Sir, I desire you do me right and justice; I am a most poor woman, and a stranger, ness, I've 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 count'nance; glad or sorry, As I saw it inclin'd. When was the hour I ever contradicted your desire, Or made it not mine too? Which of your friends Have I not strove to love, although I knew Against your sacred person; in God's name, That they had gathered a wise council to them humbly, Sir, I beseech you spare me, till I may Wherefore, Be by my friends in Spain advis'd; whose counsel For this appropriate and touching appeal, there is the contemporary authority of Cavendish ;* notwithstanding that Hall† tells us, that the queen did not speak a word in this open court; and that Polydore Vergil‡ does not ascribe to her any discourse, except a vehement inculpation of Wolsey.§ But some of the pro * P. 424; Stow, 542. + P.756. P. 688. § Burnet says (Hist. Ref., iii. 80) that the king and queen never appeared in the court; but see Lingard, 151. ceedings judiciously introduced by the dramatist into this scene, occurred at Bridewell (then a palace), some time before, when the king addressed "the nobility, judges, and counsellors, with divers other persons,' ,"* in a speech from which Shakspeare took I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honour, And then follows a history of the rise and progress of the royal scruples. It was also at Bridewell that the two cardinals came to the Queen (the ground of a subsequent scene in the play), when she addressed them, according to Hall,§ in a speech which he took from the notes of Cardinal Campeggio's secretary. Catherine's speech, in Hall, ascribes Wolsey's * Cav. 426. + Act ii. Sc. 4. § P.755, hostility to the emperor's denial of support in his ambitious designs upon the popedom; I know not why this topic is omitted. The Chronicles are followed in the character which Henry gives to his wife ; That man i' th' world who shall report he has Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out,- Carried herself towards me." There is the same authority for Wolsey's appeal to the king against the queen's imputation of the projected divorce to his contrivances; and in Catherine's rejection of Wolsey's attempt to address her in Latin; and she did appeal, as in the play, to the pope himself. At the end of the second act, we have the first symptoms of Henry's discontent with Wolsey it appears from a letter lately published,† * Hol., 738; Cav., 426; Stow, 542. that Henry's doubts of Wolsey's zeal for the divorce were entertained at an early period. It is doubtful whether Wolsey at any time entertained the project with the view in which his master, either in the beginning or at an early period, chiefly regarded it. Wolsey might have a scheme for allying Henry, matrimonially as well as politically, with France; but he had no object in getting rid of Catherine for the purpose of substituting Anne. Whatever might be the cause, the two cardinals did assuredly offend Henry by their procrastination. At the end of this act, the name of a new and important person is introduced; and the first notice given of the king's opposition to the papal authority. "I may perceive These cardinals trifle with me; I abhor It is probable that Shakspeare took this reference to Cranmer from tradition, but he has ante-dated it. Cranmer was not at this time known to the king, nor was he now out of England. Soon after this time, he met with Fox and Gardiner |