical construction, and the incessant use of verbal contrac- ^ tions, are marks of Shakespeare's latest years — those which produced The Tempest and The Winter''s Tale^ It will be observed also that many of the lines end with unaccented monosyllables or particles ; and this pecu- liarity is very rare in those plays of Shakespeare which are known to be his earliest, while it is frequent in those which are known to be his latest. The external evidence also favours this date. The Globe Theatre was burned down on the 29th of June, 1613, and we have several contemporary accounts of the catastrophe. A letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Prince Edward ; with minor personages of the. usual sort, and, beyond the usual, a Dogberry and Verges set of watchmen, with whom, together with one Black Will, King Henry has a ruffling scene " (Symons) . The play was reprinted in 1613, 1621, and 1632. 12 King Henry the Eighth Ralph Winwood, dated July 12, 16 13, describes the burning, and says that it " fell out by a peale of cham- bers " — that is, a discharge of small cannon. Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's Annales, written some time after the fire (since he speaks of the theatre as rebuilt "the next spring"), says that the house was "filled with people to behold the play, viz., of Henry the Eighth^ Sir Henry Wotton, writing to his nephew on the 6th of July, 1613, gives a minute account of the accident: " Now to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The king's players had a new play called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraor- dinary circumstances of pomp and majesty. . . . Now, King Henry making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of ^lie paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming, in less than an hour, the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks ; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him if he had not, by the benefit of a provi- dent wit, put it out with bottle ale." There can be little doubt that the play in question was Shakespeare's Henry Introduction 13 F///, in which, according to the original stage direction (iv. i), we have " chambers discharged " at the entrance of the king to the " mask at the cardinal's house." It appears to have had at first a double title, but the ^' All is True " was soon dropped, leaving only the more distinc- tive title corresponding to those of Shakespeare's other historical plays. There seem to be several references to the lost title in the Prologue : " May here find truth too j " " To rank our chosen truth with such a show ; " and "To make that only true we now intend." The critics are now generally agreed that portions of Henry VIII were written by John Fletcher. Mr. Rod- erick, in notes appended to Edwards's Canons of Criti- cism (edition of 1765), was the first to point out certain peculiarities in the versification of the play — the frequent occurrence of a redundant or eleventh syllable, of pauses nearer the end of the verse than usual, and of " emphasis clashing with the cadence of the metre." More recently two critics (Mr. James Spedding, in the Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1850, and Mr. Samuel Hickson, in Notes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 198 and vol. iii. p. 33), working independently, divided the play between Shake- speare and Fletcher in the same manner, assigning certain scenes to each author, on account of difi"erences in the versification and diction ; and a study of the dramatic treatment and characterization by these and other critics led to precisely the same results. Mr.. Spedding afterward stated that the resemblance to Fletcher's style in parts of the play was pointed out to him several years before by 14 ^i^g Henry the Eighth Tennyson ; and it is a curious fact that Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his lecture on Shakespeare (pubhshed in 1850 before he could have seen the articles by Spedding and Hickson, and written several years before it was pub- lished), also noted the evidences of two hands in Henry VIII. He says, after referring to Malone's discussion of the double authorship oi Henry VI: "In Henry VIII I think I see plainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his [Shakespeare's] stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, thoughtful man with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy and the following scene with Cromwell, where, instead of the metre of Shake- speare, whose secret is that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best bring out the rhythm, here the Hnes are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakable traits of Shakespeare's hand, and some passages are like autographs. What is odd, the compHment to Queen Elizabeth [v. 5, 17 foL] is in the bad rhythm." The passages which Emerson ascribes to the "man with a vicious ear" are all among those which Spedding and others decide to be Fletcher's. People with no ear for rhythm may sneer at verse tests as they please ; but when poets like Tennyson and Emerson come to the same conclusions as the " metre-mongers " and other critics, we may safely assume that these conclusions are probably correct. Introduction 15 Craik (^English of Shakespeare, Rolfe's ed. pp. 10, 38) believes that much of the play is " evidently by another hand," the character of the versification being " the most conclusive, or, at least, the clearest evidence that it cannot have been written throughout by Shakespeare." Abbott {Shakesperian Grammar, p. 331), after stating that in Shakespeare's verse " the extra syllable [at the end of a line] is very rarely a monosyllable," says : *'The fact that in Henry VIII, and in no other play of Shakespeare's, constant exceptio7is are found to this rule, seems to me a sufficient proof that Shakespeare did not write that play." Fleay, Furnivall, and Dowden agree with Spedding in assigning to Shakespeare act i. sc. i, 2 ; act ii. sc. 3, 4 ; act iii. sc. 2 (to exit of King, line 203) ; and act v. sc. 2 : the remainder they believe to be Fletcher's. Various theories have been proposed to explain the double authorship of the play. Some critics think that it was an instance of collaboration ; but it is more prob- able, as the majority believe, that Fletcher completed an unfinished play of Shakespeare's. Three or four take . the ground that Shakespeare was the sole author; one (Mr. Robert Boyle, in the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, for 1880-1885) argues that the play was written by Fletcher and Massinger, and that Shake- speare had nothing to do with it. Mr. Arthur Symons (introduction to the play in the *' Henry Irving " edition) doubts whether Shakespeare wrote the non-Fletcherian parts, but hesitates to attribute them to Massinger or any other dramatist of the time. He says : " There are 1 6 King Henry the Eighth lines and passages which, if I came across them in an anonymous play, I should assign without hesitation to Massinger; there are also lines and passages to which I can recollect no parallel in all his works." He " can- not hold with any assurance that the second author has yet been discovered."^ Mr. Aldis Wright (Clarendon Press edition of the play, 1 891) remarks: "In such a case it is easier to prove a negative than a positive, and while it may appear to some not sufificiently certain that Mr. Boyle has identified Massinger as the author of the parts he attributes to him, he must be allowed to have given excellent reasons for concluding that they were not written by Shakespeare." So far Mr. Wright fully agrees with Mr. Boyle ; but as to the question whose are the non-Fletcherian parts, he says : " I confess this is a question I am not careful to answer. If they are not by Shakespeare, it matters little to whom they are assigned." He gives some weight to the fact that there are many " un-Shakesperian words and phrases " in the play, of which he adds a partial hst ; and these, he says, " occur in all parts of the play, and not merely in those which Mr. Spedding assigns to Fletcher." But in Henry VIII, of which about three-fifths is Fletcher's, there are only 143 words (22 of which are compounds) found in no other work ascribed to Shakespeare, while 1 Mr. Boyle and Mr. Symons agree in adding act. iv. sc. i to Spedding's non-Fletcherian part of the play ; and Mr. Boyle also adds the following portions of other scenes : act i. sc. 4, lines 1-24, 64-108 ; act. ii. sc. I, lines 1-53, 137-169; and act v. sc. 3, lines 1-113. Introduction 17 in Hejiry V, another play taken at random, there are 138 such words (25 being compounds). Hamlet (a play about twice as long as Henry VIH) has more than four hundred such words. As the authorship of both Henry V and Hamlet is undisputed, it is evident that no argument concerning Shakespeare's share in Henry VIH can be based upon the supposed " un-Shakesperian words " in the play. Mr. Fleay, in his Shakespeare Mamml {i^']6), accepts Spedding's theory of the authorship of the play ; but in his Life and Work of Shakespeare (1886) he says: " This play is chiefly by Fletcher and Massinger, Shake- speare's share in it being only i. 2, ii. 3, ii. 4. It was not, however, written by these authors in conjunction. Shakespeare appears to have left it unfinished ; his part is more like The Winter's Tale than any other play, and was probably written just before that comedy in 1609." The 16 13 play he believes to have been "Shakespeare's in its original form," but " probably finished by Fletcher, and destroyed in great part in the Globe fire." The "extant play," he thinks, "was produced, by Fletcher and Massinger in 161 7." Mr. Sidney Lee {Life of Shakespeare) believes that the play was written by Shakespeare and Fletcher, who in his part of the work had " occasional aid from Massin- ger;" but he considers that the theory that "Massinger and Fletcher alone collaborated in Henry VILL (to the exclusion of Shakespeare altogether) does not deserve serious consideration." He is inclined to ascribe HENRY vni — 2 1 8 King Henry the Eighth Wolsey's famous " Farewell " to Shakespeare ; but, as Dowden says : " It is certainly Fletcher's, and when one has perceived this, one perceives also that it was an error ever to suppose it written in Shakespeare's manner." The Historical Sources of the Play The historical authorities followed by the authors in the first four acts of the play were Edward Hall's Unioit of the Families of Lancaster and York, the first edition of which appeared in 1548, and Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, pubHshed in 1577. These writers had copied largely from George Cavendish's Life of Cardinal Wolsey, of which there were many manuscript copies in Shakespeare's day, though the work was not printed until 1641. For the fifth act they took their materials from John Fox's Acts and Monu- ments of the Church, published in 1563. In these books the poets found many details which they put into dramatic form with very shght change of lan- guage, as will be seen from the illustrations given in the Notes. The action of the play includes events scattered through a period of about twenty-three years, or from 15 20 to 1543, and the events are not always given in their chronological order. Thus the reversal of the decree of taxing the commons (1525) and the examination of Buckingham's surveyor (152 1) are in one scene; the ban- quet scene (1526) precedes that of Buckingham's execu- Introduction 19 tion, and in the later scene we find mention of Henry's scruples concerning his marriage (1527) and of the ar- rival of Campeggio (1529) ; the scene in which Anne is made Marchioness of Pembroke (1532) precedes that of the trial of the queen (1529) ; the death of Wolsey (1530) is announced to Katherine in the scene in which she dies (1536) ; in the same scene in which the birth of Elizabeth (1533) is announced to the king, he converses with Cran- mer about the charge of heresy (1543) ; and in the scene in which Cranmer is accused before the council (1543) Henry asks him to be godfather at the baptism of Eliza- beth (1533). Even if we make no account of the intro- duction of the charges against Cranmer (1543), the action of the play will cover a period of some sixteen years, from the return of the Enghsh Court from the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, to the death of Katherine in 1536. General Comments on the Play The German critic Herzberg describes the play as " a chronicle-history with three and a half catastrophes, varied by a marriage and a coronation pageant, ending abruptly with the baptism of a child." It is, indeed, most inco- herent in structure, " After all our sympathies have been engaged upon the side of the wronged Queen Katherine, we are called upon to rejoice in the mar- riage triumph of her rival, Anne Bullen." Its poor dramatic construction would of itself suffice to prove 20 King Henry the Eighth that it was not a complete work of Shakespeare's — or, indeed, of any single playwright of the better type — if we had not other good evidence to the same effect. The views of the leading critics concerning the char- acters in the play have naturally been affected by their theories of its authorship. Charles Knight, who, though admitting that the verse has peculiarities " not found in any other of Shakespeare's works," nevertheless regards the theory that it is not wholly his own as " utterly un- tenable," says : " There is no pl^y of Shakespeare's which has a more decided character of unity — no one from which any passage could be less easily struck out. We believe that Shakespeare worked in this particular upon a principle of art which he had proposed to himself to adhere to, wherever the nature of the scene would allow. The elHptical construction, and the license of versifica- tion, brought the dialogue, whenever the speaker was not necessarily rhetorical, closer to the language of com- mon life. I Of all his historical plays the Henry VIII is the nearest in its story to his own times. It professed to be a ' truth.' It belongs to his own country. It has no poetical indistinctness about it, either of time or place ; all is defined. If the diction and the versification had been more artificial, it would have been less a reality." The opening hues of the prologue, according to Knight, are " a perfect exposition of the principle upon which the poet worked in the construction of this drama. . . . There had been a considerable interval between its production and that of Henry V, the last in the order of representa- Introduction 21 tion of his previous Histories. During that interval sev- eral of the poet's most admirable comedies had been unquestionably produced ; and the audience of 16 13 was perhaps still reveUing in the recollections of the wit of Touchstone or the more recent whimsies of Autolycus. But the poet, who was equally master of the tears and the smiles of his audience, prepares them for a serious view of the aspects of real life — ' I come no more to make you laugh.' . . . He had to offer weighty and serious things; sad and high things; noble scenes that commanded tears ; state and woe were to be exhibited together ; there was to be pageantry, but it was to be full of pity ; and the woe was to be the more intense from its truth. . . . From the first scene to the last, the dra- matic action seems to point to the abiding presence of that power which works ' her cruel sports to many men's decay.' We see ' the ever-whirling wheel ' in a succession of contrasts of grandeur and debasement ; and, even when the action is closed, we are carried forward into the depths of the future, to have the same triumph of ' muta- bility ' suggested to our contemplation." The play not only opens " with singular art," but " the great principle " announced in the prologue is its key-note to the end, and the characters are developed and delineated in perfect keeping with it. Thus, as Knight tells us, the dramatist " closes his great series of ' Chronicle Histories.' This last of them was to be ' sad, high, and working.' It has laid bare the hollowness of worldly glory ; it has shown the heavy * load ' of ' too much honour ' ; it has given us 22 King Henry the Eighth a picture of the times which succeeded the feudal strifes of the other ' Histories.' " On the other hand, if we regard the play as one which was originally planned by Shakespeare, who partially de- veloped the leading characters and then for some reason laid it aside, and which afterwards was put into the hands of Fletcher, who finished it in his own way — which was not at all Shakespeare's way — we can understand the weakness of the patched-up plot, and the inconsist- encies of the modified characterization. These are well set forth by Spedding, who says : — " The effect of this play as a whole is weak and disap- pointing. The truth is that the interest, instead of rising towards the end, falls away utterly, and leaves us in the last act among persons whom we scarcely know, and events for which we do not care. The strongest sympathies which have been awakened in us run opposite to the course of the action. Our sympathy is for the grief and goodness of Queen Katherine, while the course of the action requires us to entertain as a theme of joy and compensatory satisfaction the coronation of Anne Bullen and the birth of her daughter, which are in fact a part of Katherine's injury, and amount to little less than the ultimate triumph of wrong. For throughout the king's cause is not only felt by us, but represented to us, as a bad one. We hear, indeed, of conscientious scruples as to the legality of his first marriage ; but we are not made, nor indeed asked to believe that they are sincere, or to recognize in his new marriage either the hand of Provi- Introduction 23 dence, or the consummation of any worthy object, or the victory of any of those more common frailties of humanity with which we can sympathize. The mere caprice of passion drives the king into the commission of what seems a great iniquity ; our compassion for the victim of it is elaborately excited ; no attempt is made to awaken any counter-sympathy for him ; yet his passion has its way, and is crowned with all fehcity, present and to come. The effect is much like that which would have been pro- duced by The Winter's Tale if Hermione had died in the fourth act in consequence of the jealous tyranny of Leontes, and the play had ended with the coronation of a new queen and the christening of a new heir, no period of remorse intervening. It is as if Nathan's rebuke to David had ended, not with the doom of death to the child just born, but with a prophetic promise of the felicities of Solomon. " This main defect is sufficient of itself to mar the effect of the play as a whole. But there is another, which, though less vital, is not less unaccountable. The greater part of the fifth act, in which the interest ought to be gathering to a head, is occupied with matters in which we have not been prepared to take any interest by what went before, and on which no interest is reflected by what comes after. The scenes in the gallery and council-chamber, though full of life and vigour, and, in point of execution, not un- worthy of Shakespeare, are utterly irrelevant to the busi- ness of the play ; for what have we to do with the quarrel between Gardiner and Cranmer? Nothing in the play 24 ^i^g Henry the Eighth is explained by it, nothing depends on it. It is used only (so far as the argument is concerned) as a preface for introducing Cranmer as godfather to Queen Elizabeth, which might have been done as a matter of course with- out any preface at all. The scenes themselves are indeed both picturesque and characteristic and historical, and might probably have been introduced with excellent effect into a dramatized life of Henry VIII. But historically they do not belong to the place where they are introduced here, and poetically they have in this place no value, but the reverse. "With the fate of Wolsey, again, in whom our second interest centres, the business of this last act does not con- nect itself any more than with that of Queen Katherine. The fate of Wolsey would have made a noble subject for a tragedy in itself, and might very well have been combined with the tragedy of Katherine ; but, as an introduction to the festive solemnity with which the play concludes, the one seems to be as inappropriate as the other. . . . " I know no other play in Shakespeare which is charge- able with a fault like this, none in which the moral sympathy of the spectator is not carried along with the main current of action to the end. In all the historical tragedies a Providence may be seen presiding over the development of events, as just and relentless as the fate in a Greek tragedy. Even in Henry IV, where the comic element predominates, we are never allowed to exult in the success of the wrong-doer, or to forget the penalties which are due to guilt. And if it be true that in the romantic Introduction 25 comedies our moral sense does sometimes suffer a passing shock, it is never owing to an error in the general design, but always to some incongruous circumstance in the origi- nal story which has lain in the way and not been entirely got rid of, and which after all offends us rather as an inci- dent improbable in itself than as one for which our sym- pathy is unjustly demanded. The singularity of Henry VIII is that, while four-fifths of the play are occupied in matters which are to make us incapable of mirth, — ' Be sad, as we would make you. Think ye see The very persons of our history As they were living ; think you see them great, And follow'd with the general throng and sweat Of thousand friends ; then in a moment see How soon this mightiness meets misery ! And if you can be merry then, I'll say A man may weep upon his wedding day,' — the remaining fifth is devoted to joy and triumph, and ends with universal festivity : — ' This day let no man think He has business at his house, for all shall stay; This little one shall make it holiday.' " Of this strange inconsistency, or at least of a certain poorness in the general effect which is amply accounted for by such inconsistency, I had for some time been vaguely conscious ; and I had also heard it casually re- marked by a man of first-rate judgment on such a point [Tennyson] that many passages in Henry VIII were very much in the manner of Fletcher ; when I happened to 26 King Henry the Eighth take up a book of extracts, and opened by chance on the following beautiful lines : — * Would I had never trod this English earth. Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it ! Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts. "What will become of me now, wretched lady? I am the most unhappy woman living. — Alas ! poor wenches, where are now your fortunes? Shipwrack'd upon a kingdom, where no pity, No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me, Almost no grave allow'd me. — Like the lily. That once was mistress of the field and flourish'd, I'll hang my head and perish.' " Was it possible to believe that these lines were writ- ten by Shakespeare? I had often amused myself with attempting to trace the gradual change of his versification from the simple monotonous cadence of T/te Two Gen- tlemen of Verona to the careless felicities of The Winter's Tale and Cy?nbeline, of which it seemed as impossible to analyze the law as not to feel the melody ; but I could find no stage in that progress to which it seemed possible to refer these lines. I determined upon this to read the play through with an eye to this especial point, and see whether any solution of the mystery would present itself. The result of my examination was a clear conviction that at least two different hands had been employed in the composition of Henry VIII, if not three; and that they had . worked, not together, but alternately upon distinct portions of it. "This is a conclusion which cannot of course be es- Introduction 27 tablished by detached extracts, which in questions of style are doubtful evidence at best. The only satisfactory evi- dence upon which it can be determined whether a given scene was or was not by Shakespeare, is to be found in the general effect produced on the mind, the ear, and the feelings by a free and broad perusal ; and if any of your readers care to follow me in this inquiry, I would ask him to do as I did ■ — that is, to read the whole play straight through, with an eye open to notice the larger differences of effect, but without staying to examine small points. The effect of my own experiment was as follows : — " The opening of the play — the conversation between Buckingham, Norfolk, and Abergavenny — seemed to have the full stamp of Shakespeare, in his latest manner : the same close-packed expression ; the same life, and reality, and freshness; the same rapid and abrupt turn- ings of thought, so quick that language can hardly follow fast enough ; the same impatient activity of intellect and fancy, which having once disclosed an idea cannot wait to work it orderly out ; the same daring confidence in the resources of language, which plunges headlong into a sen- tence without knowing how it is to come forth ; the same careless metre which disdains to produce its harmonious effects by the ordinary devices, yet is evidently subject to a master of harmony; the same entire freedom from book-language and commonplace ; all the qualities, in short, which distinguish the magical hand which has never yet been successfully imitated. " In the scene in the council-chamber which follows 28 King Henry the Eighth (i. 2), where the characters of Katherine and Wolsey are brought out, I found the same characteristics equally strong. " But the instant I entered upon the third scene, in which the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sands, and Sir Thomas Lovell converse, I was conscious of a total change. I felt as if I had passed suddenly out of the language of nature into the language of the stage, or of some conventional mode of conversation. The structure of the verse was quite different and full of mannerism. The expression became suddenly diffuse and languid. The wit wanted mirth and character. And all this was equally true of the supper scene which closes the first act. " The second act brought me back to the tragic vein, but it was not the tragic vein of Shakespeare. When I com- pared the eager, impetuous, and fiery language of Bucking- ham in the first act with the languid and measured cadences of his farewell speech, I felt that the difference was too great to be accounted for by the mere change of situation, without supposing also a change of writers. The presence of death produces great changes in men, but no such change as we have here. "When in like manner I compared the Henry and Wolsey of the scene which follows (ii. 2) with the Henry and Wolsey of the council-chamber (i. 2), I perceived a difference scarcely less striking. The dialogue, through the whole scene, sounded still slow and artificial. " The next scene brought another sudden change. And, as in passing from the second to the third scene of the Introduction 29 first act, I had seemed to be passing all at once out of the language of nature into that of convention, so in passing from the second to the third scene of the second act (in which Anne Bullen appears, I may say for the first time, for in the supper scene she was merely a conventional court lady without any character at all), I seemed to pass not less suddenly from convention back again into nature. And when I considered that this short and otherwise insig- nificant passage contains all that we ever see of Anne (for it is necessary to forget her former appearance), and yet how clearly the character comes out, how very a woman she is, and yet how distinguishable from any other individ- ual woman, I had no difficulty in acknowledging that the sketch came from the same hand which drew Perdita. " Next follows the famous trial scene. And here I could as little doubt that I recognized the same hand to which we owe the trial of Hermione. When I compared the language of Henry and of Wolsey throughout this scene to the end of the act, with their language in the council-chamber (i. 2), I found that it corresponded in all essential features ; when I compared it with their language in the second scene of the second act, I perceived that it was altogether different. Katherine