Hear the King’s pleasure, cardinal

Norfolk 
Hear the King’s pleasure, cardinal, who commands you
To render up the great seal presently
Into our hands, and to confine yourself
To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester’s,
Till you hear further from his Highness.
Wolsey
Stay.
Where’s your commission, lords? Words cannot carry
Authority so weighty.

All goodness
Is poison to thy stomach.

Suffolk
Who dare 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 you are molded, envy;
How eagerly you follow my disgraces,
As if it fed you, and how sleek and wanton
You 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 honors,
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 succor, 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 ax.
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 honor,
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’ life blood of thee else.—My lords,
Can you 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.
Wolsey
All goodness
Is poison to thy stomach.
Surrey
Yes, that goodness
Of gleaning all the land’s wealth into one,
Into your own hands, card’nal, by extortion;
The goodness of your intercepted packets
You writ to th’ Pope against the King. Your goodness,
Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.—
My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,
As you respect the common good, the state
Of our despised nobility, our issues,
Whom, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen,
Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles
Collected from his life.—I’ll startle you
Worse than the sacring bell when the brown wench
Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal.