The ambassador is silenced?
Norfolk
Marry, is’t.
Abergavenny
A proper title of a peace; and purchased
At a superfluous rate!
Buckingham
Why, all this business
Our reverend cardinal carried.
Norfolk
Like it your grace,
The state takes notice of the private difference
Betwixt you and the cardinal. I advise you —
And take it from a heart that wishes towards you
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,
It reaches far, and where ’twill not extend,
Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel,
You’ll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock
That I advise your shunning.
Enter Cardinal Wolsey, the purse borne before him, certain of the Guard, and two Secretaries with papers. Cardinal Wolsey in his passage fixeth his eye on Buckingham, and Buckingham on him, both full of disdain
Cardinal Wolsey
The Duke of Buckingham’s surveyor, ha?
Where’s his examination?
First Secretary
Here, so please you.
Cardinal Wolsey
Is he in person ready?
First Secretary
Ay, please your grace.
Cardinal Wolsey
Well, we shall then know more; and Buckingham
Shall lessen this big look.
Exeunt Cardinal Wolsey and his Train
Buckingham
This butcher’s cur is venom-mouth’d, and I
Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best
Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar’s book
Outworths a noble’s blood.
Norfolk
What, are you chafed?
Ask God for temperance; that’s the appliance only
Which your disease requires.
Buckingham
I read in’s looks
Matter against me; and his eye reviled
Me, as his abject object: at this instant
He bores me with some trick: he’s gone to the king;
I’ll follow and outstare him.
Norfolk
Stay, my lord,
And let your reason with your choler question
What ’tis you go about: to climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first: anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being 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’ll 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.
Norfolk
Be advised;
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself: we may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire that mounts the liquor til run o’er,
In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advised:
I say again, there is no English soul
More stronger to direct you than yourself,
If with the sap of reason you would quench,
Or but allay, the fire of passion.
Buckingham
Sir,
I am thankful to you; and I’ll go along
By your prescription: but this top-proud fellow,
Whom from the flow of gall I name not but
From sincere motions, by intelligence,
And proofs as clear as founts in July when
We see each grain of gravel, I do know
To be corrupt and treasonous.
Norfolk
Say not ‘treasonous.’
Buckingham
To the king I’ll say’t; and make my vouch as strong
As shore of rock. Attend. This holy fox,
Or wolf, or both,— for he is equal ravenous
As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief
As able to perform’t; his mind and place
Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally —
Only to show his pomp as well in France
As here at home, suggests the king our master
To this last costly treaty, the interview,
That swallow’d 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 pleased; and they were ratified
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 ’tis well; for worthy Wolsey,
Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows,—
Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy
To the old dam, treason,— Charles the emperor,
Under pretence to see the queen his aunt —
For ’twas indeed his colour, but he came
To whisper Wolsey,— here makes visitation:
His fears were, that the interview betwixt
England and France might, through their amity,
Breed him some prejudice; for from this league
Peep’d harms that menaced him: he privily
Deals with our cardinal; and, as I trow,—
Which I do well; for I am sure the emperor
Paid ere he promised; whereby his suit was granted
Ere it was ask’d; but when the way was made,
And paved with gold, the emperor thus desired,
That he would please to alter the king’s course,
And break the foresaid peace. Let the king know,
As soon he shall by me, that thus the cardinal
Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases,
And for his own advantage.
Norfolk
I am sorry
To hear this of him; and could wish he were
Something mistaken in’t.
Buckingham
No, not a syllable:
I do pronounce him in that very shape
He shall appear in proof.
Enter Brandon, a Sergeant-at-arms before him, and two or three of the Guard
Brandon
Your office, sergeant; execute it.
Sergeant
Sir,
My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl
Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I
Arrest thee of high treason, in the name
Of our most sovereign king.
Buckingham
Lo, you, my lord,
The net has fall’n upon me! I shall perish
Under device and practise.
Brandon
I am sorry
To see you ta’en from liberty, to look on
The business present: ’tis 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.
O my Lord Abergavenny, fare you well!
Brandon
Nay, he must bear you company. The king
To Abergave
nny
Is pleased you shall to the Tower, till you know
How he determines further.
Abergavenny
As the duke said,
The will of heaven be done, and the king’s pleasure
By me obey’d!
Brandon
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.
Brandon
A monk o’ the Chartreux.
Buckingham
O, Nicholas Hopkins?
Brandon
He.
Buckingham
My surveyor is false; the o’er-great cardinal
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 SAME. THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER.
Cornets. Enter King Henry VIII, leaning on Cardinal Wolsey’s shoulder, the Nobles, and Lovell; Cardinal Wolsey places himself under King Henry VIII’s feet on his right side
King Henry VIII
My life itself, and the best heart of it,
Thanks you for this great care: I stood i’ the level
Of a full-charged confederacy, and give thanks
To you that choked it. Let be call’d before us
That gentleman of Buckingham’s; in person
I’ll hear him his confessions justify;
And point by point the treasons of his master
He shall again relate.
