Henry VIII by William Shakespeare (icecream ebook reader .txt) 📕
Description
Henry VIII is one of the few of Shakespeare’s plays thought to have been written with a collaborator. It was initially published in the First Folio under Shakespeare’s name only, but in 1850 James Spedding, an English author and expert on the works of Francis Bacon, suggested that the play was a collaboration with John Fletcher, a playwright who later replaced Shakespeare in the King’s Men acting company. Modern scholars mostly tend to agree, though the theory is still controversial as it’s based on textual analysis and not any historical mention of a collaboration. The play is also famous for having burned down the Globe Theatre in 1613 during one of its early performances, when a cannon shot special effect lit the theater’s thatched roof on fire.
In the play, King Henry’s closest advisor, Cardinal Wolsey, is hated by the citizens of England. Wolsey has imposed unfair taxes and unpopularly executed the Duke of Buckingham for treason. While at a party, the King falls madly in love with Anne Bullen and plans to divorce his current wife, Katherine of Aragon. Wolsey is asked to help his King in this endeavor, all the while becoming even more hated by the English and their Queen.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
Read book online «Henry VIII by William Shakespeare (icecream ebook reader .txt) 📕». Author - William Shakespeare
And all such false professors! would you have me—
If you have any justice, any pity;
If ye be any thing but churchmen’s habits—
Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
Alas, has banish’d me his bed already,
His love, too long ago! I am old, my lords,
And all the fellowship I hold now with him
Is only my obedience. What can happen
To me above this wretchedness? all your studies
Make me a curse like this. Campeius Your fears are worse. Queen Katherine
Have I lived thus long—let me speak myself,
Since virtue finds no friends—a wife, a true one?
A woman, I dare say without vain-glory,
Never yet branded with suspicion?
Have I with all my full affections
Still met the king? loved him next heaven? obey’d him?
Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him?
Almost forgot my prayers to content him?
And am I thus rewarded? ’tis not well, lords.
Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
One that ne’er dream’d a joy beyond his pleasure;
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honour, a great patience.
My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,
To give up willingly that noble title
Your master wed me to: nothing but death
Shall e’er divorce my dignities.
Would I had never trod this English earth,
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
What will become of me now, wretched lady!
I am the most unhappy woman living.
Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes!
Shipwreck’d upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me;
Almost no grave allow’d me: like the lily,
That once was mistress of the field and flourish’d,
I’ll hang my head and perish.
If your grace
Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
You’d feel more comfort: why should we, good lady,
Upon what cause, wrong you? alas, our places,
The way of our profession is against it:
We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em.
For goodness’ sake, consider what you do;
How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly
Grow from the king’s acquaintance, by this carriage.
The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
They swell, and grow as terrible as storms.
I know you have a gentle, noble temper,
A soul as even as a calm: pray, think us
Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants.
Madam, you’ll find it so. You wrong your virtues
With these weak women’s fears: a noble spirit,
As yours was put into you, ever casts
Such doubts, as false coin, from it. The king loves you;
Beware you lose it not: for us, if you please
To trust us in your business, we are ready
To use our utmost studies in your service.
Do what ye will, my lords: and, pray, forgive me,
If I have used myself unmannerly;
You know I am a woman, lacking wit
To make a seemly answer to such persons.
Pray, do my service to his majesty:
He has my heart yet; and shall have my prayers
While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
Bestow your counsels on me: she now begs,
That little thought, when she set footing here,
She should have bought her dignities so dear. Exeunt.
Ante-chamber to the King’s apartment.
Enter the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey, and the Lord Chamberlain. NorfolkIf you will now unite in your complaints,
And force them with a constancy, the cardinal
Cannot stand under them: if you omit
The offer of this time, I cannot promise
But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces,
With these you bear already.
I am joyful
To meet the least occasion that may give me
Remembrance of my father-in-law, the duke,
To be revenged on him.
Which of the peers
Have uncontemn’d gone by him, or at least
Strangely neglected? when did he regard
The stamp of nobleness in any person
Out of himself?
My lords, you speak your pleasures:
What he deserves of you and me I know;
What we can do to him, though now the time
Gives way to us, I much fear. If you cannot
Bar his access to the king, never attempt
Any thing on him; for he hath a witchcraft
Over the king in’s tongue.
O, fear him not;
His spell in that is out: the king hath found
Matter against him that for ever mars
The honey of his language. No, he’s settled,
Not to come off, in his displeasure.
Sir,
I should be glad to hear such news as this
Once every hour.
Believe it, this is true:
In the divorce his contrary proceedings
Are all unfolded; wherein he appears
As I would wish mine enemy.
How came
His practises to light?
The cardinal’s letters to the pope miscarried,
And came to the eye o’ the king: wherein was read,
How that the cardinal did entreat his holiness
To stay the judgment o’ the divorce; for if
It did take place, “I do,” quoth he, “perceive
My king is tangled in affection to
A creature of the queen’s, Lady Anne Bullen.”
The king in this perceives him, how he coasts
And hedges his own way. But in this point
All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic
After his patient’s death: the king already
Hath married the fair lady.
May you be happy in your wish, my lord!
For, I profess, you have it.
Now, all my joy
Trace the conjunction!
There’s order given for her coronation:
Marry, this is yet but young, and may be left
To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,
She is a gallant creature, and complete
In mind and feature: I persuade me, from her
Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall
In it be memorized.
But, will the king
Digest this letter of the cardinal’s?
The Lord forbid!
No, no;
There be moe wasps that buzz about his nose
Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius
Is stol’n away to Rome; hath ta’en no leave;
Has left
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