An ’t please your Grace, the two great cardinals

Gentleman
An ’t please your Grace, the two great cardinals
Wait in the presence.
Queen Katherine
Would they speak with me?
Gentleman
They willed me say so, madam.

I do not like their coming, now I think on ’t.
They should be good men, their affairs as righteous.
But all hoods make not monks.

Queen Katherine
Pray their Graces
To come near. Gentleman exits.
What can be their business
With me, a poor weak woman, fall’n from favor?
I do not like their coming, now I think on ’t.
They should be good men, their affairs as righteous.
But all hoods make not monks.
 Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius.
Wolsey
Peace to your Highness.
Queen Katherine
Your Graces find me here part of a housewife;
I would be all, against the worst may happen.
What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?
Wolsey
May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw
Into your private chamber, we shall give you
The full cause of our coming.
Queen Katherine
Speak it here.
There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,
Deserves a corner. Would all other women
Could speak this with as free a soul as I do.
My lords, I care not, so much I am happy
Above a number, if my actions
Were tried by ev’ry tongue, ev’ry eye saw ’em,
Envy and base opinion set against ’em,
I know my life so even. If your business
Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,
Out with it boldly. Truth loves open dealing.
Wolsey
Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina
serenissima—
Queen Katherine
O, good my lord, no Latin!
I am not such a truant since my coming
As not to know the language I have lived in.
A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious.
Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,
If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake.
Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,
The willing’st sin I ever yet committed
May be absolved in English.
Wolsey
Noble lady,
I am sorry my integrity should breed—
And service to his Majesty and you—
So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant.
We come not by the way of accusation,
To taint that honor every good tongue blesses,
Nor to betray you any way to sorrow—
You have too much, good lady—but to know
How you stand minded in the weighty difference
Between the King and you, and to deliver,
Like free and honest men, our just opinions
And comforts to your cause.