Act 4, Scene 2

Kimbolton.

[Enter Katherine, Dowager, sick; led between Griffith, her gentleman usher, and Patience, her woman.]
Griffith
2408 How does your Grace?
Queen Katherine
2409 O Griffith, sick to death!
2410 My legs, like loaden branches, bow to the earth,
2411 Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair.
2412 So; now, methinks, I feel a little ease.
2413 Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,
2414 That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,
2415 Was dead?
Griffith
2416 Yes, madam; but I think your Grace,
2417 Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.
Queen Katherine
2418 Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died.
2419 If well, he stepp'd before me, happily
2420 For my example.
Griffith
2421 Well, the voice goes, madam:
2422 For after the stout Earl Northumberland
2423 Arrested him at York, and brought him forward,
2424 As a man sorely tainted, to his answer,
2425 He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill
2426 He could not sit his mule.
Queen Katherine
2427 Alas, poor man!
Griffith
2428 At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
2429 Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
2430 With all his covent, honourably receiv'd him;
2431 To whom he gave these words: "O, father abbot,
2432 An old man, broken with the storms of state,
2433 Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
2434 Give him a little earth for charity!"
2435 So went to bed, where eagerly his sickness
2436 Pursu'd him still; and, three nights after this,
2437 About the hour of eight, which he himself
2438 Foretold should be his last, full of repentance,
2439 Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
2440 He gave his honours to the world again,
2441 His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
Queen Katherine
2442 So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
2443 Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
2444 And yet with charity. He was a man
2445 Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
2446 Himself with princes; one that, by suggestion,
2447 Tied all the kingdom. Simony was fair-play;
2448 His own opinion was his law; i' the presence
2449 He would say untruths; and be ever double
2450 Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
2451 But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
2452 His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
2453 But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
2454 Of his own body he was ill, and gave
2455 The clergy ill example.
Griffith
2456 Noble madam,
2457 Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
2458 We write in water. May it please your Highness
2459 To hear me speak his good now?
Queen Katherine
2460 Yes, good Griffith;
2461 I were malicious else.
Griffith
2462 This Cardinal,
2463 Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
2464 Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle.
2465 He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
2466 Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;
2467 Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,
2468 But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
2469 And though he were unsatisfied in getting,
2470 Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, madam,
2471 He was most princely: ever witness for him
2472 Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you,
2473 Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
2474 Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
2475 The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
2476 So excellent in art, and still so rising,
2477 That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
2478 His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;
2479 For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
2480 And found the blessedness of being little;
2481 And, to add greater honours to his age
2482 Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
Queen Katherine
2483 After my death I wish no other herald,
2484 No other speaker of my living actions,
2485 To keep mine honour from corruption,
2486 But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
2487 Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
2488 With thy religious truth and modesty,
2489 Now in his ashes honour. Peace be with him!
2490 Patience, be near me still, and set me lower:
2491 I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,
2492 Cause the musicians play me that sad note
2493 I nam'd my knell, whilst I sit meditating
2494 On that celestial harmony I go to.
[Sad and solemn music.]
Griffith
2495 She is asleep. Good wench, let's sit down quiet,
2496 For fear we wake her; softly, gentle Patience.
[The vision. Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces; branches of bays or palm in their hands. They first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head; at which the other four make reverent curtsies. Then the two that held the garland deliver the same to the other next two, who observe the same order in their changes, and holding the garland over her head; which done, they deliver the same garland to the last two, who likewise observe the same order; at which, as it were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her hands to heaven: and so in their dancing vanish, carrying the garland with them. The music continues.]
Queen Katherine
2497 Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone,
2498 And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?
Griffith
2499 Madam, we are here.
Queen Katherine
2500 It is not you I call for.
2501 Saw ye none enter since I slept?
Griffith
2502 None, madam.
Queen Katherine
2503 No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop
2504 Invite me to a banquet; whose bright faces
2505 Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
2506 They promis'd me eternal happiness,
2507 And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
2508 I am not worthy yet to wear. I shall, assuredly.
Griffith
2509 I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams
2510 Possess your fancy.
Queen Katherine
2511 Bid the music leave,
2512 They are harsh and heavy to me.
[Music ceases.]
Patience
2513 Do you note
2514 How much her Grace is alter'd on the sudden?
2515 How long her face is drawn! How pale she looks,
2516 And of an earthly cold! Mark her eyes!
Griffith
2517 She is going, wench. Pray, pray.
Patience
2518 Heaven comfort her!
[Enter a Messenger.]
Messenger
2519 An't like your Grace,—
Queen Katherine
2520 You are a saucy fellow.
2521 Deserve we no more reverence?
Griffith
2522 You are to blame,
2523 Knowing she will not lose her wonted greatness,
2524 To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.
Messenger
2525 I humbly do entreat your Highness' pardon;
2526 My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying
2527 A gentleman, sent from the King, to see you.
Queen Katherine
2528 Admit him entrance, Griffith; but this fellow
2529 Let me ne'er see again.
[Exit Messenger.]
