Henry VIII - William Shakespeare (big ebook reader txt) 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
Book online «Henry VIII - William Shakespeare (big ebook reader txt) 📗». Author William Shakespeare
To me, your friend, than any. Wolsey
I do profess
That for your highness’ good I ever labour’d
More than mine own; that am, have, and will be—
Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
And throw it from their soul; though perils did
Abound, as thick as thought could make ’em, and
Appear in forms more horrid—yet my duty,
As doth a rock against the chiding flood,
Should the approach of this wild river break,
And stand unshaken yours.
’Tis nobly spoken:
Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,
For you have seen him open’t. Read o’er this; Giving him papers.
And after, this: and then to breakfast with
What appetite you have. Exit King, frowning upon Cardinal Wolsey: the Nobles throng after him, smiling and whispering.
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. ’Tis so;
This paper has undone me: ’tis the account
Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together
For mine own ends; indeed, to gain the popedom,
And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence!
Fit for a fool to fall by: what cross devil
Made me put this main secret in the packet
I sent the king? Is there no way to cure this?
No new device to beat this from his brains?
I know ’twill stir him strongly; yet I know
A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune
Will bring me off again. What’s this? “To the Pope!”
The letter, as I live, with all the business
I writ to’s holiness. Nay then, farewell!
I have touch’d the highest point of all my greatness;
And, from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
Hear the king’s pleasure, cardinal: who commands you
To render up the great seal presently
Into our hands; and to confine yourself
To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester’s,
Till you hear further from his highness.
Stay:
Where’s your commission, lords? words cannot carry
Authority so weighty.
Who dare cross ’em,
Bearing the king’s will from his mouth expressly?
Till I find more than will or words to do it,
I mean your malice, know, officious lords,
I dare and must deny it. Now I feel
Of what coarse metal ye are moulded, envy:
How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,
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’ll take it?
Proud lord, thou liest:
Within these forty hours Surrey durst better
Have burnt that tongue than said so.
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;
Far from his succour, from the king, from all
That might have mercy on the fault thou gavest him;
Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Absolved him with an axe.
This, and all else
This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
I answer is most false. The duke by law
Found his deserts: how innocent I was
From any private malice in his end,
His noble jury and foul cause can witness.
If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you
You have as little honesty as honour,
That in the way of loyalty and truth
Toward the king, my ever royal master,
Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be,
And all that love his follies.
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,
Farewell nobility; let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap like larks.
All goodness
Is poison to thy stomach.
Yes, that goodness
Of gleaning all the land’s wealth into one,
Into your own hands, cardinal, by extortion;
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
Of our despised nobility, our issues,
Who, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen,
Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles
Collected from his life. I’ll startle you
Worse than the scaring bell, when the brown wench
Lay kissing in your arms, lord cardinal.
How much, methinks, I could despise this man,
But that I am bound in charity against it!
Those articles, my lord, are in the king’s hand:
But, thus much, they are foul ones.
So much fairer
And spotless shall mine innocence arise,
When the king knows my truth.
This cannot save you:
I thank my memory, I yet remember
Some of these articles; and out they shall.
Now, if you can blush and cry “guilty,” cardinal,
You’ll show a little honesty.
Speak on, sir;
I dare your worst objections: if I blush,
It is to see a nobleman want manners.
I had rather want those than my head. Have at you!
First, that, without the king’s assent or knowledge,
You wrought to be a legate; by which power
You maim’d the jurisdiction of all bishops.
Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else
To foreign princes, “Ego et Rex meus”
Was still inscribed; in which you
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