William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Cardinal Wolsey, in Henry VIII, act 3, sc. 2.
These words, spoken in the play to Thomas Cromwell, were in fact recorded as Wolsey's dying words in Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles (1577), one of Shakespeare's main sources, where they appear in the form: "If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs."