also, as she appears in this scene, was exactly the same person as she was in the council-chamber ; but when I went on to the first scene of the third act, which represents her interview with Wolsey and Campeius, I found her as much changed as Buckingham was after his sentence, though without any alteration of circumstances to account for an alteration 30 King Henry the Eighth of temper. Indeed the whole of this scene seemed to have all the peculiarities of Fletcher, both in conception, language, and versification, without a single feature that reminded me of Shakespeare ; and, since in both passages the true narrative of Cavendish is followed minutely and carefully, and both are therefore copies from the same original and in the same style of art, it was the more easy to compare them with each other. " In the next scene (iii. 2) I seemed again to get out of Fletcher into Shakespeare ; though probably not into Shakespeare pure ; a scene by another hand perhaps which Shakespeare had only remodelled, or a scene by Shake- speare which another hand had worked upon to make it fit the place. The speeches interchanged between Henry and Wolsey seemed to be entirely Shakespeare's ; but in the altercation between Wolsey and the lords which follows, I could recognize little or nothing of his peculiar man- ner, while many passages were strongly marked with the favourite Fletcherian cadence ; and as for the famous 'Farewell, a long farewell,' etc., though associated by means of Enfield's Speaker with my earliest notions of Shakespeare, it appeared (now that my mind was open to entertain the doubt) to belong entirely and unques- tionably to Fletcher. " Of the fourth act I did not so well know what to think. For the most part it seemed to bear evidence of a more vigorous hand than Fletcher's, with less mannerism, especially in the description of the coronation, and the character of Wolsey ; and yet it had not, to my mind, Introduction 31 the freshness and originahty of Shakespeare. It was pathetic and graceful, but one could see how it was done. Katherine's last speeches, however, smacked strongly again of Fletcher. And altogether it seemed to me that if this act had occurred in one of the plays writ- ten by Beaumont and Fletcher in conjunction, it would probably have been thought that both of them had had a hand in it. ' " The first scene of the fifth act, and the opening of the second, I should again have confidently ascribed to Shakespeare, were it not that the whole passage seemed so strangely out of place. I could only suppose (what may indeed be supposed well enough if my conjecture with regard to the authorship of the several parts be correct) that the task of putting the whole together had been left to an inferior hand ; in which case I should consider this to be a genuine piece of Shakespeare's work, spoiled by being introduced where it has no business. In the execution of the christening scene, on the other hand (in spite again of the earliest and strongest associations), 1 could see no evidence of Shakespeare's hand at all ; while in point of design it seemed inconceivable that a judg- ment like his could have been content with a conclusion so little in harmony with the prevailing spirit and pur- pose of the piece." Mr. Symons, who, as we have seen, believes that Shakespeare had no hand whatever in the play, remarks : " In looking at the characters in Henry VIII, we must not forget that they are all found ready-made in the 32 King Henry the Eighth pages of Holinshed. The same might to a certain extent be said of all of Shakespeare's [English] historical plays ; the difference in the treatment, however, is very notable. In Henry VIII, Hohnshed is followed blindly and slav- ishly ; some of the most admirable passages of the play are almost word for word out of the Chronicles ; there are none of those illuminating touches by which Shakespeare is wont to transfigure his borrowings. Nor does Shake- speare content himself with embellishing ; he creates. Take, for example, Bolingbroke, of whose disposition Holinshed says but a few words ; the whole character is an absolute creation. . . . But in Henry VIII, Holin- shed is followed with a fidelity that is simply slavish. The character of Katherine, for instance, on which such lavish and unreasoning praise has been heaped, owes almost all its effectiveness to the picturesque narration of the Ch7^onicIes. There we see her, clearly outHned, an obviously workable character ; and it cannot be said that we get a higher impression of her from the play than we do from the history. To speak of the character of Kath- erine as one of the triumphs of Shakespeare's art seems to me altogether a mistake. The character is a fine one, and it seems, I confess, as far above Massinger as it is beneath Shakespeare. But test it for a moment by placing Katherine beside Hermione. The whole character is on a distinctly lower plane of art ; the wronged wife of Henry has (to me at least) none of the fascination of the wronged wife of Leontes ; there are no magic touches. Compare the trial-scene in Henry VIII (ii. 4) and the trial-scene Introduction 23 in Winter's Tale (iii. 2). I should rather say contrast them, for I can see no possible comparison of the two. ... As for the almost equally famous death-scene, I can simply express my astonishment that any one should have been found to say of it, with Johnson, that it is * above any other part of Shakespeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other poet, tender and pathetic' Tender and pathetic it certainly is, but with a pathos just a httle hmp, if I may use the word — flaccid almost, though, thanks to the tonic draught of Holinshed, not so hmp and flaccid as Fletcher often is." ^ The critic adds that the character of Anne " is an un- mitigated failure; ... a faint and unpleasing sketch — the outline of one of those slippery women whom Mas- singer so often drew." Henry VIII is " a showy figure who plays his part of king not without effect " ; but if we " look deeper, we discover that there is nothing deeper to discover." He is " illogical, insubstantial, the merely superficial presentment of a deeply interesting historical figure, ... to whom Shakespeare would have given his keenest thought, his finest workmanship." Wolsey is even worse : " nowhere does he produce upon us that impression of tremendous power — of magnificence in good and evil — which it is clearly intended he should produce." AU this, "so incredible in Shakespeare, is precisely what we find again and again in his contempo- 1 The death-scene is Fletcher's and what Mr. Symons says of it is true enough ; but the trial-scene is Shakespeare's, and deserves all the praise that others have given it. HENRY VIII — 3 A 34 King Henry the Eighth raries, and nowhere more than in Fletcher and Massinger." The evidences of Fletcher's part in the play seem to Mr. Symons "scarcely to admit of a doubt," but the other portions are " not by any means so clearly assignable to Massinger." The critic forgets that vo. Julius CcBsar, the authorship of which has never been doubted, Shakespeare follows his authority. North's Plutarch, as "slavishly" as here he follows Holinshed. " Not only the historical action in its ordinary course, but also the single characteristic traits in incidents and speeches, nay, even single expressions and words, are taken from Plutarch ; even such as are not anecdotal or of an epigrammatic nature, even such as one unacquainted with Plutarch would consider in form and manner to be quite Shakespearian, and which have not unfrequently been quoted as his peculiar property, testifying to the poet's deep knowledge of human nature. From the triumph over Pompey (or rather over his sons), the silencing of the two tribunes, and the crown offered at the Lupercalian feast, until Caesar's murder, and from thence to the battle of Philippi and the closing words of Antony, which are in part exactly as they were delivered, all in this play is essentially Plutarch" (Gervinus). In large portions of Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra the dramatist copies North with equal closeness, in many instances adopting even the phraseology of his authority. Yet in all these plays the leading characters are none the less " absolute creations." If in the present play Shakespeare follows Hohnshed Introduction 35 more closely than in the other English plays, it may be partly due to the fact that for this reign the old chronicler was unusually full and unusually authentic. " It lay but a generation behind him, and he was able to weave into his own work the first-hand reports of contemporaries like Hall and Cavendi'^h " (Herford). Shakespeare, moreover, never deviates to any extent from his authorities unless he sees good reason for doing it. Mrs. Jameson, in her comments on the present play, remarks : " Schlegel observes somewhere^ that in the literal accuracy and apparent artlessness with which Shake- speare has adapted some of the events and characters of history to his dramatic purposes, he has shown equally his genius and his wisdom. This, like most of Schlegel's remarks, is profound and true ; and in this respect Kath- erine of Aragon may rank as the triumph of Shakespeare's genius and his wisdom. There is nothing in the whole range of poetical fiction in any respect resembling or approaching her ; there is nothing comparable, I suppose, but Katherine's own portrait by Holbein, which, equally true to the hfe, is yet as far inferior as Katherine's person was inferior to her mind. Not only has Shakespeare given us here a dehneation as faithful as it is beautiful, of a pecuhar modification of character, but he has be- queathed us a precious moral lesson in this proof that virtue alone — (by which I mean here the union of truth or conscience with benevolent affection — the one the highest law, the other the purest impulse of the soul) — that such virtue is a sufficient source of the deepest pathos ^6 King Henry the Eighth and power without any mixture of foreign or external ornament ; for who but Shakespeare would have brought before us a queen and a heroine of tragedy, stripped her of all pomp of place and circumstance, dispensed with all the usual sources of poetical interest, as youth, beauty, grace, fancy, commanding intellect, and without any ap- peal to our imagination, without any violation of historical truth, or any sacrifices of the other dramatic personages for the sake of effect, could depend on the moral prin- ciple alone to touch the very springs of feeling in our bosoms, and melt and elevate our hearts through the purest and holiest impulses of our nature ! The charac- ter, when analyzed, is, in the first place, distinguished by tritth. I do not only mean its truth to nature, of its rela- tive truth arising from its historic fidehty and dramatic consistency, but truth as a quality of the soul : this is the basis of the character." "No doubt," as Herford remarks, "the nature of the subject imposed enormous difficulties on an Elizabethan dramatist. To render with imaginative sympathy the moving story of the divorce, and yet to remember that the glory of his own time had flowered from that mahgn plant, was to be under a continual provocation to the conflict of interests which the play has not escaped." The critic does not suggest that these difficulties in the subject may have led to vShakespeare's leaving the play unfinished; but that seems to me by no means improb- able. Fletcher would not have hesitated to attempt the completion of the task, though far less capable of cop- Introduction 37 ing with its perplexities, if indeed he was capable of appreciating" them. A few of the editors and critics believe that Shake- speare and Fletcher collaborated in the composition of the play ; but this theory seems to me absolutely unten- able. In this case as in that of other late plays of mixed authorship, like Timon of Athens and Pericles, inferior workmen took up dramatic tasks that Shakespeare, for some reason, had abandoned. "Whatever the explana- tion may be of that mysterious withdrawal, before he was fifty, to the provincial amenities of Stratford, there is little doubt that he left some projects unfulfilled, some dramatic schemes half- wrought." Henry VIII was among these, and "passed into the hands of Shakespeare's brilliant successor, whose facile pen and lax artistic conscience lightly dared the problem which Shakespeare had declined, piecing out the interrupted destinies of his persons with death-scenes of a ready and fluent pathos, but contriving to lift into prominence all the lurking weaknesses of the plot. ... It was reserved for Fletcher to render Shake- speare's work fairly hable to Herzberg's summary of it as ' a chronicle-history with three and a half catastrophes, varied by a marriage and a coronation pageant,' and to mingle the memory of the Enghsh Hermione's unavenged and unrepented wrongs with the dazzling coronation of her rival and exuberant prophecies over the cradle of her rival's child" (Herford). KING HENRY THE EIGHTH DRAMATIS PERSONS King Henry the Eighth. Cardinal Wolsey. Cardinal Campeius. Capucius, Ambassador from Charles V. Cranmer. Archbishop of Canterbury. Duke of Norfolk. Duke of Buckingham. Duke of Suffolk. Earl of Surrey. Lord Chamberlain. Lord Chancellor Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. Bishop of Lincoln. Lord Abergavenny. Lord Sands. Sir Henry Guildford. Sir Thomas Lovell. Sir Anthony Denny. Sir Nicholas Vaux. Secretaries to Wolsey. Cromwell, Servant to Wolsey. Griffith, Gentleman Usher to Queen Katherine. Three other Gentlemen. Garter King at Arms. Doctor Butts, Physician to the King. Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham. Brandon, and a Sergeant at Arms. Door-keeper of the Council Chamber. Porter and his Man. Page to Gardiner. A Crier. Queen Katherine, Wife to King Henry. Anne Bullen, her Maid of Honour, afterward Queen. An old Lady, Friend to Anne Bullen. Patience, Woman to Queen Katherine Several Lords and Ladies in the Dumb Shows; Women attending upon the Queen ; Spirits, which appear to her; Scribes, Officers, Guards, and other Attendants. Scene: Chiefly in London and Westminster ; once at Kimbolton. Queen Katherine PROLOGUE I COME no more to make you laugh ; things now That bear a weighty and a serious brow, Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, We now present. Those that can pity here May, if they think it well, let fall a tear ; The subject will deserve it. Such as give Their money out of hope they may beheve May here find truth too. Those that come to see Only a show or two, and so agree The play may pass, if they be still and willing, I '11 undertake may see away their shilHng 41 42 King Henry the Eighth [Act i Richly in two short hours. Only they That come to hear a merry, bawdy play, A noise of targets, or to see a fellow In a long motley coat guarded with yellow. Will be deceiv'd ; for, gentle hearers, know, To rank our chosen truth with such a show As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting Our own brains and the opinion that we bring — 20 To make that only true we now intend — Will leave us never an understanding friend. Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known The first and happiest hearers of the town. Be sad as we would make ye. Think ye see The very persons of our noble story As they were living ; think you see them great. And follow'd with the general throng and sweat Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see How soon this mightiness meets misery ; 30 And if you can be merry then, I '11 say A man may weep upon his wedding day. ACT I Scene I. London. An Ante-chamber in the Palace 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 ye done Since last we saw in France ? Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 43 Norfolk. I thank your grace, Healthful ; and ever since a fresh admirer Of what I saw there. Buckiiigham. An untimely ague Stay'd 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 ; 10 Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd 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 it's. To-day the French, All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods. Shone down the English, and to-morrow they Made Britain India ; every man that stood Show'd Hke a mine. Their dwarfish pages were As cherubins, all gilt ; the madams too,- Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear The pride upon them, that their very labour 20 44 King Henry the Eighth [Act I Was to them as a painting ; now this mask Was cried incomparable, and the ensuing night Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings, Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst. As presence did present them ; him in eye, 30 Still him in praise, and, being present both, 'T was 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 challeng'd 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 believ'd. Biickiiigham. O, you go far ! Norfolk. As I belong to worship and affect In honour honesty, the tract of every thing 40 Would by a good discourser lose some life Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal ; To the disposing of it nought rebell'd. Order gave each thing view ; the office did Distinctly his full function. Buckingham. Who did guide, I mean, who set the body and the hmbs 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 order'd by the good discretion 50 Of the right reverend Cardinal of York. Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 4^ 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' the beneficial sun, And keep it from the earth. Noi'folk. Surely, sir, There 's in him stuff that puts him to these ends ; For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace Chalks successors their way, nor call'd upon .60 For high feats done to the crown, neither allied To eminent assistants, but, spider-hke. Out of his self- drawing web, 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, 70 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' the king, to appoint Who should attend on him? He makes up the file Of all the gentry, for the most part such 46 King Henry the Eighth [Act I To whom as great a charge as little honour He meant to lay upon ; and his own letter, The honourable board of council out, Must fetch him in he papers. ,^ Abergavenny, I do know 80 Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have By this so sicken'd 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 follow'd, was 90 A thing inspir'd, 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 flaw'd the league, and hath at- tach'd Our merchants' goods at Bourdeaux. Abergavenny. Is it therefore The ambassador is silenc'd ? Norfolk, Marry, is 't. Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 47 Abergavenny. A proper title of a peace, and purchas'd At a superfluous rate ! Buckingham. Why, all this business Our reverend cardinal carried. Norfolk. Like it your grace, 100 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 Honour 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 no It reaches far, and where 't will not extend ^1 Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel ; You '11 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. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor? ha ! Where 's his examination ? I Secretary. Here, so please you. Wolsey. Is he in person ready? 48 King Henry the Eighth [Act i I Secretary. Ay, please your grace. Wolsey. Well, we shall then know more, and Bucking- ham Shall lessen this big look. \_Exeuiit Wolsey and train. Buckingham. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I 120 Have not the power to muzzle him ; therefore, best Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book Out-worths a noble's blood. Norfolk. What, are you chafd ? Ask God for temperance ; that 's the appliance only Which your disease requires. Buckingham. I read in 's looks Matter against me, and his eye revil'd Me as his abject object; at this instant He bores me with some trick. He 's gone to the king ; I '11 follow and out-stare him. Norfolk. Stay, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question 130 What 't is you go about. To climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first ; anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allow'd 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 '11 to the king, And from a mouth of honour quite cry down This Ipswich fellow's insolence, or proclaim There 's difference in no persons. Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 49 Norfolk. Be advis'd ; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot 140 That it do singe 3'ourself. We may outrun By violent swiftness that which we run at, And lose by over-running. Know you not The fire that mounts the liquor till 't run o'er In seeming to augment it wastes it ? Be advis'd ; 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 '11 go along 150 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. Biickinghmn. To the king I '11 say 't, and make my vouch as strong As shore of rock. Attend. This holy fox. Or wolf, or both, — for he is equal ravenous As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief 160 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 HENRY VIII — 4 50 Ki^g Henry the Eighth [Act i To this last costly treaty, the interview That swallowed so much treasure and like a glass Did break i' the rinsing. Norfolk. Faith, and so it did. Buckingham, Pray give me favour, sir. This cunning cardinal The articles o' the combination drew As himself pleas'd ; and they were ratified, 170 As he cried 'Thus let be,' to as much end As give a crutch to the dead. But our count-cardinal Has done this, and 't is well ; for worthy Wolsey, Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows, — Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy To the old dam, treason, — Charles the emperor, Under pretence to see the queen, his aunt, — For 't was indeed his colour, but he came To whisper Wolsey, — here makes visitation. His fears were that the interview betwixt 180 England and France might, through their amity. Breed him some prejudice, for from this league Peep'd harms that menac'd him. He privily Deals with our cardinal, and, as I trow, — Which I do well, for I am sure the emperor Paid ere he promis'd, whereby his suit was granted Ere it was ask'd ; — but when the way was made, And pav'd with gold, the emperor thus desir'd, — That he would please to alter the king's course And break the foresaid peace. Let the king know — 190 As soon he shall by me — that thus the cardinal Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 51 Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases, And for his own advantage. No7'folk. 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, with Sergeant at Arms and Guards Brandon. Your office, sergeant ; execute it. Sergeant. Sir, My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I 200 Arrest thee of high treason, in the name Of our most sovereign king. Buckiiigham. Lo you, my lord, The net has fallen 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. 'T is his highness' pleasure You shall to the Tower. Buckingham. It will help me nothing To plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me Which makes my whitest part black. The will of heaven Be done in this and all things ! — I obey. — - 210 O my Lord Aberga'ny, fare you well ! Brandon. Nay, he must bear you company. — The king 52 King Henry the Eighth [Act i Is pleas'd you shall to the Tower, till you know How he determines farther. Abergavenny. As the duke said, The will of heaven be done, and the king's pleasure By me obey'd ! Brando?i. Here is a warrant from The king to attach Lord Montacute, and the bodies Of the duke's confessor, John de la Car, One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor, — Buckingham. So, so ; These are the limbs o' the plot. No more, I hope. 220 Brandon. A monk o' the Chartreux. Buckingham. O, Nicholas Hopkins? Brandon. He. Buckingham. My surveyor is false ; the o'er-great car- dinal Hath show'd him gold. My life is spann'd already; I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on, By darkening my clear sun. — My lord, farewell. '[^Exeunt. Scene II. The Council-chajuber Cornets. Enter King Henry, leaning on the Cardinal's shoulder, the Lords of the Council, Sir Thomas Lovell, Officers, and Attendants. The Cardinal places him- self under the Kin^ s feet on his 7'ight side. King Henry. My life itself, and the best heart of it, Thanks you for this great care. I stood i' the level Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 53 Of a full charg'd confederacy, and give thanks To you that chok'd it. — Let be call'd before us That gentleman of Buckingham's ; in person I '11 hear him his confessions justify, And point by point the treasons of his master He shall again relate. [ The King takes his seat. The Lords of the Coun- cil occupy their several places, A noise within, ciying, ' Room for the Queen.' Enter the Queen, ushered by Norfolk and Suffolk ; she kneels. The King riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses her, and placeth her by him Queen Katherine. Nay, we must longer kneel ; I am a suitor. King Henry. Arise, and take place by us. — Half your suit 10 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 unconsider'd leave your honour, nor The dignity of your office, is the point Of my petition. King Henry. Lady mine, proceed.. Queen Katherifie. I am solicited, not by a few, And those of true condition, that your subjects Are in great grievance. There have been commissions 54 King Henry the Eighth [Act i Sent down among 'em, which hath flaw'd the heart 21 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 honour heaven shield from soil ! — even he es- capes 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 30 The clothiers all, not able to maintain The many to them longing, have put off The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who, Unfit for other hfe, compell'd by hunger And lack of other means, in desperate manner Daring the event to the teeth, are all in uproar, And danger serves among them. King Henry. Taxation ! Wherein ? and what taxation ? — My lord cardinal, You that are blam'd for it alike with us. Know you of this taxation ? Wolsey. Please you, sir, 40 I know but of a single part, in aught Pertains to the 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 Scene II] King Henry the Eighth ^^ Things that are known ahke, which are not whole- some 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 the hearing; and, to bear 'em, The back is sacrifice to the load. They say 50 They are devis'd by you, or else you suffer Too hard an exclamation. Xing Henry. 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 bolden'd Under your promis'd pardon. The subjects' grief Comes through commissions, which compel from each The sixth part of his substance, to be levied Without delay ; and the pretence for this Is nam'd your wars in France. This makes bold mouths ; Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze 61 Allegiance in them j their curses now Live where their prayers did, and it 's come to pass This tractable obedience is a slave To each incensed will. I would your highness Would give it quick consideration, for There is no primer business. King Henry. By my life, This is against our pleasure. Wolsey. And for me, 56 King Henry the Eighth [Act I I have no further gone in this than by A single voice, and that not pass'd me but 70 By learned approbation of the judges. If I am Traduc'd by ignorant tongues, which neither know My faculties nor person, yet will be The chronicles of my doing, let me say 'T is 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 trimm'd, but benefit no further 80 Than vainly longing. What we oft do best, By sick interpreters — once weak ones — is Not ours, or not allow'd ; 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 mock'd or carp'd at. We should take root here where we sit, or sit State-statues only. King Henry. Things done well. And with a care, exempt themselves from fear ; Things done without example, in their issue 90 Are to be fear'd. 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' the timber ; Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 57 And, though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd. The air will drink the sap. To every county Where this is question'd, send our letters with Free pardon to each man that has denied 100 The force of this commission. Pray look to 't ; I put it to your care. Wolsey. \_Aside to the Secretary\ A word with you. Let there be letters writ to every shire Of the king's grace and pardon. The griev'd commons Hardly conceive of me ; let it be nois'd That through our intercession this revokement And pardon comes. I shall anon advise you Further in the proceeding. \_Exit Secretary. Enter Surveyor Queen Kathei'-ine. I am sorry that the Duke of Buck- ingham Is run in your displeasure. King Henry. It grieves many. no The gentleman is learn'd, 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 dispos'd, 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 enroll'd 'mongst wonders, and when we, Almost with ravish'd listening, could not find 12c 58 King Henry the Eighth [Act I 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 besmear'd in hell. Sit by us ; you shall hear — This was his gentleman in trust — of him Things to strike honour 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 130 Out of the Duke of Buckingham. Kmg Henry. 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 '11 carry it so To make the sceptre his. These very words I 've heard him utter to his son-in-law. Lord Aberga'ny, to whom by oath he menac'd Revenge upon the cardinal. Wo/sey. Please your highness, note This dangerous conception in this point. Not friended by his wish, to your high person 140 His will is most malignant, and it stretches Beyond you to your friends. Queen Katherine, My learn'd lord cardinal. Deliver all with charity. King Henry. Speak on. How grounded he his title to the crown Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 59 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 Henij. What was that Henton? Surveyor. Sir, a Chartreux friar, His confessor ; who fed him every minute With words of sovereignty. King Henry. How know'st thou this? 150 Surveyor. Not long before your highness sped to France, The duke, being at the Rose within the parish Saint Lawrence Poultney, did of me demand What was the speech among the Londoners Concerning the French journey? I replied, Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious. To the king's danger. Presently the duke Said 't was the fear indeed, and that he doubted 'T would prove the verity of certain words Spoke by a holy monk, ' that oft,' says he, 160 * 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 j bid him strive 6o King Henry the Eighth [Act I To gain the love o' the commonalty ; the duke 170 Shall govern England.' Qiieen Katherme. If I know you well, You were the duke's surveyor, and lost your office On the complaint o' the 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. Kmg Henry. Let him on. — Go forward. Surveyor. On my soul, I '11 speak but truth. I told my lord the duke, by the devil's illusions The monk might be deceiv'd ; and that 't was dangerous for him To ruminate on this so far, until 180 It forg'd him some design, which, being believ'd. It was much like to do. He answer'd, ' Tush ! It can do me no damage ; ' adding further. That, had the king in his last sickness fail'd. The cardinal's and Sir Thomas Lovell's heads Should have gone off. King Henry. Ha ! what, so rank? Ah, ha ! There 's mischief in this man. — Canst thou say further? Surveyor. I can, my liege. Kmg Henry. Proceed. Surveyor. Being at Greenwich, After your highness had reprov'd the duke About Sir William Blomer, — King Henry. I remember 190 Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 6i Of such a time ; being my sworn servant, The duke retain'd him his. — But on ; what hence ? Surveyor. ' If,' quoth he, ' I for this had been com- mitted, — As to the Tower I thought, — I would have play'd The part my father meant to act upon The usurper Richard, who, being at Sahsbury, 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 Henry, A giant traitor ! Wolsey. Now, madam, may his highness live in free- dom, 200 And this man out of prison? Queen Katheriiie. God mend all ! King Hen7j. There 's something more would out of thee ; what say'st? Surveyor. After ' the duke his father,' with ' the knife,' He stretch'd 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 us'd, he would outgo His father by as much as a performance Does an irresolute purpose. King Henry. There 's his period, To sheathe his knife in us. He is attach'd ; 210 Call him to present trial. If he may Find mercy in the law, 't is his j if none, 62 King Henry the Eighth [Act i Let him not seek 't of us. By day and night, He 's traitor to the height. \_Exeunt. Scene III. A Room in the Palace Enter the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Sands Chainbei'lain. 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 follow'd. Chamberlain. As far as I see, all the good our Enghsh Have got by the late voyage is but merely A fit or two o' the face ; but they are shrewd ones. For when they hold 'em you would swear directly Their very noses had been counsellors To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so. lo Sands. They have all new legs, and lame ones ; one would take it, That never saw 'em pace before, the spavin Or springhalt reign'd among 'em. Chamberlain. Death ! my lord, Their clothes are after such a pagan cut too That, sure, they 've worn out Christendom. — How now ? What news. Sir Thomas Lovell ? Enter Sir Thomas Lovell Lovell. Faith, my lord, I hear of none but the new proclamation Scene III] King Henry the Eighth 63 That 's clapp'd upon the court-gate. Chamberlain. What is 't for? Lovell. The reformation of our travell'd gallants That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors. 20 Chamberlain. I 'm glad 't is 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 honourable 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, 30 Short blister'd 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, wear away The lag end of their lewdness, and be laugh'd at. Sands. 'T is 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. Sands. I am glad they 're going, For, sure, there 's no converting of 'em ; now, 40 64 King Henry the Eighth [Act I An honest country lord, as I am, beaten A long time out of play, may bring his plain-song And have an hour of hearing, and, by 'r Lady, Held current music too. Chambej'lain. Well said. Lord Sands ; Your colt's tooth is not cast yet. Sands. No, my lord, Nor shall not, while I have a stump. Chambeidain. Sir Thomas, Whither were you a-going? Love 11. To the cardinal's. Your lordship is a guest too. Chamberlain. O, 't is true : This night he makes a supper, and a great one. To many lords and ladies ; there will be 50 The beauty of this kingdom, I '11 assure you. Lovell. That churchman bears a bounteous mind in- deed, A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us ; His dews fall every where. 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 hberal ; They are set here for examples. Chamberlain. True, they are so ; But few now give so great ones. My barge stays ; 60 Your lordship shall along. — Come, good Sir Thomas, Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth 6§ We shall be late else ; which I would not be, For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guildford, This night to be comptrollers. Sands. I am your lordship's. \_£xeun/. Scene IV. T/ie Presence-chamber in Yoi-k-place Hautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal^ a longer table for the guests ; then enter km^Y. Bullen, and divers l^oxds, Ladies, «;z^ Gentlewomen, as guests, atone door; at another door enter ^w. Henry Guildford Guildford. Ladies, a general welcome from his grace Salutes ye 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. — O my lord ! you 're tardy ; Enter Lord Chamberlain, Lord Sands, and Sir Thomas LOVELL The very thought of this fair company Clapp'd wings to me. Chamberlain. You are young, Sir Harry Guildford. — Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? — Sir Harry, lo Place you that side, I '11 take the charge of this; His grace is entering. — Nay, you must not freeze ; Two women plac'd together makes cold weather. — HENRY Vin — 5 66 King Henry the Eighth [Act I 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. [^Seafs himself between Anne Biillen 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, 20 He would kiss you twenty with a breath. \Kisses her. 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, attended, and takes his state Wolsey. Ye '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. [Drinks. Sands. Your grace is noble ; Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks, 3° And save me so much talking. Wolsey. My Lord Sands, I am beholding to you ; cheer your neighbours. — Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth /"" 67 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. For 't is to such a thing — Anne. You cannot show me. Sands. I told your grace they would talk anon, \_Drum and trumpets within ; chambers discharged. Wolsey. What's that? 40 Chamberlain. Look out there, some of ye. [Exit a Servant. Wolsey. What warlike voice, And to what end is this? — Nay, ladies, fear not 3 By all the laws of war ye 're privileg'd. Servant returns 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, — 68 King Henry the Eighth [Act I And, pray, receive 'em nobly and conduct 'em Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty 50 Shall shine at full upon them. — Some attend him. — \Exit Chamberlain, attended. All arise, and the tables are removed. You have now a broken banquet, but we '11 mend it. A good digestion to you all ; and once more I shower a welcome on ye. — Welcome all. — Hautboys. Enter the King and others, as maskers, 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 pray'd 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, 60 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. \Ladies chosen for the dance. The King takes Anne Bullen. Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth 69 King Henry. The fairest hand I ever touch'd. O beauty ! Till now I never knew thee. {Music. Dance, Wolsey. My lord, — Chaniberlain. Your grace ? Wolsey. Pray tell 'em thus much from me : There should be one amongst 'era, by his person, More worthy this place than myself, to whom, 70 If I but knew him, with my love and duty I would surrender it. Chamberlain. I will, my lord. {Chamberlain goes to the maskers, and returns. 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. — {Comes from his state. By all your good leaves, gentlemen ; here I '11 make My royal choice. King Henry. You have found him, cardinal. {Unmasks. You hold a fair assembly ; you do well, lord. You are a churchman, or, I '11 tell you, cardinal, I should judge now unhappily. Wolsey. I am glad 80 Your grace is grown so pleasant. King Henry. My lord chamberlain. Prithee, come hither. What fair lady 's that? 70 King Henry the Eighth [Act I Chamberlain. An 't please your grace, Sir Thomas Bullen's daughter, — The Viscount Rochford, — one of her highness' women. King Henry. By heaven, she is a dainty one ! — Sweet- heart, I were unmannerly to take you out And not to kiss you. — A health, gentlemen ! Let it go round. Wolsey. Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready I' the privy chamber? Lovell. Yes, my lord. Wolsey. Your grace, 90 I fear, with dancing is a little heated. King Henry. I fear, too much. Wolsey. There 's fresher air, my lord. In the next chamber. King Henry. Lead in your ladies, every 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 favour. — Let the music knock it. \Exeunt with trumpets. Buckingham ACT II Scene I. A Street Enter two Gentlemen, meeting 1 Gentleman. Whither away so fast? 2 Gentleman. O ! — God save ye ! Even to the hall, to hear what shall become Of the great Duke of Buckingham. 1 Gentlemaii. I '11 save you That labour, sir. All 's now done but the ceremony Of bringing back the prisoner. 2 Gentleman. Were you there ? 1 Gentleman. Yes, indeed, was I. 2 Gentleman. Pray, speak what has happen'd. I Gentleman. You may guess quickly what. 71 72 King Henry the Eighth [Act ii 2 Gentleman. Is he found guilty? 1 Gentleman. Yes, truly is he, and condemn'd upon 't. 2 Gentleman. I am sorry for 't. 1 Gentletnan. So are a number more. 2 Gentleman. But, pray, how pass'd it ! lo 1 Gentleman. I '11 tell you in a little. The great duke Came to the bar, where to his accusations He pleaded still not guilty and alleg'd Many sharp reasons to defeat the law. The king's attorney, on the contrary, Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions Of divers witnesses, which the duke desir'd To have brought viva voce to his face, — At which appear'd against him his surveyor ; Sir Gilbert Peck, his chancellor ; and John Car, 20 Confessor to him ; with that devil- monk, Hopkins, that made this mischief. 2 Gentleman. That was he That fed him with his prophecies? 1 Gentleman. The same. All these accus'd 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 learnedly, for Hfe ; but all Was either pitied in him or forgotten. 2 Gentleman. After all this, how did he bear himself ? I Gentleman. When he was brought again to the bar, to hear 31 Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 73 His knell rung out, his judgment, he was stirr'd 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 show'd a most noble patience. 2 Gentleman. I do not think he fears death. 1 Gentleman. Sure, he does not, He was never so womanish ; the cause He may a little grieve at. 2 Gentleman. Certainly, The cardinal is the end of this. 1 Gentleman. 'T is likely, 40 By all conjectures : first, Kildare's attainder. Then deputy of Ireland ; who remov'd. Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too, Lest he should help his father. 2 Gentleman. That trick of state Was a deep envious one. 1 Gentleman. At his return No doubt he will requite it. This is noted. And generally, whoever the king favours, The cardinal instantly will find employment. And far enough from court too. 2 Gentleman. All the commons Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience, 50 Wish him ten fathom deep ; this duke. as much They love and dote on, call him bounteous Bucking- ham, The mirror of all courtesy, — 74 King Henry the Eighth [Act ii 1 Gentleman. Stay there, sir ; And see the noble rum'd man you speak of. Enter Buckingham fi'-om his arraignment ; Tipstaves be- fore him ; the axe, with the edge towards him ; Hal- berds on each side ; accompanied with Sir Thomas LovELL, Sir Nicholas Vaux, Sir William Sands, and Common People 2 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 receiv'd a traitor's judgment, And by that name must die ; yet, heaven bear witness, And if I have a conscience, let it sink me, 60 Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful ! The law I bear no malice for my death, 'T has done upon the premises but justice ; But those that sought it I could wish more Christians. 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 70 More than I dare make faults. You few that lov'd me And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave Is only bitter to him only dying. Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 75 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, o' God's name. Lovell. I do beseech your grace for charity, If ever any malice in your heart 80 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 offences 'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with ; no black envy Shall mark 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 90 Longer than I have time to tell his years ! Ever belov'd 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 the water side I must conduct your grace, Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux, Who undertakes you to your end. Vaux. 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, 100 Let it alone ; my state now will but mock me. 76 King Henry the Eighth [Act II 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 rais'd head against usurping Richard, Flying for succour to his servant Banister, Being distress'd, was by that wretch betray'd, no 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, Restor'd me to my honours, and out of ruins Made my name once more noble. Now, his son, Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name, and all 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 ; 120 Yet thus far we are one in fortunes, — both Fell by our servants, by those men we lov'd 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 hberal 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 ye, never found again 130 Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 77 But where they mean to sink ye. All good people, Pray for me ! I must now forsake ye ; the last hour Of my long weary hfe 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 ! \_Exeujit Buckingham^ etc. I Gentleman. O, this is full of pity ! — Sir, it calls, I fear, too many curses on their heads That were the authors. 2 Gentleman. If the duke be guiltless, 'T is full of woe ; yet I can give you inkling Of an ensuing evil, if it fall, 140 Greater than this. 1 Gentleman. Good angels keep it from us ! What may it be? You do not doubt my faith, sir? 2 Gentleman. This secret is so weighty 't will require A strong faith to conceal it. 1 Gentleman. Let me have it ; I do not talk much. 2 Gentleman. I am confident ; You shall, sir. Did you not of late days hear A buzzing of a separation Between the king and Katherine ? 1 Gentleman. Yes, but it held not : For when the king once heard it, out of anger He sent command to the lord mayor straight 150 ■To stop the rumour and allay those tongues That durst disperse, it. 2 Gentleman. But that slander, sir, 7 8 King Henry the Eighth [Act ll 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, possess'd him with a scruple That will undo her. To confirm this, too. Cardinal Campeius is arriv'd, and lately ; As all think, for this business. 1 Gentleman. 'T is the cardinal ; i6o And merely to revenge him on the emperor For not bestowing on him, at his asking. The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purpos'd. 2 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. I Gentkfnan. 'T is woeful. We are too open here to argue this ; Let 's think in private more. \_Exeunt. Scene II. An Ante-chamber in the Palace Enter the Lord Chamberlain, reading a letter Chamberlain. ' My Lord, — The horses your lord- ship sent for, with all the cai'e I had, I saw well chosen, ridden, and furnished. They were yoimg 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 Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 79 V;;z from me ; with this reasofi, — his master would be se7'ved before a siibject, if not before the king, which stopf d our i?iouths, sir.^ I fear he will indeed. Well, let him have them ; 10 He will have all, I think. Enter the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk Norfolk. Well met, my lord chamberlain. Chamberlain. Good day to both your graces. Suffolk. How is the king employ'd? Chamberlain. I left him private, Full of sad thoughts and troubles. No7folk. What 's the cau^e? Chamberlain. It seems the marriage with his broth- er's wife Has crept too near his conscience. Suffolk. No ; his conscience Has crept too near another lady. Norfolk. 'T is so. This is the cardinal's doing, the king-cardinal ; That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune, 20 Turns what he list. The king will know him one day. Suffolk. Pray God he do ! he '11 never know himself else. Norfolk. How holily he works in all his business. And with what zeal ! for, now he has crack'd 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. 8o King Henry the Eighth [Act il 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 30 That like a jewel has hung twenty years About his neck, yet never lost her lustre ; Of her that loves him with that excellence That angels love good men with ; even of her 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 ! 'T is most true, These news are every where ; every tongue speaks 'em. And every true heart weeps for 't. All that dare Look into these affairs see this main end, — 40 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 honours Lie like one lump before him, to be fashion'd Into what pitch he please. Suffolk. For me, my lords, I love him not, nor fear him ; there 's my creed. 50 As I am made without him, so I '11 stand. If the king please. His curses and his blessings Touch me alike ; they 're breath I not believe in. Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 8i 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 '11 bear us company? Chamberlain. Excuse me; The king hath sent me other where ; besides. You '11 find a most unfit time to disturb him. 60 Health to your lordships. Norfolk. Thanks, my good lord chamberlain. \_Exit Lord Chamberlain. Norfolk draws a curtain. The King is discovered sitting, and reading pensively Suffolk. How sad he looks ! sure, he is much afflicted. King Henry. Who is there ? ha ! Norfolk. Pray God he be not angry ! King Henry. 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 offences Malice ne'er meant; our breach of duty this way Is business of estate, in which we come To know your royal pleasure. King Henry. Ye are too bold. 70 Go to ; I '11 make ye know your times of business. Is this an hour for temporal affairs ? ha ! — HENRY VIII — 6 82 King Henry the Eighth [Act ii Enter Wolsey and Campeius Who 's there? my good lord cardinal? — O, my Wolsey, The quiet of my wounded conscience ! Thou art a cure fit for a king. — You 're welcome, S^To Campeius. Most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom ; Use us and it. — [71? Wolsey\ 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 Henry. \To Noifolk and Suffolk'\ We are busy ; go. 80 Norfolk. \_Aside, as they retire'] This priest has no pride in him. Suffolk. Not to speak of; I would not be so sick though for his place. But this cannot continue. Norfolk. If it do, I '11 venture one have-at-him. Suffolk. I another. \_Exeunt Norfolk and Suffolk. 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 )aou? The Spaniard, tied by blood and favour to her, Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 83 Must now confess, if they have any goodness, 90 The trial just and noble. All the clerks, I mean the learned ones, in Christian kingdoms Gave 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 learned priest. Cardinal Campeius, Whom once more I present unto your highness. King Henry. 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 wish'd for. Campeius. Your grace must needs deserve all stran- gers' loves, loi 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 join'd with me their servant In the unpartial judging of this business. King Henry. Two equal men. The queen shall be acquainted Forthwith for what you come. — Where 's Gardiner ? Wolsey. I know your majesty has always lov'd her So dear in heart not to deny her that no A woman of less place might ask by law, — Scholars, allow' d freely to argue for her. King Henry. Ay, and the best she shall have ; and my favour To him that does best — God forbid else ! Cardinal, 84 King Henry the Eighth [Act 11 Prithee, call Gardiner to me, my new secretary ; I find him a fit fellow. S^Exii Wolsey. Enter Wolsey, with Gardiner Wolsey. Give me your hand ; much joy and favour to you ! You are the king's now. Gaj'diner. \_Aside to Wolsey\ But to be commanded For ever by your grace, whose hand has rais'd me. King Henry. Come hither, Gardiner. 120 \_They 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 learned 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 griev'd him That he ran mad and died. Wolsey. Heaven's peace be with him ! That 's Christian care enough ; for living murmurers 130 There 's places of rebuke. He was a fool, For he would needs be virtuous. That good fellow. Scene III] King Henry the Eighth 85 If I command him, follows my appointment; I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother, We live not to be grip'd by meaner persons. King Henry. Deliver this with modesty to the queen. — \_Exit Gai'diner. The most convenient place that I can think of, For such receipt of learning, is Black-friars ; There ye shall meet about this weighty business. — My Wolsey, see it furnish'd. — O my lord ! 140 Would it not grieve an able man to leave So sweet a bedfellow? But conscience, conscience, — O, 't is a tender place ! and I must leave her. [_Exeunt. Scene III. An Ante-chamber in the Queen's Apartments Enter Anne Bullen and an Old Lady Anne. Not for that neither; — here's the pang that pinches : His highness having liv'd so long with her, and she So good a lady, that no tongue could ever Pronounce' dishonour of her, — by my hfe. She never knew harm-doing ! — O, now, after So many courses of the sun enthron'd, Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the wh^ch To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than 'T is sweet at first to acquire, after this process, To give her the avaunt ! it is a pity 10 Would move a monster. 86 King Henry the Eighth [Act il 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, 't is 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 't is better to be lowly born, xA.nd range with humble livers in content, 20 Than to be perk'd up in a glistering 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 — ^o Saving your mincing — the capacity Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive. If you might please to stretch it. Scene III] King Henry the Eighth 87 Amie. 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. 'T is strange ; a threepence bow'd 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 ; 40 I would not be a young count in your way. For more than blushing comes to. Anne. How you do talk ! I swear again, I would not be a queen For all the world. Old L.ady. In faith, for little England You'd venture an emballing ; I myself Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd No more to the crown but that. — Lo, who comes here ? Enter the 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. 50 Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying. 88 King Henry the Eighth [Act ii 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 heavenly 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 to you, and Does purpose honour to you no less flowing 60 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 hallow'd, 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, 70 Whose health and royalty I pray for. Chamberlain. Lady, I shall not fail to approve the fair conceit The king hath of you. — \_Aside~\ I have perus'd her well. Beauty and honour in her are so mingled That they have caught the king ; and who knows yet But from this lady may proceed a gem Scene III] King Henry the Eighth 89 To lighten all this isle ? — \^To her\ I '11 to the king. And say I spoke with you. Anne. My honour'd lord. \_Exii Lord Chamberlain. Old Lady. Why, this it is ; see, see ! I have been begging sixteen years in court — So Am yet a courtier beggarly, ^ nor could Come pat betwixt too early and too late For any suit of pounds ; anS you, O fate ! A very fresh-fish here, — fie, fie upon This compell'd fortune ! — have your mouth fill'd 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 — 't is an old story — That would not be a queen, that would she not. For all the mud in Egypt ; — have you heard it? 90 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 moe thousands ; honour'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, 100 90 King Henry the Eighth [Act ii 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 dd not deliver What here you've heard to her. Old Lady. What do you think me ? \_Exeunt. Scene IV. A Hall in Black-friars Trumpets^ sennet, and cor7iets. Enter two Vergers, with short silver wands ; next them, two Scribes, in the habit of doctors ; after them, the Archbishop of Canterbury alone ; after him, the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Rochester, and Saint Asaph ; next them, with some small distance, folloivs a Gentleman bea,ring the purse, with the great seal, and a ca^-dinaPs hat; then two Priests, bearing each a silver cross ; then a Gentleman-Usher bare- headed, accompanied with a Sergeant-at-Arms, bear- ing a silver mace ; then two Gentlemen, bearing two great silver pillars ; after them, side by side, the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius ; two Noblemen with the sword and mace. Then enter the King with his train, followed by the Queen with hers. The King takes place under the cloth of state ; the two Cardinals sit under him as judges. The Queen takes place at some distance frojn the King. The Bishops place themselves on each side the court, in manner of a consistory ; be- low them, the Scribes. The Lords sit next the Bishops. Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth 91 The rest of the Attendants stand in convenient order about the stage Wolsey. Whilst our commission from Rome is read Let silence be commanded. King Henry. What 's the need? It hath already publicly been read, And on all sides the authority allow'd; You may, then, spare that time. Wolsey. Be 't so. — Proceed. Scribe. Say, Henry, King of England, come into the court. Cf'ier. Henry, King of England, come into the court. King Hen ry. H ere . Scribe. Say, Katherine, Queen of England, come 10 into the court. C7'ier. Katherine, Queen of England, come into the court. \_The Queen makes no answer, rises out of her chair, goes aboiU the court, comes to the King, f and kneels at his feet ; then speaks. N 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 20 92 King Henry the Eighth [Act il Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure, That thus you should proceed to put me off And take your good grace from me? Heaven wit- ness 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 inchn'd. When was the hour I ever contradicted your desire. Or made it not mine too ? Or which of your friends 30 Have I not strove to love, although I knew He were mine enemy? what friend of mine That had to him deriv'd your anger, did I Continue in my liking? nay, gave notice He was from thence discharg'd. Sir, call to mind That I have been your wife in this obedience Upward of twenty years, and have been blest With many children by you. If in the course And process of this time you can report. And prove it too, against mine honour aught, 40 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 unmatch'd wit and judgment ; Ferdinand, Scene ivj King Henry the Eighth 93 My father, King of Spain, was reckon'd one The wisest prince that there had reign' d by many 50 A year before. It is not to be question'd That they had gather'd a wise council to them Of every reahii, that did debate this business, Who deem'd our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly Beseech you, sir^ to spare me till I may Be by my friends in Spain advis'd, whose counsel I will implore ; if not, i' the name of God, Your pleasure be fulfill'd ! Wolsey. You have here, lady, — And of your choice, — these reverend fathers ; men Of singular integrity and learning, 60 Yea, the elect o' the 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 rectif/^^ 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 produc'd and heard. Queen Katherine. Lord cardinal, To you I speak. Wolsey. Your pleasure, madam? Queen Katherine . Sir, 70 I am about to weep ; but, thinking that We are a queen — or long have dream'd so, — certain 94 King Henry the Eighth [Act li The daughter of a king, my drops of tears I '11 turn to sparks of fire. JVolsey. Be patient yet. Queen Kaiherine. I will, when you are humble \ nay, before, Or God will punish me. I do believe, Induc'd 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, — 80 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 display' d the 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 9° 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 Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth 95 As you have done my truth. If he know That I am free of your report, he knows 100 I am not of your wrong. Therefore, in him It Hes 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 Kathe^ine. My lord, my lord, I am a simple woman, much too weak T' oppose your cunning. You 're meek and humble- mouth'd ; You sign your place and calling in full seeming With meekness and humility, but your heart no Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride. You have, by fortune and his highness' favours, 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 honour than Your high profession spiritual j that again I do refuse you for my judge, and here. Before you all, appeal unto the pope, 120 To bring my whole cause fore his holiness And to be judg'd by him. \_She curtsies to the King, and offers to depart. Campeius. The queen is obstinate. Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and g6 King Henry the Eighth [Act II Disdainful to be tried by 't ; 't is not well. She 's going away. Xing Henry. Call her again. Crier. Katherine, Queen of England, come into the court. Griffith. Madam, you are call'd back. Queen Katherine. What need you note it ? pray you, keep your way ; 130 When you are call'd, 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. \_Exeiint Queen and her Attendants. King Henry. Go thy ways, Kate : That man i' the 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 saint-like, wife-like government, 140 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 robb'd and bound, Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth 97 There must I be unloos'd, although not there At once and fully satisfied — whether ever I 150 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 Henry. My lord cardinal, I do excuse you ; yea, upon mine honour, I free you from 't. You are not to be taught That you have many enemies, that know not 160 Why they are so, but, hke to village curs, Bark when their fellows do ; by some of these The queen is put in anger. You 're excus'd ; But will you be more justified? you ever Have wish'd the sleeping of this business, never Desir'd it to be stirr'd, but oft have hinder'd, oft. The passages made toward it. — On my honour, I speak my good lord cardinal to this point. And thus far clear him. Now, what mov'd me to 't, I will be bold with time and your attention. — 170 Then mark the inducement. Thus it came ; give heed to 't: My conscience first received a tenderness. Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches uttered By the Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador. Who had been hither sent on the debating H£NRY vm — 7 98 King Henry the Eighth [Act il A marriage 'twixt the Duke of Orleans and Our daughter Mary. I' the 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 180 Whether our daughter were legitimate, Respecting this our marriage with the dowager, Sometimes our brother's wife. This respite shook The bosom of my conscience, enter'd me, Yea, with a splitting power, and made to tremble The region of my breast ; which forc'd such way That many maz'd considerings did throng And press'd in with this caution. First, methought This was a judgment on me, — that my kingdom. Well worthy the best heir o' the world, should not 190 Be gladded in 't by me. Then follows that I weigh'd 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 200 And doctors learn'd. — First, I began in private With you, my Lord of Lincoln ; you remember How under my oppression I did reek When I first mov'd you. Scene IV] King Henry the Eighth 99 Lincoln. Very well, my liege. King Henry. I have spoke long ; be pleas'd 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, 210 And did entreat your highness to this course Which you are running here. King Henry. I then mov'd 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 j For no dislike i' the world against the person Of the good queen, but the sharp thorny points Of my alleged reasons drives this forward. 220 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 paragon' d o' the world. Campeius. So please your highness, The queen being absent, 't is a needful fitness That we adjourn this court till further day. Meanwhile must be an earnest motion lOO King Henry the Eighth [Act il Made to the queen, to call back her appeal She intends unto his holiness. King Henry. \Aside\ I may perceive 230 These cardinals trifle with me ; I abhor This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome. My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer ! Prithee, return ; with thy approach, I know, My comfort comes along. — Break up the court ; I say, set on. \_Exeunt in manner as they entered. Cardinal Campeius Act III Scene I. The Palace at Bridewell. A Room in the Queen'' s Apai^tment ^ The Queen and her Women at woi'k Queen Katherine. Take thy lute, wench ; my soul grows sad with troubles. Sing and disperse 'em, if thou canst. Leave working. Song Orpheus with his lute made t7^ees, And the mountain-tops that fi^eeze , Bow themselves when he did sing; lOI I02 King Henry the Eighth [Act ill To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung, as sun and shoivers There had made a lasting Spring. Every thing that heard him play. Even the billows of the sea, lo 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 Katheiine. Would they speak with me? Gentleman. They will'd me say so, madam. Queen Katherine. Pray their graces To come near.. \Exit Gentleman.'] What can be their business With me, a poor weak woman fallen from favour ? 20 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 Wolsey and Campetus Wolsey. Peace to your highness. Queen Katherine. Your graces find me here part of a housewife : Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 103 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, 30 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 every tongue, every 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 40 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 liv'd 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 wilHng'st sin I ever yet committed May be absolv'd in Enghsh. Wolsey. Noble lady, 50 I am sorry my integrity should breed — I04 King Henry the Eighth [Act iii 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 honour 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 60 And comforts to your cause. Campeius. Most honour'd 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 ; Ye speak like honest men — pray God ye prove so ! — But how to make ye suddenly an answer, 70 In such a point of weight so near mine honour — 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, Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 105 Let me have time and counsel for my cause. Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless ! 80 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 EngUshman dare give me counsel? Or be a known friend, 'gainst his highness' pleas- ure, — Through 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, 9° In mine own country, lords. Campeius. I would your grace Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel. Qiieen Katherine. How, sir? Campeius. Put your main cause into the king's pro- tection ; He 's loving and most gracious. 'T will be much Both for your honour better and your cause ; For if the trial of the law o'ertake ye, You '11 part away disgrac'd. Wolsey. He tells you rightly. Queen Katherine. Ye tell me what ye wish for both, — my ruin ! Is this your Christian counsel? out upon ye ! io6 King Henry the Eighth [Act iii Heaven is above all yet ; there sits a Judge loo That no king can corrupt. Campeius. Your rage mistakes us. Queen Katherine. The more shame for ye ! holy men I thought ye, Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues ; But cardinal sins and hollow hearts, I fear ye. Mend 'em for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort? The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady, — A woman lost among ye, laugh'd at, scorn'd ? I will not wish ye half my miseries — I have more charity — but say I warn'd ye ; Take heed, for heaven's sake, take heed, lest at once no The burthen of my sorrows fall upon ye. Wolsey. Madam, this is a mere distraction ; You turn the good we offer into envy. Queen Katherine. Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye, And all such false professors ! Would ye have me — If ye have any justice, any pity, If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits — Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me? Alas, he 's banish'd me his bed already. His love too long ago ! I am old, my lords, 120 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. Cautpeius, Your fears are worse. Scene I] King Henry the Eighth 107 Queen Katherine. Have I liv'd thus long — let me speak myself, Since virtue finds no friends — a wife, a true one? A woman — I dare say without vain-glory — Never yet branded with suspicion? Have I with all my full affections Still met the king? lov'd him next heaven? obey'd him? Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him? 131 Almost forgot my prayers to content him ? And am I thus rewarded? 'T is not well, lords. Bring me a constant woman to her husband. One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure, And to that woman, when she has done most. Yet will I add an honour, — 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 140 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 ! Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts ! What will become of me now, wretched lady? I am the most unhappy woman living. — Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes? \_To her Women. lo8 King Henry the Eighth [Act ill Shipwrack'd upon a kingdom where no pity, No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me, 150 Ahnost no grave allow'd me. — Like the Hly That once was mistress of the field and flourish'd, I '11 hang my head and perish. Wols'ey. 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 them. For goodness' sake, consider what you do ; How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly 160 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. Campeius. Madam, you '11 find it so. You wrong your virtues With these weak women's fears ; a noble spirit As yours was put into you ever casts 170 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. Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 109 Queen Katherine. Do what ye will, my lords, and pray forgive me, If I have us'd 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 ray prayers 180 While I shall have my hfe. Come, reverend fathers. Bestow your counsels on me ; she now begs That Kttle thought, when she set footing here, She should have bought her dignities so dear. \_Exeunt, Scene IL Ante-chamber to the King's Apartment Enter the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey, and the 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 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 reveng'd on him. . Suffolk. Which of the peers Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least 10 Strangely neglected ? When did he regard no King Henry the Eighth [Act iii 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. No7'folk. O, fear him not, His spell in that is out ; the king hath found 20 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. BeHeve it, this is true. In the divorce, his contrary proceedings Are all unfolded, wherein he appears As I could wish mine enemy. Surrey. How came His practices to light? Suffolk. Most strangely. Surrey. O, how? how? Suffolk. The cardinal's letter to the pope miscarried 30 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 Scene II] King Henry the Eighth III 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. Smi'ey. Will this work? Chamberlain. X^e 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 40 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 ! Siffolk. 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 50 Will fall some blessing to this land which shall In it be memoriz'd. Surrey. But will the king ' Digest this letter of the cardinal's? The Lord forbid ! 112 King Henry the Eighth [Act m Norfolk, Marry, amen ! Suffolk. No, no ; There be more wasps that buzz about his nose Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius Is stolen 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, 6c The king cried ' ha ! ' at this. Chamberlain. Now God incense him, . And let him cry ' ha ! ' louder ! Norfolk. But, my lord, When returns Cranmer? Siffolk. 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 beheve, His second marriage shall be pubhsh'd and Her coronation. Katherine no more Shall be call'd queen, but princess dowager 7^ 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. 'Tisso.— The cardinal ! . jene II] King Henry the Eighth 113 Enter Wolsey and Cromwell Norfolk. Observe, observe ; he 's moody. Wolsey. The packet, Cromwell, Gave 't you the king ? Cromwell. To his own hand, in 's bedchamber. Wolsey. Look'd he o' the inside of the paper? Cromwell. Presently He did unseal them, and the first he view'd'^'^ 3 did it with a serious mind ; a heed 80 as 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 a while. — \_Exit Cromwell. It shall be to the Duchess of Alengon, The French king's sister ; he shall marry her. — Anne Bullen? No, I '11 no Anne Bullens for him ; There 's more in 't than fair visage. — Bullen ! No, we '11 no Bullens. — Speedily I wish 89 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 ! Wolsey. The late queen's gentlewoman, a knight's daughter, HENRY Vni — 8 114 King Henry the Eighth [Act III To be her mistress' mistress ! the queen's queen ! — This candle burns not clear ; 't is I must snuif 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 He i' the bosom of loo Our hard-rul'd 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. Suffolk. I would 't were something that would fret the string, The master-cord on 's heart ! Enter the King, reading a schedule ; and Lovell Suffolk. The king, the king. King Henry. 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, — no 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 Scene IIJ King Henry the Eighth 115 His eye against the moon. In most strange postures We have seen him set himself. King Henry. It may well be ; There is a mutiny in 's mind. This monling 120 Papers of state he sent me to peruse, As I requir'd ; 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 j Some spirit put this paper in the packet. To bless your eye withal. King Henry. If we did think 130 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. \_He takes his seat, and whispers Lovell, who goes to Wolsey. Wolsey. Heaven forgive me ! Ever God bless your highness ! King Henry. 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 Ii6 King Henry the Eighth [Act iii To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span, 140 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' the state ; and nature does require Her times of preservation, which, perforce, I her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal, Must give my tendance to. Kijig Henry. You have said well. Wolsey. And ever may your highness yoke together,, 150 As I will lend you cause, my doing well With my well saying ! King Henry. 'T is well said again. And 't is a kind of good deed to say well ; And yet words are no deeds. My father lov'd you 'j 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 Employ'd you where high profits might come home. But par'd my present havings, to bestow My bounties upon you. Wolsey. \_Aside'] What should this mean? 160 Surrey. \_Aside~\ The Lord increase this business ! King Henry. 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 ; Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 117 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, 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, 170 Yet fil'd 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. Fairly answer'd j A loyal and obedient subject is 180 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 't were in love's particular, be more To me, your friend, than any. Wolsey. I do profess 190 ii8 King Henry the Eighth [Act iii That for your highness' good I ever labour'd More than mine own ; that am true, 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 them 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, 'T is nobly spoken. — Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast, 200 For you have seen him open 't. — Read o'er this ; [ Gives him papers. And, after, this ; and then to breakfast with What appetite you have. \_Exit King, fi'owning upon Cardinal Wolsey ; the Nobles throng after him, smiling and whis- pering. Wolsey, What should this mean ? What sudden anger 's this? how have I reap'd it? He parted frowning from me, as if ruin Leap'd from his eyes ; so looks the chafed lion Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him, Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper; I fear, the story of his anger. — 'T is so ; This paper has undone me ! — 'T is the account 210 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 neghgence. Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 119 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 't will stir him strongly ; yet I know A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune Will bring me off again. What 's this ? — * To the pope' ? 220 The letter, as I live, with all the business I writ to 's hoHness. Nay then, farewell ! I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness, And from that full meridian of ray glory I haste now to my setting ; I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more. Enter the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain Norfolk. Hear the king's pleasure, cardinal, who com- mands you To render up the great seal presently Into our hands, and to confine yourself 230 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? I20 King Henry the Eighth [Act ill Wolsey. Till I find more than will or words to do it — I mean your malice — know, officious lord I dare and must deny it. Now, I feel Of what coarse metal ye are moulded — envy. How eagerly ye follow my disgraces, 240 As if it fed ye ! and how sleek and wanton Ye appear in every thing 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 honours, During my life, and to confirm his goodness Tied it by letters patents. Now, who '11 take it ? 250 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, robb'd 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, Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy ! You sent me deputy for Ireland, 260 Far from his succour, from the king, from all Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 121 That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'st him, Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity, Absolv'd him with an axe. 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 lov'd many words, lord, I should tell you 270 You have as little honesty as honour. That in the way of loyalty and truth Towards 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' the life-blood of thee else. — My lords, Can ye endure to hear this arrogance ? And from this fellow ? If we live thus tamely, To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet, 280 Farewell nobility ; let his grace go forward And dare us with his cap, like larks. Wolsey, All goodness Is poison to thy stomach. Su7'rey. Yes, that goodness Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one, Into your own hands, cardinal, by extortion ; 122 King Henry the Eighth [Act iii The goodness of your intercepted packets, You writ to the 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 290 Of our despis'd nobility, our issues — Who, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen — Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles Collected from his Ufe. — I '11 startle you. 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. 300 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 '11 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 Scene iij King Henry the Eighth 123 You wrought to be a legate, by which power You mauTi'd the jurisdiction of all bishops. 310 Norfolk. Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else To foreign princes, ' Ego et Rex mens ' Was s?ill inscrib'd, 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. Sii7'7'ey. Item, you sent a large commission To Gregory de Cassalis, to conclude, Without the king's will or the state's allowance, 320 A league between his highness and Ferrara. Siffolk. That out of mere ambition you have caus'd Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the king's coin. Surrey. Then, that you have sent innumerable sub- stance — 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, 330 Press not a falling man too far ! 't is 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. 124 King Henry the Eighth [Act III 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 legatine within this kingdom Fall into the compass of a praemunire, — That therefore such a writ be sued against you j To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, 340 Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be Out of the king's protection. — This is my charge. Norfolk. And so we '11 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. \_Exeu7it all bid Wolsey. Wolsey. So, farewell to the little good you bear me. — Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness ! This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 350 The tender leaves of hopes ; to-morrow blossoms And bears his blushing honours 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 ventur'd, 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, 360 Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 125 Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye ! I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours ! 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, amazedly Why, how now, Cromwell ! 370 Cromwell. I have no power to speak, sir. Wolsey. What ! amaz'd At my misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder A great man should dechne? Nay, an you weep, I am fallen 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 cur'd me, I humbly thank his grace, and from these shoulders, ' These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken 380 A load would sink a navy — too much honour. O, 't is a burthen, Cromwell, 't is a burthen Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven ! 126 King Henry the Eighth [Act iii 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 ! 390 Cromivell. The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord chancellor in your place. Wolsey. That 's somewhat sudden ; But he 's a learned man. May he continue Long in his highness' favour and do justice For truth's sake and his conscience, that his bones, When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings. May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em ! What more? Cromwell. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome, Install'd lord archbishop of Canterbury. Wolsey. That 's news indeed ! Cromwell. Last, that the Lady Anne, Whom the king hath in secrecy long married, 401 This day was view'd in open as his queen. Going to chapel ; and the voice is now Only about her coronation. Wolsey. There was the weight that pull'd me down, Q Cromwell ! Scene II] King Henry the Eighth 127 The king has gone beyond me ; all my glories In that one woman I have lost for ever. No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours, Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell ; 410 I am a poor fallen 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. O my lord ! Must I then leave you? must I needs forego 420 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 For ever and for ever shall be yours. Wolsey. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear In all my miseries ; but thou hast forc'd 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, 430 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. 128 King Henry the Eighth [Act m And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, Found thee a way, out of his wrack, to rise in; A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. ^a//zVi'/in prol. 24. 84. The Viscount Rochford. He was not made viscount until after the king had fallen in love with Anne. Cavendish says : " This gentlewoman was the daughter of Sir Thomas Bullen, Knight, being at that time but only a bachelor knight, the which afterwards, for 202 Notes [Act II the love of his daughter, was promoted to high dignities. He bare at diverse several times, for the most part, all the great rooms of the king's household, as comptroller, and treasurer, and the like. Then was he made Viscount Rochford ; and at the last created Earl of Wiltshire, and knight of the noble order of the Garter, and, for his more increase of honour and gains, was made lord keeper of the privy seal, and one of the chiefest of the king's council." 