I am no enemy to religion,
But what is done, it is for England's good.
What did they serve for but to feed a sort
Of lazy Abbots and of full fed Friars?
They neither plow, nor sow, and yet they reap
The fat of all the Land, and suck the poor:
Look, what was theirs, is in King Henry's hands;
His wealth before lay in the Abbey lands.
GARDINER.
Indeed these things you have alleged, my Lord,
When God doth know the infant yet unborn
Will curse the time the Abbeys were pulled down.
I pray, now where is hospitality?
Where now may poor distressed people go,
For to relieve their need, or rest their bones,
When weary travel doth oppress their limbs?
And where religious men should take them in,
Shall now be kept back with a Mastiff do,
And thousand thousand--
NORFOLK.
O, my Lord, no more: things past redress
Tis bootless to complain.
CROMWELL.
What, shall we to the Convocation house?
NORFOLK.
We'll follow you, my Lord; pray, lead the way.
[Enter Old Cromwell like a Farmer.]
OLD CROMWELL.
How? one Cromwell made Lord Keeper since I
left Putney
And dwelt in Yorkshire.
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