Henry VIII – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Commentaries on
Shakespeare’s History Plays

Shakespeare, William. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth. (The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 883-954.)

ACT 1

Act 1.0, Prologue (884-85, the prologue emphasizes the seriousness of the play that the audience is about to see: the characters are more or less modern, but the medieval mainstay “the fall of the great” is a key theme.)

There’s plenty of history and pageantry in Henry VIII, subject to Shakespeare’s usual telescoping and rearrangement of events. There is celebration and prophecy, too, and palace intrigue, with an emphasis on the interplay of subtle and strong characters. A key part of the play, however, remains (as the Norton editors say about the history play Sir Thomas More that Shakespeare may have helped to revise) the Boccaccio-inspired tradition known as de casibus virorum illustrium: “[plays or stories] about the fall of illustrious men.” [1]

This play, then, offers in part a medieval morality tale of illustrious men and women falling from a great height. Often, the emphasis is upon the mistakes made by the great, the better to admonish humbler people. But sometimes, especially in a medieval context, the mistake consists in being a “fallen” human being: first you’re at the top of Lady Fortune’s wheel, and then you’re at the bottom. [2] The great ones whom Henry VIII destroys—Buckingham, Cardinal Wolsey, and Catharine of Aragon—are manifestly not villains. The sixteenth-century compendium A Mirror for Magistrates illustrates this variety of sin, error, and mere misfortune. [3]

In keeping with the dignity of the de casibus tradition, the prologue-speaker politely asks the audience to adjust their attitude to one that will respect the playwright’s aim in staging a play grounded in this tradition: “Be sad as we would make ye,” he asks, and continues with “think you see them great” and then, “in a moment, see / How soon this mightiness meets misery (884, prologue 25, 27, 29-30).

One other preliminary matter: most textual scholars consider Henry VIII to have been a collaborative effort between Shakespeare and his successor playwright for the King’s Men, John Fletcher, with each man probably writing about half of the play. As is almost always the case with such assertions, opinions vary on how much collaboration there was, and where exactly in the play it occurs. Whatever the final tally and location of lines and scenes may be, the results show that Fletcher was worthy of cooperating with Shakespeare to create a subtle, brilliant play. [4]

Act 1, Scene 1 (885-90, the Duke of Buckingham complains to Norfolk about Cardinal Wolsey’s self-interested handling of the English-French negotiations at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; the two men discuss the Cardinal’s shortcomings, but Wolsey orders Buckingham arrested on a charge of treason.)

Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham, is the first to speak, and will be the first to fall. This Duke (son of Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham—the man who unsuccessfully rebelled against King Richard III in 1483 after having supported him in usurping the throne) explains to Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk that he did not attend the meeting of more than two weeks’ length between Henry VIII and the French King Francis I, a 1520 meeting known as the Field of Cloth of Gold, which was meant to solidify the friendship between the two nations following the Anglo-French peace treaty of 1514. [5]

Norfolk, describes the scene as a “view of earthly glory” (885, 1.1.14), praising both the French and English displays of splendor. Buckingham is not impressed, and he clearly resents Cardinal Wolsey’s role in arranging this meeting: “no man’s pie is freed / From his ambitious finger” (886, 1.1.52-53), says the aristocrat. As for the ceremonies, Buckingham describes them as “fierce vanities” (886, 1.1.54).

To what Buckingham has said, Norfolk adds some interesting analysis of their opponent Wolsey, saying, “There’s in him stuff that puts him to these ends” (886, 1.1.58). This lord goes on to describe Wolsey as a spider spinning a web from his own inner qualities: “Out of his self-drawing web, ‘a gives us note / The force of his own merit makes his way— / A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys / A place next to the King” (886, 1.1.63-66).

What fuels Wolsey’s great advancement? Lord Abergavenny has a ready answer: it is what Christianity tags as the first and worst of sins. Says his Lordship, “I can see his pride / Peep through each part of him” (887, 1.1.68). One must realize that some of these great noblemen could themselves stake a claim to the English throne—Buckingham’s father had a claim through the Beaufort line. [6] So their resentment of the commoner Wolsey is understandable—the man’s father was a successful merchant, but not an aristocrat. Yet, Wolsey has grown closer to the king than any of them, and he enjoys throwing his weight around in their presence. [7]

The aristocrats in this scene don’t think much of the treaties made with France recently, in which the Cardinal had a hand, just as he played a role in urging King Henry to go to war. The most recent wars against the French had lasted from 1512-14, and saw an English alliance with Pope Julius II’s Holy League to free Italy from France. [8]

The bad blood between Buckingham and Wolsey evidently goes both ways: when the two pass each other, Wolsey eyes him suspiciously, and his words make it plain that he is plotting mischief for Buckingham. He wants to meet with the Duke’s overseer or surveyor, and says, “we shall then know more, and Buckingham / Shall lessen this big look” (888, 1.1.118-19). Buckingham, for his part, when Wolsey is out of earshot, calls him a “butcher’s cur” and “venom-mouthed” (888, 1.1.120), but admits that he doesn’t have the clout to take him down.

Norfolk tries to advise Buckingham with wise Baconian advice: “To climb steep hills / Requires slow pace at first …” (888, 1.1.131-32). Some readers may remember that Sir Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I’s old counselor, writes in his 1597/1612 essay “Of Great Place” that, “All rising to great place is by a winding stair.” [9]

But it all goes for naught with Buckingham, who considers Wolsey “corrupt and treasonous” (889, 1.1.156). What is the justification for such an extreme claim? Buckingham explains that he believes the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V is in league with Cardinal Wolsey to break the peace with France since the Emperor feels threatened by that amity (889, 1.1.174-90). No sooner does Buckingham broach this issue with Norfolk than he is, as if on cue, arrested for high treason (890, 1.1.198-202).

Buckingham realizes that the King has enlisted key subordinates against him, and understands at once that his day is over: “My life is spanned already; / I am the shadow of poor Buckingham …” (890, 1.1.223-24). Although Buckingham has been venting his resentment against Cardinal Wolsey throughout this scene, his real enemy is King Henry VIII, who surely does not trust this dangerously high-ranking nobleman—given his ancestry, he is too close to being able to take the crown for himself. [10]

Act 1, Scene 2 (891-96, Queen Catharine and Norfolk complain to Henry about Wolsey’s 16% tax on commerce; Henry sides with them against Wolsey by issuing a pardon to tax-evaders; Wolsey accuses Buckingham of treason, and this charge is bolstered by Buckingham’s own former surveyor; despite Catharine’s sharp questioning, King Henry is convinced of Buckingham’s guilt and commands that a trial be held.)

King Henry seems grateful to Cardinal Wolsey for stopping what he believes is a full-on conspiracy on the part of Buckingham, but matters are more complex than that: Queen Catharine (that is, Catalina de Aragón, daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragón and Queen Isabella I of Castile) has it in for Cardinal Wolsey, whom she sees as an enemy. [11]

Catharine informs Henry that the Cardinal’s tax scheme has incensed his subjects, and Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk, backs her with a detailed account of economic and social unrest: he explains that the clothiers have had to lay off “The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers….” These, he says, “are all in uproar …” (891-92, 1.2.33-36). Catharine may be a foreigner, but she seems to understand that this new tax is the sort of thing that might just bring down an English kingdom, if things aren’t set right with alacrity. Names such as Wat Tyler and Jack Cade come to mind. [12]

Apparently, Cardinal Wolsey has levied a 16% tax that the commercial class has found unbearable. The tax is allegedly for the wars in France. King Henry is not amused, saying, “This is against our pleasure” (892, 1.2.68), and he overrules Cardinal Wolsey’s attempt at sage advice regarding how to take criticism.