[Enter Capucius.]
Queen Katherine
2530 If my sight fail not,
2531 You should be lord ambassador from the Emperor,
2532 My royal nephew, and your name Capucius.
Capucius
2533 Madam, the same; your servant.
Queen Katherine
2534 O, my lord,
2535 The times and titles now are alter'd strangely
2536 With me since first you knew me. But, I pray you,
2537 What is your pleasure with me?
Capucius
2538 Noble lady,
2539 First, mine own service to your Grace; the next,
2540 The King's request that I would visit you,
2541 Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me
2542 Sends you his princely commendations,
2543 And heartily entreats you take good comfort.
Queen Katherine
2544 O my good lord, that comfort comes too late;
2545 'Tis like a pardon after execution.
2546 That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;
2547 But now I am past all comforts here, but prayers.
2548 How does his Highness?
Capucius
2549 Madam, in good health.
Queen Katherine
2550 So may he ever do! and ever flourish,
2551 When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name
2552 Banish'd the kingdom! Patience, is that letter,
2553 I caused you write, yet sent away?
Patience
2554 No, madam.
[Giving it to Katherine.]
Queen Katherine
2555 Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver
2556 This to my lord the King.
Capucius
2557 Most willing, madam.
Queen Katherine
2558 In which I have commended to his goodness
2559 The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter;
2560 The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!
2561 Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding,—
2562 She is young, and of a noble modest nature,
2563 I hope she will deserve well,—and a little
2564 To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,
2565 Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition
2566 Is, that his noble Grace would have some pity
2567 Upon my wretched women, that so long
2568 Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully;
2569 Of which there is not one, I dare avow,
2570 And now I should not lie, but will deserve,
2571 For virtue and true beauty of the soul,
2572 For honesty and decent carriage,
2573 A right good husband; let him be a noble;
2574 And, sure, those men are happy that shall have 'em.
2575 The last is, for my men,—they are the poorest,
2576 But poverty could never draw 'em from me—
2577 That they may have their wages duly paid 'em,
2578 And something over to remember me by.
2579 If Heaven had pleas'd to have given me longer life
2580 And able means, we had not parted thus.
2581 These are the whole contents; and, good my lord,
2582 By that you love the dearest in this world,
2583 As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,
2584 Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King
2585 To do me this last right.
Capucius
2586 By heaven, I will,
2587 Or let me lose the fashion of a man!
Queen Katherine
2588 I thank you, honest lord. Remember me
2589 In all humility unto his Highness.
2590 Say his long trouble now is passing
2591 Out of this world; tell him, in death I bless'd him,
2592 For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,
2593 My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,
2594 You must not leave me yet. I must to bed;
2595 Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,
2596 Let me be us'd with honour. Strew me over
2597 With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
2598 I was a chaste wife to my grave. Embalm me,
2599 Then lay me forth. Although unqueen'd, yet like
2600 A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.
2601 I can no more.
[Exeunt, leading Katherine.]

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Notes

TLN 2409rhetorical device
“sick to death! My legs, like loaden branches, bow to the earth”
Katherine opens the scene with a simile that folds two meanings: 'sick to death' means critically ill, but it also carries the sense of being weary unto death, a longing for release. The image of her legs as 'loaden branches' bowing to the earth portrays her body as a tree giving back its weight to the ground — heavy with fruit and age, yielding rather than breaking.
TLN 2414rhetorical device
“the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey, Was dead”
'Child of honour' is Katherine's ironic epithet for Wolsey. A 'child of honour' is someone born into, or formed by, honour — but Wolsey was born the son of an Ipswich butcher, not a nobleman. Katherine names him this at the moment of his death, implying he was honour's creation even if not honour's offspring — and leaving the irony open.
historical Cardinal Wolsey
TLN 2419archaic vocab
“he stepp'd before me, happily For my example”
'Happily' here means 'haply' — perhaps, by chance — not 'in a happy manner.' Katherine wonders whether Wolsey, by dying well, may have gone ahead of her 'as a model for her to follow' — if he died in a state of grace, his death sets an example she hopes to imitate.
TLN 2421archaic vocab
“the voice goes, madam”
'The voice goes' means 'the report goes,' 'that is what people are saying' — it is the Elizabethan equivalent of 'the word is.' Griffith signals he is relaying common report, not personal witness.
TLN 2422historical topical
“the stout Earl Northumberland Arrested him at York”
In November 1530 Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, rode to Cawood Castle near York and arrested the fallen Wolsey for high treason under a writ of praemunire (asserting papal authority within the realm). Wolsey was too ill to travel fast and never reached London; he died at Leicester Abbey in November 1530. Griffith's account follows the historical record closely.
historical Cardinal Wolsey
TLN 2428historical topical
“with easy roads, he came to Leicester, Lodg'd in the abbey”
'Easy roads' means short daily stages of travel — they rode slowly to spare the sick Cardinal. Leicester Abbey (an Augustinian monastery) received Wolsey, and the abbot's welcome he is given here is documented by Cavendish: Wolsey reportedly spoke the words quoted in lines 2431-2434 to the abbot on arrival. He died at the abbey on 29 November 1530.
historical Cardinal Wolsey
TLN 2440cultural context
“He gave his honours to the world again, His blessed part to heaven”
Griffith describes a good Christian death in two movements: giving back earthly titles ('honours') to the world — relinquishing all worldly rank — and surrendering the soul ('his blessed part') to God. The formula reflects the standard Elizabethan theology of dying well: a peaceful death required letting go of wealth and position and dying in repentance.
