I conclude the King a beast;
Verily a lion if you will--the world
A most obedient beast and fool--myself
Half beast and fool as appertaining to it;
Altho' your Lordship hath as little of each
Cleaving to your original Adam-clay,
As may be consonant with mortality.
HOWARD. We talk and Cranmer suffers.
The kindliest man I ever knew; see, see,
I speak of him in the past. Unhappy land!
Hard-natured Queen, half-Spanish in herself,
And grafted on the hard-grain'd stock of Spain--
Her life, since Philip left her, and she lost
Her fierce desire of bearing him a child,
Hath, like a brief and bitter winter's day,
Gone narrowing down and darkening to a close.
There will be more conspiracies, I fear.
PAGET. Ay, ay, beware of France.
HOWARD. O Paget, Paget!
I have seen heretics of the poorer sort,
Expectant of the rack from day to day,
To whom the fire were welcome, lying chain'd
In breathless dungeons over steaming sewers,
Fed with rank bread that crawl'd upon the tongue,
And putrid water, every drop a worm,
Until they died of rotted limbs; and then
Cast on the dunghill naked, and become
Hideously alive again from head to heel,
Made even the carrion-nosing mongrel vomit
With hate and horror.
PAGET. Nay, you sicken _me_
To hear you.
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