After listening to Wolsey, the King says, “Things done well, / And with a care, exempt themselves from fear …” (893, 1.2.88-89), and follows it up with a remark that seems sympathetic to the ordinary taxpayers of England: “Why, we take / From every tree, lop, bark, and part o’th’ timber, / And though we leave it with a root, thus hacked / The air will drink the sap” (893, 1.2.95-98). The sum of it is, Henry issues a pardon to those who have failed to pay the tax, and that’s that.

Queen Catharine next focuses on Buckingham’s travails, and it seems that King Henry is disturbed at this man’s fall as well: “The gentleman is learned and a most rare speaker …” (893, 1.2.112), he says, and can only point out that when corruption sets in the mind of such a man, the results are worse than they would be for an ordinary person (893, 1.2.115-18). Buckingham’s surveyor confirms Henry’s suspicions with the claim that his master’s confessor Nicholas Hopkins has put it into his head that he should be king (894, 1.2.146-47).

Queen Catharine, however, isn’t buying this story, and she points out that this surveyor lost his job when the tenants complained about him (895, 1.2.172-76), but the surveyor drives home his point by insinuating that Buckingham referred to his father’s intention to assassinate King Richard III (895, 1.2.193-99), and that is quite enough for King Henry: “There’s his period— / To sheathe his knife in us” (896, 1.2.209-10). Perhaps Henry, a monarch as close to wielding absolute power as any in England’s history, had a touch of paranoia. But then again, perhaps it wasn’t paranoia at all. [13]

Act 1, Scene 3 (896-98, Sandys, Lovell, and the Lord Chamberlain mock French fashions and discuss Wolsey’s generosity in distributing favors, as he will at this evening’s feast.)

This scene at the English court consists partly in mockery of French fashions, [14] but there’s also ambivalent praise of Cardinal Wolsey. Talking with Sir Thomas Lovell [15] and the Lord Chamberlain, [16] Lord William Sandys [17] says of him, “Men of his way should be most liberal” (898, 1.3.61), implying that a great man of the church has much the same responsibility for spreading largess as secular lords. It may be distasteful to hear of a man of the cloth behaving corruptly or at least in a way that sidles up to corruption, but this is how authoritarian governments—and what else is a medieval or early modern monarchy but authoritarian?—usually operate.

Act 1, Scene 4 (898-901, Wolsey presides as “monarch” during a courtly masque, and correctly espies King Henry amongst the masquers, who are also his courtiers; King Henry dances with Anne Boleyn and is quite taken with her fine appearance.)

Now a courtly masque unfolds, with Cardinal Wolsey playing the role of monarch and King Henry one of the masquers. [18] In it, the Cardinal is tasked with choosing which disguised person is King Henry himself. He chooses correctly, and turns over to him the place of honor. This action elicits from Henry the statement, “You are a churchman, or—I’ll tell you, Cardinal— / I should judge now unhappily” (901, 1.4.88-89). Henry’s statement is lighthearted, but there is menace in it: this man of humble origins is dangerously close to the king. Even in a pageant, Henry IV’s dictum applies: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” [19]

At the end of the spring 1522 courtly performance, [20] King Henry asks a fateful question: “What fair lady’s that?” (901, 2.1.91), and he receives the answer that the pretty lady is Anne Boleyn, who waits upon Queen Catharine. [21] He is instantly drawn to her.

ACT 2

Act 2, Scene 1 (901-05, Buckingham’s trial for treason is discussed by two gentlemen; Buckingham reflects as he goes to the executioner’s block, and then does the standard things one might expect: says he is not guilty, pardons his enemies, and proclaims his continued loyalty to the King; rumors fly about King Henry’s supposed scruples concerning his marriage to Catharine of Aragon.)

A First and Second Gentleman compare what they know about Buckingham’s trial. The emphasis is on the manner in which the great lord has conducted himself throughout and on the malice and envy shown by Cardinal Wolsey. Says the First Gentleman, “whoever the King favors, / The Card’nal instantly will find employment— / And far enough from court, too” (902, 2.1.47-49). The Second Gentleman notes that while the people love Buckingham, the same cannot be said of Wolsey: “All the commons / Hate him perniciously and, o’my conscience, / Wish him ten fathom deep” (902, 2.1.49-51). Both see that the Cardinal’s machinations are at the root of Buckingham’s downfall. [22]

On his way to the block, Buckingham recounts in a dignified way his tale of being restored to the honor of his house by Henry VII only to see that honor stripped away by the king’s son, Henry VIII. His father the 2^nd Duke, of course, had died while rebelling against Richard III in 1483, betrayed, as he says, by his servant Banister (904, 2.1.109, see 100-35). [23] The son seems to assert his righteousness, if not strictly “innocence,” by allying his image with that of his father.

The Duke’s final advice has to do with liberality of counsel: even your friends, he says, “when they once perceive / The least rub in your fortunes, fall away / Like water from ye …” (904, 2.1.128-30). Nevertheless, the Duke’s final speech praises the King graciously, as such speeches generally do, the aim being to avoid punitive measures against one’s family.

The first scene closes with the information that King Henry is rumored to be expressing “a scruple” (905, 2.1.157) about his marriage to Catharine of Aragon. That scruple, as the Norton editor points out in footnote 2 for pg. 905, regards the fact that Henry’s elder brother Arthur, the crown prince, was initially married to Catharine, but in 1509 (seven years after Arthur died in 1502 at the age of 15), Henry married his former sister-in-law. But the real reason, thinks the first gentleman, is that the ambitious Cardinal Wolsey is preparing “to revenge him on the Emperor / For not bestowing on him, at his asking, / The archbishopric of Toledo …” (905, 2.1.161-63). [24]

Act 2, Scene 2 (905-09, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Lord Chamberlain denounce Wolsey; they blame him for introducing trouble between King Henry and his virtuous wife: Wolsey wants Henry to marry the sister of the King of France; Henry bristles at Norfolk and Suffolk disturbing his private time, but extends a warm welcome to Wolsey and Campeius; Henry plans to divorce Catharine, even though, as he reveals to Gardiner, he appreciates her virtue.)

Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Lord Chamberlain get together to hash out their observations about the present proceedings. Norfolk refers to Wolsey as operating like Fortune’s child: “The King-Cardinal, / That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune, / Turns what he list” (906, 2.2.18-20). What exactly is Wolsey up to? He means to maneuver the King into marrying the French King’s sister, the Duchess of Alençon. Norton footnote 5 for pg. 906 tells us that such a marriage would bring the English and French kings back together in amity and thereby injure the standing of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Underlying the noblemen’s anger at Cardinal Wolsey is their strong class-based resentment of his rise to power. Norfolk again sums it up best: he worries, he says, that “this imperious man will work us all / From princes into pages. All men’s honors / Lie like one lump before him, to be fashioned / Into what pitch he please” (906, 2.2.45-48). As the early modern monarch Henry continues centralizing power in his hands, it seems, his noblemen have begun to feel the insecurity of even such strong positions as the ones they hold.

It doesn’t help that the King practically tosses them out on their aristocratic ears when they intrude on his solitude. He exclaims, “How dare you thrust yourselves / Into my private meditations?” (907, 2.2.63-64) But then he receives Cardinals Wolsey and Campeius warmly. He does not say to them, as he says to Suffolk and Norfolk, “We are busy. Go” (907, 2.2.78). Ouch!