86. I were unmannerly, etc. A kiss was the established reward of the lady's partner, which she could not deny, or he, without an open slight, refuse to take. Cf. Temp. i. 2. 378 : " Curtsied when you have and kiss'd." 97. Measure. A formal dance, " full of state and ancientry " (^Much Ado, ii. i. 80). 99. Knock it. A phrase " derived from beating time, or perhaps beating the drum" (Verplanck). For the indefinite it, cf. queen it, ii- 3* 37 below. Mr. Adee says : "The best passage I know to illus- trate this use of it is in The Four Elements (Hazlitt's Dodsley, i. 47) : " And I can dance it gingerly, And I can foot it by and by, And I can prank it properly. And I can countenance comely, And I can croak it courtesly, And I can leap it lustily. And I can turn it trimly, And I can frisk it freshly, And I can look it lordly." ACT II Scene I. — The main points in the account of Buckingham's trial and his subsequent demeanour are taken from Hall. The duke admitted that he had listened to the prophecies of the Carthusian monk, but he eloquently and with " many sharp reasons " defended Scene I] Notes 203 himself against the charge of treason. He was, however, convicted in the court of the lord high steward, by a jury of twenty-one peers, consisting of a duke, a marquis, seven earls, and 12 barons. The Duke of Norfolk, lord high steward on the occasion, shed tears as he pronounced the sentence ; after which Buckingham, according to Hall, addressed the court as follows: " My lord of Norfolk, you have said as a traitor should be said unto, but I was never none. But, my lords, I nothing malign for that you have done to me ; but the eternal God forgive you my death, and I do. I shall never sue to the king for life, howbeit he is a gracious prince, and more grace may come from him than I desire. I desire you, my lords, and all my fellows, to pray for me." The historian continues as follows : — " Then was the edge of the axe turned towards him, and so led into a barge. Sir Thomas Lovell desired him to sit on the cushions and carpet ordained for him. He said, ' Nay ; for when I went to Westminster I was Duke of Buckingham ; now I am but Edward Bohun, the most caitiff of the world.' Thus they landed at the Temple, where received him Sir Nicholas Vawse and Sir William Sandes, Baronets, and led him through the city, who desired ever the people to pray for him ; of whom some wept and lamented, and said, ' This is the end of evil life ; God forgive him ! he was a proud prince ! it is pity that he behaved him so against his king and liege lord, whom God preserve.' Thus about iiii of the clock he was brought as a cast man to the Tower." 2. Eve7i to the hall. That is, to Westminster Hall. II. In a little. Briefly; the only instance of the phrase in S. In little (=in small compass) occurs several times; as in T. N. iii. 4. 95, etc. 28. Learnedly. Like one " learned in the law," not merely "like a practised orator" (Wright). 29. Was either pitied, etc. " Either produced no effect, or pro- duced only ineffectual pity" (Malone). 33. He sweat extremely. Hall says: "The duke was brought to the bar sore chafing, and sweat marvellously." 204 Notes [Act II 41. Kildare's attainder. Hall says that in 1520 " the king, being informed that his realm of Ireland was out of order, discharged the Earl of Kildare of his office of deputy, and thereunto (by the means of the cardinal, as men thought) was appointed the Earl of Surrey, to whom the cardinal did not owe the best favour." Cf. iii. 2. 260 fol. below. 44. His father. That is, his father-in-law. Surrey's second wife was a daughter of Buckingham. 47. Whoever. For zvhomsoever. Cf. the frequent use of who for whom. 48. Find employment. That is, find employment _/i?r/ a common ellipsis where the preposition can be readily supplied. 50. Perniciously. Maliciously ; used by S. only here. 54. Enter . . . Sir PVilliam Sands. The folio has *' Sir Walter Sands^'' which is either a misprint or a slip of the pen. 57. Go home ajtd lose me. That is, count me as lost to you. 67. Nor build their evils, etc. Steevens says : " Evils, in this place, 2iXt. foricce [privies]. So in M.for M. ii. 2. 172: — " ' having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, And pitch our evils there ? ' " Henley remarks: "The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an Eastern method of expressing contempt. See 2 Kings, x. 27." 74. Is only bitter to him, etc. Wright puts a comma after him, and explains thus : " The only thing that is bitter to him, the only thing that can be called death; " but I think it means simply " bitter when dying." 77, Prayers. Here a dissyllable. 82. Free. Here used adverbially, as adjectives often are in S. 85. No black envy, etc. The folio reads : " No blacke Enuy shall make my Graue." This is undoubtedly corrupt, for, as White re- marks, " although envy may, in a fine sense, be said to make a grave, it clearly cannot be the envy or the malice of the person for whom Scene I] Notes 205 the grave is made." Envy often means hatred, or maHce. Take peace with — make peace with, forgive. 89. T^zV/ my soul forsake. The foUo reading. Rowe added "me," which some approve. Knight remarl^s : "It is not difficult to see that S. had a different metaphysical notion from that of his editors ; the me places the individuality in the body alone." Schmidt puts the passage ulider forsake ^^ XQ.i\x%Q., adding "(German, ver- sagen) ; " but the meaning is simply " till I die." It is in Fletcher's part of the play. S. never uses forsake intransitively. 96. Sir Nicholas Vaux. Nicholas lord Vaux was son of Sir William Vaux, who fell at Tewkesbury, fighting on the side of Henry VI. The ballad, " The Aged Lover Renounceth Love," from which the verses sung by the grave-digger in Hamlet (v. l) are a corrupt quotation, has usually been ascribed to Sir Nicholas, but is now known to have been written by his son, Thomas Vaux. 97. Undertakes. Takes charge of. 103. Poor Edward Bohiin. Buckingham's family name was Bagot ; but one of his ancestors had married the heiress of the barony of Stafford, and their son assumed the name of Stafford, which was retained by his posterity. Buckingham, however, affected the surname Bohun, because he was descended from the Bohuns, Earls of Hereford, and held the office of lord high constable by inheritance of tenure from them. 105. / now seal it. That is, seal my truth, or loyalty, with blood. 127. Be not loose. Be not incautious of speech, or " unreticent." Cf. 0th. iii. 3. 416 : — "There are a kind of men so loose of soul That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs," 129. Rub. Obstacle ; a term in bowling. Cf. K. John, iii. 4. 128 : "each dust, each straw, each little rub; " Cor. iii. i. 60 : "this so dishonour'd rub laid falsely I' the plain way of his merit." 133. My long weary life. As Wright notes, Buckingham (born February 3, 1478) was only forty- three years old. 144. Strong faith. Great fidelity. 2o6 Notes [Act II 145. / am confident ; You shall, sir. I have confidence in you; you shall have the secret. 146. Did you not of late days hear. We should say, Have you not lately heard, etc. 147. A buzzing. A whispering. Cf. T. A. iv. 4. 7 : "buzz in the people's ears," etc. Separation is metrically five syllables. 148. // held not. It did not hold good, did not prove true. 151. Allay those tongues. We should not now use allay in this connection; nor intransitively (= subside), as in Lear, i. 2. 179 : "with the mischief of your person it would scarcely allay." 154. And held for certain. And zV w held, etc. Cf. i. 3. 44 above. 163. The archbishopric of Toledo. The richest see in Europe, regarded as a stepping-stone to the papacy. 167. Too open here. Too much exposed, in too public a place. Cf. opeti in iii. 3. 402 below. Scene II. — 11. Enter Suffolk. This Duke of Suffolk was Charles Brandon, son of Sir William Brandon, who was Henry VII.'s standard-bearer at Bosworth Field, where he fell. The duke married Henry VIII. 's younger sister, the Queen Dowager of France, whose favoured lover he had been before her marriage to Louis XII. of France. 16-20. Suffolk's speech is spoken aside, and Norfolk's answer is to the chamberlain. 21. Turns what he list. Turns the wheel of fortune as he pleases. List is subjunctive ; as in 0th. ii. 3. 351 : "do what she list," etc. 25. Great nephew. Not "great-nephew," as Dyce prints it. 38. These news are. S. uses news both as singular and plural. We find " these good news" and " this happy news " in two succes- sive speeches of 2 Hen. LV. (iv. 4. 102, 109). 42. Have slept upon, etc. That is, have been blind to his faults. 49. Lnto what pitch he please. Of what stature, or height, he please. Cf. i Hen, VL. ii. 3. 55 : — Scene II] Notes 207 " I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here. It is of such a spacious lofty pitch, Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't." 53. I not believe in. See on i. I. 88 above. 61. Norfolk drazvs a curtain. The stage-direction in the folio is, ^^ the King drawes the Curiaine and sits reading petisiuely." Malone (followed in most eds.) has " JVorfolk opens a folding- door;'''' but, as Mr. Adee suggests, tapestry hangings, like our Ti\odi.Q.xxi portieres, were often used instead of doors in those days. 69. Business of estate. S. uses state and estate interchangeably in their various senses. Cf. v. i. 74 below. 72. Enter Wolsey and Canipeius. Lorenzo Campeggio (in its Latin form, Campeius') was a native of Bologna, and a man of great learning. He had been sent to England once before as legate, and was at that time made Bishop of Salisbury. 77. Have great care I be not found a talker. " Let care be taken that my promise be performed, that my professions of wel- come be not found empty talk" (Johnson). Steevens compares Rich. III. i. 3. 351 : — " we will not stand to prate ; Talkers are no good doers." 82. So sick though, etc. So sick with pride, even to have his place. 84. / 7/ vejtture one have-at-hini. I '11 venture one thrust at him. The folio reads : "lie venture one ; haue at him." Below (iii. 2. 307) Surrey says to Wolsey, " Have at you ; " and (v. 3. 113) Cromwell to the council, "Now have at ye." 88. Envy. Malice. See on ii. i. 85 above. 89. The Spaniard. That is, the Spanish court ; hence the subsequent they. 91. The clerks. The clergy. 93. Gave their free voices. The folio has " Haue their free voyces" (with a period after it), and this is retained by the editors generally. It can be explained only by assuming that " by a great 2o8 Notes [Act II freedom of construction the verb sent applies to this first member of the sentence, as well as to the second" (Knight). "Proleptic omissions" do occur in S., but in this case I prefer to adopt White's emendation of Gave. As he remarks, '*that only the learned clerks should have their free voices is plainly absurd ; although those who have not adopted Malone's violent miscon- struction have been obliged to accept the absurdity. But we know that nearly all the learned clerks in Christian kingdoms ^az'^ 'their free voices' for Henry's divorce (the decisions of eight continental faculties of law and divinity to that effect are given in Hall's Chronicle) ; and therefore Wolsey may well say, ' Who can be angry now ? ' " 95. One general tongue. " Campeius is sent to speak in the name of the whole conclave of cardinals" (Adee). 100. Suck a man, etc. See on i. 4. 30 above. 106. Unpartial. Elsewhere (in five instances) S. has impartial, 107. Two equal men. Two impartial men ; referring to what has just been said. III. A woman of less place. That is, of lower rank. 115. Gardiner. Holinshed says: "The king received into favour Dr. Stephen Gardiner, whom he employed in services of great secrecy and weight, admitting him in the room of Doctor Pace, the which being continually abroad in ambassages (and the same oftentimes not much necessary) of the cardinal's appointment, at length took such grief therewith, that he fell out of his right wits." On his return, in 1527, from a mission to Rome respecting the divorce, Gardiner became secretary to the king, and in 1531 he was made Bishop of Winchester. 128. Kept him a foreigit tnan still. Kept him constantly em- ployed in foreign embassies. This meaning of still is very common in S. Cf. iii. 2. 443 below. 131. There ''s places. A singular verb is often found before a plural subject, particularly in the case of There is. 132. That good fellow. That is, Gardiner. Scene III] Notes 209 138. For such receipt of learning. For receipt of such learn- ing ; for the reception of such learned men. 141. Able. Perhaps, as Mr. Adee suggests, "not under a dis- ability," or "free." Cf. Lear, iv. 6. 172, where the verb able means " to remove legal disability." Scene III. — 7. The which To leave a thousand-fold, etc. Theo- bald read "to leave is," and Dyce has " leave 's ;" but the ellipsis is a common one. 10. Give her the avaunt. Bid her begone — a contemptuous dismissal. It is a pity, etc. A hardship that would move even a monster to pity. 14. That quarrel. Fortune. According to Warburton, quarrel here means arrow ; but, if it be what S. wrote, it is probably ■= quarreler, as Johnson explained it. The use of the abstract for the concrete is not rare in S., but many emendations have been proposed. Qtmrrel (narrow) is used by Spenser, 7^ Q. ii. 11. 24 : " But to the ground the idle quarrel fell." 15. Sufferance. Suffering, pain; as in v. I. 68 below. Cf. A. and C. iv. 13. 5 : — " The soul and body rive not more at parting, Than greatness going off," Panging = causing pangs. The verb occurs again in Cynib. iii. 4. 98. 17. A stranger now again. Again an alien; reduced to the condition of a friendless stranger. Cf. Lear, i. I. 207: " Dower' d with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath." 20. Range with humble livers. Rank with those in lowly life. 21. Perk' d up. Used by S. only here. I have heard the phrase in New England in just this sense of " pranked out." For glister- ing, cf. M. of V. ii. 7. 65, W. T. iii. 2. 171, iv. i. 14, etc. S. does not use glisten. 23. Having. Possession. Cf. 7^. iV. iii. 4. 379 : "my having HENRY VIII — 14 2IO Notes [Act II is not much." See also iii. 2. 159 below. Maidenhead r^ maiden- hood. Cf. Godhead, etc. The suffixes -hood and -head are etymo- logically the same. 24. Beshrew me. Originally a mild imprecation, but often used, as here, to emphasize an assertion. 30. To say sooth. To tell the truth. 31. Mincing. Affectation. 32. Cheveril. Kid-skin. Cf. R. and J. iii. 4. 87 : " O, here 's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad." In T. N. iii. i. 13 we find mention of " a cheveril glove." 36. A threepeiice botv'd. An allusion to the old custom of rati- fying an agreement by a bent coin ; but there were no threepences so early as the reign of Henry VIII. Hire is here a dissyllable. 37. To queen it. See on i. 4. 99 above. 40. Pluck off a little. Take off a little from the rank ; that is, come down from a duke to a count. 45. An emballing. A coronation; referring to the ball placed in the left hand of the queen as one of the insignia of royalty. Cf. Hen. V. iv. I. 177: "The balm, the sceptre, and the ball," etc. 46. For Carnarvonshire. That is, for a single Welsh county. For longed, see on i. 2. 32 above. 48. What were V zvorth, etc. " A penny for your thoughts ! " 50. Values not. See on ii. 2. 53 above. 57. High note''s Ta^en. High note (or notice) is taken. 65. More than my all is nothing. " Not only my all is nothing, but if my all were more than it is, it were still nothing" (Johnson). 68. Beseech your lordship. The subject / is often omitted in this and similar expressions. 72. Fair conceit. Good opinion. 76. A gem, etc. " Perhaps alluding to the carbuncle, a gem supposed to have intrinsic light, and to shine in the dark" (Johnson), 82. Cojne pat betwixt, ttc. Hit the right moment between too early, etc. 85. This compeWd fortune. This fortune thrust upon one. Scene IV] Notes 211 Cof?ipelPd\?, accented on the first syllable, as dissyllabic adjectives and participles often are when preceding a noun. See on com' plete, i. 2. ii8 above. 87. Forty pence. This sum, being half a noble (or one sixth of a pound), was a common one for a wager. 90. The ?nud in Egypt. The land fertilized by the overflow of the Nile. 95. Mae. More. Cf. iii. 2. 5 below. It is used only with a plural or collective noun. 100. On V. On is often used for of in EUzabethan English. loi. If this salute my blood a jot. That is, 77iove or exhilarate it. Cf. Sonn. 121. 6: "Give salutation to my sportive blood." White quotes Daniel's Civil Wars, bk. ii. : — " He that in glorie of his Fortune sate, Admiring what he thought could never be, Did feele his bloud within salute his state," etc. It faints me = it makes my heart faint. 104. Do not deliver. See on i. 2. 143 above. Scene IV. — This long stage-direction is from the folio, and con- forms to the description of the trial in Holinshed and Cavendish. Sennet. This word (also written sennit, senet, synnet, cynet, sig- net, and sigftate) occurs often in the stage-directions of old plays, and, as Nares remarks, " seems to indicate a particular set of notes on the trumpet, or cornet, different from a flourish." In Dekker's Satiromastix (1602) we find, "Trumpets sound a flourish, and then a sennet." Pillars belonged to the insignia of cardinals. In the Life of Sir Thomas More we find mentioti of " his maces and pillars " in con- nection with Wolsey. See on iii. 2. 380, 409, below. The silver crosses, according to Holinshed, were emblems, " the one of his archbishopric and the other of his legacy, borne before him whither- soever he went or rode, by two of the tallest priests that he could get within the realm." Steevens quotes a satire on Wolsey, by 212 Notes [Act II William Roy, published at some time between the execution of Buckingham and the repudiation of Katherine : — " With worldly pompe incredible, Before him rydeth two prestes stronge; And they bear two crosses right longe, Gapynge in every man's face : After them followe two laye men secular, And each of theym holdyn a pillar, In their hondes steade of a mace." I. Commission. A quadrisyllable. II. The queen . . . goes about the court. Cavendish says : "Then he called also the queen, by the name of ' Katherine queen of Eng- land, come into the court ; ' who made no answer to the same, but rose up incontinent out of her chair, where as she sat ; and because she could not come directly to the king for the distance which sev- ered them, she took pain to go about unto the king, kneeling down at his feet," etc. 13. And to bestow. The to is often omitted in the former of two clauses and inserted in the latter, as here. Cf. Hen. V. ii. 4. 104, Ham. i. 4. 18, etc. This speech of the queen follows Cavendish closely, as a brief extract from his account of the trial will show : " Sir," quoth she, " I beseech you for all the loves that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right ; take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman and a stranger born out of your dominion ; I have here no assured friend, and much less indifferent counsel ; I flee to you as to the head of jus- tice within this realm. Alas ! sir, wherein have I offended you, or what occasion of displeasure have I designed against your will and pleasure ; intending, as I perceive, to put me from you? I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble, and obedient wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure, that never said or did anything to the contrary thereof, being always well pleased and contented with all things wherein Scene IV] Notes . 213 you had any delight or dalliance, whether it were in little or much ; I never grudged in v/ord or countenance, or showed a visage or spark of discontentation. I loved all those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, and. whether they were my friends or my enemies." 18. Indiffe7-ent. Impartial. Cf. Rich. II. \\. ■^. 1 16: "Look at my wrongs with an indifferent eye." See also the quotations from Cavendish in the preceding note and on 1 21 below. 31. Have I not strove. The only instance of the participle in S. 33. Had to him deriv''d your anger. Had brought upon himself your anger. Cf. A. W.y. 3. 265: "Things which would derive me ill will," etc. 34. Nay, gave notice. Nay, / gave notice. Some editors read " gave not notice." The folio has an interrogation mark after dis- charg'd, and Wright follows it. 42. Against your sacred person. That is, aught against it. 43. FouVst. A harsh contraction ; like sharfst just below. The metre does not require it, bvil it seems to have been a bad fashion of the time. Many instanc-s of it occur in S. 46. Reptited for. Repi-ted as being. Cf. T. G. of V.\. i. 42: "should not be chronicled for wise," etc. 49. One The wisest. Cf. 155 below. 59. Aiid of your choice. Holinshed says that Katherine " elected to be of her counsel " the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Ely, Rochester, and St. Asaph, and others. 63. 7hat longer you desire the court. That you desire the court to delay proceedings. 72. We are a queen. "The change from the singular to the royal plural in this assertion of Katherine's queenship seems to me one of the happiest touches in the play" (Adee). 78. Make 7ny challenge. A law term ; as now in challenging a juryman. 82. / utterly abhor, etc. Blackstone remarks that abhor and refuse are technical terms of the canon law, corresponding to the 214 Notes [Act II Latin detestor and recuso. Holinshed says that the queen " openly protested that she did utterly abhor, refuse, and forsake such a judge." 87. Have stood to charity. Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 133: "To this point I stand." 90. Spleen. Malice. See on i. 2. 174 above. 93. The consistory. The college of cardinals. 103. 77/1? zvhich . . . speak in. That is, in reference to. 109. You sign your place, etc. "By your outward meekness and humility, you show that you are of an holy order, but," etc. (Johnson). 1 14. Where powers are your retainers, etc. " What an image is presented of an unscrupulous but most able man, to say that his powers are used as the mere agents of his pleasures, and his words, without regard to the general obligation of truth, are ' domestics ' who serve but his will " (Knight) ; but powers may mean " persons of rank and influence," as Wright explains it. 117. You tender more. You value -^r regard more. 121. Fore. Usually printed " 'forev" but it is not a contraction of before. She curtsies to the King, and offers tb depart. Cavendish says : " And with that she rose up, making a low curtsy to the king, and so departed from thence. Many supposed that she would have re- sorted again to her former place, but she took her way straight out of the house, leaning, as she was wont to do, upon the arm of her general receiver, called Master Griffith. And the king, being adver- tised of her departure, commanded the crier to call her again, who called her by the name of ' Katherine queen of England, come into the court.' With that quoth Master Griffith, ' Madam, ye be called again.' ' On, on,' quoth she, ' it maketh no matter, for it is no indifferent court for me, therefore I will not tarry. Go on your ways.' And thus she departed out of that court, without any far- ther answer at that time, or at any other, nor would never appear at any other court after." Scene IV] Notes 215 140. Government. Self-control. Cf. 6^//^. iii. 3. 286 : "Fear not my government," etc. Misgovermnent and misgoverned are simi- larly used by S. 150. Fully satisfied. Fully indemnified for the injury done him. 155, Spake. Elsewhere S. has spoke or spoken for the participle. This is probably an " anacoluthon," as Schmidt regards it. 157. Touch. The word in S. often carries with it the idea of injury. 167. The passages made tozvard it. The approaches made to it. Steevens explained made as " closed ox. fastened^\ putting a colon after hindered. 168. Speak. Vouch for, or testify in his behalf. Cf. iii. i. 125. 172. My conscience first received, t.\.Q.. Cavendish makes the king say, " It was a certain scrupulosity that pricked my conscience upon divers words that were spoken at a certain time by the Bishop of Bayonne," etc. It was, in fact, the Bishop of Tarbes. See Froude, History of England, vol. i. p. 114 (American ed.). 176. The Duke of Orleans. Son and successor (as Henry II.) of Francis I. 177. /' the progress of this business, etc. "And upon the reso- lution and determination thereof, he desired respite to advertise the king his master thereof, whether our daughter Mary should be legitimate in respect of the marriage which was sometime between the queen here and my brother the late Prince Arthur. These words were so conceived within my scrupulous conscience, that it bred a doubt within my breast, which doubt pricked, vexed, and troubled so my mind, and so disquieted me, that I was in great doubt of God's indignation" (Cavendish). 180. Advertise. Accent on the penult, as regularly in S. 183. Sometimes. P'ormerly ; as often, 184. The bosom of my conscience, etc. According to Holinshed, the king said, " Which words, once conceived within the secret bottom of my conscience," etc. Theobald therefore altered bosom to " bottom," which some other editors also adopt. 2i6 Notes [Act II 186. Which. " Referring loosely to the whole process just de- scribed" (Wright). 187. Maz'd. Bewildered. For consider ings, cf. iii. 2. 135 below. 193. J^ail. For the noun, cf. i. 2. 145 above. 194. Thus hulling, etc. Cavendish's words are, "Thus being troubled in waves of a scrupulous conscience ; " and Holinshed's, "Thus my conscience being tossed in the waves of a scrupulous mind." To hull, as explained by Steevens, is to drift about dis- masted ; but according to Richardson (^Dict.^, "a ship is said to hull when all her sails are taken down, and she floats to and fro." This is obviously the meaning in Rich. III. iv. 4. 438 : — " And there they hull, expecting but the aid Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore." Cf Milton, P. L. xi. 840 : " He look'd, and saw the ark hull on the flood." 199. And yet not well. That is, and not yet well. Such trans- position oi yet is common. 201. First, I began in private, etc. "I moved it in confession to you, my lord of Lincoln, then my ghostly father. And foras- much as then you yourself were in some doubt, you moved me to ask the counsel of all these my lords. Whereupon I moved you, my lord of Canterbury, first to have your licence, inasmuch as you were metropolitan, to put this matter in question ; and so I did of all of you, my lords" (Holinshed). 203. Reek. " Cf. L. L. L. iv. 3. 140 : ' Saw sighs reek from you ;* A. Y. L. ii. 7. 148 : ' Sighing like furnace.' This image of visible sighs, coming forth like a fume or vapour, is peculiarly Shake- spearian " (Adee). 208. A state of mighty moment. A situation of extreme im- portance. 209. That I committed, etc. " That I committed to doubt, re- Scene I] NoteS 217 pressed under hesitation, the most forward opinion of my own mind." 220. Drives. The folio reading, altered to " drive " by the editors generally ; but such instances of the singular (Abbott calls it "the third person plural in-j") are frequent in S. and other writers of the time. Kellner {Historical Outlines of English Syntax) says that " not only the endings -es and -eth, but also is and was, were used both in the singular and in the plural." 224. Primest. " Very first," as we say ; the only instance of the superlative in S., but we have the comparative in i. 2. 67 above. 225. Faragoii'd. Extolled as a paragon. 234. Prithee, return. Cranmer was at this time abroad on an embassy connected with this business of the divorce. See iii. 2. 64 and 399 below. Some of the earlier editors, not understanding this, added here the marginal direction, " [ The King speaks to Cranmer^'' 236. Set on. We use this phrase only in the sense of incite, or instigate (as in 7'. A^. v. i. 189 : "I was set on to do 't ") ; but in S. it also means to proceed, lead the way, set out, etc. Cf. /. C. i. 2. II : "Set on; and leave no ceremony out; " M.for M. iii. I. 61: "To-morrow you set on;" I Hen. IV. v. 2. 