A noise within, crying ‘Room for the Queen!’ Enter Queen Katharine, ushered by Norfolk, and Suffolk: she kneels. King Henry VIII riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by him
Queen Katharine
Nay, we must longer kneel: I am a suitor.
King Henry VIII
Arise, and take place by us: half your suit
Never name to us; you have half our power:
The other moiety, ere you ask, is given;
Repeat your will and take it.
Queen Katharine
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 VIII
Lady mine, proceed.
Queen Katharine
I am solicited, not by a few,
And those of true condition, that your subjects
Are in great grievance: there have been commissions
Sent down among ’em, which hath flaw’d the heart
Of all their loyalties: wherein, although,
My good lord cardinal, they vent reproaches
Most bitterly on you, as putter on
Of these exactions, yet the king our master —
Whose honour heaven shield from soil!— even he escapes not
Language unmannerly, yea, such which breaks
The sides of loyalty, and almost appears
In loud rebellion.
Norfolk
Not almost appears,
It doth appear; for, upon these taxations,
The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to them longing, have put off
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who,
Unfit for other life, 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 then!
King Henry VIII
Taxation!
Wherein? and what taxation? My lord cardinal,
You that are blamed for it alike with us,
Know you of this taxation?
Cardinal Wolsey
Please you, sir,
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 Katharine
No, my lord,
You know no more than others; but you frame
Things that are known alike; which are not wholesome
To those which would not know them, and yet must
Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,
Whereof my sovereign would have note, they are
Most pestilent to the bearing; and, to bear ’em,
The back is sacrifice to the load. They say
They are devised by you; or else you suffer
Too hard an exclamation.
King Henry VIII
Still exaction!
The nature of it? in what kind, let’s know,
Is this exaction?
Queen Katharine
I am much too venturous
In tempting of your patience; but am bolden’d
Under your promised 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 named, your wars in France: this makes bold mouths:
Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze
Allegiance in them; their curses now
Live where their prayers did: and it’s come to pass,
This tractable obedience is a slave
To each incensed will. I would your highness
Would give it quick consideration, for
There is no primer business.
King Henry VIII
By my life,
This is against our pleasure.
Cardinal Wolsey
And for me,
I have no further gone in this than by
A single voice; and that not pass’d me but
By learned approbation of the judges. If I am
Traduced by ignorant tongues, which neither know
My faculties nor person, yet will be
The chronicles of my doing, let me say
’Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
That virtue must go through. We must not stint
Our necessary actions, in the fear
To cope malicious censurers; which ever,
As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow
That is new-trimm’d, but benefit no further
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 VIII
Things done well,
And with a care, exempt themselves from fear;
Things done without example, in their issue
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;
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
The force of this commission: pray, look to’t;
I put it to your care.
Cardinal Wolsey
A word with you.
To the Se
cretary
Let there be letters writ to every shire,
Of the king’s grace and pardon. The grieved commons
Hardly conceive of me; let it be noised
That through our intercession this revokement
And pardon comes: I shall anon advise you
Further in the proceeding.
Exit Secretary
Enter Surveyor
Queen Katharine
I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham
Is run in your displeasure.
King Henry VIII
It grieves many:
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 disposed, the mind growing once corrupt,
They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly
Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,
Who was enroll’d ’mongst wonders, and when we,
Almost with ravish’d listening, could not find
His hour of speech a minute; he, my lady,
Hath into monstrous habits put the graces
That once were his, and is become as black
As if 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 practises; whereof
We cannot feel too little, hear too much.
Cardinal Wolsey
Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you,
Most like a careful subject, have collected
Out of the Duke of Buckingham.
King Henry VIII
Speak freely.
Surveyor
First, it was usual with him, every day
It would infect his speech, that if the king
Should without issue die, he’ll carry it so
To make the sceptre his: these very words
I’ve heard him utter to his son-in-law,
Lord Abergavenny; to whom by oath he menaced
Revenge upon the cardinal.
Cardinal Wolsey
Please your highness, note
This dangerous conception in this point.
Not friended by by his wish, to your high person
His will is most malignant; and it stretches
Beyond you, to your friends.
Queen Katharine
My learn’d lord cardinal,
Deliver all with charity.
King Henry VIII
Speak on:
How grounded he his title to the crown,
Upon our fail? to this point hast thou heard him
At any time speak aught?
Surveyor
He was brought to this
By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Hopkins.
King Henry VIII
What was that Hopkins?
Surveyor
Sir, a Chartreux friar,
His confessor, who fed him every minute
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