King Henry looks to Cardinal Wolsey for comfort amidst his gossiping and sniping lords (907, 2.2.72-74), and both men are set to go forward with the divorce proceedings against Queen Catharine. Just how dangerously misplaced Henry’s trust is, we can catch by listening in on the conversation between Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeius from Rome. [25] When the Roman cardinal asks him to verify his reason for transferring a certain Richard Pace away from his position as secretary to King Henry, Wolsey is not shy about his reason: “He was a fool, / For he would needs be virtuous” (909, 2.2.130-31). Wolsey’s secretary, Stephen Gardiner, now becomes the King’s new secretary. [26]

This is followed by Wolsey’s prideful declaration spoken in proffered fellowship with Cardinal Campeius, “We live not to be griped by meaner persons” (909, 2.2.134). Such a remark seems appropriate only for a prince to say, if anyone at all. At least for Henry, there’s probably some genuine emotion involved in his decision to abandon his virtuous queen, even if he stage-manages his feelings for maximum political effect, as when he says to Stephen Gardiner, “Would it not grieve an able man to leave / So sweet a bedfellow?” (909, 2.2.140-41)

The sort of language just quoted raises an interesting question about discourse at the court of Henry VIII. The King’s maneuvering against Catharine of Aragon and some of his male enemies is at times ruthless, and the stakes could scarcely be higher. Since Henry separated from Catharine in 1531, when he was 40 and she was 46, there may be some nostalgia here for passion long gone, but this vain King is surely not suggesting that he is no longer “able” sexually, so how should we take his utterance to Wolsey? How much of what he and others say amounts to double-speak designed to cover self-serving shifts?

In his critical text Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt argues that the early modern era is distinguished from the medieval period in the extent to which artists, courtiers, and politicians tended to “fashion” and experiment with their identities through various species of performance-related activities. [27] It makes sense to apply that concept of fashioning or constructing identity to the age’s powerful kings and queens as well. At his best, Henry VIII certainly had the skills of his great courtiers, officials, and nobles. We could say the same of Queen Elizabeth I, too, with her carefully produced “cult of the Virgin Queen” image.

Act 2, Scene 3 (909-12, Anne Boleyn says she sympathizes with Queen Catharine, but she also receives sage, saucy advice from a worldly older woman about what she would willingly do to become Henry’s queen; the Lord Chamberlain soon informs Anne that King Henry has declared her “Marchioness of Pembroke.”)

In the third scene, we hear a partly comic discussion between an elderly lady of the court and Anne Boleyn. “I swear, ‘tis better to be lowly born / And range with humble livers in content / Than to be perked up in a glist’ring grief / And wear a golden sorrow” (909, 2.3.19-22), declares Anne, adding “I would not be a queen” (910, 2.3.24). To this elegant denial, the old woman offers only scorn: “I would,” she says, “And venture maidenhead for’t; and so would you, / For all this spice of your hypocrisy” (910, 2.3.24-26).

So the conversation continues, both before and after the Lord Chamberlain enters and informs the young lady that King Henry has decided to honor her with the title Marchioness of Pembroke and a substantial income of 1000 pounds per year, which would be worth perhaps nearly half a million pounds today (911, 2.3.60-65). [28] Anne seems both fearful and excited at the same time—an understandable response to the attentions of so great a figure as Henry VIII.

The Lord Chamberlain speaks prophetically without knowing it when, adding a serious note when he enters and says of Anne, “who knows yet / But from this lady may proceed a gem / To lighten all this isle” (911, 2.3.77-79).

Act 2, Scene 4 (912-18, Queen Catharine defends herself sharply against Wolsey, but then, disdainful of the domineering Cardinal, she walks out on the Church court’s divorce proceedings; Henry absolves Wolsey of undue influence in urging the divorce, taking the blame himself; the proceedings are left unsettled because of Catharine’s absence; Henry feels “played” by the Roman cardinals, and longs for the return of the sympathetic Cranmer.)

The divorce proceedings begin, and in spite of the old saw that those who defend themselves in court have a fool for a client, Queen Catharine proves herself an able rhetorician. What the Queen wants is time to get some advice from her native Spain, but Cardinal Wolsey has a vested interest in keeping her from any such counsel.

About the Cardinal’s intentions, Queen Catharine has no illusions, and confronts him with fortitude: “I do believe, / Induced by potent circumstances, that / You are mine enemy, and make my challenge / You shall not be my judge” (914, 2.4.73-76). The Queen’s appeal is to Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici, 1523-34), not to anyone in this English court.

Catharine accuses Cardinal Wolsey of having a heart “crammed with arrogancy, spleen, and pride” (915, 2.4.108), and says further, “You … / … now are mounted / Where powers are your retainers and your words, / Domestics to you, serve your will as’t please / Yourself pronounce their office” (915, 2.4.109-13). We might suggest that she is attributing great impiety to the Cardinal here, in that only God should have such a relationship to authority and language, with the latter all but instantly being, as the Norton editor’s footnote 9 to pg. 915 says, transformed into actual deeds. In other words, “Let there be light!” saith Thomas Wolsey, and it is done.

With this and with her demand that the case be judged by the Pope, not her accusers, Catharine of Aragon makes an imperious, unstoppable exit from the court. Her words at this juncture are magnificent: she says to Griffith, “I will not tarry; no, nor ever more / Upon this business my appearance make / In any of their courts” (915, 2.4.128-30). Not even Henry VIII could top that!

The powerful King Henry’s response to this action is remarkably mild: he says only, “Go thy ways, Kate …” (915, 2.4.130). Catharine’s virtue and nobility together are a force of nature. What else can the royal gentleman say? We might note that Henry waits to make even this statement until the Queen has exited the court with her attendants.

What follows is a bit of court theater between King Henry and Cardinal Wolsey, in which Wolsey earnestly asks the King “whether ever I / Did broach this business to your highness …” (916, 2.4.145-46). Henry duly lets Wolsey off the hook, and proceeds to offer a public explanation for his actions, calling upon the Bishop of Lincoln to testify to his deep anxiety over the fact that Henry has married his widowed sister-in-law and regards it as a sin: “Thus hulling in / The wild sea of my conscience” (917, 2.4.196-97), insists Henry, he made his way toward divorcing Catharine.

When the court is adjourned due to Catharine’s absence, King Henry believes he is being played by the assembled cardinals in the interest of Rome, and this leads him to wish for the return of his trusted supporter Thomas Cranmer, soon to be Archbishop of Canterbury (917-18, 2.4.232-38). This same man would go on to have a distinguished career during Henry’s reign, but would then be burnt at the stake in 1556 by Henry’s Catholic daughter Queen Mary for his adherence to the Protestant cause. [29]

ACT 3

Act 3, Scene 1 (918-22, Catharine at first resists the counsel of Wolsey and Campeius to stop trying to prevent Henry from divorcing her, but ultimately, she submits—a strong woman crushed by larger forces.)

By now, Cardinal Wolsey is at his height and Queen Catharine recognizes how far she has fallen. She has become another portrait in the grand de casibus virorum illustrium pattern so common in medieval and early modern European literature. Little does Wolsey know that in the second scene, he, too, will join the same gallery of those who have lost Fortune’s favor.

The opening of the scene presents to us a queen still in strong command of her own image and bearing. Wolsey tries to shoehorn Catharine into a more private recess in her apartments, but she rebuffs this clumsy effort with the declaration, “There’s nothing I have done yet, o’my conscience, / Deserves a corner” (918, 3.1.30-31). When Wolsey tries to flatter her in fine Latin, addressing her as “regina serenissima” (the Norton editor glosses this phrase accurately as “most serene queen”) her wonderfully poised and witty response is, “O good my lord, no Latin. / … / The willing’st sin I ever yet committed / May be absolved in English” (919, 3.1.48-49). [30]

The two cardinals offer false good will and veiled threats. Catharine’s self-defense includes making herself out to be less capable than she is, as she refers to her “weak wit” (919, 3.1.71). She also requests basic legal representation: “good your graces,” she says, “Let me have time and counsel for my cause. / Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless” (919, 3.1.77-79). Catharine also says boldly, “I dare not make myself so guilty / To give up willingly that noble title / Your master wed me to” (921, 3.1.138-40). She is telling these powerful men that if they want her crown, they’ll have to take it from her—she won’t make it easy.