97: "Now — Esperance ! Percy ! — and set on," etc. ACT III Scene I. — The visit of Wolsey and Campeius to Katherine is thus described by Cavendish (as quoted by Knight) : — " And then my lord rose up and made him ready, taking his barge, and went straight to Bath Place to the other cardinal, and so went together unto Bridewell, directly to the queen's lodging ; and they, being in her chamber of presence, showed to the gentle- man usher that they came to speak with the queen's grace. The gentleman usher advertised the queen thereof incontinent. With 21 8 Notes [Act III that she came out of her privy chamber with a skein of white thread about her neck, into the chamber of presence, where the cardinals were giving of attendance upon her coming. At whose coming quoth she, ' Alack, my lords, I am very sorry to cause you to attend upon me; what is your pleasure with me?' 'If it please you,' quoth my lord cardinal, 'to go into your privy chamber, we will show you the cause of our coming.' ' My lord,' quoth she, ' if you have anything to say, speak it openly before all these folks, for I fear nothing that ye can say or allege against me, but that I would all the world should both hear and see it ; therefore I pray you speak your minds openly.' Then began my lord to speak to her in Latin. ' Nay, good my lord,' quoth she, ' speak to me in English, I beseech you ; although I understand Latin.' ' Forsooth then,' quoth my lord, ' Madam, if it please your grace, we came both to know your mind, how ye be disposed to do in this matter between the king and you, and also to declare secretly our opinions and our counsel unto you, which we have intended of very zeal and obedi- ence that we bear to your grace.' ' My lords, I thank you then,' quoth she, * of your good wills ; but to make answer to your re- quest I cannot so suddenly, for I was set among my maidens at work, thinking full little of any such matter, wherein there needeth a large deliberation, and a better head than mine, to make answer to so noble wise men as ye be ; I had need of good counsel in this case, which toucheth me so near ; and for any counsel or friend- ship that I can find in England, they are nothing to my purpose or profit. Think you, I pray you, my lords, will any Englishman counsel or be friendly unto me against the king's pleasure, they being his subjects ? Nay, forsooth, my lords ! and for my counsel in whom I do intend to put my trust be not here ; they be in Spain, in my native country. Alas, my lords ! I am a poor woman lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to answer such approved wise men as ye be both, in so weighty a matter. I pray you to extend your good and indifferent minds in your authority unto me, for I am a simple woman, destitute and barren of friend- Scene I] Notes 219 ship and counsel here in a foreign region ; and as for your counsel, I will not refuse, but be glad to hear.' " And with that she took my lord by the hand, and led him into her privy chamber, with the other cardinal, where they were in long communication : we, in the other chamber, might sometime hear the queen speak very loud, but what it was we could not understand. The communication ended, the cardinals departed, and went directly to the king, making to him relation of their talk with the queen, and after resorted home to their houses to supper." I. Wench. Young woman; not contemptuous. CL Temp. i. 2. 139 (Prospero to Miranda), etc. 3. Orpheus. Cf. Af. of V. v. i. 80 and T. G. of V. iii. 2. 78. 7. As. As if. See on i. i. 10 above. 10. Sea. Pronounced say ; as ea was in many words where it now has the sound of long e. This continued to the time of Pope, who rhymes tea with obey in a familiar passage, etc. II. Lay by. Equivalent to lay dojun. 13. Killing care. That kilhng care, etc. The ellipsis some- times occurs after such, as after so. 17. The presence. The presence-chamber; as in Rich. II, i. 3. 289. 22. They should be good men, etc. " Being churchmen they should be virtuous, and every business they undertake as righteous as their sacred office, but all hoods," etc. (Malone). Cucullus tion facit monachttm is an old Latin proverb. Cf. M. for M. v. i. 263 and T. vV. i. 5. 62. 24. Part of a hotisezvife, etc. To some extent a housewife ; I would fain be wholly one, that I may be prepared for the worst that may happen. According to Cavendish (see p. 218), she came into the room with a skein of white thread about her neck, 36. Envy and base opinion set against '' em. Malice and calumny pitted against them. See on ii. I. 85 above. 37. So even. So consistent. Cf. 166 below. 220 Notes [Act III If your business, etc. If your business is with me, and concern- ing my conduct as a wife. Mason read "wise" for wife, explaining the passage thus : " If your business relates to me, or to anything of which I have any knowledge." Dyce adopts this emendation, which White also regards with favour ; but it seems to me quite as awkward as the original reading. 40. Tanta est, etc. " So great is our integrity of purpose towards thee, most serene princess." The Latin is not in Holinshed or Cavendish. 45. More strange, suspicious. Dyce reads " more strange-suspi- cious," but, as Wright suggests, the expression may " indicate a climax " and be = " more strange, even suspicious." 52. And service to his majesty and you. Edwards suggested that this line and the next had been accidentally transposed ; but, as White remarks, " integrity cannot alone breed suspicion ; it must be joined with misunderstood service to produce such an effect." 64. Your late censure. See ii. 4. 106 fol. 65. Which was too far, Cf. i. I. 38 above. 72. My weak wit. My weak judgment, or understanding. Cf. 177 below, and/. C. iii. 2. 225 : "For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth." The word is also used by S. in its modern sense ; as in Much Ado, i. I. 63 : " they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between them," etc. 74. Was set. Cf. L. C. 39 : " Upon whose weeping margent she was set." 77. For her sake, etc. For the sake of the royalty that has been mine. 86. Though he be grown so desperate, etc. Though he be so rash as to express an honest opinion. Johnson paraphrases the passage thus: "Do you think that any Englishman dare advise me ; or, if any man should venture to advise with honesty, that he could live?" 88. Weigh out. I think this means to estimate fairly, to con- sider impartially. Johnson hesitated between " dehberate upon, Scene I] Notes 221 consider with due attention," and "counterbalance, counteract with equal force." Afflictions is a quadrisyllable ; like distraction in 112 below. 94. Much Both for- your honour better. Much better, etc. 97. You 7/ part azvay. On part = depart, cf. M. of V. ii. 7. 77 : "Thus losers part," etc. 102. The more sha77ie for ye ! " If I mistake you, it is by your fault, not mine ; for I thought you good" (Johnson). 117. Churchmen'' s habits. Priestly vestments ; " glistering sem- blances of piety" (^Hen. V. ii. 2. 117). 125. Speak myself That is, of myself. Cf. iv. 2. 32 below. 131. Superstitious to him. "That is, served him with supersti- tious attention ; done more than was required" (Johnson). 134. A constant zvoman to her husband. A woman faithful to her husband. Cf. Rich. II. iii. 2. 8 : "As a long-parted mother with her child," etc. Such transpositions of " adjectival phrases " are common in S. 145. Ye have ajtgels^ faces, etc. Perhaps "an allusion to the saying attributed to St. Augustine, Non Angli sed Angeli " (Dyce).i Cf. Greene's Spanish Masquerado : " England, a little island, where, as Saint Augustine saith, there be people with angel faces, so the inhabitants have the courage and hearts of lions." 151. like the lily, etc. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 16 : "The lilly, Lady of the flowring field." 164. Gro7i> as terrible as storms. Lord Essex was charged with saying, in a letter written in 1598 to the lord keeper, "There is no tempest to [compared with] the passionate indignation of a prince " (Malone). 176. If I have US' d myself etc. If I have deported myself, etc. 1 According to Beda, the paternity of this pun belongs to Pope Gregory the Great, who, on seeing some Saxon youths offered for sale in the slave-market at Rome, asked from what country they came; and being told that they were Atigles {Angli), replied that they ought rather to be called angels {angeli) . 22 2 Notes [Act III Scene II. — 2. Force them. Enforce or urge them. Cf. Cor. iii. 2. 51 : *' Why force you this ? " etc. 3. If you omit The offer, etc. If you neglect the opportunity. Cf. Te??ip. ii. I. 194 : "Do not omit the heavy offer of it," etc. 5. Moe. See on ii. 3. 95 above. 8. The duke. Buckingham. Cf. ii. 1.44 above and 256 below. 10. Have uncojztemn'd, etc. " Have not gone by him con- temned or neglected " (Johnson). As Mason remarks, the negative in uncojitemn'' d is extended to neglected. 16. Gives way to us. Leaves a way open to us. Cf. /. C. ii. 3. 8 : " Security gives way to conspiracy." 22. He 's settled, etc. He is fixed in the king's displeasure, never to get out of it. 30. The cardiiiaP s letter. The folio has " The Cardinal's Let- ters ; " but belov/ we find " this Letter of the Cardinals " and "the Letter (as I liue) with all the Businesse I wrote too 's Holinesse." 37. Will this work ? Will this influence the king against him ? 38. How he coasts And hedges, etc. Creeps along by coast and hedge. As Mason remarks, ^^ hedging is by land what coasting vi, by sea." 44. N'ow all my joy, etc. That is, all the joy that I can wish, etc. Cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, Coxcomb, iv. 4 : " Now all my blessing on thee ! " Trace = follow ; as in Macb, iv. I. 153 : " all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line." 45. All men's! All men's amen; with perhaps a play upon amen. 47. But young, etc. But recent, and not to be told to everybody. 49. Complete. Cf. the accent with that in i. 2. 118 above — the only other instance of the word in this play. 50. I perstiade me, etc. I persuade myself, etc. For the allusion to Elizabeth, cf. ii. 3. 76 above. 52. Memoriz' d. Made memorable. Cf. Macb. i. 2. 40 : " Or memorize another Golgotha." 53. Digest this letter. Cf. L. L. L. v, 2. 289 : — Scene II] Notes 223 " for it can never be They will digest this harsh indignity." 64. He is return'' d in his opinio7is, etc. "The construction is here difficult, and the meaning equivocal. The passage means probably that Cranmer is actually returned in his opinions — in the same opinions vi^hich he formerly maintained, supported by the opinions of ' all famous colleges ' " (Knight). In his opinions may, hovi^ever, be used in distinction to " in person," as Tyrwhitt ex- plains it. He has not returned, but has sent his opinions in advance. 67. Almost. Adverbs of limitation are often thus transposed. Qi. yet in ii. 4. 199 above. 72. To' en much pain. Belovv^ (v. i. 1 19) we have "ta'en some pains." There are other instances of the variation. 85. The Duchess of Alen<;on. The daughter of Charles of Orleans, Count of Angouleme, married in 1509 to Charles, Duke of Alen^on, who died in 1525. Two years later she was married to Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre. 88. More in V than fair visage. More to be thought of than beauty. 90. 77^1? Marchioness of Pembroke ! Cf. ii. 3. 61 above. 92. Does tvhet his anger to hijn. That is, against him. Cf. Much Ado, ii. I. 243 : "The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you." Sharp enough, etc. May it be whetted sharp enough, etc. loi. Hard-ruP d. Hard to be ruled, self-willed. 102. One Hath crawPd. One who hath, etc.; a common ellipsis. Cf. i. 1. 197, iii. I. 46, 55, etc. 106. Enter the King, reading a schedule. Steevens remarks : "That the cardinal gave the king an inventory of his own private wealth by mistake, and thereby ruined himself, is a known variation from the truth of history. Shakespeare, however, has not injudi- ciously represented the fall of that great man as owing to an inci- dent which he had once impr'oved to the destruction of another." Holinshed relates this incident as follows : — "Thomas Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, was, after the death of 224 Notes [Act III Henry VII., one of the privy council to Henry VIII., to whom the king gave in charge to vi^rite a book of the whole estate of the kingdom. Afterwards, the king commanded Cardinal Wolsey to go to this bishop, and to bring the book away with him. This bishop, having written two books (the one to answer the king's command, and the other intreating of his own private affairs), did bind them both after one sort in vellum. Now when the cardinal came to demand the book due to the king, the bishop unadvisedly com- manded his servant to bring him the book bound in white vellum, lying in his study, in such a place. The servant accordingly brought forth one of the books so bound, being the book intreating of the state of the bishop. The cardinal having the book went from the bishop, and after (in his study by himself) understanding the con- tents thereof, he greatly rejoiced, having now occasion (which he long sought for) offered unto him, to bring the bishop into the king's disgrace." The result was that the bishop " shortly,, through extreme sorrow, ended his life at London, in the year of Christ 1523," and "the cardinal, who had long before gaped after his bishopric," succeeded thereto. 117. Hard. Here a dissyllable, according to Abbott (^Gram- mar, 485). 122. Wot. The present tense of wit (Anglo-Saxon witan, to know, of which the 1st and 3d persons sing, are wdt), used some thirty times by S., but only in the present tense and the participle wotting. Cf. Genesis, xxi. 26, xxxix. 8, xliv. 15, etc. 123. Umvitiingly. Used only here and in Rick. III. ii. i. 56. We find the verb unwit in 0th. ii. 3. 182 : " As if some planet had unwitted them." 127. At such proud rate, etc. On so grand a scale that it ex- ceeds what a subject ought to possess. 130. Withal. "The emphatic form of with;''^ but sometimes (as in 164 below) = with this, besides. 134. Below the moon. "Sublunary; 'of the earth, earthy'" (Adee). Scene II] Notes 225 138. In your mind. In your memory. 140. Spiritual leisure. "That is, time devoted to spiritual affairs. Leisure seems to be opposed, not to occupation, but to toilsome and compulsory or necessary occupation " (White). Ac- cording to Nares, the word " stands simply for space or time allowed." See Rich. II. \. 1.5: " Which then our leisure would not let us hear; " Rich. III. v. 3. 97 : " The leisure and the fearful time Cuts off," etc. ; and Id. v. 3. 238 : " The leisure and enforcement of the time Forbids to dwell upon." We still say " I would do it, if leisure permitted," etc. In these instances, leisure is not precisely " want of leisure," as some explain it, but rather "what leisure I have" — which may be very little. 142. An ill husband. A bad manager. Cf. T. of S. v. i. 71 : " I am undone ! While I play the good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the University," The word means husbandman in 2 Hen. IV. v. 3. 12: "he is your servingman and your husband." 149. Tendance. Attention. Cf. T. of A. i. i. 57: "his love and tendance." 159. Par'' d my present havings. Diminished my wealth. Cf. ii. 3. 23 above. For the plural, cf. L. C. 235. 162. The prime man. The first man. Cf. Temp. i. 2. 425: " My prime request, Which I do last pronounce." See also ii. 4. 224 above. 168. Which went. "The sense is, ^lA.-^ purposes went beyond all human eiideavour. I purposed for your honour more than it falls within the compass of man's nature to attempt'" (Johnson). Which, however, may refer to graces. 171. Yet fiP d luith. That is, kept pace with, came up to. 172. So. In so far as. 176. Allegiant. Used by S. only here ; and no contemporary in- stance of the word has been pointed out. The New Eng. Diet, has none before 1848, when it occurs in a passage suggested by the use of it in S. HENRY VIII — 15 226 Notes [Act III 178. Ever has and ever shall be. On the ellipsis of bee^t, cf. T. and C. i, 3. 288: "That means not [to be], hath not [been], or is not in love." See also the note on 192 below. 181. The honour of it, etc. "The honour of possessing such a spirit is a reward of its own exercise, as in the contrary case the baseness of a disloyal and disobedient spirit is itself a penal degra- dation." 188. Notwithstanding, etc. "Besides the general bond of duty, by which you are obliged to be a loyal and obedient subject, you owe 2, particular devotion of yourself to me as youx particular benefac- tor " (Johnson). 192. I'hat am true, etc. The folio gives this speech as fol- lows : — " I do professe, That for your Highnesse good, I euer labour'd More then mine owne : that am, haue, and will be (Though all the world should cracke their duty to you, And throw it from their Soule, though perils did Abound, as thicke as thought could make 'em, and Appeare in formes more horrid) yet my Duty As doth a Rocke against the chiding Flood, Should the approach of this wilde Riuer breaks, And stand vnshaken yours." " The last part of the third line has long been incomprehensible to readers, and unmanageable to editors. Rowe read, 'That am /, have been, will be.' Mason would have struck the words out. Ma- lone, with some probability, supposed that a line had been lost after ' and will be.' Mr. Singer reads, * that / am true, and will be ; ' and it appears to me that by the latter word, which it will be seen in- volves but the change of two letters, he has solved the difficulty. But the introduction of '/' is needless, as the pronoun occurs twice in the two preceding lines ; and under such circumstances the grammar of Shakespeare's time allowed it to be understood. . . . The slight misprint was doubtless assisted by this omission, and the Scene II] Notes 227 introduction of the long parenthesis — out of place in any case — was a printer's desperate effort to solve the difficulty of the passage. The words ' that am, have, and will be,' might well stand as equiva- lent to ' that am, have been, and will be ; ' but this would not solve the difficulty, which is to find a subject and a predicate for all these verbs" (White). 197. The chiding flood. The sounding, or noisy flood, Cf. I Hen. IV. iii. i. 45 : " the sea That chides the banks of England ;" A. Y. L. ii. I. 7: "And churlish chiding of the winter wind ; " M. N. D. iv. I. 120: "Never did I hear Such gallant chiding" (of hounds), etc. 209. The story of his anger. The explanation of his anger. 226. Like a bright exhalation, etc. Like a shooting star. Cf. J. C. ii. I. 44: "The exhalations whizzing in the air," etc. 227. Enter the Dukes of N^oifolk and Suffolk, etc. " Reed re- marked that the Duke of Norfolk, who is introduced in the first scene of the first act, or in 1522, is not the same person who here, or in 1529, demands the great seal from Wolsey ; for Thomas How- ard, who was created Duke of Norfolk in 1 5 14, died, we are in- formed by Holinshed, in 1525. And not only are two persons made one, but one, two. For this Earl of Surrey is the same who married Buckingham'' s daughter, as we learn from his own lips in the first part of this scene ; and the Earl of Surrey, Buckingham'' s son-in-law, is also the very Duke of Norfolk who here demands the seals ; both titles having been at that time in the family, and he having been summoned to Parliament in 15 14 as Earl of Surrey in his own right, his father sitting as Duke of Norfolk. But this supposes a needless complication of blunders. Shakespeare's only error was, probably, ignorance or forgetfulness of the fact that the Dtike of Norfolk, whom he first brings upon the stage, died before Wolsey'' s fail ; and we are to consider Norfolk and Surrey in this scene as father and son, and the former as the same person who appears in the first scene" (White). It is an historical fact that Wolsey refused to deliver up the great seal at the demand of the 228 Notes [Act III dukes. He retained it until the next day, when they returned with the king's written order for its surrender. 229. Presently. Immediately ; the usual meaning in S. 231. Asher-house. It appears from Holinshed that Asher was the ancient name of Esher, near Hampton Court. " Shakespeare forgot that Wolsey was himself Bishop of Winchester, unless he meant to say, you must confine yourself to that house which you possess as Bishop of Winchester " (Malone). Mr. Adee remarks: " It has sometimes occurred to me that the possessive s of the folio might be superfluous, and that the idea is to make Norfolk sarcas- tically address Wolsey as 'my lord of Winchester.' Wolsey was degraded by the king's command from his all-powerful primacy to the simple bishopric of Winchester, with his residence at Asher House." 236. Till I find more than will, etc. " Till I find more than will or words (/ mean more than your malicious will and words) to do it — that is, to carry authority so weighty — I will deny to return what the king has given me " (Johnson). 240. My disgraces. The folio reading. Some read " disgrace ; " but the it refers to following my disgraces. 244. You have Christian warrant, etc. This is either ironical or sarcastic. 250. Letters patents. This is the folio reading, and, as Dyce re- marks, is "according to the phraseology of S.'s time." We find the same form in Rich. II. ii. I. 202 and ii. 3. 130 — the only other places where S. uses the expression. He takes it from Holinshed. 253. These fi)rty hours. Malone thought that S. wrote "these four hours; " but, as Steevens remarks, "forty seems anciently to have been the familiar number on many occasions where no very exact reckoning was necessary." 259; Plague of your policy. Cf. I Hen. IV. ii. 4. 127: "A plague of all cowards! " with Temp. i. i. 39: "A plague upon this howling ! " 260. Deputy for Ireland. Cf. ii. i. 42 above. Scene 11] Notes !229 265. Lay upon my credit. Bring against my reputation. 267. Innocent . . . From. Cf. 2 Hen. VI. iii. i. 69: "innocent from meaning treason;" and Macb. iii. 2. 45: "innocent of the knowledge." 272. That in the way, etc. Theobald reads, " That I, in the way." The meaning may be, yoti that dare mate (match yourself with) me, who am a sounder man, etc. Even if we consider dare to be in the first person, that (relative referring to I \r\ I should tell yoti) may be its subject, and Theobald's interpolation is needless. 280. Jaded by a piece of scarlet. Overborne or overmastered by a priest. As in " scarlet sin " above, there is an obvious allusion to the colour of the cardinal's hat and robes. Cf. I Hen. VI. i. 3. 56, where Gloster calls Cardinal Beaufort a " scarlet hypocrite." See also Cavendish's description of Wolsey as he used to go from his house to Westminster Hall : " He came out of his privy chamber, about eight of the clock, appareled all in red; that is to say, his upper garment was either of fine scarlet or taffety, but most com- monly of fine crimson satin engrained ; his pillion [that is, cap'\ of fine scarlet, with a neck set in the inner side with black velvet, and a tippet of sables about his neck," etc. 282. Dare us with his cap, like larks. " One of the methods of daring Xz-xk."!, was by small mirrors fastened on scarlet cloth, which engaged the attention of these birds while the fowler drew his net over them" (Steevens). Cf. Greene's Never Too Late, part i. : " They set out their faces as Fowlers do their daring glasses, that the Larkes that soare highest may stoope soonest." 291. Our issues. Our sons. In the next line the folio has " Whom if he Hue," which may be what S. wrote. 298. Fairer And spotless. This may be = fairer and more spot- less. Cf M. of V. iii. 2. 295 : "The best condition'd and unwearied spirit," etc. 305. Objections. Charges, accusations ; the only meaning in S. Cf. the verb object in Rich. II. i. I. 28 and I Hen. VI. iii. I. 7. 309. You wrought to be a legate, etc. You manoeuvred to be one 230 Notes [Act III of the pope's legates, and the power you thus gained diminished the jurisdiction of the bishops. As legate, Wolsey took precedence of all other ecclesiastical authorities in the realm. 312. Ego et Rex mens. Holinshed says : " In all writings which he wrote to Rome, or any other foreign prince, he wrote Ego et Rex mens, I and my king; as who would say that the king were his servant." But, as Wolsey urged in his defence, this order was required by the Latin idiom. 318. A large commission. " That is, a full-power^ under the great seal, of which Wolsey was the keeper. To grant letters plenipoten- tiary to conclude a treaty of alliance belongs to the king alone, and Wolsey, in issuing a full-power, usurped the royal prerogative" (Adee). 319. Gregory de Cassalis, The folio has " de Cassado^'' which is probably what S. wrote ; following Hall, whose words are : " He, without the king's assent, sent a commission to Sir Gregory de Cas- sado, knight, to conclude a league between the king and the Duke of Ferrara, without the king's knowledge." 323. Your holy hat, etc. This charge was made " rather with a view to swell the catalogue than from any serious cause of accusa- tion, inasmuch as the Archbishops Cranmer, Bainbridge, and War- ham were indulged with the same privilege " (Douce). 324. Innumerable substance, etc. Untold treasure, to supply Rome and prepare the way for dignities you seek. Innumerable occurs nowhere else in S. Cf. Holinshed's " innumerable treasure " in note on iv. 2. 34 below. 327. The mere undoing. The utter ruin. Cf. 0th. ii. 2. 3 : " the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet," etc. 331. '' T is virtue. That is, 't is virtue to refrain from doing it. 337. legatine. The ist folio has " Legatiue," the 2d and 3d have " Legantive," and the 4th has " Legantine." legatine is due to Rowe, and is adopted by all the editors. 338. Prccimcnire. The word is Low Latin for ji^r^z>zo;z^ri?. The writ is so called from the first words of it, y^\i\c^ forewarn the per- Scene II] Notes 23 1 son respecting the offence of introducing foreign authority into England. 341. Chattels. The folio has "Castles;" corrected by Theo- bald, who remarks : " the judgment in a writ oi prcemunire is, that the defendant shall be out of the king' s protection ; and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels, ioxi&W.^^ to the king; and that his body shall remaiin in prison at the king's pleasure." This de- scription of ihQ pj'czjnuniJ'e is given by Holinshed, who has " cat- tels" for chattels. These forms were then used indifferently; "from which we may infer that the pronunciation was cattels in either case" (White). 349. Farewell, a long farewell, etc. The punctuation in the folio is, " Farewell ? A long farewell to all my Greatnesse." Hunter {^Nezv Illust. of S. vol. ii. p. 108) would retain this, ex- plaining the line thus : " Farewell — did I say farewell ? — Yes, it is too surely so — a long farewell to all my greatness ! " 351. The tender leaves of hopes. The folio reading, usually changed to " hope." White remarks : " The s may be a scribe's or printer's superfluity. But there is an appreciable, though a delicate distinction between ' the tender leaves of hope ' and ' the tender leaves of hopes ; ' and the idea conveyed to me by the latter, of many desires blooming into promise of fruition, is the more beautiful, and is certainly less commonplace." Some take blossoj7is to be a noun here (the folio prints it with a capital, "Blossomes"), but it is undoubtedly a verb. 358. This many sunimers. Cf. M. for M. i. 3. 21 : "this nine- teen years," etc. 367. That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin. Aspect is always accented on the second syllable by S. Cf. v. i. 89 below. Their ruin (altered by some editors to " our ruin" or " his ruin ") means the ruin which they (princes) cause, or bring ; in other words, their is a " subjective genitive." Similar cases are not rare in S. We have three examples in a single scene (v. i) of the Tempest: "your release," "their high wrongs," and "my wrongs." 232 Notes [Act III Cf. M. N. D. ii. I. 240: "Your wrongs (the wrongs done by you) do set a scandal on my sex," etc. The present passage is Fletcher's. See pp. 14, 18, above. 369. I.ike Lucifer. Cf. Isaiah, xiv. 12. 380. These ruined pillars. " Alluding, of course, to his insignia of office" (Adee). See on ii. 4. i (stage-direction). 