ページの画像
PDF
ePub

in the country, and gave his opinion that the question of marriage might be decided by native authorities.* He wrote a book to prove his position, and hence his employment by the king and subsequent preferment.

The first scene of the third act gives the interview between the cardinals and the queen, to which I have already alluded; it is almost paraphrased from Holinshed and his authorities: for instance:

"My lord, I thank you for your good will, but to make you answer to your request I cannot so suddenly, for I am set among my maids at work, thinking full little of any such matter, wherein there needeth a longer deliberation, and better head than mine, to make answer; for I need counsel in this case which touched me so near, and for any counsel or friendship that I can find in England, they are not for my profit ;-"

66

My lords, I thank you both for your good wills;
Ye speak like honest men: (pray God ye prove so!)
But how to make ye suddenly an answer

In such a point of weight, so near mine honour
(More near my life, I fear), with my weak wit,
And to such men of gravity and learning,
In truth, I know not. I was set at work
Among my maids; full little, God knows, looking

* See Burnet, i,, 144: but whence?

Either for such men, or such business.

For his sake that I have been (for I feel

The last thing that I have been), good your graces,
Let me have time and counsel for my cause.
Alas! I am a woman, friendless, hopeless.

Can you think, lords,

That any Englishman dare give me counsel?
Or be a known friend, 'gainst his highness' pleasure?"

We now approach another of the great events of this play-the disgrace of Wolsey. Norfolk,* Suffolk, Surry, and the lord chamberlain, are introduced, congratulating each other on the declining influence of the cardinal. And he is in disgrace, says Suffolk, because

"The cardinal's letters to the pope miscarried,

And came to the eye of the king; wherein was read,
How that the cardinal did entreat his holiness
To stay the judgment of the divorce."

This incident is not in Holinshed, nor do I know where Shakspeare found it, or whence

* There is a confusion here. The present Norfolk is the former Surry. No Surry was concerned in these proceedings. That title was now borne by Henry Howard, the celebrated and literary earl, now a lad of thirteen years old. Collins, i. 93.

+ Act iii. Sc. 2.

comes the story of the inventory delivered by mistake."*

But the greatest error in this scene, which must have occurred, at latest, in 1529, is the mention of the marriage of Anne Boleyn, and her intended coronation. The marriage certainly did not occur before 1533.†

The demand of the great seal by Norfolk and Suffolk, and Wolsey's hesitation in delivering it upon a verbal message, are in Holinshed.†

Surry (it should be Norfolk) now accuses Wolsey of the destruction of his father-in-law Buckingham, with which view, he (Surry) was sent to Ireland as lord deputy; and after some allusions too personal to be repeated, he enumerates the articles of charge against the cardinal:

[ocr errors]

Surry. First, that without the king's assent or

knowledge,

You wrote to be a legate; by which pow'r
You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.

Norf. Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else, To foreign princes, Ego et Rex meus

Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the king To be your servant.

* Steevens (Bosw. 412) points out a story in Holinshed of a mistake like this committed by Ruthall, Bishop of Durham.

+ Lingard, 189.

‡ P. 741.

Suf. That, without the knowledge
Either of king or council, when you went
Ambassador to the emperor, you made bold
To carry into Flanders the great seal.
Sur. Item, you sent a large commission
To Gregory de Cassilis, to conclude,
Without the king's will, or the state's allowance,
A league between his highness and Ferrara.

Suf. That, out of mere ambition, you have caus’d Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the king's coin.

Sur. Then, that you've sent innumerable substance (By what means got I leave to your own conscience), To furnish Rome, and to prepare the ways You have for dignities, to the mere undoing Of all the kingdom."

These articles are to be found, with some others, in Holinshed.* They are abridged from forty-four lengthy charges,† which were some time afterwards prepared in the House of Lords, and sent down to the Commons, but came to nothing.

It may be observed, that the charge of writing Ego et Rex meus, with which we are familiar, is erroneously stated. Wolsey, according to the accusation, gave the king his place, but put himself too near to him. He wrote, "The king

* P. 747.

† Parl. Hist. i. 492.

and I," thus making himself a fellow to the king.*

A new character is now introduced-Thomas Cromwell. His conversations with Wolsey are imaginary and very well imagined; and he is appropriately produced as the faithful friend of the cardinal, whom he defended in the House of Commons against the charges lately noticed.† Now Cromwell, the falling minister, learns that Sir Thomas More has already succeeded him as chancellor; and that Cranmer, having returned from abroad, has been installed Archbishop of Canterbury. This is right as to More; but Cranmer did not become archbishop until 1532, when Warham died.

The chronological error respecting Anne. Boleyn's marriage and public acknowledgment is repeated by Cromwell. Cavendish imputes to this young lady a great share in Wolsey's fall, and accordingly he says,

"There was the weight that pull'd 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,

Or gild again the noble troops that waited

* Art. 4.

25th Oct. 1529.

† Parl. Hist. i. 501. British Statesmen, i. 60.

« 前へ次へ »