The Queen does a fine job of exposing the cardinals’ subterfuges in the service of Henry VIII’s sham “trial” of her. She will trust no one in England, saying bluntly, “They that must weigh out my afflictions, / They that my trust must grow to, live not here” (920, 3.1.87-88). Catharine’s direct challenge of English probity generally is remarkable, as she rounds upon Wolsey and says, “Would I had never trod this English earth / Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it! / Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts” (921, 3.1.142-44).

In the end, however, there is no way out. Catharine is surrounded by pontifical jackals and menaced with the loss of Henry’s affection: “The King loves you; / Beware you lose it not” (921, 3.1.170-71), says Cardinal Campeius to her. There is nothing left for Catharine but to say, “Do what ye will, my lords, and pray forgive me …” (921, 3.1.174). Even this imperious queen must take up the posture of “a woman lacking wit” (176) and consign her future to the powerful men who have been set upon her to do King Henry’s bidding.

Act 3, Scene 2 (922-33, Courtiers reflect upon Wolsey’s falling out of grace with the King, and they also talk about Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, whose coronation is imminent; Wolsey enters, disturbed; King Henry hands him a raft of papers exposing his dishonesty and avarice, and the Cardinal knows his fall is inevitable; he reflects on his life and ponders his spiritual state; Wolsey also offers Cromwell counsel about how to gain the King’s confidence.)

Now Cardinal Wolsey’s enemies appear to be encircling him—Norfolk, Surrey, Suffolk and the Lord Chamberlain open the scene by assessing the Cardinal’s current position and their own prospects for unseating him. Surrey’s stated reason for hating Wolsey is that the man was responsible for the downfall of his father-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham. Norfolk believes that presenting a unified front will sweep the Cardinal away, but the Lord Chamberlain is more circumspect: the key thing is to “Bar his access to th’ King” since Wolsey has, says the Lord Chamberlain, “a witchcraft / Over the King in’s tongue” (922, 3.2.17-19).

It is known, as Suffolk points out, that some letters Cardinal Wolsey intended only for Pope Clement VII have been misdelivered, and Henry has seen them. In those materials, Wolsey was trying to get the Pope to delay Catharine’s divorce and thereby keep Henry from furthering his affair with Anne Boleyn (922-23, 3.2.30-36). Wolsey doesn’t know it yet, but in truth, the King has already secretly married his sweetheart Anne, so as the Lord Chamberlian points out, all the Cardinal’s scheming has been for naught (923, 3.2.38-42). [31]

We also find out that Cardinal Campeius has departed back to Rome without settling the matter of Henry’s divorce from Queen Catharine, and that soon-to-be Archbishop Cranmer has returned from Europe with affirmations that what Henry is doing is legitimate (923, 3.2.56-60, 64-66). The upshot is that Catharine is now to be demoted to the titles “Princess Dowager” and “widow to Prince Arthur” (923-24, 3.2.70-71).

Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell enter, and the lords observe the interaction from a distance. Cromwell tells him that he has already delivered a packet of letters to the King and that he seemed to be in consternation over the contents. Wolsey must intuit that he has included material not meant for Henry. Even so, when Cromwell departs, he’s still scheming against Henry’s companion: “No, I’ll no Anne Boleyns for him; / There’s more in’t than fair visage. Boleyn? / No, we’ll no Boleyns” (924, 3.2.87-89). Wolsey thinks Henry should marry the King of France’s sister, the Duchess of Alençon. He prefers a French-English alliance. [32]

At the height of his power, then, Cardinal Wolsey presumes to be the arbiter of Henry’s romantic affairs, and the only true shepherd of his foreign policy as well. Wolsey cannot stand this woman who has caught Henry’s eye. She is, in his view, “A spleeny Lutheran,” [33] and her ally Thomas Cranmer is “An heretic, an arch-one” (924, 3.2.99, 102). He considers them enemies of the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, King Henry is thinking unpleasant thoughts about the Cardinal’s accumulation of personal wealth. Those letters misdelivered into his hands contained, among other things, an inventory of the precious-metal plate owned by Wolsey (925, 3.2.120-28). Why is this man of the cloth accumulating so much private wealth? Henry must be asking himself. How can Cardinal Wolsey be loyal to the King’s interests if he’s so attentive to his own betterment?

The exchange that follows is initially decorous, with Henry reminding Wolsey that his own predecessor, King Henry VII, honored him and that he himself has made the Cardinal “The prime man of the state” (926, 3.2.162). But civility soon gives way to threatening bluntness. Giving him in quick succession a few of the incriminating papers, the angry and incredulous Henry offers his parting shot: “Read o’er this, / And, after, this—and then to breakfast with / What appetite you have” (927, 3.2.201-03).

Left alone, Cardinal Wolsey can do no other than reflect on King Henry’s rage: “What should this mean?” (927, 3.2.203) When he sees the contents of the papers that the King has returned to him, Wolsey immediately realizes his salad days are over: “‘Tis th’account / Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together / For mine own ends …” (927, 3.2.210-12). As he confesses to himself, with this wealth he had intended to make himself pope and pay off his allies in Rome.

But the worst of it is the fact that the King has searched into his conspiracy to delay the divorce with Catharine. This is damning, and he responds hauntingly, “I shall fall / Like a bright exhalation in the evening, / And no man see me more” (927, 3.2.225-27). The Norton editor glosses “exhalation” as “shooting star.” That’s a lovely figure for an ugly political and personal reality.

There ensues a bitter argument between the Cardinal and his enemies Norfolk, Suffolk, and Surrey, with them demanding that he surrender the great seal that goes with his office and Wolsey peremptorily refusing to do so: “That seal / You ask with such a violence, the King, / … with his own hand gave me …” (928, 3.2.245-47). “Envy,” declares Wolsey, lies at the root of his enemies’ gloating (928, 3.2.239). But calling him a traitor and murderer, the lords recount Cardinal Wolsey’s numerous offenses, all of them implying either subterfuge for personal ends or abuse of King Henry’s authority (929-30, 3.2.302-32). Essentially, for Wolsey to have put his own interests before the King’s was treasonous.

Surrey’s broadside pins on Wolsey a charge of sheer avarice or greed, facilitated by extortion. Like that of the other lords, Surrey’s resentment runs deep in part because Wolsey’s low birth and great power present an intolerable threat to the aristocracy: he speaks of “our despised nobility” and “our issues [sons]— / Who, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen …” (929, 3.2.291-92).

What follows this argument when Cardinal Wolsey is alone is classic after the manner of de casibus rhetoric. [34] The disgraced man sums up his career to himself, “I have ventured, / Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, / This many summers in a sea of glory, / But far beyond my depth” (930, 3.2.358-61). The “bladder,” Wolsey goes on to elucidate, was “high-blown pride” (930, 3.2.361), the very sin that others in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s play have attributed to him all along. His de casibus-inspired speech as a whole, with its turn to poetics in the service of honesty, appears to be the beginning of a sincere casting-off of that sin of pride.

Knowledge brings more stinging sorrow and humiliation. Wolsey learns that Sir Thomas More has replaced him as Lord Chancellor [35] and that Cranmer, whom he considers a heretic, has been made Archbishop of Canterbury. [36] In addition, the Cardinal learns that King Henry has married Anne Boleyn. [37] His plans have gone awry, wrecking him in the process.