397. May have a tomb, etc. The folio reads : " May haue a Tombe of Orphants teares wept on him." The lord chancellor is the general guardian of orphans. Johnson considers the metaphor "very harsh ; " but Steevens compares Drummond's Teares for the Death of Moelaides : — " The Muses, Phoebus, Love, have raised of their teares A crystal tomb to him, through which his worth appeares." He also cites an epigram of Martial's, in which, he says, the Heli- ades are represented as "weeping a tomb of tears over a viper;" but it is not until after the amber tears of the sisters of Phaethon have hardened around the reptile (so that he is " concreto vincta gelu ") that they are compared to a tomb. 402. In open. Openly, in public. Steevens considers it a "Latinism," because in aperto is used in the same sense. It may be noted that "in the open" is now good English (in England, at least) for "in the open air." 403. The voice. The common talk; as in iv. 2. 11. 405. There was the weight that puWd me down, etc. Cf. what Cavendish says : " Thus passed the cardinal his time forth, from day to day and year to year, in such great wealth, joy, and triumph and glory, having always on his side the king's especial favour, until Fortune, of whose favour no man is longer assured than she is disposed, began to wax something wroth with his prosperous estate. And for the better mean to bring him low, she procured Venus, the insatiate goddess, to be her instrument ; who brought the king in love with a gentlewoman that, after she perceived and felt the king's good will towards her, how glad he was to please Scene II] Notes 233 her, and to grant all her request, wrought the cardinal much dis- pleasure. This gentlewoman was the daughter of Sir Thomas Bullen, knight," etc. 406. Gone beyond. Overreached. Cf. i Thessalonians, iv. 6. 409. The noble troops that waited, etc. The number of persons who composed Wolsey's household was not less than one hundred and eighty, and soine accounts (undoubtedly exaggerated) make it eight hundred. Cf. Cavendish's description of the cardinal's passage through London on his way to France: "Then marched he forward, from his own house at Westminster, through all Lon- don, over London Bridge, having before him a great number of gentlemen, three in a rank, with velvet coats, and the most part of them with great chains of gold about their necks. And all his yeomen followed him, with noblemen's and gentlemen's servants, all in orange-tawny coats, with the cardinal's hat, and a T and a C (for Thomas, Cardinal) embroidered upon all the coats as well of his own servants as all the rest of his gentlemen's servants. And when his sumpter mules, which were twenty or more in number, and all his carriages and carts, and other of his train, were passed before, he rode like a cardinal, very sumptuously, with the rest of his train, on his own mule, with his spare mule and spare horse — trapped in crimson velvet upon velvet, and gilt stirrups — follow- ing him. And before him he had two great crosses of silver, his two great pillars [see on 380 above] of silver, the king's broad seal of England, and his cardinal's hat, and a gentleman carrying his valence, otherwise called his cloak-bag, which was made of fine scarlet, altogether embroidered very richly with gold, having in it a cloak. Thus passed he forth through London, as I said before; and every day on his journey he was thus furnished, having his harbingers in every place before, which prepared lodging for him and his train." 418. Make use now. Make interest now, "let not advantage slip" (Schmidt). Cf. T. G. of V. ii. 4. 68: "Made use and fair advantage of his days," etc. 234 Notes [Act IV 428. To play the woman. To weep. Cf. Macb. iv. 6. 31 : "O, I could play the woman with mine eyes ! " See also Hen. V. iv. 6. 31 and Ham. iv. 7. 190. Cromwell remained with Wolsey during his confinement at Esher, and obtained a seat in Parliament that he might defend him there. The Lords passed a bill of impeachment against the cardinal, but Cromwell opposed it in the Commons with such skill and eloquence that he finally defeated it. "At the length," says Cavendish, "his honest estimation and earnest behaviour in his master's cause, grew so in every man's opinion, that he was reputed the most faithful servant to his master of all other, wherein he was greatly of all men commended." 431. Dull, cold marble. Cf. Gray, Elegy : "the dull cold ear of death." 443. Still in thy right hand, etc. Some see an allusion here to " the rod of silver with the dove," or " bird of peace," carried at royal processions. See below (iv. i) in the Order of the Procession, and also in the account of the coronation that follows. " Cromwell was in holy orders, and the allusion is more likely to the priestly benediction, the pax vobiscum, which was always said with up- lifted right hand, the thumb and fore and middle fingers being raised to denote the Trinity" (Adee). 453. Had I but serv'd my God, etc. It is an historical fact that, among his last words to Sir William Kingston, the cardinal said, " If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. But this is the just reward that I must receive for my diligent pains and study that I have had to do him service, not regarding my service to God, but only to satisfy his pleasure." ACT IV Scene I. — The ceremonies attending the coronation of Anne Bullen are minutely described by Hall, from whom S. drew the Scene I] Notes 235 materials for this scene, including the Order of the Procession. Sir Thomas More was the chancellor on this occasion. 7. Offered sorrozu. Cf. the use of offer in iii. 2. 388, 389, above. 9. Their royal ??iinds. " Their devotion to the king " (Schmidt) . Cf. 2 I/en. IV. iv. i. 193: "our royal faiths" (fidehtyto the king). 13. Better taken. Better received, more heartily welcomed. 16. Of those that claim their offices, etc. Holinshed says : " In the beginning of May, 1533, the king caused open proclamation to be made, that all men that claimed to do any service, or execute any office, at the solemn feast of the coronation, by the way of tenure, grant, or prescription, should put their grant, three weeks after Easter, in the Star -Chamber, before Charles, Duke of Suffolk, for that time high steward of England, and the lord chancellor, and other commissioners." 22. Beholding. Beholden. Cf. i. 4. 32 above and v. 3. 156 below. 28. Dunstable. The court was held at Dunstable Priory, which was a royal foundation of Henry I, who in 1131 bestowed on it the town of Dunstable and all its privileges. Ampthill Castle, built in the fifteenth century, was one of the favourite resorts of Henry VIH. It was demolished about the year 1626. After many changes of proprietorship, the estate came into the possession of Lord Ossory, who planted a grove of firs where the castle had stood, and in 1773 erected in the centre a monument, surmounted by a cross bearing a shield with Katherine's arms, of Castile and Arragon. A tablet at the base of the cross bears the following inscription, from the pen of Horace Walpole : — " In days of yore, here Ampthill's towers were seen, The mournful refuge of an injur'd queen ; Here flow'd her pure but unavailing tears, Here blinded zeal sustain'd her sinking years. Yet Freedom hence her radiant banner wav'd, And Love aveng'd a realm by priests enslav'd ; From Catherine's wrongs a nation's bliss was spread, And Luther's light from lawless Henry's bed." 236 Notes [Act IV 29. Lay. That is, lodged, or resided. Cf. T. N. iii. i. 8: "So thou mayst say, the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar dwell near him ; " M. W. ii. 2. 63 : " When the court lay at Windsor ; " Milton, D Alle- gro : " Where perhaps some beauty lies," etc. Vaughan remarks that the word in this sense occurs rather quaintly in Holinshed, who says of Balliol after his expulsion from Scotland, " After this he went and laie a time with the Lady of Gines, that was his kins- woman." 32. Main assent. General assent. Cf. Ham. i. 3. 28 : " the main voice of Denmark," etc. 34. The late marriage. " The marriage lately considered as a valid one " (Steevens) ; or simply the previous marriage. 35. Kimbolton. The folio has " Kymmalton," which was doubt- less the pronunciation of the name. Kimbolton Castle, in Hunt- ingdonshire, successively the property of the Bohuns, the Staffords, and the Wingfields, is now the seat of the Duke of Manchester. From an interesting account of the place in the Athencetmi (Jan. 1 861), I extract a paragraph or two : — "Kimbolton is perhaps the only house now left in England in which you still live and move, distinguished as the scene of an act in one of Shakespeare's plays. Where now is the royal palace of Northampton? Where the baronial hall of Warkworth? . . . The Tower has become a barrack, and Bridewell a jail. . . . West- minster Abbey, indeed, remains much as when Shakespeare opened the great contention of York and Lancaster with the dead hero of Agincourt lying there in state ; and the Temple Gardens have much the same shape as when he made Plantagenet pluck the white rose, Somerset the red ; but for a genuine Shakespearian house, in which men still live and move, still dress and dine, to which guests come and go, in which children frisk and sport, where shall we look beyond the walls of Kimbolton Castle? "Of this Shakespearian pile Queen Katherine is the glory and the fear. The chest in which she kept her clothes and jewels, her own cipher on the lid, still lies at the foot of the grand staircase, Scene I] Notes 237 in the gallery leading to the seat she occupied in the private chapel. Her spirit, the people of the castle say, still haunts the rooms and corridors in the dull gloaming or at silent midnight. . . . Mere dreams, no doubt ; but people here believe them. They say the ghost glides about after dark, robed in her long vi'hite dress, and w^ith the royal crown upon her head, through the great hall, and along the corridor to the private chapel, or up the grand staircase, past the Pellegrini cartoons." 37. The Order of the Procession. Called in the folio "The Order of the Coronation;" but it is only the procession on the return from the coronation. White remarks: "This elaborate direction is of no service to the action, and was plainly intended only for the prompter and property-man of the theatre, that in getting up this show play they might have exact directions about putting this scene on the stage. But as it doubtless gives us a very exact measure of the capacity of our old theatre to present a spectacle, it should be retained." The direction for the exit of the procession follows the " Order " in these words : " Exeunt, first passing ouer the Stage in Order and State, and then, A great Flourish of Trumpets P Then, Garter. Garter king-at-arms, in his coat of office em- blazoned with the royal arms. " In the College of Heralds there are three Kings-at-arms for England : the first and principal one. Garter King-at-arms, was instituted by Henry V. for the service of the Order of the Garter ; the other two, or Provincial Kings-at- arms, being respectively entitled Clareitcieux (so named from the Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III.) and Norroy (Roy du Nord), — the heraldic jurisdiction of the latter comprising all the country to the north of the Trent, while that of Clarencieux lay to the south" (Adee). Collars of SS. The folio has " Esses?' " A collar of SS, prob- ably so called from the S-shaped links of the chain-work, was a badge of equestrian nobility." Four of the Cinqtce-ports. These ports, in the south of England, 238 Notes [Act IV were originally five (hence the name) — Dover, Hastings, Hythe, Romney, and Sandwich ; Winchelsea and Rye were afterwards added. They were under the jurisdiction of barons, called wardens, for the better security of the coast, these ports being nearest to France, and considered the keys of the kingdom. The office was instituted by William the Conqueror in 1078. The Duke of Wel- lington was lord-warden from 1828 to his death in 1852 (cf. Long- fellow's poem, The Warden of the Cinque Ports). 49. All are near. All who are near. See on i. i. 197 above. 55. /' the abbey. That is, Westminster Abbey. 57. The mere rankness. The very exuberance. Cf. iii. 2. 327 above. 89. The choicest music. The best musicians. Cf. M. of V. v. I. 53. 98. etc. 90. Parted. Departed. See on iii. i. 97 above. 100. Newly prefer j'^d. Just promoted. Cf. Rich. IV. iv. 2. 82 : " I will love thee and prefer thee too," etc. loi. He of Winchester. Stephen Gardiner, who was made bishop after Wolsey's death. 106. Thomas Cromwell. Made master of the jewel-house, April 14, 1532. He had become a privy-councillor a year earlier. III. Without all doubt. Beyond all doubt. 114. Something I can command. That is, I can do something for your entertainment. Scene II. — 6. Great child of honour. Cf. 50 below. He died November 29, 1530, more than five years before this lime. 10. Happily. Haply ; as often in S. 12. The stout earl, etc. "In early youth Anne BuUen was betrothed to Lord Henry Percy, who was passionately in love with her. Wolsey, to serve the king's purposes, broke off this match, and forced Percy into an unwilling marriage with Lady Mary Talbot. 'The stout Earl of Northumberland,' who arrested Wolsey at York, was this very Percy ; he was chosen fo^ his mission Scene II] Notes 239 by the interference of Anne Bullen — a piece of vengeance truly feminine in its mixture of sentiment and spitefulness, and every way characteristic of the individual woman" (Mrs. Jameson). The arrest was not at York, but at Cawood, where Wolsey was preparing for his installation at York. 13. At York. Wolsey had removed to his see of York, by the king's command, and had taken up his residence at Cawood Castle (ten miles from the city), which belonged to the Archbishops of York. There he rendered himself extremely popular in the neigh- bourhood by his affability and hospitality. 17. With easy roads. "The king," said Cavendish to Wolsey, "hath sent gentle Master Kingston to convey you by such easy journeys as you will comm.and him to do." With = by ; as often. To Leicester. "The next day," says Cavendish, "we rode to Leicester Abbey; and by the way he waxed so sick that he was divers times likely to have fallen from his mule ; and being night before we came to the Abbey of Leicester, where at his coming in at the gates, the abbot of the place, with all his convent, met him with the light of many torches ; whom they right honourably received with great reverence. To whom my lord said, ' Father abbot, I am come hither to leave my bones among you.' " Leicester Abbey was-founded in the year 1143, in the reign of King Stephen, by Robert Bossu, Earl of Leicester, and was dedi- cated to the Virgin Mary. It is situated in a pleasant meadow to the north of the town, watered by the River Soar, whence it acquired the name of St. Mary de Pratis, or de la Pre. The remains of Wolsey were interred in the abbey church, and were attended to the grave by the abbot and all his brethren. This last ceremony was performed by torchlight, the canons singing dirges and offering orisons, between four and five o'clock on the morning of St. Andrew's Day, November 30th, 1530. There is a traditional story that the stone coffin in which the remains were placed was, after its disinterment, used as a horse-trough at an inn near Leicester. 240 Notes [Act IV 19. With all his covent. The folio has "his Couent ; " and in M. for M. iv. 3. 133 : " One of our Couent." Covent is a very old form of convent, Dyce quotes a ballad, A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode: — " The abbot sayd to his covent, There he stode on grounde," etc. He might have added that we still have the old form in " Covent Garden" (in London), which was originally the garden of the convent at Westminster. 32. Speak hi7n. Speak of him. Cf. ii. 4. 142 and iii. i. 125 above. 34. Stomach. Pride, or arrogance. Cf. T. of S. v. 2. i']6: — "Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, And place your hands below your husband's foot ; " where vail — abate (literally, let fall). In this character of Wolsey the poet follows Holinshed very closely : "This cardinal (as you may perceive in this story) was of a great stomach, for he counted himself equal with princes, and by crafty suggestion gat into his hands innumerable treasure : he forced ^ little on simony, and was not pitiful, and stood affectionate in his own opinion : in open presence he would lie and say untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning : he would promise much and perform little ; he was vicious of his body, and gave the clergy evil example." 35. By suggestion Tithed all the kingdom. The folio has, "Ty'de all the Kingdome." As the clause is the counterpart of Holin- shed's " by crafty suggestion gat into his hands innumerable treasure," it is probable that "ty'de" is a misprint for "ty'thde." Hanmer was the first to make the correction, and is followed by many of the editors. "By suggestion tied all the kingdom" is 1 Hesitated, or had scruples. Cf. L. L. L. v. 2, 440: "You force not to forswear." Scene II] Notes 241 explained as meaning " by craft limited, or infringed the liberties of the kingdom." 37. r the presence. In the royal presence. 45. Men's evil manners, etc. Cf. J. C. iii. 2. 80 : — " The evil that men do Uves after them ; The good is oft interred with their bones." Steevens quotes Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, v. 3 : — " All your better deeds Shall be in water writ, but this in marble." Reed cites Whitney's Emblemes (1586) : — " Scribit in marmore Icesus. In marble harde our harmes wee always grave, Because, we still will beare the same in minde : In duste wee write the benefittes we have, Where they are soone defaced with the winde," etc. 48. This cardinal, etc. This speech also follows Holinshed : "This cardinal (as Edmund Campian, in his history of Ireland describeth him) was a man_undoubtedly born to honour : I think (saith he) some prince's bastard, no butcher's son, exceeding wise, fair spoken, high minded, full of revenge, vicious of his body ; lofty to his enemies, were they never so big, to those that accepted and sought his friendship wonderful courteous ; a ripe schoolman, thrall to affections, brought a-bed with flattery ; insatiable to get, and more princely in bestowing ; as appeareth by his two colleges at Ipswich and Oxenford, the one overthrown with his fall, the other unfinished, and yet, as it lieth, for an house of students in- comparable throughout Christendom. . . . Agreat preferrer of his servants, an advancer of learning, stout in every quarrel, never happy till his overthrow ; wherein he showed such moderation, and ended so perfectly, that the hour of his death did him more honour than all the pomp of his life passed." HENRY VIII — 16 242 Notes [Act IV 50. Was fashion' d to much honour, etc. The folio points thus : — " Was fashion'd to much Honor. From his Cradle He was a Scholler, and a ripe, and good one," etc. 52. Exceeding. Often used adverbially. 59. Oxford. It was Christ Church College that Wolsey founded. 60. The good that did it. The goodness that founded it. Pope read " the good he did it," but the folio is generally followed. 74. Modesty. Moderation. Cf. v. 3. 64 below. 78. Cause the inusicians play. Cf. 128 below. 82. (Stage-direction). Solemnly tripping. " Trip signified a dancing kind of motion, either light or serious" (Keightley). Vizards = visors, masks. Cf. M. W. iv. 4. 70 : "I '11 go buy them vizards ; " Macb. iii. 2. 34 : " make our faces vizards to our hearts." We find also vizarded, as in AI. W. iv. 6. 40 : " masked and vizarded." 94. Bid the music leave. See on iv. I. 89 above. Leave =^ leave off, cease. 98. An earthy cold. Cf. Tien. IV. v. 4. 84: "the earthy and cold hand of death," etc. Needless emendations are " earthly cold," and " earthy colour." no. Capticius. The Latin form of Chapuys. Holinshed calls him " Eustachius Caputius." 127. That letter. The letter (as quoted by Mrs. Jameson) was as follows : — " My most dear Lord, King, and Husband : — "The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever ; for which yet you have cast me into many ca- lamities, and yourself into many troubles : but I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise ; for the rest, I commend unto you Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I must intreat you also to respect my Scene I] Notes 243 maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, they being but three, and all my other servants a year's pay besides their due, lest otherwise they be unprovided for : lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. — Farewell ! " 132. Model. Image, representative. Cf. j^zV/z. //. i. 2. 28 ; — " In that thou seest thy wretched brother die, Who was the model of thy father's life." See also Ham. v. 2. 50, Per. ii. 2. 11, etc. 146. Let him be a noble. Even though he should be a noble- man. Some editors put a semicolon after husbajid. 148. The poorest. Very poor; the superlative being used as sometimes in Latin. 169. Maiden flowers. Explained by what follows. Cf. Ham. v. I. 256 : "maiden strewments." 173. I can no more. Cf. Ham. iv. 7. 85: "And they can well on horseback," etc. ACT V Scene I. — 2. Hours. A dissyllable. See on ii. 3. 36 above. 7. At prhtiero. A game at cards, very fashionable in that day. Cf. M. W. iv. 5. 104 : " I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero." Some of the technicalities of the game, as given in Minsheu's Dialogues in Spanish and English, were very similar to those in certain games now in vogue ; as " Passe," " I am come to passe again e," " He see it," " I am flush," etc. Just how the game was played is now unknown. 13. Some touch of your late business. Some hint of the business that keeps you awake so late. 14. As they say spirits do. Cf. W. T. iii. 3. 17 : — " I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits of the dead May walk again," 244 Notes [Act V 17. Commend. Deliver. Cf. Macb. i. 7. ii, Lear,\\. 4. 28, etc. 19. In great extremity, and fear'' d. Such ellipsis is not rare. Cf. iv. 2. 127, and 34 below. 22. Good time. A fortunate delivery ; as in W. T. ii. i. 20, etc. 28. i^/mi? ^w;z w: — "Then I, as one that am the tongue of these, To sound the purposes of all their hearts," etc. 15. I never sought their malice. I never gave occasion for their malice. 19. Enter the King and Butts at a wiridow above. " In America we are not without some examples of old houses in which large rooms are commanded by windows opening into them from passage- ways or small adjacent apartments. But of old it was quite common in England to have such windows in the large rooms of manor- halls, castles, and palaces, especially in the kitchen and the dining- room, or banqueting-hall. From these apertures the mistress of the mansion could overlook the movements of her servants, either with or without their knowledge, and direct them without the trouble and unpleasantness of mingling with them, Instead of a 248 Notes [Act V window, there was very often a door opening upon a small gallery or platform, not unlike those in which the musicians are placed in some assembly rooms. Such a gallery, too, was part of the stage arrangement of Shakespeare's day" (White). 21. Saw. Has seen. Cf. Cymb. iv. 2. 66: "I saw him not these many years," etc. See also on ii. i. 146 above. 28. They had pai'ted, etc. " They had shared ; that is, had so much honesty among them" (Steevens). Scene III. — The Council-chamber . " Theobald, the first regu- lator of Shakespeare's plays, should have begun a new scene here, although the stage-direction in the folio is only ' A Councell Table brought in with Chayres and Stooles, and placed vnder the State,'' etc. But this is plainly the mere result of the absence of scenery of any kind on Shakespeare's stage, and the audience were to imagine that the scene changed from the lobby before the Council-chamber to that apartment itself. For it will be observed that Cranmer, enter- ing the former, finds the doors of the latter shut ('all fast') against him : he is bidden to enter, and the king and Dr. Butts afterward do enter the Council-chamber, according to the direction of the folio. It is true that the Door-keeper appears in both scenes ; but in the former he is within, in the latter he is summoned from with- out. This must be regarded, of course, in the performance of the play before a modern audience ; but as the scene has remained undivided until the present day, except by those early editors who followed the French custom of making a new scene at every important entrance or exit, a rectification of the slight want of conformity to mere external truth would not compensate for the inconvenience to those who refer to the play consequent upon a disturbance of the old arrangement" (White). Enter the Lord Chancellor. On the 29th of November, 1529, Sir Thomas More received the great seal, surrendered by Wolsey on the i8th of the same month. As he in turn surrendered it on the 1 6th of May, 1532, which was before the date of this scene as fixed Scene III] Notes 249 by the mention of the birth of Elizabeth (September 7th, 1533), Theobald argues that Sir Thomas Audley, More's successor, must be the chancellor meant here. He was, however (as Malone re- marks), lord keeper at this time, and did not obtain the title of Chancellor until the January after the birth of Elizabeth. For the purposes of the drama, it would be better to consider More as the chancellor here, his appointment to the office having been men- tioned in the preceding act ; but as a matter of history, Audley held the great seal in 1543, when Cranmer was accused of heresy. S. here brings into one scene events separated by an interval of at least ten years. 9. At this present. Now used only in the language of the law. Cf. VV. T. i. 2. 192, etc. We find also "for this present," iny. C. i. 2. 165 ; "on the present," in T. of A. i. I, 141 ; "in present," in T. and C. iii. 2. 100, etc. Bacon uses " at that present," in his Hejt. VII. II. Capable Of otir Jlesh. Liable to the weaknesses belonging to flesh and blood ; " subject to the temptations of our fleshly nature" (Schmidt). Various emendations have been proposed; but none is necessary. Cf. A. W. i. I. 106 and K. fohn, ii. i. 476. 22. Pace ''em not in their hands. Do not lead them about, or " put them through their paces." 24. Manage. Often used of the training of horses. 30. The tipper Germany. " Alluding to the heresy of Thomas Miinzer, which sprung up in Saxony in the years 1521 and 1522" (Grey). 38. A single heart. A heart free from duplicity. Cf. Acts, ii. 46, etc. 39. Stirs against. Bestirs himself, or is active against. Cf. Rich. II. i. 2. 3 : " To stir against the butchers of his life." 43. Men that make, etc. Cf. iii. 2. 243 above. 47. Be what they will. Whoever they may be. Cf. Lear, v. 3. 98:- " What in the world he is That names me traitor, villain-like he lies." 250 Notes [Act V 50. By that virtue. By virtue of that office. 60. / shall both find. One of the many Elizabethan transposi- tions of adverbs, Cf. only in 112 below. See also on ii. 4. 197. 64. Modesty. Explained by the preceding meekness. Cf. iv. 2. 74 above. 66. Lay all the weight, etc. Whatever may be the weight, etc. 71. Your painted gloss, ^\.z. " Those that understand you, under \.\us, painted gloss, this fair outside, discover your empty talk and your false reasoning" (Johnson). Discovers — discloses, betrays; as often. Cf. T. G. of V. iii. i. 4, M.for M. iii. i. 199, Much Ado, i. 2. 12, ii. 3. 161, iii. 2. 97, etc. 77. To load a falling man. Cf. iii. 2. 331 above. 78. / cry your honour mercy, I beg your pardon ; ironical of course. 85. This is too much. This folio gives this speech to the cham- berlain, and also the ones beginning at 87 and 107 below.- The misprint of " Cham.^'' for " Chan.'" is easily made. "This is the king's ring" (102) probably belongs to the chamberlain, who ap- pears to speak only this once during the scene. 88. Voices. See on i. 2. 70 and ii. 2. 93 above. 109. My mind gave me. I suspected. Cf. Cor. iv. 5. 257. 113. Have at ye. See on ii. 2. 84 and iii. 2. 307 above. 124. Such flattejy now. Pope reads " flatteries ; " but they in the next line may refer to commendations. The pointing is that of the folio. Capell and others put a comma after now, and the semi- colon after presence. 125. Thin and bare. The folio has " thin, and base." The cor- rection is Malone's, and is generally adopted. 