WOLSEY.
Stay.
Where’s your commission, lords? Words cannot carry
Authority so weighty.
SUFFOLK.
Who dares cross ’em,
Bearing the King’s will from his mouth expressly?
WOLSEY.
Till I find more than will or words to do it—
I mean your malice—know, officious lords,
I dare and must deny it. Now I feel
Of what coarse metal ye are moulded, envy!
How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,
As if it fed ye, and how sleek and wanton
Ye appear in everything may bring my ruin!
Follow your envious courses, men of malice;
You have Christian warrant for ’em, and no doubt
In time will find their fit rewards. That seal
You ask with such a violence, the King,
Mine and your master, with his own hand gave me;
Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,
During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,
Tied it by letters-patents. Now, who’ll take it?
SURREY.
The King that gave it.
WOLSEY.
It must be himself, then.
SURREY.
Thou art a proud traitor, priest.
WOLSEY.
Proud lord, thou liest.
Within these forty hours Surrey durst better
Have burnt that tongue than said so.
SURREY.
Thy ambition,
Thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law.
The heads of all thy brother cardinals,
With thee and all thy best parts bound together,
Weighed not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!
You sent me Deputy for Ireland,
Far from his succour, from the King, from all
That might have mercy on the fault thou gav’st him,
Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Absolved him with an axe.
WOLSEY.
This, and all else
This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
I answer is most false. The Duke by law
Found his deserts. How innocent I was
From any private malice in his end,
His noble jury and foul cause can witness.
If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you
You have as little honesty as honour,
That in the way of loyalty and truth
Toward the King, my ever royal master,
Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be,
And all that love his follies.
SURREY.
By my soul,
Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel
My sword i’ th’ lifeblood of thee else. My lords,
Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?
And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,
Farewell, nobility. Let his Grace go forward
And dare us with his cap, like larks.