Wolsey’s response to all this is, in part, “All my glories / In that one woman I have lost for ever” (932, 3.2.408-09), and his main concern seems to be to protect his ally Cromwell and shield him from King Henry’s displeasure (932, 3.2.414-17). Wolsey seems resolved to concentrate on the next world now that he’s been stripped of everything in this one. At the outset of his conversation with Cromwell, he had already said, “I know myself now, and I feel within me / A peace above all earthly dignities …” (931, 3.2.378-80).

The peace that Wolsey is talking about is that great curative, a newly clear conscience. But there is also bitterness and self-reproach in his concluding words to Cromwell: he says, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal / I served my King, he would not in mine age / Have left me naked to mine enemies” (933, 3.2.455-57). With these words, the once great Cardinal Wolsey’s fall from grace is complete.

Why did Cardinal Wolsey fall? It makes sense here to quote the British 19th-century Liberal Party politician Lord Acton, who writes,

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. [38]

The above quotation seems more precise than the old medieval saw, “Pride goeth before a fall.” Acton’s Law flows from the older saying, but it is easier to draw out the political implications from what its author says: holders of great offices tend to conflate their own desires and ambitions with the powers of the office they hold, and even with the good of the people subject to those powers. Authoritarian rulers invariably confound the interests and well-being of the nation they rule with their own interests and well-being.

Cardinal Wolsey, we may surmise, came to suppose that his own ambition to rise in the Catholic Church was consonant with the good of the Church and that the authority he wielded in King Henry VIII’s name was one with his own interest to rise in English society and politics. This man of humble origins who achieved dizzying heights of power, then, put himself in an impossible position, trying to square the circle of these two “goods.”

Manifestly, King Henry did not consider his own interests compatible with the imperatives of the Catholic Church, and he eventually ran out of patience with a servant, however exalted, who not only enriched himself by means of his office but also presumed to settle his romantic affairs for him.

Acton’s Law aside, the Shakespeare-and-Fletcher portrait we get of Cardinal Wolsey is not that of a thoroughly bad man, and certainly not that of a monster. There is dignity in Wolsey’s willingness and even eagerness to put his earthly authorities behind him and seek the absolution of heaven. He died of an illness late in 1530, which spared him the ordeal of being put on trial for treason.

ACT 4

Act 4, Scene 1 (933-36, it’s a time of strange forsakings and changes: gentlemen say Catharine of Aragon is banished to Kimbolton; Anne Boleyn is crowned queen and the procession returns home; the disgraced Wolsey’s York Place is renamed Whitehall.)

This scene evokes the “strange fashion of forsaking” that Henry VIII’s machinations established in Tudor England. One of his courtiers, Sir Thomas Wyatt, was the author of the phrase just quoted in his mid-1530s poem “They flee from me, that sometime did me seek.” [39] It would be difficult to find a better phrase to describe the changes wrought by Henry’s desire for a male heir.

The various gentlemen whose voices traverse this scene tell us that Queen Catharine “was divorced, / And the late marriage made of none effect …” (933, 4.1.32-33). For her failure to appear during the divorce proceedings, Catharine has been shunted off to Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire, which will be the location of her death from cancer in January 1536.

As for Anne Boleyn, the gentlemen have gathered to behold her June 1533 coronation procession, for which the text offers fairly detailed instructions. The second gentleman is lavish in his praise, saying, “Our King has all the Indies in his arms, / And more, and richer, when he strains that lady. / I cannot blame his conscience” (934, 4.1.45-47). The last sentence of this effusion could be taken as somewhat suggestive of Henry VIII’s placing sexual desire above marital loyalty, but perhaps that would be reading too harshly.

The gentlemen observers go on to describe the giddiness of the commonfolk at Anne’s crowning. The third gentleman says he found a spot in the procession, but it was so crowded that “a finger / Could not be wedged in more” and that as for the crowd, he is “stifled / With the mere rankness of their joy” (935, 4.1.57-59). The Norton editor’s footnote 6 for pg. 935 glosses the first part of this quotation suggestively, saying that such passages call to our attention “the sexual energy somehow connected with, and unleashed by, Anne.” This near-fertility goddess, then, returns to York Place as Henry’s queen. [40]

It is the first gentleman, serving as unofficial censor for King Henry, who points out that “York Place” place must be called Whitehall, now that the former Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York, Cardinal Wolsey, is no longer its resident (936, 4.1.95-97). [41]

Act 4, Scene 2 (936-41, Griffith informs the ailing Catharine of Wolsey’s death; she at first speaks harshly of the Cardinal, but then charitably; the sleeping Catharine is treated to a vision of joyful spirits; her dying request to Ambassador Caputius, sent from her nephew, Emperor Charles, is to take good care of her servants and speak on her daughter Mary’s behalf with King Henry.)

Act 4, Scene 2 takes us from our observation of Anne Boleyn’s coronation procession to the seriously ill former queen Catharine in her Kimbolton apartments. Although Shakespeare and Fletcher telescope the temporal aspect of this scene, in real life around two-and-a-half years would have passed between Anne’s coronation in June 1533 and, say, mid-1535 through January 7, 1536, when Catharine died from cancer. [42]

Griffith recounts for Catharine the death of the disgraced Wolsey, and her reaction at first is highly critical: “He was a man / Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking / Himself with princes …” (937, 4.2.33-35). But almost at once, she accepts Griffith’s offer to speak fairly of the man. Griffith makes the proverbial comment, “Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues / We write in water” (937, 4.2.45-46), [43] and reminds Catharine that whatever his faults, Wolsey was a true scholar, generous in giving, and, towards the end of his life, magnificent in his acceptance of a newly humbled condition (938, 4.2.48-68 inclusive).

Catharine responds generously, with a variation on an earlier pious sentiment. She now says of Wolsey, whom she admits to having hated, “Peace be with him” (938, 4.2.75). With that thought, we are on to the main significance of the second scene, which is to relate the manner of Catharine’s departure from the world. She is granted in her sleep a visionary invitation to a banquet, which seems to signify purity, joy, and her salvation to come. The stage directions describe this vision in some detail, with white-clad spirits holding a garland over her head, which they pass one to another (938-39, 4.2.83ff). [44]

When Catharine awakens from this masque-like dream, she receives a visit at King Henry’s instance from her nephew Caputius, ambassador for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Catharine’s requests are simple: bring up her daughter Mary well, and take care of the female and male servants who have so long attended her.

Finally, to her attendant Patience, Catharine says, “Strew me over / With maiden flowers, that all the world may know / I was a chaste wife to my grave” (940-41, 4.2.168-70). Shakespeare’s Queen Catharine (Catalina de Aragón was her Spanish name) dies as she had lived: a paragon of Franciscan Catholic virtue. [45] While Shakespeare and Fletcher hardly seem interested in “trashing” King Henry VIII, it is hard to ignore the damage that King Henry VIII’s image suffers from the dignified portrayal in life and the pious passing of Queen Catharine.

ACT 5

Act 5, Scene 1 (941-45, Cranmer, the newly invested Archbishop of Canterbury, is fearful at being surrounded by his enemies, who consider him a heretic; King Henry, who has just been told Anne is in labor, promises to help Cranmer and gives him a ring he can show to invoke royal authority before the Privy Council; the birth of a female child is announced to Henry.)

