Today’s Totally Random
Lines
I’ll startle you
Worse
than the sacring bell, when the brown wench
Lay
kissing in your arms, lord Cardinal.
Earl of Surrey
King Henry the Eighth Act III, Scene ii, Line 295
Well that’s an interesting line! What’s this sacring bell, and who’s the brown wench? Time to look for some
notes.
But first off, let me tell you that this is a scene
where a bunch of noblemen, all who hate Cardinal Wolsey, are reveling in the
fact that the Cardinal’s improprieties have come to the attention of the king,
and now the Cardinal’s goose is cooked. The Cardinal is still denying any wrong-doing, and now the Earl of Surrey has told him that he’s going to show the
Cardinal the grand sum of his sins, the articles collected from his life. It’s
with this that the Earl will startle the Cardinal worse than the scaring bell…
So, here’s part of it: the sacring bell is bell the altar boy rings when the priest lifts the host during mass, the most solemn part of mass. I can’t seem to find anything on the brown wench. Is Surrey suggesting that Cardinal Wolsey has been lying with a wench while mass was going on, and a brown wench at that? He’s certainly not painting a very good picture of the Cardinal, is he?