TLN 2444archaic vocab
“He was a man Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking Himself with princes”
'Stomach' in Elizabethan English meant pride, haughtiness, or arrogance — not the digestive organ. Katherine's charge is that Wolsey was boundlessly proud, placing himself on the level of royalty. The word carried this sense of overweening self-regard well into the seventeenth century.
TLN 2447cultural context
“Simony was fair-play”
Simony is the buying and selling of church offices, appointments, or spiritual goods for money — named after Simon Magus, who in the Bible tried to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit from the apostles. Katherine's charge is that Wolsey treated it as normal business. It was a canonical crime for which the Church repeatedly condemned its own clergy throughout the medieval and Tudor periods.
TLN 2457rhetorical device
“Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water”
Griffith's antithesis states a common human failing: people remember bad behaviour permanently (engraved in brass, which endures) while good deeds are forgotten as quickly as writing on water. It is a proverb-like formulation urging Katherine to give Wolsey's virtues the same lasting memory she is giving his faults.
TLN 2463historical topical
“from an humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle”
Griffith acknowledges Wolsey's low birth — his father was an Ipswich butcher — while arguing he was shaped for greatness from birth. The combination encapsulates Wolsey's story: a man of no family who rose by talent to the summit of English power. His enemies never let him forget his origins; his defenders (like Griffith here) argued his genius transcended them.
historical Cardinal Wolsey
TLN 2472historical topical
“Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you, Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him”
Wolsey founded two colleges: Cardinal College at Ipswich (his birthplace, 1528) and Cardinal College at Oxford (1525, later refounded as Christ Church). When he fell in 1529, Ipswich College was immediately dissolved and its endowments seized. Oxford survived because Henry VIII re-endowed it, and it remains one of Oxford's most prominent colleges today. Griffith calls them 'twins of learning' because both were founded in the same burst of patronage in the late 1520s.
historical Cardinal Wolsey
TLN 2478rhetorical device
“His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him; For then, and not till then, he felt himself, And found the blessedness of being little”
Griffith's paradox — that Wolsey's ruin was a gift — is the central theological claim of the Wolsey scenes: only in stripping away worldly greatness could Wolsey become his true self. 'Blessedness of being little' echoes the Beatitudes, where Christ calls the humble and meek blessed. The speech reframes the de casibus fall of a great man as a spiritual ascent, not just a political disaster.
historical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)
TLN 2492cultural context
“that sad note I nam'd my knell, whilst I sit meditating On that celestial harmony I go to”
Katherine asks for the piece of sad music she has already chosen as her 'knell' — the bell rung to announce a death. She meditates on the 'celestial harmony' she is about to join: the music of the spheres, the ancient idea that the planets and stars produced a perfect, inaudible music as they moved. The earthly music is a dim echo of what she is moving toward.
TLN 2545rhetorical device
“'Tis like a pardon after execution”
Katherine's simile is devastatingly precise: Henry's 'comfort' (the message of goodwill from Capucius) arrives after it can do any good, exactly as a royal pardon does when the condemned man has already been hanged. It indicts Henry without naming him — the comfort he sends now was the love and justice she needed years ago.
TLN 2559archaic vocab
“The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter”
'Model' here means image, likeness, or embodiment — not a miniature or a person who models clothes. Katherine calls the princess Mary the living image ('model') of her and Henry's lawful, chaste marriage. The word carried the sense of 'pattern' or 'representation' in Elizabethan English.
TLN 2596cultural context
“Strew me over With maiden flowers, that all the world may know I was a chaste wife to my grave”
Katherine asks to have flowers strewn over her body as a public declaration of her chastity: 'maiden flowers' (flowers associated with virginity and purity, such as violets and white flowers) signify an unsullied life. Strewing flowers on a corpse or bier was a funeral custom in Elizabethan England, and specific flowers carried meanings — white flowers especially for the chaste. Her dying request turns her burial into a final statement in her long argument against the annulment.
historical The King's Great Matter (Henry's divorce)
TLN 2599historical topical
“Although unqueen'd, yet like A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me”
Katherine's final instruction captures the legal paradox of her position: she has been declared not a queen (Parliament declared the marriage void in 1533), yet she insists on the burial rites of one. 'Daughter to a king' recalls that she was the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile — two of the most powerful monarchs of their era. Even if Henry could strip her English queenship, he could not strip her Spanish royal blood.
historical The King's Great Matter (Henry's divorce)