Act 5, Scene 1 threatens to present the audience with the de casibus-inspireddownfall of yet another great man in Henry’s orbit, Thomas Cranmer. The scene, which sets up the play’s representation of the 1543 Prebendaries’ Plot against Archbishop Cranmer, [46] begins with Gardiner confiding in Lovell about his dislike for the new queen. Gardiner is glad that she is about to give birth, but would just as well that she not long outlive this duty. His feelings are similarly uncharitable towards Thomas Cranmer. Says Gardiner of the Queen and Cranmer, nothing will be right in England until “Cranmer, Cromwell—her two hands—and she / Sleep in their graves” (941, 5.1.31-32).

Lovell does not seem to share Gardiner’s antipathy for Cranmer, Cromwell, or the Queen, and indeed he seems to provide some diplomatic “grease” in speaking with these great lords and then with the King. This makes sense especially because, as already noted in this commentary, the historical figure Sir Thomas Lovell died in 1524, [47] so he was no longer alive to see the unfolding of the 1543 Prebendaries’ Plot.

In any case, we may remember that the Catholic Cardinal Wolsey had called Cranmer a heretic in Act 3, Scene 2, and now Gardiner calls him the same: he is said to be “A most arch-heretic” (942, 5.1.45) who must be dealt with, and quickly. Cranmer is beset by deadly enemies, and it looks as if the pattern with which we are familiar is beginning to reassert itself. Leaving aside historical fact for a moment and dealing solely with dramatic representation, we might ask, will Cranmer go the way of all high-status flesh according to the de casibus tradition?

Cranmer is fearful when King Henry takes him aside to inform him that various complaints have determined him to call his new archbishop before the council and that he must in the meantime reside in the Tower of London (942, 5.1.91-108). However, we soon realize that King Henry’s intentions towards Cranmer are friendly and even that there is a budding romance plot in the way the King deals with the challenge to Cranmer’s authority as archbishop. Henry promises Cranmer that he is keeping his enemies on a short leash, telling him, “They shall no more prevail than we give way to” (944, 5.1.143).

King Henry will play the role of a savior, giving the beleaguered man a ring by which the King’s favor may be known and thereby get him out of a dangerous confrontation with his opponents. It seems almost as if Cranmer is an Arthurian knight on his way to an ordeal at the Chapel Perilous, where a magic artifact will come to his rescue just in time. (Shakespeare’s readers will no doubt recall other “ring plots” in his plays.) [48] The King’s gesture (historically factual, according to Holinshed’s Chronicles) [49] would naturally appeal to the Protestant sensibilities of Shakespeare’s audience, which had come to see Thomas Cranmer as a martyr for the cause against Catholic oppression.

At the end of Act 5, Scene 1, the old woman who attends the Queen informs King Henry that a child has been born, and introduces the matter of gender in comic fashion. Henry is desperate to hear that he has at last been given a legitimate son to inherit his throne, [50] and the old woman dangerously fans his hopes. She declares the new child to be “a lovely boy” (945, 5.1.164), but immediately has to confess that “‘tis a girl / Promises boys hereafter” (945, 5.2.165-66).

This old woman must be a colorful character because after a performance like that, one would think she would be happy to have escaped the King’s wrath, but the scene ends with her pursuing Henry to complain about his measly tip of “an hundred marks” (945, 5.2.170).

The date of the future Queen Elizabeth I’s birth was September 7, 1533. Her elder sister by Catharine of Aragon, Mary, had been born on February 18, 1516. Mary, a woman of profoundly Catholic convictions, would become queen in 1553 upon the death of her little brother King Edward VI, [51] who reigned only from 1547-53, and who would be succeeded by Elizabeth upon her passing in 1558.

Act 5, Scene 2 (945-50, Archbishop Cranmer is first humiliated by his enemies when they shut him out of a Privy Council session, and then exalted with the aid of King Henry’s ring-token; Henry soon enters and commands his councilors to make peace with Cranmer, whom he names as godfather to little Princess Elizabeth.)

Archbishop Cranmer is forced to wait outside the Privy Council chamber with common fellows. This detail alone incenses King Henry, as it probably should. The Lord Chancellor [52] begins to make his case against Cranmer, who is rebuked for his teachings tending towards Reformation theology: these are, in the Chancellor’s view, “new opinions, / Diverse and dangerous …” (946, 5.2.51-52; see 42-53). He is informed that since otherwise nobody will feel free to offer evidence against him, he must reside in the Tower of London (947, 5.2.85-91).

This exchange goes on for a while, but in the end, Cranmer simply produces the ring his royal supporter had given him, saying, “By virtue of that ring, I take my cause / Out of the gripes of cruel men and give it / To a most noble judge, the King my master” (948, 5.2.133-35). King Henry rounds off this piece of theater by taking his seat and sorely rebuking the members of the Council.

When Surrey tries to calm him with a courtly “May it please your grace,” King Henry cuts him short with “No, sir, it does not please me. / I had thought I had had men of some understanding / And wisdom of my council, but I find none” (949, 5.2.168-70). Henry proceeds to insist that all Council members embrace Archbishop Cranmer and put aside their grievances. Which, of course, they do, knowing with whom they deal. The scene ends with Henry longing for the christening of his new daughter, Elizabeth (950, 5.2.211-14).

Act 5, Scene 3 (950-52, the Porter and his man try to keep the crowd in check—they have all come to see the christening of Henry and Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth; the porter and the Lord Chamberlain complain about the size of the crowd.)

The common people annoy the porter to no end—he seems to think of himself and his companions as being under siege—but they come nonetheless to enjoy the King’s hospitality, such as it is. Something of Anne’s “fertility goddess” appeal continues into this scene, with the porter marveling at the effect the whole affair is having on the multitude: “Bless me, what a fry of fornication is at door! / On my Christian conscience, this one christening will beget a / thousand: here will be father, godfather, and all together” (951, 5.3.33-35).

The Lord Chamberlain enters and exclaims, “From all parts they are coming, / As if we kept a fair here!” (951, 5.3.61-62) And the porter characterizes them as, “the youths that thunder at a playhouse / and fight for bitten apples …” (951, 5.3.54-55). That sounds like a certain segment of Shakespeare’s audience! On the whole, the participants in this conversation seem to be wondering how a country so full of coarse, common folk could possibly produce England’s exalted nobility.

Act 5, Scene 4 (952-254, at Elizabeth’s christening, Archbishop Cranmer delivers a prophecy about England’s great future under Elizabeth I and James I; King Henry declares the christening a holiday for all the people.)

The playwright moves briskly to the christening itself. As a Tudor-era parent, King Henry and Anne would not have attended for the act of christening itself, but they appear to be waiting in Greenwich Palace for the arrival of the large deputation involved in the Chapel-centered christening ceremony. [53]

The prophecy uttered by Archbishop Cranmer probably doubles as Shakespeare and Fletcher’s own appreciation of their late sovereign: “She shall be loved and feared. Her own shall bless her; / Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, / And hang their heads with sorrow” (953, 5.4.30-32). [54]

In Elizabeth’s realm, says Cranmer, “God shall be truly known …,” and she will leave her kingdom to a successor who “Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, / And so stand fixed” (953, 5.4.36, 46-47). That, of course, would be King James I (also known as James VI of Scotland), the son of Mary Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth had long imprisoned and would execute in 1587 for conspiring against her in the Anthony Babington-led plot of 1586. [55]

But all that is far into the future, and King Henry concludes the action by declaring a holiday: This day, no man think / ‘Has business at his house, for all shall stay: / This little one shall make it holiday” (954, 5.4.74-76)

It is Cranmer’s prophecy about a rosy future that lends this 1613 play an air of romance that makes it kindred to other dramas that Shakespeare composed late in his career: Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The happy conclusion mellows our recollection of the misfortune and sorrow that have marked the downfall of the play’s great characters, mingling the whole into a bittersweet quality. [56]

The achievement of this effect, we can see, is so important to Shakespeare and Fletcher that they gleefully wrench the play’s temporal scheme backwards about a decade. After all, Act 5, Scenes 1-2 centered on a conspiracy that occurred in 1543, while the final two scenes deal with Elizabeth’s birth and christening, which happened in 1533. We could almost lose sight of the awful fact that by 1536—still seven years before the Prebendaries’ Plot—Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, will have long since gone to the executioner’s block on Tower Green.

