Act 4, Scene 1

A street in Westminster.

[Enter two Gentlemen, meeting one another.]
First Gentleman
2245 You're well met once again.
Second Gentleman
2246 So are you.
First Gentleman
2247 You come to take your stand here, and behold
2248 The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?
Second Gentleman
2249 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter,
2250 The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.
First Gentleman
2251 'Tis very true; but that time offer'd sorrow;
2252 This, general joy.
Second Gentleman
2253 'Tis well. The citizens,
2254 I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds—
2255 As, let 'em have their rights, they are ever forward—
2256 In celebration of this day with shows,
2257 Pageants, and sights of honour.
First Gentleman
2258 Never greater,
2259 Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir.
Second Gentleman
2260 May I be bold to ask what that contains,
2261 That paper in your hand?
First Gentleman
2262 Yes; 'tis the list
2263 Of those that claim their offices this day
2264 By custom of the coronation.
2265 The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims
2266 To be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk,
2267 He to be Earl Marshal. You may read the rest.
Second Gentleman
2268 I thank you, sir; had I not known those customs,
2269 I should have been beholding to your paper.
2270 But, I beseech you, what's become of Katherine,
2271 The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?
First Gentleman
2272 That I can tell you too. The Archbishop
2273 Of Canterbury, accompanied with other
2274 Learned and reverend fathers of his order,
2275 Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles off
2276 From Ampthill where the Princess lay; to which
2277 She was often cited by them, but appear'd not;
2278 And, to be short, for not appearance and
2279 The King's late scruple, by the main assent
2280 Of all these learned men she was divorc'd,
2281 And the late marriage made of none effect;
2282 Since which she was remov'd to Kimbolton,
2283 Where she remains now sick.
Second Gentleman
2284 Alas, good lady!
[Trumpets.]
Second Gentleman
2285 The trumpets sound; stand close, the Queen is coming.
[Hautboys.]
Second Gentleman
2286 THE ORDER OF THE CORONATION.
Second Gentleman
2287 1. A lively flourish of trumpets.
2288 2. Then, Two Judges.
2289 3. Lord Chancellor, with purse and mace before him.
2290 4. Choristers, singing. Music.
2291 5. Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then Garter, in his coat
2292 of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper crown.
2293 6. Marquess Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a
2294 demi-coronal of gold. With him, the Earl of Surrey, bearing the
2295 rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl's coronet.
2296 Collars of SS.
2297 7. Duke of Suffolk, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his
2298 head, bearing a long white wand, as high steward. With him,
2299 The Duke of Norfolk, with the rod of marshalship, a coronet
2300 on his head. Collars of SS.
2301 8. A canopy borne by four of the Cinque-ports; under it, the
2302 Queen in her robe, in her hair richly adorned with pearl,
2303 crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London and
2304 Winchester.
2305 9. The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold, wrought
2306 with flowers, bearing the Queen's train.
2307 10. Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets of gold
2308 without flowers.
[Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state, and then a great flourish of trumpets.]
Second Gentleman
2309 A royal train, believe me. These I know.
2310 Who's that that bears the sceptre?
First Gentleman
2311 Marquess Dorset;
2312 And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.
Second Gentleman
2313 A bold brave gentleman. That should be
2314 The Duke of Suffolk?
First Gentleman
2315 'Tis the same: High Steward.
Second Gentleman
2316 And that my Lord of Norfolk?
First Gentleman
2317 Yes.
Second Gentleman
2318 Heaven bless thee!
[Looking on the Queen.]
Second Gentleman
2319 Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.
2320 Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel;
2321 Our king has all the Indies in his arms,
2322 And more and richer, when he strains that lady.
2323 I cannot blame his conscience.
First Gentleman
2324 They that bear
2325 The cloth of honour over her, are four barons
2326 Of the Cinque-ports.
Second Gentleman
2327 Those men are happy; and so are all are near her.
2328 I take it, she that carries up the train
2329 Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.
First Gentleman
2330 It is; and all the rest are countesses.
Second Gentleman
2331 Their coronets say so. These are stars indeed;
2332 And sometimes falling ones.
First Gentleman
2333 No more of that.
[Exit the last of the procession.]
[Enter a third Gentleman.]
