The Life and Death of The Lord Cromwell, attributed in part to William Shakespeare.
Page: 39

And give it with your own hands to the king?

SADLER.
I kiss your hand, and never will I rest,
Ere to the king this will be delivered.

[Exit Sadler.]

CROMWELL.
Why yet Cromwell hath one friend in store.

GARDINER.
But all the haste he makes shall be but vain.--
Here's a discharge for your prisoner,
To see him executed presently.--
My Lord, you hear the tenor of your life.

CROMWELL.
I do embrace it, welcome my last date,
And of this glistering world I take last leave:
And, noble Lords, I take my leave of you.--
As willingly I go to meet with death,
As Gardiner did pronounce it with his breath:
From treason is my heart as white as snow,
My death only procured by my foe.
I pray, commend me to my Sovereign king,
And tell him in what sort his Cromwell died,
To lose his head before his cause were tried:
But let his Grace, when he shall hear my name,
Say only this: Gardiner procured the same.

[Enter young Cromwell.]

LIEUTENANT.
Here is your son, come to take his leave.

CROMWELL.
To take his leave! Come hither, Harry Cromwell.
Mark, boy, the last words that I speak to thee.
Flatter not Fortune, neither fawn upon her;
Gape not for state, yet lose no spark of honor;
Ambition, like the plague see thou eschew it;
I die for treason, boy, and never knew it.
Yet let thy faith as spotless be as mine,
And Cromwell's virtues in thy face shall shine.
Come, go along and see me leave my breath,
And I'll leave thee upon the flower of death.

SON.
O, father, I shall die to see that wound;
Your blood being spilt will make my heart to sound.

CROMWELL.
How, boy, not look upon the Axe!
How shall I do then to have my head stroke off?
Come on, my child, and see the end of all,
And after say that Gardiner was my fall.

GARDINER.
My Lord, you speak it of an envious heart;
I have done no more than law and equity.

BEDFORD.
O, good my Lord of Winchester, forbear;
It would a better seemed you to been absent,
Than with your words disturb a dying man.

CROMWELL.
Who me, my Lord? no, he disturbs not me.
My mind he stirs not, though his mighty shock
Hath brought mo' peers' heads down to the block.