Act 5, Epilogue (954, the epilogue centers the playwright and actors’ hopes on the women in the audience—they will appreciate Shakespeare’s representation of Henry VIII’s virtuous but ill-treated Queen Catharine of Aragon; the men in the audience, says the epilogue-speaker, will take their cue from the women, and so all will be pleased.)

The epilogue-speaker reminds female viewers to appreciate the play mainly because of its fine representation of the virtuous Queen Catharine of Aragon (and, as the Norton editor suggests in footnote 2 for pg. 954, possibly Princess Elizabeth and Anne Boleyn), and male viewers to applaud by way of following their ladies’ example. We may conclude that this splendid woman, and the guileful Cardinal Wolsey with whom she engages in a bitter contest, are really the focal points of the play rather than King Henry VIII himself. The latter is an important figure, but he is not the emotional center of this historical drama.

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Histories + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93859-3.

Document Timestamp: 12/16/2025 2:14 PM

ENDNOTES

*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.

[1] The formal Latin phrase de casibus comes from a collection of stories by Giovanni Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, “concerning the falls/accidents of illustrious men.” A Latin manuscript copy is available to view from the German-based repository MDZ. In one form or another, though, the de casibus tradition goes all the way back to classical times. What else is Plutarch doing in Parallel Lives, with his side-by-side biographical sketches of famous politicians, rulers and generals?

[2] Lady Fortune is the medieval equivalent of the Greek goddess Tyche, chance. An excellent early medieval treatment is that of Boethius in The Consolation of Philosophy. See Book II, Ch. 2, “Fortune’s Malice.” Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 9/1/2024. See Also this image of Fortune’s Wheel from a French translation of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. Wikipedia. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[3] See Mirror for Magistrates, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. HathiTrust. Accessed 12/10/2025.

[4] See, for example, the 2019 Guardian article “AI ‘reveals Shakespeare and Fletcher’s different roles in Henry VIII’.” Accessed 9/1/2024.

[5] See Historic Royal Palaces’ “The Field of the Cloth of Gold. Accessed 9/1/2024. See also Historic UK’s entry “Field of the Cloth of Gold.” Norton footnote 2 for pg. 885 mentions that Buckingham, did, in fact, attend this event.

[6] By “the Beaufort line” is meant a number of John of Gaunt’s legitimized heirs. His descendants by sometime mistress and later wife Katherine Swynford were called the Beauforts.

[7] See HistoryExtra on Wolsey’s achievements as Cardinal and Chief Minister of Henry VIII. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[8] On the Holy League of Julius II, see Weapons and Warfare, “War of the Holy League, 1510-1514.” Accessed 9/1/2024.

[9] See Sir Francis Bacon’s Essay “Of Great Place.” Renascence Editions. Accessed 9/1/2024. A fuller version of the quotation is, “All rising to great place is by a winding sta[i]r; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man’s self, whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed.”

[10] On Buckingham’s ancestor, see “Henry Stafford, Second Duke of Buckingham.” Warsoftheroses.com. “Who’s Who?” section. Accessed 9/1/2024. See also Alison Weir’s Henry VIII: The King and His Court. Ballantine Books, 2008. It was said, writes Weir, that “the king’s lack of a male heir had led people to speculate that Buckingham, a descendant of Edward III, might be named his successor, or even attempt to seize the crown for himself” (226).

[11] On Catharine of Aragon, see “Catherine of Aragon” on Englishmonarchs.co.uk. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[12] For brief introductions to these rebel figures, see “Jack Cade’s Rebellion, 1450” (Britain Express) and Britannica’s entry on Wat Tyler, “The Peasants’ Revolt.” Accessed 12/13/2025.

[13] Perhaps, though, it isn’t just paranoia. In the Letters & Papers of Henry VIII (National Archives), there is mention of what Alison Weir calls “evidence” for the idea that Buckingham planned to assassinate the King with a knife. See also Sarah Stockdale’s dissertation, “Blood on the Crown: Treason in the Royal Kinship Structure of Fifteenth-Century England.” U of Winchester, Dec. 2018. Holinshed attributes the report of Buckingham’s troubling statements about assassinating the King to his former surveyor, one Charles Knevet. See Boswell-Stone, Walter G. Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared. Wentworth Press, 2019 [repr. of London: Chatto & Windus 1907 ed.]. ISBN-13: 978-0530892863. Henry VIII. 424-507. See pp. 434-438.

[14] On fashion in Tudor times, see “Tudor Fashion.” Royal Museums Greenwich. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[15] Sir Thomas Lovell is Henry VIII’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had supported Henry VII and who died in 1524. His presence in the latter part of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s play is, therefore, anachronistic. Lovell’s presence late in the play may owe something to the name’s gravitas and familiarity: Francis Lovell (1456-c. 1487), who was not related to Sir Thomas but shared his surname, tried to dethrone King Henry VII in 1486. In more recent times, Henry Norris, said to be the son of Sir Edward Norris and Lady Frideswide Lovell, daughter of John, 8^th Baron Lovell, was accused of being one of Anne Boleyn’s lovers and executed. See the Dictionary of National Biography entry on “Sir Thomas Lovell.” Wikisource. Accessed 12/13/2025.

[16] The Lord Chamberlain in 1530 would have been either William Fitzalan, 11^th Earl of Arundel, or Baron William Sandys. Shakespeare has chosen to leave the title generic, perhaps because he himself had worked for a man of that office (Henry Carey, 1^st Baron Hunsdon, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I since his mother was Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary Boleyn), when he was chief playwright for The Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

[17] William Sandys would become Lord Chamberlain in 1530. See “Lord Sandys” at Shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[18] See “History of the Masque Genre.” John Milton’s A Masque or Comus. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[19] Shakespeare, William. The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Continuing to His Death, and Coronation of Henry the Fifth. Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Histories, 3rd ed. 710-78. The line is spoken by King Henry IV at741, 3.1.31.

[20] The actual historical year of the famous “Château Vert” pageant during which Henry seems first to have noticed the beautiful Anne Boleyn was 1522, though not in the play since Buckingham was executed in 1521, and that’s the subject of the next scene. Anne probably met King Henry during the pageant at Cardinal Wolsey’s York Place, but intimacy between them may not have occurred until several years later because Henry was supposedly having an affair with Anne’s sister Mary. See Olivia Longueville’s blog entry “Anne Boleyn: An official debut.” See also “The Château Vert Pageant.” ExploringtheTudors and “Tudor Minute: Château Vert Pageant.” Englandcast.com All accessed 12/11/2025.

[21] Anne’s sister Mary Boleyn was one of the King’s mistresses even before this. See “Anne Boleyn” at Shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 9/1/2024. On Mary Boleyn, see “Mary Boleyn: Biography, Portrait, Facts & Information” at Englishhistory.net. Accessed 12/11/2025.

[22] Edward Stafford (1478-1521), 3^rdDuke of Buckingham, was a member of the King’s Privy Council and exercised other offices as well. His father, Henry Stafford, 2^nd Duke of Buckingham (1455-83), was a close confidant and advisor of King Richard III until a falling out with Richard sundered them in 1483, which led to the 2^nd Duke’s capture and summary execution. See “Edward Stafford, 3^rd Duke of Buckingham.” Britannica.com. See also the Wikipedia entry “Edward Stafford.” Accessed 12/11/2025.

