The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
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Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
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What news abroad?
CROMWELL The heaviest and the worst
Is your displeasure with the King.
WOLSEY God bless him.
CROMWELL
The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen
Lord Chancellor in your place.
WOLSEY That’s somewhat sudden.
But he’s a learned man. May he continue
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Long in his highness’ favour, and do justice
For truth’s sake and his conscience, that his bones,
When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans’ tears wept on him.
What more?
CROMWELL That Cranmer is returned with welcome,
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Installed lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
WOLSEY That’s news indeed.
CROMWELL Last, that the Lady Anne,
Whom the King hath in secrecy long married,
This day was viewed in open as his Queen,
Going to chapel, and the voice is now
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Only about her coronation.
WOLSEY
There was the weight that pulled me down. O Cromwell,
The King has gone beyond me. All my glories
In that one woman I have lost for ever.
No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,
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Or gild again the noble troops that waited
Upon my smiles. Go get thee from me, Cromwell:
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
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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
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For thine own future safety.
CROMWELL O my lord,
Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo
So good, so noble and so true a master?
Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.
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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 forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
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Let’s dry our eyes, and thus far hear me, Cromwell,
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee.
Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory
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And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in,
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
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By that sin fell the angels. How can man then,
The image of his maker, hope to win by it?
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee.
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace
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To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.
Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s. Then if thou fallest, O Cromwell,
Thou fallest a blessed martyr.
Serve the King. And prithee lead me in:
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There take an inventory of all I have.
To the last penny, ’tis the King’s. My robe
And my integrity to heaven is all
I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
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I served my King, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
CROMWELL Good sir, have patience.
WOLSEY So I have. Farewell,
The hopes of court: my hopes in heaven do dwell.
Exeunt.
4.1 Enter two Gentlemen, meeting one another.
1 GENTLEMAN You’re well met once again.
2 GENTLEMAN So are you.
1 GENTLEMAN
You come to take your stand here and behold
The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?
2 GENTLEMAN
’Tis all my business. At our last encounter,
The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.
5
1 GENTLEMAN
’Tis very true. But that time offered sorrow,
This, general joy.
2 GENTLEMAN ’Tis well. The citizens,
I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds –
As, let ’em have their rights, they are ever forward –
In celebration of this day with shows,
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Pageants, and sights of honour.
1 GENTLEMAN Never greater,
Nor, I’ll assure you, better taken, sir.
2 GENTLEMAN
May I be bold to ask what that contains,
That paper in your hand?
1 GENTLEMAN Yes, ’tis the list
Of those that claim their offices this day
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By custom of the coronation.
The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims
To be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk,
He to be Earl Marshal. You may read the rest.
2 GENTLEMAN
I thank you, sir. Had I not known those customs,
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I should have been beholding to your paper.
But I beseech you, what’s become of Katherine,
The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?
1 GENTLEMAN
That I can tell you too. The Archbishop
Of Canterbury, accompanied with other
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Learned and reverend fathers of his order,
Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles off
From Ampthill, where the Princess lay; to which
She was often cited by them, but appeared not;
And, to be short, for not appearance and
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The King’s late scruple, by the main assent
Of all these learned men, she was divorced,
And the late marriage made of none effect;
Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,
Where she remains now sick.
2 GENTLEMAN Alas, good lady. [Trumpets.]
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The trumpets sound. Stand close. The Queen is coming.
The order of the coronation
1 A lively flourish of trumpets.
2 Then, two judges.
3 Lord CHANCELLOR, with purse and mace before him.
4 Choristers singing. Music.
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5 Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then GARTER, in his
coat of arms, and on his head he wears a gilt copper crown.
6 Marquess Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a
demi-coronal of gold. With him the Earl of SURREY,
bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an
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earl’s coronet. Collars of esses.
7 Duke of SUFFOLK, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his
head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward. With
him, the Duke of NORFOLK, with the rod of marshalship,
a coronet on his head. Collars of esses.<
br />
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8 A canopy, borne by four of the Cinque Ports; under it, the
Queen ANNE in her robe, in her hair, richly adorned with
pearl; crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London
and Winchester.
9 The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold wrought
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with flowers, bearing the Queen’s train.
10 Certain ladies or countesses, with plain circlets of gold
without flowers.
Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state,
and then a great flourish of trumpets.
2 GENTLEMAN A royal train, believe me. These I know.
Who’s that that bears the sceptre?
1 GENTLEMAN Marquess Dorset,
And that the Earl of Surrey with the rod.
2 GENTLEMAN
A bold brave gentleman. That should be
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The Duke of Suffolk.
1 GENTLEMAN ’Tis the same: High Steward.
2 GENTLEMAN And that my lord of Norfolk?
1 GENTLEMAN Yes.
2 GENTLEMAN [Sees Anne.] Heaven bless thee!
Thou hast the sweetest face I ever looked on.
Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel.
Our King has all the Indies in his arms,
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And more, and richer, when he strains that lady.
I cannot blame his conscience.
1 GENTLEMAN They that bear
The cloth of honour over her are four barons
Of the Cinque Ports.
2 GENTLEMAN
Those men are happy, and so are all are near her.
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I take it she that carries up the train
Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk?
1 GENTLEMAN It is, and the rest are countesses.
2 GENTLEMAN
Their coronets say so. These are stars indeed –
1 GENTLEMAN And sometimes falling ones.
2 GENTLEMAN No more of that.
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Enter a Third Gentleman.
1 GENTLEMAN
God save you, sir. Where have you been broiling?
3 GENTLEMAN
Among the crowd i’th’ Abbey, where a finger
Could not be wedged in more. I am stifled
With the mere rankness of their joy.
2 GENTLEMAN You saw
The ceremony?
3 GENTLEMAN That I did.
1 GENTLEMAN How was it?
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3 GENTLEMAN Well worth the seeing.
2 GENTLEMAN Good sir, speak it to us.
3 GENTLEMAN As well as I am able. The rich stream
Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen
To a prepared place in the choir, fell off
A distance from her, while her grace sat down
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To rest a while – some half an hour or so –
In a rich chair of state, opposing freely
The beauty of her person to the people –
Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman
That ever lay by man – which when the people
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Had the full view of, such a noise arose
As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,
As loud and to as many tunes. Hats, cloaks –
Doublets, I think – flew up, and had their faces
Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy
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I never saw before. Great-bellied women
That had not half a week to go, like rams
In the old time of war, would shake the press
And make ’em reel before ’em. No man living
Could say ‘This is my wife’ there, all were woven
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So strangely in one piece.
2 GENTLEMAN But what followed?
3 GENTLEMAN
At length her grace rose, and with modest paces
Came to the altar, where she kneeled and, saint-like,
Cast her fair eyes to heaven and prayed devoutly;
Then rose again and bowed her to the people,
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When by the Archbishop of Canterbury
She had all the royal makings of a queen,
As holy oil, Edward Confessor’s crown,
The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
Laid nobly on her; which performed, the choir,
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With all the choicest music of the kingdom,
Together sung Te Deum. So she parted,
And with the same full state paced back again
To York Place, where the feast is held.