126. To me you canjiot reach, etc. The folio has a comma at the end of the preceding line, and points this line thus : " To me you cannot reach. You play the Spaniell," which some editors retain. Mason suggested the reading in the text. 1 30. The proudest. He that, etc. The folios read " the proudest He, that," etc., which the Cambridge editors follow. Scene III] Notes 251 133. Thmi but once think this place. The folio has "his place ; " corrected by Rovve. 135. I had thought I had had. I thought I had. According to Fox, the king said : " Ah, my lords, I thought I had wiser men of my counsaile than now I find you. What discretion was this in you thus to make the primate of the realme, and one of you in office, to wait at the counsaille-chamber doore amongst servingmen ? You might have considered tliat he was a counsailer as wel as you, and you had no such commission of me so to handle him. I was con- tent that you should trie him as a counsailer, and not as a meane subject. But now I well perceive that things be done against him maliciouslie, and if some of you might have had your mindes, you would have tried him to the uttermost. But I doe you all to wit, and protest, that if a prince may bee beholding unto his subject (and so solemnlie laying his hand upon his brest, said), by the faith I owe to God, I take this man here, my lord of Canterburie, to be of all other a most faithful subject unto us, and one to whome we are much beholding, giving him great commendations other- wise." 146. Had ye mean. S. commonly uses the plural means, but has mean in J. C. iii. i. 161 : "no mean of death ; " A. and C. iv. 6. 35: "a swifter mean;" Ot/i. iii. i. 39: "I '11 devise a mean," etc. Cf Bacon, Essay 19: " thinke to Command the End, and not to endure the Meane," etc. 149. What zaas purposed, etc. " And with that," says Fox, "one or two of the chiefest of the counsaile, making their excuse, de- clared, that in requesting his indurance, it was rather ment for his triall and his purgation against the common fame and slander of the worlde, than for any malice conceived against him. ' Well, well, my lords (^uoth the king), take him, and well use him, as hee is worthy to bee, and make no more ado.' And with that, every man caught him by the hand, and made faire weather of altogethers, which might easilie be done with that man." 156. Beholding. Beholden. See on i. 4. 32 above. Q.^2 Notes [Act V i6i. T^ai is, a fair young maid. Rowe read, "There is," which some editors favour. Cf. R. and J. iv. 2. 31 : " this rever- end holy friar. All our v^^hole city is much bound to him." 166. You'd spare your spoons. It was the old custom for the sponsors at christening to make a present of gilt spoons to the child. These were called apostle spoons, because figures of the apostles were carved on the handles. Rich people gave the whole twelve, but those who were poorer or more penurious limited themselves to four (for the evangelists), or even to one, which represented the patron saint of the child. Allusions to these spoons are frequent in our old writers. The Variorum of 1821 fills a page with examples. This line and the two that follow are printed as prose in the folio (so in the Cambridge ed.), but, as Abbott remarks (^Grammar, 333), thi^ " makes an extraordinary and inexplicable break in a scene which is wholly verse." Proper names are often treated very freely in verse by S. 174. The common voice. See on iii. 2. 403 above. 176. A shrewd turn. An ill turn. Shrewd often = evil (its original meaning), Cf. A. Y. L. v. 4. 179: "shrewd days," etc. 177. Trijle time away. Cf. AI. of V. iv. i. 298 : "We trifle time." 178. Made a Christian. That is, christened. Scene IV. — 2. Parish-garden. The vulgar pronunciation of Paris Garden. "This celebrated bear-garden on the Bankside was so called from Robert de Paris, who had a house and garden there in the time of Richard II." (Malone). The Globe Theatre stood on the southern side of the Thames, and was contiguous to this garden, which was noted for its noise and disorder. 3. Gaping. Shouting or bawling. Littleton's Diet, has "To gape or bawl, vociferor." This may be the meaning of the word in M. of V. iv. i. 47: "a gaping pig." Schmidt gives it so. 15. May-day morning. All ranks of people used to " go / Scene IV] Notes . '^53 Maying " on the first of May. Stowe says : " In the month of May, namely, on Mayday in the morning, every man, except impedi- ment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods ; there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the noise ^ of birds, praising God in their kind." We read in Hall of the Venetian ambassadors, in 1515, accompanying Queen Katherine, in great state, to meet Henry VHI. at Shooter's Hill, near Greenwich ; and, after music and a banquet, they pro- ceeded homeward ; certain pasteboard giants (Gog and Magog) being borne in the procession, and " Lincoln green " worn in honour of Robin Hood. Katherine also gathered " May-dew " in Green- wich Park. 16, PaiiPs. St. Paul's Cathedral. It is " Powles " in the folio, as often ; but this is a mere phonographic irregularity, not a charac- teristic vulgarism like " Parish " above. " Paul " was universally pronounced Pole in S.'s time. 19. Four foot. Cf. I Hen. IV. ii. 2. 13: "four foot; " W. T. iv. 4. 347: "twelve foot and a half," etc. So "three pound of sugar" (^W. T.'vf. 3. 40), "a hundred pound in gold" (i^/. W. iv. 6. 5), etc. This use of the singular for the plural in familiar terms of weight and measure is common even now in vulgar speech. 22. Sir Guy, nor Colbrand. Sir Guy of Warwick was a famous hero of the old romances, and Colbrand was a Danish giant whom he subdued at Winchester. Ci. K. John, i. i. 225 : "Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man." 25. Let me ne''er hope to see a chine again, etc. This passage stands thus in the folio : — 1 Noise sometimes meant chorus, symphony, music, or band of musicians. Cf. 2 Hett. IV. ii. 4. 13 : " See if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain have some music." For the word as applied to musical sounds, see Spenser, F. Q. i. 12. 39: " Dur- ing the which there was an heavenly noise ; " Milton, At a Solemn Music: "that melodious noise;" Hymn on Nativity : "the stringed noise," etc, Coleridge has " a pleasant noise " in the Ancient Mariner. 254 Notes [Act V " Let me ne'er hope to see a Chine againe, And that I would not for a Cow, God saue her." The main difficulty has been the God save her ! as referring to coiv ; but a writer in the Literary Gazette (Jan. 25, 1862) says that a phrase identical with that used by S. is in use to this day in the south of England. " ' Oh ! I would not do that for a cow, save her tail ! ' may still be heard in the mouths of the vulgar in Devon- shire." Staunton quotes Greene and Lodge's Looking Glasse for London (1598): " my blind mare, God bless her !" For chine, of. 2 ILen. VL. iv. 10. 61 : "chines of beef." 32. Moorfields. The train-bands of the city were exercised in Moorfields, a suburb of London. 34. Brazier. A brass-founder, and a small portable furnace. "Both these senses are understood" (Johnson). 36. Under the line. Under the equator. Cf, Temp.'w.l. 237. Fire-drake has several meanings : a fiery dragon (as in the Ro- mance of Bevis of Hampton), a will-o'-the-wisp, or ignis fatuus, and a kind of firework. 39. To blow us. That is, to blow us up. Blow up occurs in T. and C. iv. 4. 56, LLen. V. iii. 2. 68, 96, etc. 41. Pinked. Worked in eyelet holes. On the passage, cf. T. ofS. iv. Z'^Z'^ " Haberdasher. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak. Petruchio. Why, this was moulded on a porringer; ******* Away with it ! come let me have a bigger. Katherine. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time, And gentlewomen wear such caps as these." 43. The meteor. The "fire-drake." 44. Clubs I This was the rallying-cry of the London apprentices, who used their clubs to preserve the public peace ; but sometimes, as here, to raise a disturbance. Cf. i LLen. VL. i. 3. 84 : "I '11 call Scene IV] NoteS 2^5 for clubs, if you will not away." S. often puts home phrases into the mouths of foreign characters, and we find this one in A. V. L. V. 2. 44, R. and J. i. i. 8o, etc. 48. To the broomstaff to me. Pope read " with me ; " but cf. "a quarrel to you" (^Much Ado, ii. i. 243), etc. 49. Loose shot. Random shooters. For shot, cf. 2 Hen, IV. iii. 2. 295 and I Hen. Vl. i. 4. 53. 51. Win the work. Carry the fortification. 55. The Tribulation of Tower-hill, or the linibs of Limehouse. No other allusion to these places or assemblages has been dis- covered. It may be that these are the names of Puritan congrega- tions, as some have supposed ; or that their dear brothers refers to the obstreperous youths first named, and that the audiences were of the same sort. Tribulation was a common name among the Puritans. 57. Limbo Patrum. "In confinement. 'In limbo' continues to be a cant phrase, in the same sense, at this day" (Malone). The Limbus Patrum is properly " the purgatory of the Patriarchs," where they are supposed to be waiting for the resurrection. Cf. C. of E. iv. 2. 32 : "he 's in Tartar Limbo, worse than hell ; " T. A. iii. I. 149 : " as far from help as Limbo is from bliss ; " A. W. v. 3. 261 : " of Satan, and of Limbo," etc. 58. The running banquet. The word banquet used to mean, not the full dinner or supper, but merely the dessert. Cf. Massin- ger, Un7iatural Combat, iii. I : — " We '11 di7ie in the great room ; but let the music And bafiquet be prepared here." So in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey : " where they did both sup and banquet." In this case, a whipping was to- be the dessert of the rioters after their regular course of Limbo. 63. Made a fine hand. Done a good business (ironical). Cf. Cor. iv. 6. 117 : "You have made fair hands." 71. Lay ye all^ etc. According to Lord CdiVcv^htW, to lay by the 256 Notes [Act V heeh was " the technical expression for committing to prison." Here it probably means " put you in the stocks," as Wright explains it. 74. Baiting of bombards. That is, tippling. For bombard (a large leather vessel for liquor), cf. Te^np. ii. 2. 21 and i Hen. IV, ii. 4. 497. 79. A Marshalsea. The Marshalsea was a well-known prison. 82. Get up 0' the rail. Mason would read " off the rail ; " but of was often used where we should vlSQ fro^n. We still say " out of the house," etc. Camblet, or camlet, was a woolen cloth, originally made of camel's hair. %T,. I 7/ pick you. I '11 pitch you. The folio has " He pecke you." Cf. Cor. i. i. 204 : "as high As I could pick my lance." Scene V. — The Palace. At Greenwich, where, as we learn from Hall, this procession was made from the Church of the Grey Friars. Standing bowls = bowls elevated on feet or pedestals. Ac- cording to Hall (whom S. follows here), " the Archbishop of Can- terbury gave to the princess a standing cup of gold ; the Duchess of Norfolk gave to her a standing cup of gold, fretted with pearl ; the Marchioness of Dorset gave three gilt bowls, pounced, with a cover ; and the Marchioness of Exeter gave three standing bowls, graven, all gilt, with a cover." I. Garter's speech is from Holinshed almost verbatim. For Garter, see on iv. I. 37 above. 12. Gossips. A gossip, in its first and etymological sense, as Trench (^Select Glossary, etc.) remarks, "is a sponsor in baptism — one sib or akin in God, according to the doctrine of the mediaeval Church, that sponsors contracted a spiritual affinity with one an- other, with the parents, and with the child itself. ' Gossips,' in this primary sense, would ordinarily be intimate and familiar with one another, . . . and thus the word was next applied to all familiars and intimates. At a later day it obtained the meaning which is now predominant in it, namely, the idle profitless talk, the com- merage (which word has exactly the same history) that too often Scene Vj Notes 257 finds place in the intercourse of such." Cf. C. of E.v. i. 405 : "Go to a gossips' feast; " W. T. ii. 3. 41 : "needful conference About some gossips for your highness," etc. 23. Saba. The Queen of Sheba. S)GQ 1 Kings, yi.i. The word A, Sheba seems to have been unknown to English and even to Latin literature in the time of S. The Arab legends (which are mere legends, of course) call the queen Balkis. Peele and Marlowe speak of her as " Saba." 34. Under his owji vine. Cf. Micah, iv. I. 40. The maiden phcenix. So called because it did not give birth to offspring, but rose again from its own ashes. For allusions to it, see Temp. iii. 2. 23, A. Y. L. iv. 3. 17, The Phcenix and the Turtle, etc. 50. Wherever the bright sun, etc. See p. ii above. On a pic- ture of King, James, which formerly belonged to Bacon, and is now in the possession of Lord Grimston, he is styled imperii Atlantici conditor (Malone). 59. But she must die, etc. The folio reads : — " But she must dye, She must, the Saints must haue her; yet a Virgin, A most vnspotted Lilly shall she passe To th' ground, and all the Wo ride shall mourne her." Dyce thinks that Cranmer meant to express " regret at his fore- knowledge that Elizabeth was to die childless, not that she was to die,^^ and points thus : — " but she must die, — She must, the saints must have her, — yet a virgin ; A most unspotted lily," etc. But, as "White remarks, the archbishop simply means to say " that the Virgin Queen was too good to die." 65. Did I get any thing. That is, any thing worth reckoning in comparison with such a blessing. Get ■=■ beget ; as often. Happy = of happy augury, promising. See on i. prol. 24. HENRY VIII — 17 258 Notes [Actv 70. And your good brethren. The folio has " And you good Brethren," which Theobald corrected, at the suggestion of Dr. Thirlby. The king would not call the aldermen his brethren. 75. Has business. That is, he has business. The folio reads " 'Has," which was probably for " he has." The nominative is often omitted with has, is, was, etc. See on i. 3. 56 above. THE EPILOGUE On the authorship of the Epilogue, see notes on the Prologue. 10. Good women. The rhyme would seem to require that women be accented on the last syllable, though the measure has to halt for it. Mr. Adee writes me : "The curious rhyme of in and women is one of Peele's most characteristic earmarks. For instance, he rhymes brings and tidings. But Peele died ten years too soon to have written this, unless it is an old unused Epilogue, tacked on to Hen. VIII. by a later hand." 11. If they smile, etc. Steevens remarks that we have the same thought in the Epilogues to A. V. L. and 2 Hen. IV. APPENDIX The Time-Analysis of the Play This is summed up by Mr. P. A. Daniel ( Trans, of New Shaks. Soc. 1877-1879, p. 345) as follows: — "The time of this Play is seven days represented on the stage, with intervals, the length of which it is, perhaps, impossible to de- termine : see how dates are shuffled in the list below. Day I. Act I. sc. i.-iv. Interval. [It should be short ; for at the end of Act I. sc. ii. the King orders the present trial of Buckingham ; but as in sc. iv. Henry first makes the acquaintance of Anne, the following scenes require it to be long.] Day 2. Act II. sc. i.-iii. Day 3. Act II. sc. iv. Day 4. Act III. sc. i. Interval. Day 5. Act III. sc. ii. Interval. Day 6. Act IV. sc. i. and ii. Interval. Day 7. Act V. sc. i.-v." Historic Dates, in the Order of the Play 1520. June. Field of the Cloth of Gold. 1522. March. War declared with France. 1522. May-July. Visit of the Emperor to the English Court. 1 5 21. April 1 6th. Buckingham brought to the Tower. 1527. Henry becomes acquainted with Anne Bullen. 259 26o Appendix 1 5 21, May. Arraignment of Buckingham. May 17th, his execution. 1527. August. Commencement of proceedings for the divorce. 1528. October. Cardinal Campeius arrives in London. 1532. September. Anne BuUen created Marchioness of Pem- broke. 1529. May. Assembly of the Court at Blackfriars. 1529, 1 Cranmer abroad working for the divorce. 1533. / Return of Cardinal Campeius to Rome. 1533. January. Marriage of Henry with Anne Bullen. 1529. October. Wolsey deprived of the great seal. 1529. October 25th. Sir Thomas More chosen Lord Chancellor. 1533. March 30th. Cranmer consecrated Archbishop of Canter- bury. 1533. May 23d. Nullity of the marriage with Katherine de- clared. 1530. November 29th. Death of Cardinal Wolsey. 1533. June 1st. Coronation of Anne. 1536- January 8th, Death of Queen Katherine. 1533. September 7th. Birth of Elizabeth. 1544. Cranmer called before the Council. 1533. September. Christening of Elizabeth. List of Characters in the Play The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines the characters have in each scene. King: i. 2(79), 4(19); ii. 2(32), 4(95); iii. 2(61) ; v. 1(85), 2(i3)> 3(50), 5(23). Whole no. 457. Wolsey: i. 1(5), 2(42), 4(42); ii. 2(32), 4(48); i". i(4o)» 2(227). Whole no. 436. Campeius: ii. 2(15), 4(15); iii. 1(23). Whole no. 53. Capucius : iv. 2(11). Whole no. ii. Appendix 261 Cranmer : v. 1(19), 2(16), 3(43), 5(56). "Whole no. 134. Norfolk : i. i (105), 2(9) ; ii. 2(39) ; iii. 2(54) ; v. 3(4). Whole no. 211. Buckingham: i. I (118); ii. 1(74). Whole no. 192. Suffolk: ii. 2(17); iii. 2(63); v. 1(7), 3(6). Whole no. 93. Surrey : iii. 2(79) ; v. 3(2). Whole no. 81. Chamberlain: i. 3(34), 4(28); ii. 2(28), 3(22); iii. 2(19); v. 3(1), 4(18). Whole no. 150. Chancellor : v. 3(32). Whole no. 32. Gardiner : ii. 2(2) ; v. 1(42), 3(47). Whole no. 91. Lincoln: ii. 4(8). Whole no. 8. Abe7'gavenny: i. i(i8). Whole no. 18. Sands : i. 3(21), 4(27). Whole no. 48. Guildford: i. 4(9). Whole no. 9. Lovell: i. 3(27), 4(4); ii. 1(6); v. 1(31). Whole no. 68. Denny : v. i (4) . Whole no, 4. Vaux : ii. 1(4). Whole no. 4. \st Secretary : i. 1(2). Whole no. 2. Brandon: i. 1(14). Whole no. 14. Cromwell: iii. 2(29); v. 3(20). Whole no. 49. Griffith: ii. 4(1); iv. 2(58). Whole no. 59. Butts: V. 2(9). Whole no. 9. Surveyor : i. 2(61). Whole no. 61. 1st Gentleman : ii. 1(67); iii. 1(3); iv. 1(41); v. 1(1). Whole no. 112. 2d Gentleman : ii. 1(44); iv. 1(44). Whole no. S^, ^d Gentleman : iv. 1(57). Whole no. 57. Sergeant: i. 1(5). Whole no. 5. Servant : i. 4(4). Whole no. 4. Scribe : \\. i^{j^ , Whole no. 4. Crier : ii. 4(3). Whole no. 3. Messenger : iv. 2(4). Whole no. 4. Keeper : v. 2(3), 3(4). Whole no. 7. Porter : v. 4(36). Whole no. 36. 262 Appendix Man: Y. 4.(41). Whole no. 41. Garter : v. 5 (4) . Whole no. 4. ' Boy : V. 1(1). Whole no. i. Queen Katherine : 1.2(53); ii. 4(86); iii. 1(121); iv. 2(114). Whole no. 374. Anne Bullen : i. 4(4); ii. 3(54)- Whole no. 58. Patience: iii. 1(12); iv. 2(6). Whole no. 18. Old Lady : ii. 3(51); v. 1(17). Whole no. 68. " Within'' : v. 4(3). Whole no. 3. "All" : i. 2(1); V. 3(1). Whole no. 2. " Prologue" : (32). ''Epilogue": (14). In the above enumeration, parts of lines are counted as whole lines, making the total in the play greater than it is. The actual number of lines in each scene is as follows: Prol. 32; i. 1(226), 2(214), 3(67), 4(108); ii. 1(169), 2(144), 3(107), 4(241); iii. 1(184), 2(460); iv. 1(117), 2(173); V. 1(177), 2(35). Zi'^^^^y 4(94), 5(77); epil. 14. Whole number in the play, 2821. INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED Aberga'ny, 189 abhor (= detestor) , 213 able, 209 abode (= bode) , 186 advertise (accent), 215 advised (= considerate) , 187 afflictions (quadrisylla- ble), 221 Alen^on, Duchess of, 223 all the whole, 182 allay, 206 allegiant, 225 allowed (= approved) , 191 almost (transposed), 223 Ampthill, 235 Andren, 182 angels (play upon?), 221 apostle spoons, 252 appliance, 187 Arde, 182 as ( = as if), 182, 219 as (omitted) , 201 Asher (= Esher), 228 aspect (accent), 231 at this present, 249 attach (= arrest), 189, 194 attainder, 189 avaunt, 209 avoid, 24s baiting of bombards, 256 banquet, 255 be what they will, 249 been (omitted), 226 beholding (= beholden) , 201, 235, 251 below the moon, 224 beneficial (= beneficent) , 184 beshrew, 210 Bevis, 183 bevy, 201 blistered (= puffed), 196 blow (= blow up) , 254 Bohun, 205 boldened, 191 book (= learning), 186 bore (= undermine), 187 both (transposed), 250 bowls, standing, 256 brake (= thicket), 191 brazier, 254 break with, 244 Buckingham, Duke of, 181 budded (play upon?), 186 butcher's cur, 186 Butts, Doctor, 247 buzzing, 206 by day and night, 194 by this light, 247 camblet, 256 Campeius, 207 can, 243 capable of our flesh, 248 Capucius, 242 carry (=manage), 186, 192 Cawood Castle, 239 censure, 183, 220 certes, 184 chafed (= angry) , 187 chambers (=:guns), 13, 201 Charles the emperor, 188 Charter-house, 189 Chartreux, 189 chattels, 231 cherubin, 183 cheveril, 210 chiding, 227 chine, 254 choice (= chosen), 193 Cinque-ports, 237 clerks (= clergy), 207 clinquant, 182 Clotharius, 195 clubs, 254 coast (verb), 222 263 Colbrand, 253 collars of SS, 237 colour (= pretext), 188 colt's tooth, 196 commend (= deliver), 244 commission (quadrisylla- ble), 212 compell'd (accent), 210 complete (accent), 192, 222 conceit, 210 conceive, 191 condition (= character) , 190 confederacy, 190 confessor (accent), 189 considerings, 216 consistory, 214 convent (= summon), 244 cope (= encounter), 191 corrupt (accent), 246 count-cardinal, 188 covent (= convent), 240 Cromwell, Thomas, 238 cry you mercy, 250 cum privilegio, 196 danger (personified), 190 dare (larks), 229 deliver (= relate), 193, 211 demure, 194 Denny, Sir Anthony, 245 derive, 213 device, 188 digest, 222 discerner, 183 discover (= betray), 250 Dunstable, 235 earthy cold, 242 Ego et rex mens, 230 element, 184 emballing, 210 envy (= malice), 205, 207, 219 264 Index of Words and Phrases equal (adverb), 187 equal (= impartial) , 208 estate (= state), 207, 245 even (= consistent) , 219 evils {=foricce), 204 exceeding (adverb), 242 exclamation (= outcry), exhalation, 227 fail (= die), 194 fail (noun), 193, 216 faint (= make faint), 211 fair conceit, 210 father (= father-in-law) , 204 fierce (= extreme), 184 file (=list), 184 file (verb), 225 fire-drake, 254 first good company, 201 fool and feather, 195 foot (= feet) , 253 for (= as regards) , 201 for (omitted), 204 force (= hesitate) , 240 force (=urge), 222 fore, 214 foresaid, 188 forge, 194 forsake (= die) , 205 forty (indefinite), 228 forty pence, 211 foul'st, 213 free (adverb), 204 from (= of), 229 front (verb), 190 gaping (= shouting), 252 Gardiner, Stephen, 208, 238 Garter, 237 gave their free voices, 207 get (= beget) , 257 give way to, 222 glistering, 209 gone beyond, 233 good time, 244 gossip, 256 government (= self-con- trol), 215 Gregory de Cassalis, 230 guarded (= trimmed), 181 Guy, Sir, 253 Guynes, 182 halidom, 245 happily (= haply), 238 happily (= luckily), 245 happy (= favourable), 181 happy (= promising), 257 hard (dissyllable), 224 hard-ruled, 223 has (= he has), 258 have-at-him, 207, 250 having (= possession), 209 hedge (verb), 222 Henton, Nicholas, 193 hire (dissyllable), 210 hitting a grosser quality, 191 hold (= hold good) , 206 Hopkins, Nicholas, 189 hours (dissyllable), 243 hull (verb), 216 husband (= manager) , 225 I (omitted), 210, 213 in a little, 203 in his opinions, 223 in open, 232 in proof, 188 incense (= inform) , 244 indifferent (= impartial) , 213 indurance, 245 innocent from, 229 innumerable (substance) , 230 instant (= present, pass- ing), 189 is (= are) , 208 is run in your displeasure, issues (=sons), 229 it's, 182 jaded by a piece of scarlet, 229 justify (= prove) , 190 keech, 184 Kimbolton, 236 knock it, 202 large commission, 230 lay by, 219 lay by the heels, 255 lay upon my credit, 229 learn'd (= learned} , 192 learnedly, 203 leave (= cease), 242 Leicester Abbey, 239 leisure, 225 letters patents, 228 level (= aim), 189 lie (= reside)., 236 like (impersonal), 186 Limbo, 255 Limbs of Limehouse, 255 line (= equator), 254 long (= belong), 190, 210 loose, 205 lop (noun), 191 lose me, 204 maidenhead, 210 main assent, 236 make my challenge, 213 make my play, 201 manage (noun), 249 Marshalsea, 256 May-day, 252 mazed, 216 me (reflexive), 222 mean (= means), 251 measure (= dance), 202 memorize, 222 mere (= absolute), 230, 238 mincing, 210 mind (= memory), 225 model (= image) , 243 modesty (= moderation), 242 moe, 211, 222 Montacute, Lord, 189 Moorfields, 255 more stronger, 187 motley, 181 mount (= raise), 187, 194 mud in Egypt, 211 mumchance, 199 music (= musicians), 238, 242 my mind gave me, 250 mysteries, 195 naughty (= wicked) , 246 never so (= ever so), 195 news (number), 206 noise (= music) , 253 Norfolk, Duke of, 181, 227 not ever (=not always), 2^0 Index of Words and Phrases 265 not (transposed), 185, 207 note (= notice), 184, 210 nothing (adverb), 246 objections, 229 of (= from) , 256 of (omitted), 193 of (= on), 228 omit (= neglect), 222 once (= sometimes), 191 one the wisest, 213 on't, 211 open (= exposed) , 206 opinion(=reputation), 181 Orleans, Duke of, 215 Orpheus, 219 other (= anything else) , 196 pace (verb), 249 pain (= pains), 223 paned, 197 panging, 209 paper (verb), 185 paragon (verb), 217 pared my havings, 225 Parish Garden, 252 part (= depart), 221, 238 part (= share), 219, 248 passages (= approaches) , Paul's (pronunciation), 253 Pepin, 195 period (= end) , 194 perked up, 209 pernicious, 204 phoenix, 257 pick (= pitch), 256 pillars (of a cardinal), 211, 232 pinked, 254 pitch (= height) , 206 place (= rank) , 208 plain-song, 196 play the woman, 234 points of ignorance, 195 powers, 214 please you, 186, 190 practice (= artifice), 188, 246 praemunire, 230 prayers (dissyllable), 204 prefer (= promote) , 238 presence (= presence- chamber), 219 presence (= royal pres- ence), 241 present, at this, 249 presently, 228 prime (= first), 225 primer (= more urgent), 191 pnmero, 243 primest, 217 proper (ironical), 186 putter-on, 190 quarrel (= quarreller), 209 queen it, 210 range with humble livers, 209 rank, 194 rankness, 238 rate, 224 reek (of sighs), 216 refuse (= recziso), 213 reputed for, 213 returned in his opinions, 223 Rochford, Viscount, 201 round in the ear, 199 royal (= loyal) , 235 rub (in bowling), 205 Saba, 257 sad, high, and working, 180 salute my blood, 211 saw (= saw each other) , 182 scarlet (piece of) , 229 sea (pronunciation), 219 self-mettle, 187 sennet, 211 separation (metre), 206 set on, 217 shall (= should), 192 sharp'st, 213 shilling (at theatre), 181 shot (= shooters), 255 shrewd (= evil) , 252 sick (= ill-disposed), ^91 sign (= show), 214 silenced, 186 single heart, 249 Sir Guy, 253 so (=if), 186 so (= in so far as), 225 something (adverb), 188 sometimes (= form.erly), 215 sooth (= truth), 210 sound (= proclaim), 247 spake (participle), 215 speak (= speak of), 221, 240, 245 speak (= vouch for), 215 spinster, 190 spleen (= malice), 194, 214 spoons, apostle, 252 springhalt, 195 SS, collars of, 237 stand on, 246 stand to, 214 standing bowls, 256 state (= canopy), 200 state (= estate) , 207 state (= throne), 190 stick them in our will, 191 still (= ever) , 208 stir against, 249 stomach (= pride) , 240 stranger (= alien), 209 strove (= striven), 213 sufferance (= suffering), 209, 24s Suffolk, Duke of, 206 suggest (= tempt), 187 suggestion, 240 superstitious, 221 surveyor (accent), 189 take peace with, 205 tell (= count), 190 temperance (= patience), 187 tendance, 225 tender (= value), 214 tennis, 195 that (omitted), 219 that (= so that), 183 this many, 231 threepence bowed, 210 throughly, 245 to (= against), 223 to (omitted and inserted) , 212 to (=with), 255 tomb (of tears) , 232 top-proud, 187 touch (= hint), 243 touch (= injury), 215 trace (= follow) , 222 trade, 244 166 Index of Words and Phrases trembling, 191 Tribulation of Tower Hill, 255 trip, 242 trow, 188 true condition, 190 types (= marks), 196 understand (play upon), 196 undertakes (= takes the charge of ) , 205 unhappily, 201 unpartial, 208 unsay, 247 unwit, 224 unwittingly, 224 upon our fail, 193 Upper Germany, 249 use (= interest) , 233 vail (= abate) , 240 Vaux, Sir Nicholas, 205 visitation (= visit), 188, 247 visnomy, 197 vizard, 242 voice (=talk), 234, 250, 252 vouch (noun), 187 ween, 246 weigh (= value), 220, 246 wench, 219 what (=who), 193 Whitehall, 196 who (omitted), 223, 238 whoever (= whomsoever) , 204 will (= would) , 192 win the work, 255 wit (noun), 220 wit (verb), 224 with (= by), 239 withal, 224 without all doubt, 238 witness, 246 women (accent), 258 worship, 183 wot, 224 wrought (= manoeuvred) , 229 y are, 201 yet (transposed), 216 York-place, 196 young (= recent) , 222 COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC Buehler's Practical Exercises in English . . . $0.50 By Huber Gray Buehler, Alaster in English^ Hotch- kiss School, Lakeville, Conn. 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