[23] See the entry “Henry Stafford, 2^nd Duke of Buckingham.” Englishmonarchs.co.uk. Accessed 12/11/2025.

[24] This reference is to Catharine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. See “Emperor Charles V—His Life and His World” at Emperorcharlesv.com. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[25] See “Cardinal Campeius” at Shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 9/1/2024. During the most critical point in Henry VIII’s reign (1509-47), his papal adversary was Pope Clement VII (r. 1523-34). New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[26] Cardinal Wolsey’s ally and onetime secretary, Stephen Gardiner, became the King’s new secretary in August 1529, not long before Wolsey’s fall from grace. In 1531, Gardiner would become the Bishop of Winchester. Under Queen Mary, he was appointed Lord Chancellor. See Britannica.com’s brief entry “Stephen Gardiner” and Shakespeareandhistory.com’s “Stephen Gardiner.” Accessed 12/11/2025.

[27] Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. U of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0226306599.

[28] See the nationalarchives.gov.uk currency converter, specific page for 1000 pounds.

[29] See “Thomas Cranmer” at Shakespeareandhistory.com. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[30] Princes were often very learned in classical languages, as was Queen Elizabeth I. See “Elizabeth I and Languages” at the British Library’s European Studies Blog. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[31] Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII. were formally, but secretly, married on Jan. 25, 1533. But there was an even earlier secret marriage or betrothal on November 14, 1532. See Wikipedia entry “Anne Boleyn.” Accessed 12/13/2025.

[32] Wolsey preferred an English-French alliance, mainly to disadvantage the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire and boost England’s role in Europe. See EBSCO Research Starters page, “Wolsey Serves as Lord Chancellor and Cardinal.” EBSCO. Accessed 12/13/2025.

[33] See “Lutheranism” at Britannica.com. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[34] As mentioned in a previous endnote, the formal Latin phrase de casibus comes from a collection of stories by Giovanni Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, “concerning the falls/accidents of illustrious men.” A Latin manuscript copy is available to view from the German-based repository MDZ. As an aside, Harold Bloom is probably not alone in suggesting that Cardinal Wolsey’s magnificent speech hardly fits the rather paltry character we have come to know in the play up to the point of this fine speech. See Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Riverhead Books, 1999. ISBN-13: 978-1573227513. Pp. 689-91.

[35] As of October 1529.

[36] Late in 1532.

[37] January 1533.

[38] John E. E. Dalberg, Lord Acton, excerpts from “Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887” in his Historical Essays and Studies. See also the more complete Acton-Creighton correspondence at oll.libertyfund.org. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[39] See Sir Thomas Wyatt’s mid-1530s poem “They flee from me, that sometime did me seek” at U. Toronto’s Representative Poetry Online. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[40] Coronation scene. See “Anne Boleyn’s Coronation.” The Anne Boleyn Files website. See also “Anne Boleyn’s Coronation Procession.” The Tudor Travel Guide website. Bot sites accessed 12/13/2025.

[41] “Whitehall” became the palace’s name not long after Cardinal Wolsey’s downfall. It had long been known as York Place because not long after 1240, Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, bought a property not far from the key governmental site, the Palace of Westminster, and he named his property “York Place.” See “The Tudor Whitehall Palace” at The History of London website. Accessed 12/13/2025.

[42] See Alison Weir’s “The Story Behind the Blackened Heart.” Hforhistory.co.uk. Accessed 12/13/2025.

[43] Griffith’s proverbial sentence sounds much like Mark Antony’s great line in Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; / The good lies oft interrèd with their bones.”Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 288-343. See pg. 320, 3.2.73-74.

[44] See “The Vision of Catherine of Aragon.” This scene was bodied forth in a 1781 painting by Henry Fuseli. Accessed 12/13/2025.

[45] On the Franciscans, see “Franciscan Religious Order” at Britannica.com. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[46] The inclusion of this event, the Prebendaries’ Plot of 1543, is another instance of the anachronism that is common in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII. Henry VIII and the whole country are looking ahead to the birth and christening of Anne Boleyn’s child, who, we know, will turn out to be none other than Princess Elizabeth, England’s future and perhaps greatest sovereign. The problem is, Elizabeth was born in September 1533, a decade before the challenge to Cranmer. On the plot itself, see Engole’s entry “The Prebendaries’ Plot.” The Elven for Knowledge. See also the detailed entry by David Crowther, “The Prebendaries’ Plot” at The History of England website. Accessed 12/13/2025.

[47] See the Dictionary of National Biography entry on “Sir Thomas Lovell.” Wikisource. Accessed 12/13/2025. See also the material on the Lovell name in an earlier endnote above.

[48] On the Chapel Perilous legend, see Sir Gawain and the Green Knightat The Camelot Project, U. of Rochester. Accessed 9/1/2024. Why the Green Chapel is dangerous: “And this is his custom at the Green Chapel; there may no man pass by that place, however proud his arms, but he does him to death by force of his hand, for he [the Green Knight] is a discourteous knight, and shews no mercy.” What happens in this scene is also, of course, another instance in Shakespeare of the time-honored “ring plot” or “magic ring device.” See Wendy Doniger’s The Ring of Truth: And Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry. Oxford UP, 2017. ISBN-13: 978-0190267117. Aside from All’s Well, we might recall that rings are significant in The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, and The Comedy of Errors.

[49] Henry’s “ring device” to benefit Archbishop Cranmer is reported as factual in Raphael Holinshed’s account of that king’s reign. See Boswell-Stone, Walter G. Shakespeare’s Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared. Wentworth Press, 2019 [repr. of London: Chatto & Windus 1907 ed.]. ISBN-13: 978-0530892863. Henry VIII. 424-507. See pg. 497.

[50] In 1519 Henry VIII had a son out of wedlock with one of his mistresses, Elizabeth Blount; the boy was named Henry Fitzroy, and the king might have eventually succeeded in legitimizing him had a son not been born to him by Jane Seymour in 1537. But Henry Fitzroy died in 1536. See “Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount …” at Unofficialroyalty.com.

[51] Leaving aside nine fractious days of rule by Jane Gray in July 1553 before Mary succeeded to the throne. See “Timeline of the Fall of Lady Jane Grey.” Royal History Extra. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[52] Historically, since the present scene, Act 5, Scene 2, appears to represent a 1543 attempt to crush Archbishop Cranmer, the Lord Chancellor, though not named in the play, should be Thomas Audley, 1^st Baron Audley of Walden (1488-1544).

[53] See “The Christening of Princess Elizabeth.” The Tudor Enthusiast website. Accessed 12/13/2025. On childhood generally, see Amy Licence’s August 22, 2013 entry “What was it like to be a child in Tudor times?” at “his story, her story.” Accessed 9/1/2024. See also the video “Playtime in Tudor England: Toys, Games, and Childhood.” YouTube. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[54] See Elizabeth’s Golden Speech, 1601. Nationalarchives.gov.uk. Accessed 9/1/2024.

[55] A much earlier conspiracy was the Ridolfi plot, which aimed to place Mary on the throne in 1570-71; another such attempt is called the Throckmorton conspiracy, dating to 1583. See “The Ridolfi Plot” at thehistoryjar.com. Accessed 9/1/2024. See “The Throckmorton Conspiracy” at the same site.

[56] See the present author’s introduction to the romance genre at the beginning of my commentary on The Tempest at www.ajdrake.com/shakespeare.

Commentaries onShakespeare’s History Plays