First Gentleman
2334 God save you, sir! Where have you been broiling?
Third Gentleman
2335 Among the crowds i' the Abbey, where a finger
2336 Could not be wedg'd in more. I am stifled
2337 With the mere rankness of their joy.
Second Gentleman
2338 You saw the ceremony?
Third Gentleman
2339 That I did.
First Gentleman
2340 How was it?
Third Gentleman
2341 Well worth the seeing.
Second Gentleman
2342 Good sir, speak it to us.
Third Gentleman
2343 As well as I am able. The rich stream
2344 Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen
2345 To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell of
2346 A distance from her; while her Grace sat down
2347 To rest a while, some half an hour or so,
2348 In a rich chair of state, opposing freely
2349 The beauty of her person to the people,—
2350 Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman
2351 That ever lay by man;—which when the people
2352 Had the full view of, such a noise arose
2353 As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,
2354 As loud, and to as many tunes. Hats, cloaks,—
2355 Doublets, I think,—flew up; and had their faces
2356 Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy
2357 I never saw before. Great-belli'd women,
2358 That had not half a week to go, like rams
2359 In the old time of war, would shake the press
2360 And make 'em reel before 'em. No man living
2361 Could say "This is my wife" there; all were woven
2362 So strangely in one piece.
Second Gentleman
2363 But what follow'd?
Third Gentleman
2364 At length her Grace rose, and with modest paces
2365 Came to the altar; where she kneel'd, and saintlike
2366 Cast her fair eyes to heaven and pray'd devoutly;
2367 Then rose again and bow'd her to the people,
2368 When by the Archbishop of Canterbury
2369 She had all the royal makings of a queen,
2370 As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown,
2371 The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
2372 Laid nobly on her; which perform'd, the choir,
2373 With all the choicest music of the kingdom,
2374 Together sung "Te Deum." So she parted,
2375 And with the same full state pac'd back again
2376 To York Place, where the feast is held.
First Gentleman
2377 Sir,
2378 You must no more call it York Place, that's past;
2379 For, since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost.
2380 'Tis now the King's, and call'd Whitehall.
Third Gentleman
2381 I know it;
2382 But 'tis so lately alter'd, that the old name
2383 Is fresh about me.
Second Gentleman
2384 What two reverend bishops
2385 Were those that went on each side of the Queen?
Third Gentleman
2386 Stokesly and Gardiner; the one of Winchester,
2387 Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary;
2388 The other, London.
Second Gentleman
2389 He of Winchester
2390 Is held no great good lover of the Archbishop's,
2391 The virtuous Cranmer.
Third Gentleman
2392 All the land knows that.
2393 However, yet there is no great breach; when it comes,
2394 Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him.
Second Gentleman
2395 Who may that be, I pray you?
Third Gentleman
2396 Thomas Cromwell;
2397 A man in much esteem with the King, and truly
2398 A worthy friend. The King has made him master
2399 O' the jewel house,
2400 And one, already, of the privy council.
Second Gentleman
2401 He will deserve more.
Third Gentleman
2402 Yes, without all doubt.
2403 Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which
2404 Is to the court, and there ye shall be my guests;
2405 Something I can command. As I walk thither,
2406 I'll tell ye more.
Both
2407 You may command us, sir.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2249historical topical
“At our last encounter, The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.”
The two Gentlemen are the play's running eyewitnesses, and this is not their first meeting: they last saw each other when Buckingham was being led away to execution in Act 2. The callback links the coronation scene to the play's earlier fall of the mighty.
TLN 2263historical topical
“those that claim their offices this day By custom of the coronation”
At an English coronation, certain great nobles had hereditary rights to perform symbolic offices — the High Steward bore the crown, the Earl Marshal organized the procession, and so on. These were not merely ceremonial honors; they were legal claims backed by royal grants stretching back centuries and could be worth money as well as prestige.
TLN 2270historical topical
“what's become of Katherine, The Princess Dowager?”
'Princess Dowager' is the legal title assigned to Katherine of Aragon after the annulment: it acknowledged only her first marriage to Henry's dead brother Arthur, treating the twenty-year marriage to Henry as if it had never been valid. Katherine herself refused the title and insisted on being called Queen to the end of her life.
historical The King's Great Matter (Henry's divorce)
TLN 2275historical topical
“Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles off From Ampthill where the Princess lay; to which She was often cited by them, but appear'd not”
After the Blackfriars trial stalled, Archbishop Cranmer convened a second, English court at Dunstable in May 1533 — chosen because it was near Katherine's residence at Ampthill but clearly within his ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Katherine was formally summoned ('cited') three times and refused to appear each time, denying the English court's authority over her.
historical The King's Great Matter (Henry's divorce)historical The break with Rome and the English Reformation
TLN 2279historical topical
“the King's late scruple, by the main assent Of all these learned men she was divorc'd”
'Scruple' means a conscientious doubt — Henry's stated reason for seeking the annulment was a troubled conscience about whether his marriage to Katherine was ever lawful, since she had first been the wife of his dead brother Arthur. Leviticus 20:21 forbade marrying a brother's wife. The 'learned men' are the canon lawyers and theologians assembled to confirm the divorce.
historical The King's Great Matter (Henry's divorce)
TLN 2291historical topical
“Garter, in his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper crown”
'Garter' is Garter King-at-Arms, the senior herald of England, responsible for arranging royal ceremonies and processions. The 'gilt copper crown' is his crown of office — not gold, because only the sovereign wears true gold, but gilded copper, the heraldic convention for a crown of rank below royal.
