O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs (God, if thy will be so)
Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair, prosperous days!
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopped, Peace lives again;
That she may long live here, God say - Amen.
KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.
CARDINAL WOLSEY. CARDINAL CAMPEIUS.
CAPUCIUS, Ambassador from the Emperor 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 Katharine.
Three other Gentlemen.
DOCTOR BUTTS, Physician to the King.
Garter, King at Arms.
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 KATHARINE, Wife to King Henry, afterwards divorced. ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honor; afterwards Queen.
An old Lady, Friend to Anne Bullen.
PATIENCE, Woman to Queen Katharine.
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.
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 believe,
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'll undertake, may see away their shilling
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 deceived; 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,
(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 followed 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.
SCENE I. London. An Antechamber 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 you done,
Since last we saw in France?
Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer
Of what I saw there.
Stayed me a prisoner in my chamber, when
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Arde.
'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;
Which had they, what four throned ones could have weighed
Such a compounded one?
I was my chamber's prisoner.
Nor.
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,
Showed like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubims, all gilt: the madams too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labor
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,
Still him in praise; and, being present both,
'Twas said, they saw but one; and no discerner
Durst wag his tongue in censure.
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