TLN 2295cultural context
“rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl's coronet. Collars of SS.”
'Collars of SS' were gold chains made of linked S-shaped letters, worn by high royal officers and senior household officials as a mark of their service to the crown. The 'SS' may stand for 'Souverain' (an old French royal title), 'Sanctus Spiritus' (the Holy Spirit), or 'Sanctus Simeon'; the exact meaning has been debated for centuries. They were a visible badge of rank in royal processions.
TLN 2301historical topical
“A canopy borne by four of the Cinque-ports; under it, the Queen in her robe”
The Cinque Ports were a confederation of five (and later more) historic English Channel ports — Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe — that had furnished the crown with ships and men in exchange for special privileges since before the Norman Conquest. Their barons held the hereditary right to carry the canopy over the sovereign at coronations.
TLN 2321rhetorical device
“Our king has all the Indies in his arms, And more and richer, when he strains that lady.”
'The Indies' — both the East Indies (the source of spices and silks) and the West Indies (the source of silver and gold) — were the byword for fabulous, inexhaustible wealth. The Second Gentleman says Henry embracing Anne is richer than all of that treasure combined. The compliment is extravagant flattery of the new queen on coronation day.
TLN 2335archaic vocab
“Among the crowds i' the Abbey, where a finger Could not be wedg'd in more. I am stifled With the mere rankness of their joy.”
'Rankness' here means excess or over-abundance — not 'bad smell' as the modern word usually implies, though the packed-crowd odor may be part of the joke. The Third Gentleman is saying he was nearly suffocated by the sheer intensity of the crowd's collective happiness. 'I' the Abbey' is Westminster Abbey, where Anne was crowned.
TLN 2370historical topical
“holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown, The rod, and bird of peace”
The anointing with holy oil and the crown of St Edward the Confessor were the two most sacred acts of an English coronation. The crown of Edward the Confessor (the 'St Edward's Crown') was the oldest in the English regalia, kept at Westminster Abbey — though the regalia were later melted down under Cromwell and replaced. The 'bird of peace' is a dove, the top ornament of the sovereign's orb or sceptre.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 2374cultural context
“Together sung "Te Deum."”
The 'Te Deum' is an ancient Latin hymn of praise and thanksgiving ('We praise thee, O God'), traditionally sung at the conclusion of a coronation and on other great public occasions. Singing it marked the ceremony's completion and gave the whole event a religious ratification.
TLN 2378historical topical
“You must no more call it York Place, that's past; For, since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost. 'Tis now the King's, and call'd Whitehall.”
York Place was the official London residence of the Archbishop of York — but Wolsey had transformed it into a palace rivaling the royal palaces. When Henry stripped Wolsey of his offices in 1529, he also seized York Place and renamed it Whitehall. It became the principal royal palace for the next 170 years and gave its name to the street that still runs past the Palace of Westminster.
historical Cardinal Wolsey
TLN 2386historical topical
“Stokesly and Gardiner; the one of Winchester, Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary”
The two bishops flanking Anne are both men who served Henry's religious policy but represent different factions. John Stokesley (Bishop of London) helped gather theological opinions for the divorce; Stephen Gardiner, just elevated from royal secretary to Bishop of Winchester, was the conservative who will become Cranmer's chief enemy in Act 5. Their presence at Anne's coronation foreshadows the religious conflict to come.
historical The break with Rome and the English Reformationhistorical Foxe's Acts and Monuments (Book of Martyrs)
TLN 2396historical topical
“Thomas Cromwell; A man in much esteem with the King, and truly A worthy friend. The King has made him master O' the jewel house, And one, already, of the privy council.”
Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485-1540) was Wolsey's secretary and rose, after his master's fall, to become the king's chief minister. 'Master of the Jewel House' was a royal household office responsible for the crown's plate and treasures; a seat on the Privy Council was real power. The Third Gentleman's confident prediction that Cromwell 'will deserve more' is ironic: he rose to be Earl of Essex before being executed in 1540.
historical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)historical The break with Rome and the English Reformation